The Great Brain Does It Again

by John D. Fitzgerald

  “I wouldn’t make any money on the deal that way,” Tom said.

  “Well,” I said, “I sure as heck don’t see how you can make any money this way.”

  “That is because you’ve only got a little brain,” Tom said.

  Just then Mamma came out on the back porch. She stared at the four boys busily spading the garden.

  “Just what is going on here?” she demanded.

  “You said you wanted the garden turned over this morning,” Tom said.

  “But why are those four boys doing it instead of you and John D.?” Mamma asked.

  Frankie spoke before Tom could answer. “They are looking for a buried treasure,” he said.

  “Tom Dennis,” Mamma said, using his full name which meant she was angry, “is this another of your schemes after you promised to reform? Buried treasure indeed.”

  “I give you my word, Mamma,” Tom said, “that one of the fellows is going to find a tin can with some money in it in the garden. That is the buried treasure. And all of them volunteered as treasure hunters and are perfectly satisfied with the deal.”

  “I see,” Mamma said. “You and John D. knew Papa would give you fifty cents for spading the garden, so you hid fifty cents in it to get out of doing the work. Oh, well, as long as the boys do a good job I guess it will be all right.” But she was shaking her head as if she wasn’t sure as she went back into the kitchen.

  Tom turned on Frankie. “You are getting to be a regular little tattle-tale,” he said.

  “I wasn’t snitching,” Frankie said. “I just didn’t want Mamma to think you were swindling anybody.”

  We sat there watching the four treasure hunters working like beavers until about three-fourths of the garden was spaded. Then Pete Kyle turned over a shovelful of dirt and found the tin can. We all crowded around him.

  Danny pointed at the can. “We’ve been swindled,” he said. “There is nothing in it but some newspaper.”

  “That was just to keep the dollar from falling out,” Tom said. “Take out the paper, Pete.”

  And sure enough, on the bottom of the can was a silver dollar. Pete did a happy little jig while the other three treasure hunters watched him with envy.

  “Remember the deal, fellows,” Tom said. “You’ve got to finish spading the garden.”

  I walked to our back porch steps with Tom and Frankie as the four fellows went back to work.

  “Before you sit down, J. D.,” Tom said, “go get that quarter you owe me.”

  What could I do? I’d lost the bet. I went upstairs and got twenty-five cents from my bank. I returned to the back porch steps and handed the quarter to Tom.

  The four fellows finished spading the garden before noon. I couldn’t get it out of my head that something was fishy about the whole deal. How could The Great Brain make money on a deal that cost him a dollar when all he got out of it was the fifty cents Papa would give him and the quarter he’d won from me? I became even more suspicious when Danny, Seth, and Parley left but Pete stayed behind. Tom waited until the other three were out of sight.

  “Come down to the barn, Pete,” he said. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  I waited until they reached the alley. Then I ran like sixty around our chicken coop to the back of the barn, where there was a big knothole. I put one eye over it and looked inside the barn. I couldn’t hear what Pete and Tom were saying but I didn’t have to. I saw Pete give the silver dollar to Tom and then Tom gave Pete the quarter he’d won from me.

  Boy, oh, boy, what a swindle. Tom would get half a dollar from Papa for spading the garden and the quarter he’d won from me. That gave him a neat profit of fifty cents on the deal and also got him out of spading the garden. I waited until Pete had left for home and then confronted Tom in our backyard.

  “I spied on you and Pete,” I said. “I saw him give you back the silver dollar and you give him the quarter you won from me. Give me back my quarter or I’ll tell Papa and Mamma.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Tom said. “If I don’t give you back your quarter you are threatening to tell Mamma and Papa about the whole deal.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “In other words,” Tom said, “you are trying to blackmail me. Well, go ahead and tell them, J. D., and after you finish I’ll tell them how you tried to blackmail me. And for trying to blackmail me, you will get ten times the punishment that I’ll get.”

  He had me and I knew it. But I wasn’t about to give up trying to get back my quarter.

  “Then I’ll tell Parley, Danny, and Seth how you and Pete swindled them,” I said. “You fixed the whole thing with Pete yesterday. You let Pete draw the first straw to make sure he got to spade the quarter of the garden where the tin can was buried. You told him yesterday which straw to draw. And I’ll tell them about Pete giving you back the dollar and you only giving him a quarter.”

  “Telling and proving are two different things,” Tom said. “Pete isn’t going to admit anything for three reasons. First, he gave me his word. Second, he knows that any of the other three fellows can whip him in a fight. And third, Pete is happy with the deal. He only had to spade a quarter of the garden, and twenty-five cents is good pay for that. And if the fellows ask me, I’ll tell them that you are just trying to get even with me because I wouldn’t let you be one of the treasure hunters. So, you see, J. D., you can’t prove a darn thing.”

  Tom was right. The Great Brain had pulled off another one of his slick swindles and neither his victims nor I could do anything about it. I’d never won a bet from Tom yet, but I’d been stupid enough to bet again. Boy, oh, boy, the fellow who said donkeys were the dumbest of all living creatures had never met a fellow like me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Missing Rocking Horse

  JIMMY GRUBER DIED just a few days after Tom had pulled off his buried treasure swindle. His death reminded me of the birthday present Frankie had received when he was five years old. Frankie had let Papa and Mamma know in plenty of time that he wanted a rocking horse for his birthday. He knew it had to be ordered from Sears Roebuck. Papa and Mamma had adopted Frankie when he was four years old, so this was his first birthday as a member of our family. I guess that is why Papa ordered the best rocking horse advertised in the Sears Roebuck catalogue. It was different from any other rocking horse in town. It was what they called a Swing Rocking Horse. The platform stood still and the horse was held by levers so you could swing back and forth on it instead of having rockers like a rocking chair. It was a beauty, with real horsehair for a mane and tail and a leather bridle and saddle. Even kids seven and eight years old wanted to ride it. If Tom had owned it he would have made a fortune charging for rides.

  Frankie was also given a cowboy suit by Uncle Mark and Aunt Cathie. When he was dressed in his cowboy suit and riding his rocking horse, Frankie was a real cowboy on a real horse in his imagination. He named the horse Bullet because he said it could run as fast as a bullet fired from a gun. The first week he owned the rocking horse he spent hours riding it and pretending he was a cowboy. He kept it on our front porch and insisted on going out and saying goodnight to Bullet every night before he went to bed.

  Then came the Saturday morning when Frankie got dressed in his cowboy suit and went to the front porch to ride Bullet. The rocking horse was missing. He let out a yell that Tom and I heard all the way to our corral. We ran like sixty to the front porch, expecting to find Frankie had fallen off the horse and broken an arm or a leg. Mamma got there before us. She was sitting on the porch swing holding Frankie in her lap. He was crying.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Tom asked.

  “His rocking horse is missing,” Mamma answered.

  Frankie let out a scream. “I want Bullet!”

  Mamma tried to wipe the tears from his eyes with a handkerchief, but he pushed her hand away.

  “Now please stop crying, dear,” Mamma said. “We will find Bullet.”

  “Somebody stole my Bullet!” Frankie yel
led.

  Tom started to walk away. “I’ll go get Uncle Mark,” he said over his shoulder.

  “You will do no such thing,” Mamma said.

  Tom turned around. “But if somebody stole Bullet,” he said, “it is Uncle Mark’s job to find the thief.”

  “We don’t want to make any trouble for some little boy if he just took the rocking horse to play with it,” Mamma said. “You and John D. see if you can find it before we ask for your uncle’s help.”

  Tom and I went to Smith’s vacant lot. There were about twenty kids there. Tom told them somebody had stolen Bullet. He made each one of them give his word of honor that he hadn’t taken the rocking horse. Then he sent them to round up the rest of the kids in town and bring them to our barn. It was noon before Tom had finished questioning every kid in town and making him give his word of honor he hadn’t taken Bullet. The only kid he didn’t question was Paul Miller, who had the measles.

  Mamma told Papa about the missing rocking horse during lunch. Frankie sat at the table red-eyed from crying and refused to eat.

  “Some boy or a group of boys must have taken it,” Papa said when Mamma finished.

  “Impossible,” Tom said. “I rounded up every kid in town and they all gave me their word that they didn’t take it.”

  “I think,” Mamma said, “it is time to turn the matter over to Mark.”

  Papa became goggle-eyed. “No,” he said firmly. “It would make Mark the laughingstock of this town. Imagine a marshal and deputy sheriff looking for a stolen rocking horse. I can just see people stopping him on the street and asking him if he’s caught the rocking horse thief yet.”

  “But there must be something we can do,” Mamma said. “Look at Frankie. He is so heartbroken that he can’t eat.”

  “Now don’t worry, son,” Papa said to Frankie. “If your rocking horse doesn’t turn up in a couple of days I’ll buy you a new one.”

  “Don’t want another one,” Frankie cried. “I want Bullet.”

  Tom leaned forward. “Maybe if you offered a reward,” he suggested to Papa.

  “What you really mean,” Papa said, “is that if I offer a reward you will put your great brain to work on solving the mystery. All right. That rocking horse cost over five dollars including shipping charges. You find Bullet within the next couple of days and I’ll give you a dollar.”

  “I would try to find it anyway,” Tom said, “because I love Frankie. What I was thinking is that some kid might have lied to me and a reward with no questions asked might get the rocking horse back.”

  After lunch Tom and I went to Smith’s vacant lot, where Tom let the kids know there was a dollar reward with no questions asked for the return of Bullet. Again the fellows denied they had taken the rocking horse. We went home and Tom went up to his loft to put his great brain to work on the mystery. It was almost an hour before he came down.

  “Did your great brain figure out what happened to Bullet?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But I’ve got to talk to Uncle Mark.”

  “Papa said not to,” I reminded him.

  “I just want to ask him some questions,” Tom said.

  Uncle Mark was sitting at his desk. The three cells behind him were empty. Tom told him about the missing rocking horse.

  “I’m sure,” Tom continued, “that no kid in town took the rocking horse. They all gave me their word and nobody changed it when I offered a dollar reward with no questions asked. And besides, nobody would try to steal the rocking horse off our porch while Papa, Mamma, and Aunt Bertha were in our parlor. It was taken after they went to bed and by that time every kid in town was already in bed.”

  Uncle Mark leaned back in his chair. “Are you suggesting some grown man stole the rocking horse?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Tom said. “Were there many cowboys in town last night?”

  “Not many on Friday nights,” Uncle Mark said. “Saturday is their night to howl.”

  “What I was thinking,” Tom said, “is that maybe a couple of cowboys who were drunk were riding down Main Street and took the rocking horse back to their ranch with them as a sort of joke. Remember the time those drunken cowboys stole the wooden horse in front of Jerry Stout’s harness-and-saddle shop and took it all the way back to the Lazy Y Ranch with them?”

  “It is possible,” Uncle Mark said, “but I doubt it. The only cowboys in town last night were from ranches east and south of town. None of them would pass your house. And I saw them all ride out of town after the saloons closed.”

  “That eliminates cowboys and kids,” Tom said. “Thanks, Uncle Mark.”

  “Do your mother and father want me to look into it?” Uncle Mark asked. And boy, oh, boy, did he look relieved when Tom said No. We left the marshal’s office and began walking down Main Street.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Higgins is always complaining to Mamma and everybody else about her insomnia,” Tom said. “I hope she had it last night.”

  “You mean Mrs. Higgins stole the rocking horse because she can’t sleep at night?” I asked, wondering why she would do such a thing.

  “Don’t be silly,” Tom said. “My great brain tells me that nobody living in town stole the rocking horse. That means it must have been somebody from out of town.”

  “I see,” I said. “You think Mrs. Higgins couldn’t sleep and may have seen who took the rocking horse.”

  “Shucks no,” Tom said as if digusted with me. “You know what a busybody Mrs. Higgins is. If she saw somebody stealing Bullet she would have screamed bloody murder and awakened everybody on the block.”

  “Then why do you want to talk to her?” I asked.

  “If you will just shut up and keep your ears open you will soon find out,” Tom answered.

  Mrs. Higgins lived across the street from our house. She was a widow, who said she developed insomnia after her husband died. She was sitting in her parlor looking out the front bay window as she often did, so she saw us coming and had the front door open when we reached the porch.

  “Hello, Thomas and John,” she said. “Does your mother want to borrow some sugar or eggs or something?”

  “No, Ma’am,” Tom said. “Is your insomnia still bothering you, Mrs. Higgins?”

  “It is getting worse all the time,” she complained.

  “Did it keep you awake last night?” Tom asked.

  “It certainly did,” she said. “I doubt if I got more than forty winks all night.”

  “You know how quiet it is around here at night except for a dog barking now and then,” Tom said. “Did you hear anything that sounded like a horse or buggy or wagon on the street late last night?”

  “That I did,” she said. “It was after midnight. I distinctly heard the sound of wagon wheels on the gravel street. You know the sort of screeching sound wheels make on gravel. And I couldn’t help wondering who was driving down the street at that time of night. I was going to get up and look but then the sound stopped.”

  Tom got an excited look on his freckled face. “You say the sound stopped as if the wagon had stopped,” he said. “Did you hear it again?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Higgins said. “It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes before I heard the sound again. This time I got up. But when I looked out the parlor window the wagon was gone. And now, Thomas, why all these questions?”

  “Because somebody stole Frankie’s rocking horse off our front porch last night,” Tom answered.

  “Oh, the poor boy,” Mrs. Higgins said. “And I did so enjoy sitting in my parlor and watching him playing cowboy on his rocking horse. Do you think whoever stopped the wagon last night stole the rocking horse?”

  “I do,” Tom said, “and now I’ve got to find out who it was. Thank you very much, Mrs. Higgins.”

  I thought we were going home when we left Mrs. Higgins, but Tom began walking toward the business district.

  “Where are we going now?” I asked.

  “Somebody drivi
ng a team and wagon stole Bullet,” Tom said. “And that somebody doesn’t live in Adenville. Now, why do people come to town with a wagon? To buy supplies. That makes our next stop the Z. C. M. I. store.”

  Mr. Harmon was waiting on a customer when we entered. Tom waited until the customer had left.

  “Mr. Harmon,” he said, “do you remember anybody who drove into town in a team and wagon yesterday?”

  “There were several who bought supplies from me,” he said.

  “Remember any of them who have a son or a daughter between the ages of, say, three and six?” Tom asked.

  “Reckon you mean the Gruber family,” Mr. Harmon said. “They have a son about four.”

  “I know who you mean,” Tom said. “I’ve seen them in town several times. Are they very poor, Mr. Harmon?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Harmon said. “They own a small dry farm about six miles from town. That last drought really hurt them. Another dry spell and it will just about wipe them out. You’ve got to have rain to make money dry farming.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Harmon,” Tom said.

  We left the store and stood outside.

  “Why do they call them dry farms?” I asked.

  “Because they have no irrigation water,” Tom said. “They depend on rain alone for their crops.”

  “Do you think the Grubers stole Bullet?” I asked.

  “It all depends on whether they went back to their farm after buying supplies or stayed in town until after midnight,” Tom said.

  “How are you going to find that out?” I asked.

  “Where is the one place in town a man could go with his team and wagon and family and not attract any attention?” Tom asked. “It would have to be the campgrounds. Let’s get our bikes and ride over there.”

  When we arrived at the campgrounds there was only one family and two trappers camped there. Tom went over to the trappers who were sitting on boxes in front of their tent.

  “Excuse me,” Tom said, “but did you see a man with a black beard stop here yesterday? His wife and four-year-old son were with him.”