Mr. Pudgins (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

by Ruth Christoffer Carlsen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 1951 by Ruth Christoffer Carlsen

  Illustrations copyright © 1951 by Margaret Bradfield

  Introduction copyright © 2015 by Nancy Pearl

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Two Lions, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Two Lions are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477827338 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1477827331 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781477849422 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1477849424 (paperback)

  Book design by Ryan Michaels

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014956177

  To CHRISTOPHER, KRISTIN, and PETER who alone know how many of these adventures really happened

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Mr. Pudgins

  2. Mr. Pudgins and the Mirror Children

  3. Mr. Pudgins and the Whizzle

  4. Podo, the Dodo Bird

  5. Mr. Pudgins Turns Plumber

  6. Mr. Pudgins and the Flying Bathtub

  7. Mr. Pudgins and the Train

  8. Mr. Pudgins’s Circus

  9. Mr. Pudgins and Annabelle

  10. The Mirror Children Again

  11. Mr. Pudgins’s Birthday Party

  12. The Christmas Tree

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Introduction

  Ruth Christoffer Carlsen’s Mr. Pudgins, which was first published in 1951, is an excellent example of a certain kind of fantasy for young and middle-grade readers. Its story appears to be modeled on that of P. L. Travers’s classic, Mary Poppins: An eccentric babysitter (or nanny) arrives, and wonderful adventures ensue. When the babysitter (or nanny) is no longer needed, he (or she) departs. (Whether the similarity in the names of the central characters, “Mr. Pudgins” and “Mary Poppins,” was intentional, one can only speculate.) Actually, I have some misgivings about using the word “fantasy” to describe Mr. Pudgins. When I first encountered Carlsen’s book in the late 1950s, and when my daughters first read it, in the mid to late 1970s, none of us thought of the story as exactly fantasy. Instead, we referred to it (and others like it) as “magic” books, because magical things happened to ordinary kids living in the ordinary world, and we always came away from them more than half convinced (and certainly hoping) that similar adventures just might happen in our lives, too.

  When we think of fantasy novels these days—whether they’re aimed at young children, teens, or adults—we generally mean those works of fiction in which the author has created an alternate, invented world. Readers are transported into a place—populated by an assortment of witches, warlocks, sorcerers, dragons, elves, dwarves, vampires and werewolves, zombies, and all manner of other magical and unreal beings—that is clearly not their own. This world operates under its own laws and rules, has its own geography, history, and often its own language. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (first published in England in 1937) is an excellent example of this sort of world-building fantasy novel for young people. Nobody reading it actually believes that she will run across a hobbit or a dwarf whiling away the time on a park bench or buying coffee at a Starbucks. A more contemporary example is, of course, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. (For adults, two immensely popular examples of world-building novels are Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.)

  But Mr. Pudgins does something different. Rather than take us to an exciting and adventurous new world, Carlsen instead offers us a comforting picture of the world we know and an ordinary, happy family in mid-twentieth century America. John, the eldest of three children, is sure that he can take care of his six-year-old sister Janey and his four-year-old brother Pete when his parents go out for an evening, but his mother insists on having a babysitter. When all their old familiar babysitters are busy, she calls Mrs. Henry, who runs the grocery store, and she recommends Mr. Pudgins: “He’s a pleasant little man and seems very responsible. You should see the pickles and rye bread that he buys here.” Enter the pipe-smoking Mr. Pudgins. Whenever Mr. Pudgins lights his pipe, odd things happen. Exciting things. Remarkable things. Delightful things. Magical things. Not only does the bathtub fly, but the mirror images of John, Janey, and Pete (Mirjohn, Mirjaney, and Mirpete) come out from behind the mirror to play with them (and return into it just when it’s time to clean up the considerable messes they’ve all made). Podo the talking dodo bird shows up, uninvited, on a gust of wind, and they all try their hands at speaking dodo language. The water coming out of every tap in their house takes on a different flavor of soda pop, including orange, grape, and root beer. Not to mention limeade. And then there’s Annabelle, Mr. Pudgins’s very interesting car . . .

  If I had to find one word to describe Mr. Pudgins, it would be “sunny.” All the characters are happy, get along, and are nice to one another. Here’s how Pete describes Mr. Pudgins: “Then he smiled and waved at us, and his eyes made us feel good all over.” None of the adventures have any lasting consequences. There’s no real tension in the book, or at least it’s resolved very quickly. It’s a very calming, fun, and reassuring book for a child.

  Probably the first writer to produce this sort of fantasy for children—one weaving the appearance of magic into the real world—was E. Nesbit. Her novel Five Children and It is about a family of five children who discover a Psammead (a word the author evidently invented), a creature who can grant their wishes. As with John, Janey, and Pete’s adventures with Mr. Pudgins, the magic is unpredictable and doesn’t always behave the way the children might wish. Although Five Children and It (and its sequels, The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet), were published early in the first decade of the last century, they continue to enchant new readers each year.

  Another novelist who writes about magical events occurring in the lives of ordinary boys and girls is Edward Eager. My two favorites of his seven novels are the first, Half Magic (published in 1954), and Seven-Day Magic, the last, published in 1962.

  Other fantasy novels set in the real world with magic happening to ordinary children include Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series, Ingrid Law’s Savvy, A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff, the Time Warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka, and Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.

  And, of course, your local librarian can help you find others.

  My mother is a very particular woman, and that’s how we got Mr. Pudgins. There are three of us children. I’m John, the oldest. Then there’s Janey, who is six, with her hair in pigtails and her front teeth missing. And last there’s Pete, just four, a round, chunky kid with a big grin and lots of bounce. I’m positive I could take care of the others, but Mother always insists that we have a babysitter just in case we have an emergency—which we never do.

  This time all the old familiar babysitters were busy. I guess January is a busy month. And Mother and Dad just had to go to this dinner. So Mother called Mrs. Henry, who runs the grocery store, and she knew of Mr. Pudgins. “He’s a pleasant little man and seems very responsible. You should see the pickles and rye bread that he buys here,” she said with a laugh.

  Mother wasn’t very eager to
try him, but she finally had to. Pete and I were rather pleased. We had never had a man before. So on this Thursday night we all three of us stood at the windows and watched. Suddenly we heard an awful noise, like a concrete mixer with whooping cough. A cloud of dust rolled down the street, and when it blew away, there sat the oldest car we had ever seen. Maybe it was the very first Model-T Ford.

  “An old-fashioned car,” squealed Petey.

  Janey and I laughed. And then out climbed a round button of a man. For a moment all we saw was ears and nose. Then he smiled and waved at us, and his eyes made us feel good all over. He was puffing on his pipe, and there was so much smoke that he walked to the door in a cloud.

  “Dear me, a pipe,” said Mother weakly as she opened the door.

  “I am Mr. Pudgins,” said a deep voice, and he stepped out of the smoke into the living room.

  Petey started to yell, “I got a new puzzle. Come see my puzzle.”

  “No! No!” screamed Janey. “I want him to play dolls.”

  “Oh, goodness, children,” said Mother, “please, please, be good.” Then she gave Mr. Pudgins some instructions about putting us to bed, and she and Dad left.

  “May we have a ride in your car?” I asked.

  “My, no,” said Mr. Pudgins. “Annabelle is not feeling at all well. Didn’t you hear her coughing as I drove up?”

  “Annabelle? Is that the car’s name?” asked Janey.

  “Annabelle it is,” he answered. “And now to bed.”

  Usually Janey and Pete put up an awful fuss with new babysitters. They really do test them, and I was wondering what would happen to Mr. Pudgins. But before I could say the names of all my model planes, Janey was tucked in with her blanket and dolls, Peter had his drink and bear and was snug in bed, and Mr. Pudgins was studying the directions of my latest model plane. We had just started to work with the glue when, all of a sudden, we heard a little girl’s voice. “OOOooohhhhh . . .” Gosh, it was a terrific wail!

  “What’s the matter, Janey?” called Mr. Pudgins.

  “There’s a bear in here.”

  “You can’t believe her, Mr. Pudgins,” I put in. “She’s always imagining things.”

  “I always believe a child,” said Mr. Pudgins almost crossly. “If she says there’s a bear, then there’s probably a bear.”

  “Hurry! It’s right on my dresser.” Janey was screaming now.

  I couldn’t help snickering, but I followed him into the bedroom. When he turned on the light, I was all ready to say, “I told you so.” But, jumping jelly beans, there was a bear on the dresser! A big brown bear, too, and it looked mighty cross. So did Mr. Pudgins, who was holding Janey. The bear growled low and nastily. I jumped a little closer to Mr. Pudgins, and just then I felt someone pull at my pj’s. There was Pete. “Look, look! He’s lost from the circus,” yipped Pete.

  “He most certainly is not,” said Mr. Pudgins in a very positive tone.

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “He just said so,” answered Mr. Pudgins.

  We all stared at him. “You mean . . .?”

  “Oh, of course, I can understand him,” said Mr. Pudgins. “He wants to know who made him materialize?”

  “What’s that mean?” quavered Janey.

  “Arrive, show up, become alive.” Mr. Pudgins sounded quite put out as if he didn’t approve of bears arriving.

  “You mean we did it?” yelled Pete, really excited now. “Oh, let’s get a lion. I want a lion.”

  “One bear is quite enough, young man,” said Mr. Pudgins. “Now what are we going to do with it?”

  The bear started walking around the dresser top, but there wasn’t much room, and after he turned around and about and around again, he growled.

  “I can’t help it,” said Mr. Pudgins, as if he were answering the bear.

  “What did he say?”

  “He simply said it was very inconvenient to be called here when he was right in the middle of his long winter nap.”

  “What’s his name?” whispered Janey.

  The bear garumphed, and Mr. Pudgins said, “Umdahl.”

  “That’s no name,” Petey said.

  “The bear seems to like it,” said Mr. Pudgins. Right then Umdahl jumped down and began snuffling under the bed. Janey began screaming, and this time she opened up like a fire engine. Up and down the scale she went. The noise was terrific. Umdahl lay down, put his paws over his ears, and moaned. Mr. Pudgins said, “Stop that noise this minute.”

  And she did. Then there was only Umdahl’s groaning. “What’s the matter with him?” shouted Pete. He seemed to think our sitter was deaf.

  “He’s hungry.”

  “Let’s feed him. Let’s feed him,” yelled Pete.

  “What in the world will we feed a bear?” I asked. I knew Mom wouldn’t want any missing roasts in the morning.

  “Marshmallows,” said Janey in a positive tone.

  The bear garumphed, and Mr. Pudgins said, “She’s absolutely right. It’s marshmallows he wants.”

  We made a parade into the kitchen. First, Mr. Pudgins with Janey right behind, then Umdahl next with Pete on his back, and then me. I kept wishing the kids at school could see me. Only I knew they wouldn’t believe it. Imagine a real live bear in our kitchen!

  Umdahl sat down on top of the stove. He growled at Mr. Pudgins, who still seemed very put out at his appearance. “I don’t understand it,” he muttered as he rummaged about in the cupboard. “I simply don’t understand it.”

  He tore open the marshmallow package, and then Peter and Janey started screeching and throwing the marshmallows at Umdahl, who caught them with his paws, his nose, his tongue. It was better than a circus. I threw one that went up to the ceiling, and Umdahl almost jumped off the stove to get it. When he came down on his claws, there was a ripping noise, like chalk on the blackboard, and sure enough, there was a bad scratch on the stove. I hoped Mother wouldn’t ask me how it got there.

  Suddenly, oh much too suddenly, the marshmallows were all gone, and Umdahl started licking his fur like a big cat. I wondered if he were going to settle down for the winter with us, right there on the stove.

  “Please, Mr. Pudgins,” begged Janey. “Let me ride him. Make him get down so I can ride him.”

  “He’d better get off Mom’s stove,” I added.

  Mr. Pudgins grabbed Umdahl by the fur and started pulling. Nothing happened, except Umdahl looked surprised and not at all pleased. So I grabbed Mr. Pudgins around the middle, and we both pulled. Still nothing happened. Janey pulled on me, and Pete pulled on her, and the four of us tugged and groaned. Whurrrumph! Umdahl snarled and growled like a steam engine getting under way. He blew the four of us right across the floor and in a heap.

  “That,” said Mr. Pudgins, “is definitely the wrong approach.”

  So the four of us sat and thought.

  Janey started rubbing her eyes and yawning. “I don’t want to sit here all night. I want to go to bed.”

  “Do go then,” said Mr. Pudgins with his head in his hands, thinking.

  “But I want to be put to bed right.” I could tell from the way her face was puckering that she was going to cry. And she did. It was her fire-engine wail again. Peter opened up and joined her. Mr. Pudgins looked surprised, and Umdahl put his paws over his ears and moaned.

  “Stop it! All three of you!” said Mr. Pudgins in a positive voice.

  And they did. All three of them. He had a gleam in his eye as he said to Janey, “What is the right way to go to bed?”

  I could see her settling down to explain. “Well, first I have to have my drink.”

  “Yes?”

  “And then I get my pink blanket and my baby . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Then after I get in bed, I say my prayers. . . .”

  “Yes, yes?”

  “And my mommy or daddy gives me a big bear hug.”

  “Bear hug! Bear hug!” shrieked Mr. Pudgins, jumping to his feet. “That’s it.”
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  Umdahl suddenly jumped down from the stove and began walking around and around us. Janey looked frightened. “Does he have to hug me?” she whispered, nodding at Umdahl. “He’s so big.”

  Mr. Pudgins asked him, and Umdahl growled. “It’s some kind of a bear custom, he says,” explained Mr. Pudgins. “It’s the only thing that will send him back. He’ll be very careful.”

  So we all got in line again, and back to the bedroom we marched. After Janey was tucked in bed and the lights turned out, all we could see were Umdahl’s green eyes like two small headlights. Then he walked toward Janey’s bed. I thought surely she’d scream. I was so worried myself that I wanted to yelp. There was a swish, a murmur from Janey, and then the lights disappeared. Mr. Pudgins turned the light switch and Umdahl was gone.

  “He’s gone,” wailed Petey.

  “Thank heavens,” said Mr. Pudgins as he picked Peter up and turned the light off. “And if I were you,” he said as he went out the door, “I should not say a word of this in the morning to anyone. Not one word, mind you. It had better be our secret.”

  It was. For in the morning, as I tripped on my shoelace coming down the hall to breakfast, I heard Mom say to Dad in an exasperated voice, “Honestly, Jack, look at this kitchen. A marshmallow on the ceiling, a scratch on my stove. Look, all the marshmallows are gone.”

  “Maybe they had a free-for-all last night with the marshmallows,” came Dad’s voice. “We used to do that in college.”

  “Humph,” said Mother. “They’re a little young to be starting that. It’s a wonder they aren’t all sick. I’ve a good notion to give that Mr. Pudgins a piece of my mind. Letting them eat a whole pound of marshmallows. And this scratch. It would take something sharp to make such a gouge.”

  Quietly I crept back down the hall. No use seeing Mom and Dad now. Let ’em speculate. Golly. I wouldn’t dare tell them what really happened. Besides, it was too slumgumptious a tale to share with someone as old as our folks.