Ginger Pye (25 page)

"It's Ginger! It's Ginger!" Uncle Bennie kept yelling over and over.

But Gramma still did not think this was possible, first, because she remembered Ginger as such a little puppy, and second, because she really thought,
though she had never told them so, that Jerry and Rachel would never see their little dog again. She, long ago, thought he must be dead.

So she said hesitantly to Uncle Bennie, "No. This is not Ginger. This dog is too big." And again she said, "Go home, doggy."

But the dog would not go back. He would stop for a moment, pretending to obey her, and then he would prance up behind them, following them, and dragging his long broken rope behind him.

"This, Ginger," Uncle Bennie insisted positively. "I told Jerry and 'Achel I'd find Ginger. And I did," he said with satisfaction.

The dog kept knocking Uncle Bennie over, he was so happy and appreciative of being recognized, but Uncle Bennie was too delighted to mind the bumps. "Ginger, Ginger," he murmured over and over.

So Gramma finally said, "Well, let him come along with us and see what the folks think. If it is not Ginger, we'll bring him back here tonight."

"This poor Ginger. This ow-ow Ginger," said Uncle Bennie sadly.

Gramma had already noticed the terrible wound on the dog's forehead and she really didn't want him to go back anyway to people who mistreated him. So she picked up the rope, and she and the dog and Uncle Bennie started as fast as they could go down Second Avenue, on their way again to the Pyes'.

"But then," said Gramma—she was as excited as the rest—"an odd thing happened. The Second Avenue trolley came along behind us, the one going to town, and it stopped right beside us, right in the middle of the block and a man and a boy leaned out the back door and yelled at us. They said, 'Hey. That's our dog. Bring him here.' But the dog broke loose from me and ran in someone's backyard—hiding, he was. The two of them on the trolley argued with the motorman then. They wanted him to stay there while they caught their dog, or sent him home or something. But the motorman said, 'They's more than you that wants to catch the Banker's Express. Stay on or get off.' And he just started up, he did, and off the trolley went, the man and the boy leaning out the back window all the way up the street and looking very disturbed and angry. The minute the car was out of sight—it stopped for Judge Ball and that was all—the dog came running back to us, trembling and quivering. I put two and two together," said Gramma, "and figured those people owned him and treated him meanly, the way he acted."

"That was Wally Bullwinkle and his father," interrupted Jerry excitedly.

"On their way to the Banker's Express," added Rachel, almost overcome at the way the story was working out.

"So, here we are," said Gramma.

They had arrived here right after Rachel and Jerry had left for the strawberry hunt. And of course the minute they got in sight of the Pyes' house the dog was nearly frantic with joy. And of course Mama and Papa recognized him immediately by the odd marking on his back and they said, "Uncle Bennie is right. This
is
Ginger!"

"What under the sun kept you so long?" they asked Rachel and Jerry. "We thought you'd never get here."

So now everyone had to hear Rachel and Jerry's side of the story, all about the Banker's Express, and its stopping, and Wally Bullwinkle on it, and the yellow hat, which same hat Jerry was still holding in his hands, and about the Chief of Police and the reconnoitering of Wally Bullwinkle's house, and the circus posters and the crowd outside, and Ginger's tawny hair on the old rags, and the frayed end of rope that matched the rope he had on now, the barbed wire, everything!

Gramma said, "Imagine! Imagine! He heard Uncle Bennie's squeaky cart and he recognized it!"

They all marveled at the smart dog that Ginger was, to have recognized Uncle Bennie's squeaky cart, just the sound of it.

"He probably heard us every Saturday and longed for a chance to make his escape," said Gramma. And she said, now that she thought of it, she had frequently heard a dog whining over there in that part of Second Avenue, but she had never given it a minute's thought. Gramma was not as familiar with all the sounds that Ginger made as Jerry and Rachel were, or she would have known it was Ginger. If she had only commented! But she just naturally thought it was only one of the many dogs who lived over there. Practically every house had some dog or other living in it, and since she never saw this dog that whimpered, how would she possible have known that it was Ginger all the time?

None of them could get over it! To think that Ginger had, no doubt, heard Uncle Bennie's squeaky cart every Saturday and had never been able to get to Gramma and Uncle Bennie! To think of him straining and tearing at his rope, every Saturday morning probably, trying to get away, whining and whimpering to make Gramma hear. And Gramma hearing but not realizing that there, behind the barbed wire and the sheds and the posters and the Bullwinkle house, was Ginger! It was enough to make anybody cry, and they all gulped down the lumps in their throats. Somehow though, on this day when the Bullwinkles had planned to take him away once and for all, he had made the supreme effort and eluded them.

Perhaps that was how he had hurt his head,
jumping over the barbed wire. Awful as it was to think
of
Ginger hurting his head on the barbed wire, they hoped that was the way it happened and not that he had been mistreated. But that he had been mistreated also they did not doubt. Otherwise he would have grown fond of his new master after all this time and he would have forgotten the Pyes since he had been such a little puppy when he was stolen.

Moreover, they all noticed the yellow hat. Jerry had been secretly hurt and worried because it seemed to him that Ginger was not as happy to see him as he was the others. He had jumped up and kissed him once or twice, but he acted rather scared, though with the others he was delirious with joy. At first Jerry thought,
He is sore at me for not finding him when he found me in school, with my pencil.
Then, suddenly, Jerry remembered he was holding Wally Bullwinkle's yellow hat and he dropped it on the ground. Immediately Ginger leaped in his arms and stayed there at least two minutes, kissing him and crying. When he began running around again they all noticed how every time Ginger came anywhere near the yellow hat, he plastered his little bit of tail down and whimpered and skulked on the ground.

This was final proof, if any more proof were needed, that it was Wally who had kidnapped Gin
ger, since Wally was the owner of this yellow hat and likewise the person Gramma had seen on the Second Avenue trolley claiming Ginger was his. And now they all speculated on what might have happened if today had not happened to be Jerry's birthday and Uncle Bennie and Gramma had not left home earlier than usual to come to the Pyes'. Then Ginger would certainly at this moment be on the Banker's Express, tearing to New York and perhaps the far West with Wally Bullwinkle, gone for good.

What a joyous reunion this was! Joyous and sad all at once. It was joyous, of course, because Ginger was back. But it was sad because Ginger had the dreadful raw sore on his forehead indicating he had either been mistreated or else had been badly torn making his escape over the barbed wire. The gash was so deep Mama was afraid the fur would never grow back over it again. So Ginger, and all of them, would have always the reminder of his terrible kidnapping and stay with the mean Bullwinkles.

Jerry and Rachel cried. They had not cried in public when Ginger was stolen. But they cried now, seeing his hurting head. They couldn't love Ginger enough to make up for all the long months he had gone without loving. And they just couldn't get over the whole thing, how here he was a full-grown dog now that had been such a little puppy when he was
stolen on Thanksgiving Day. And yet he remembered and loved them all still. He was a wonderful, wonderful dog.

Ginger licked their tears away and Gracie-the-cat, when Ginger, panting, finally lay down to rest a moment, licked his wounded face. But Ginger did not rest long. He had to tear around and tear around again to show how happy he was. And he was still just as smart as ever.

"Look at that, will you?" said tall Sam Doody, coming up with his camera at this moment and joining in with the exclaiming and the marveling and the piecing together of the story. "Look at that dog, will you?" For Ginger was doing another thing as smart as finding Jerry in school and recognizing Uncle Bennie's squeaky cart.

The tar wagon had been over the street while Rachel and Jerry had been strawberry hunting and Beam's Place was sticky and shining with tar. The smell of tar was everywhere. Gracie-the-cat had occasion to wish to get to the other side of the street. This was obvious to all of them because she kept going to the gutter, sticking a paw tentatively in the edge of the tar and meowing unhappily and disapprovingly. She wanted to get across the street but she was too fastidious about stepping in tar to do so.

Ginger watched her quizzically, his head on one side, taking in the balking situation. Then he gave an impatient snort and grabbed Gracie by the nape of the neck and ran across the tarry road with her. He didn't mind his toes getting black, but she minded hers getting black. This way, she stayed neat and tidy. Then, when Gracie wanted to come back—which she did immediately, meowing forlornly at them all the minute Ginger deposited her on the other side—Ginger ran across and grabbed her up again by the nape of the neck and brought her back. Gracie-the-cat was astonished and so were all of them.

He was the smartest dog any of them had ever seen or read about anywhere to do such a thing as that. He had been a smart puppy and now he was a smart dog. Sam Doody snapped a couple of pictures of Ginger crossing the tar with Gracie, but since the dog and the cat were moving so fast he didn't expect the pictures would amount to much.

Ginger just picked up life right where it had left off for him back on Thanksgiving Day. It almost seemed as though there should be the smell of roast chicken in the air, and drumsticks to pick on. Ginger scratched Gracie's fleas, dashed for the orange duster, and brought Jerry rocks to throw for him. It turned out that while Ginger had been gone he had learned a great number of new tricks which Jerry and Rachel and Uncle Bennie learned about gradually. For instance, he could stand on his front paws and he could also turn a somersault.

"You don't have to do any tricks," said Jerry, hugging him. "Just so you're back. That's all I care. You don't ever have to do one more trick." He could not bear to think that perhaps the terrible scar on Ginger's forehead was caused by a blow given him when he was being taught a new trick Wally and his father expected to use in vaudeville or the circus.

Ginger's eyes had always been beautiful, gay, sparkling, laughing, and intelligent. Now they were even more beautiful for there were sadness and pleading, an anxious questioning, in them, too. It was all any of them could do not to cry when they looked into Ginger's eyes and each one vied with the others saying endearing words to him, and petting him, to make up for all the sadness he had suffered shut up in that miserable Bullwinkle shed while, all along, they had been comfortable in their nice warm house.

To think he had never been allowed out of Wally's little yard, even, for a good brisk run. Naturally, since he was a stolen dog, Wally had had to keep him under lock and key.

"Oh, Ginger, oh, Ginger," sobbed Rachel, every now and then, kissing his wounded hurting head.