With a motion like the eruption of twin volcanoes, the bedclothes suddenly flew up into the air, and the Terrible Torrences appeared again. At once they began beating each other over the head with pillows. One of the pillows ripped at the corner and a gentle snowstorm of white feathers began to fill the air.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” cried Susan. She shouted it so violently that the two little boys were surprised. Without thinking what they did, they stopped fighting and looked at her.
“What’s the matter, Susan?”
“You are the matter,” said Susan. “Now you lie down in bed quietly, and I will read you a story.”
“Oh, blah, blah!” jeered the Terrible Torrences. “Little Red Hen. Little Peter-Peter Rabbit!”
“Those are very good stories,” said Susan.
“Yah-yah! Those are stories for babies.”
“Well,” said Susan, lifting her eyebrows, “and what are you, if I may ask?”
“We are not babies!” cried Alvin.
“We are big boys,” shouted Rudy.
“Oh, indeed?” said Susan. “Then how come you have to have a babysitter?”
They looked at her in amazement.
“Because our mama does not dare leave us alone,” said Alvin.
“And why doesn’t she dare leave you alone?”
“Because we’d get into mischief.”
“Then,” said Susan with relentless logic, “you are babies. Big boys can be left alone, and they don’t get into mischief.”
The Terrible Torrences thought this over. “If we didn’t have a sitter, you wouldn’t have a job.”
“Sometimes I wish that I didn’t have a job,” said Susan. “Or else I wish that there was a real nice little baby, a real baby, in the neighborhood for me to sit beside.”
The Terrible Torrences thought this over, too. Finally Alvin said, “Well, we’ll listen to a story. But don’t read—tell.”
Susan’s thoughts went scurrying around very quickly. The book she had brought with her was downstairs, but she knew most of the stories by heart. It was all about Scheherazade and the thousand and one nights. In it Scheherazade, the wife of the cruel Sultan, had been condemned by him to death at dawn. But each night she told him such an interesting story, which broke off just at the most exciting point as the day dawned, that the Sultan kept putting off her execution from day to day. She told him stories for a thousand and one nights, and finally the Sultan decided that she was much too valuable to lose, and he promised that she should never be executed but should live happily ever afterward. Susan felt great sympathy for Scheherazade. To tell stories to the cruel Sultan who was plotting her death must have been very much like telling stories to the Terrible Torrences who would not go to sleep.
“All right, boys,” said Susan, “I will tell you a story about a man named Ali Baba, and about the forty thieves who had a cave in the mountains.”
“Thieves?” cried Alvin, delighted.
“How many is forty?” asked Rudy.
“Oh, a very great many,” said Susan. “Well, once upon a time—”
As Susan talked a sense of wonder began to dawn upon her—for the Terrible Torrences were listening. Everyone had tried reading nice stories to the Terrible Torrences, stories about little hens and little pigs and good little boys and girls, and they would never listen. But this was about thieves! Now, for the first time, they were hearing an exciting story told, and they were listening. Oh, dear, thought Susan to herself as she talked, I hope I’m doing the right thing.
They listened and they listened, and about nine o’clock their eyes began to grow very heavy. Still listening, they fell back on their untidy pillows, and first Rudy, then Alvin, went soundly off to sleep.
On tiptoe Susan moved about the room, picking up feathers and making things tidy. She drew the covers up to their chins and stood looking at them for a moment before she turned out the light. Anyone who didn’t know would have said that they were sleeping angels.
“Just one night,” murmured Susan, as she went softly downstairs, “but it certainly seems like a thousand and one.”
Happy Birthday, Dear Georgie!
George’s birthday dawned fair and bright. The sun shone on the falling yellow leaves, making them look like bits of floating sunlight.
“Happy birthday, everybody!” cried George, leaping out of bed and looking expectantly under his pillow and under the bed and on all the tables and shelves. There was nothing unusual to be seen, but George’s spirits were not dampened. He knew that there would probably be no presents until breakfast time, and perhaps not until after Sunday School, if they were all late and had to hurry.
All through breakfast Susan was busy relating her adventures of the night before. “And after they went to sleep,” she said, “I got to thinking about the Thing in the tool house. It hadn’t had anything to eat. I got to worrying. I felt sorry for it, but I didn’t know if it would eat hay or meat or carrots or what. So I went down to see.”
“You never did!” everyone cried. “Weren’t you scared?”
“No, it was funny, but after I began to feel sorry for it I wasn’t scared.”
“And was it a wolf, Susie?” asked Dumpling.
“No, of course not.”
“But how could you get in to find out?”
“I found I could push the little window open, and there were some meat and vegetable scraps Mrs. Torrence had forgotten to put in the garbage, and I shoved those through the window, and I could hear the Thing chomping them, and then it stood on its hind legs and kissed me.”
“Good gracious! Was it human?”
“No, with its tongue. It’s a dog—the biggest dog I ever saw in all my life.”
“Oh, boy! A dog!” yelled George, “This I must see.”
“Wait, George, wait,” called Mother, as George with toast in one hand and a glass of milk in the other was preparing to dash away to the Torrences.
“Stay here, George,” cried Susan. “Santa Claus came last night.”
“Oh, is that so?” said George, taking his seat again with a self-conscious expression on his face. “Well, that’s a mighty funny thing to happen in October.”
“Is now the time, Susie?” asked Dumpling, sliding down off her chair.
“Yes, now, honey.”
Dumpling, with the morning bib which she wore flapping over her shoulder, hurried away to the basement. Susan departed in one direction, Mother and Father in another. George was left sitting alone at the breakfast table, gulping his milk and muttering, “Oh boy! Oh boy!”
In a moment they were all back, trying to hide mysterious parcels behind their backs.
“George darling,” Mother said, holding her package out, “you might as well open this first. It isn’t very exciting, but it will be useful.”
“Thank you, Mother,” cried George, giving her an enthusiastic kiss. It was a small, flat box. “I guess it isn’t alive,” said George, shaking it gently. He opened it, and it contained a half-dozen pairs of beautiful new socks.
“Oh boy!” said George, “I certainly needed them.”
“I know you did, dear,” said Mother, “and so did I. I got so tired of darning your old ones!”
Susan thrust her package into George’s hand. “Here, George.”
George shook it. “It rattles,” he said, “but I guess it isn’t alive. Thank you, Susie.” He unwrapped the paper, and the rich warm smell reached his nose. “Oh boy!” he cried. “It’s Susan’s favorite candy.”
“I thought it might be nice for all of us,” Susan said. “You especially though, George.”
“Gee! Thanks!”
“Here, George,” said Father. Father was beaming with satisfaction and pride.
“Oh boy!” said George. “A book! I bet it’s Mr. Ditmar’s snakes.”
“No, George,” said Father, “this is a very special book. I went to every bookstore in town to get it but with no success. Then I tried the second-hand and the Salvation Army book stores. At
the very last place I found it.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” cried George. Out of the paper wrappings came a very odd-looking old brown book. It had had a lot of wear. George spelled out the title on the cover. “The Young Carthaginian, by G. A. Henty. Well, well, well,” said George.
“George,” cried Professor Ridgeway happily, “that is the book that first interested me in history. In that book I first heard of Hannibal. I have been following Hannibal and his triumphant armies ever since. Let me read you the first paragraph, George.”
“After breakfast, darling,” said Mrs. Ridgeway to her husband. “Dumpling hasn’t given her present yet.”
“Excuse me, Dumpling,” said Father.
In silence Dumpling set her package before George. It was obviously a fruit jar wrapped in an old comic section.
“I couldn’t wrap it very well, Georgie,” Dumpling said.
Susan was afraid that George was going to be disappointed. She kept trying to whisper “pickles” into his ear.
“It looks all right, Dumpling,” said George. “I like the comic section better than tissue paper. Thank you, Dumpling.” As he unwrapped the layers of paper a tiny sound came out of the package. It was a sloshing sound. George’s politeness suddenly vanished. “Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!” he yelped. “It’s alive! It’s alive!” And, as the last wrapping fell away, he shouted in ecstasy, “Turtles! Oh, look, everybody, Dumpling gave me turtles!”
It was indeed true. Dumpling had given George five small turtles. George was simply wild with delight. He rushed around kissing everybody and then went back to his turtles.
Dumpling did not look as happy as George. “They want to get out into something bigger, George,” she said. “I didn’t know what to put them in, and I didn’t know what to feed them.”
“Ant eggs,” George said happily, “that’s what they eat. We can buy ant eggs in little boxes at the corner drugstore, and we’ll put the turtles in the old goldfish bowl, Dumpling. Oh boy! Oh boy!”
The turtles were about the size of round silver dollars. Four of them were a dark grayish-green on their backs, but the fifth had been painted with a tiny spray of red roses and the inscription, “Hi Pal!” All five were alike on their undersides, that is, a sort of red and green and white plaid. If you touched them, they drew in their heads and legs and waited. If you left them alone, they all began struggling and trying to get out of the fruit jar.
Dumpling looked very mournful. “They want to get out,” she repeated.
“We’ll fix that,” George cried. He rushed to the attic for the old goldfish bowl. Together he and Dumpling filled the bottom of it with sand and one large rock for climbing and sitting purposes. Then they added water, and one by one the five turtles were introduced to their new home.
“I bought all the turtles they had at the dime store,” Dumpling said. “They just had five, and I bought every one.”
“Gee! It’s wonderful,” said George. “One turtle would have been fine, but five turtles! Oh boy!”
“George, honey,” Mother said. “You must hurry now or you’ll be late to Sunday School. The turtles will be here when you get back.”
Father put his hand in his pocket. “What is the price of ant eggs, George?”
“Twenty-five cents for the biggest box,” said George.
“Buy yourself the biggest box, George, and here is ten cents for the collection at Sunday School because you are ten years old.”
All the way to Sunday School George was making delightful plans for the future of the turtles. “I’ll build five little tracks side by side, one for each turtle, and then we can race them. Will the Gimmick kids ever love that!”
“It won’t hurt the turtles to race them, will it?” asked Dumpling anxiously.
“No, they’ll love it,” said George. “It will give them exercise. They won’t have to go any faster than they want to, but we’ll see which one gets to the end of the track first. Maybe I’ll print up tickets.”
Susan was thoughtful on the way to Sunday School. George hadn’t even tasted the chocolate-covered taffy yet. She thought, “I believe Dumpling is a prodigy. She was the only one of us who knew exactly what George wanted.”
Dorothy had gone home for the day to visit her family on the farm, so Susan helped Mother set the table for dinner.
“Mother,” Susan said, “did you notice anything about our presents to George this morning?”
“Yes, I did,” said Mother, smiling. “Dumpling was the only one who stopped to think what George really wanted. I got George socks because I was tired of darning his old ones, and Dad got George a book that he had enjoyed years ago when he was a boy, and you—”
“Yes,” said Susan, “I got my favorite kind of candy. Mother, I think that Dumpling is a prodigy.”
George was out in the backyard busily constructing five little runways, each one just the proper width for a turtle. Neither Susan nor Mother noticed that Dumpling was in the next room where she could hear every word they said. She was standing by the goldfish bowl looking at the five turtles, and they were trying to get out! Behind her glasses tears glittered in Dumpling’s blue eyes. She went upstairs to her room and sat very quietly on her bed with Irene clasped in her arms.
It was a very fine birthday for George. After dinner they drove to South Lake Park to look at the monkeys. Whenever George was allowed to choose an entertainment that was the one he chose.
When they arrived home at five o’clock the Gimmick boys were sitting on the front steps waiting for them. They had been invited to come at six o’clock, but they had not been able to wait that long. They had brought George an almost good, used tire, ready to hang from a limb of the big elm tree in the backyard.
The boys and Professor Ridgeway went to the garage and the basement for a strong rope, a ladder, and everything needed to put the tire swing into immediate use.
Susan and Dumpling helped Mother to get the supper ready and to put the candles on the cake. The sight of the candles made Susan remember the Terrible Torrences. “I hope they don’t come,” she said. “They said they were going to, but probably they will forget.”
“Better put on a couple of extra places then,” Mother said with a sigh. “The little Torrence boys will remember.”
“Alvin and Rudy have rememberies like elephants,” said Dumpling.
The Terrible Torrences arrived promptly at six. Usually they came to the back door and walked in without knocking, but on George’s birthday they came to the front door and rang the bell. The Ridgeways and the Gimmicks were just sitting down to supper when the doorbell rang.
“See who it is, please, Susan,” said Mrs. Ridgeway, but of course everybody knew.
“We have brought George a present,” announced the Terrible Torrences as soon as Susan opened the door. They began to sing,
“Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Georgie,
Happy birthday to you.”
at the same time walking briskly into the dining room, accompanied by their present.
The present was the Thing, which Susan had seen in the tool house. It was almost as big as a pony, and it was something between a Great Dane, a mastiff, and a Saint Bernard. Yes, a dog, but what kind of dog was the puzzle. Its color was yellowish brown with black markings, and it had a long and strong tail that wagged enthusiastically. It was full of kindliness and good humor. It went leaping around the table to greet each and every one of them, its big mouth half open in what was surely a smile of delight.
“George,” said the Terrible Torrences, “we have brought you a present. Our mama wouldn’t let us keep it, so you can have it for your birthday.”
“Oh, quick, look out!” cried Mother in alarm, but before anything could be done, the creature’s long, strong tail had wagged a cup and saucer right off the table.
“Here is George, Dog,” said Alvin, showing the Thing which person he belonged to. “Here is your new master.” The dog seemed
to understand at once, and he was very pleased to have George for a master. He licked George’s cheek, and then he tried to climb into George’s lap.
For once in his life George was speechless. Then the “Oh boy! Oh boy’s!” began to gurgle out of him. He clasped the large animal affectionately about the neck, and in their mutual pleasure and delight George’s chair was overturned, and the two of them rolled and tumbled on the floor.
The Gimmick boys leaped from their places with cheerful shouts; Dumpling stood on her chair and waved a fork; Rudy, in the confusion, ate two candles off the birthday cake; and really it was a very exciting climax to George’s birthday.
An Ad in the Paper
Now, of course,” said Father sensibly, “someone must own this dog. We shall have to find his owner.”
“No dog ever grew as big as that,” said Mother, “without someone to feed and care for him.”
It was almost bedtime. The Gimmicks and the Terrible Torrences had departed. All of the excitement was over. In the middle of the living-room floor the Dog slept a sleep of happy exhaustion. Occasionally he opened one eye to see if George was still there, and when he saw that he was he wagged his tail against the floor, wham! wham! wham! George was exhausted, too, but he was full of bliss.
“But if he had owners,” George said, “they would be out looking for him. He would have on a collar with a license. I’m sure nobody cares as much for him as we do.”
“Still we must advertise in the paper,” Father said. “We must also watch the ads. Somebody’s probably very unhappy tonight without his dog.”
“I can’t believe that,” George said, “because look how happy he is. If he had a good master who loved him, he would be unhappy, too.”
“You keep calling him ‘he,’” said Susan. “Haven’t you thought of a name?”
“You might call him Tiny,” said Mother, beginning to laugh. And then she added more seriously, “How do you think we can feed a dog like this, George? He’s eaten everything we have in the house tonight, and I’m sure he isn’t full yet.”
Family Grandstand (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries) Page 6
