by Ruth
Beanie looked down at Fat Stuff. He held out the apple.
The raccoon lifted his nose and sniffed. He made some chuckling churr-churr-churring sounds. Beanie tugged gently at the chain. “Come on, Fat Stuff,” he said.
But the raccoon planted his four feet together and braced himself. He wouldn’t budge. He was keeping an eye on Tough Enough. The dog was whining and growling.
“Watch your dog,” said the old man. “Fat Stuff’s peaceable-like—he won’t start no fight. But he can take mighty good care o’ himself if he has to. He could plumb ruin that little-bitty dog o’ yourn.”
Beanie held the big apple down closer to the raccoon’s nose. He tugged and tugged at the chain. “Don’t you fret, Fat Stuff,” he said gently. “Come along now, ole Fat.”
But he had to drag the raccoon back to the truck. Fat Stuff snorted and chut-chut-chuttered. All the way, Tough Enough kept making little noisy rushes at him, but he didn’t try to use his teeth.
“Hey, look what Beanie’s got!” Irby yelled. He and Annie Mae and Buck and Serena came running.
“Beanie Tatum!” said Ma. Her voice was shrill with exasperation.
Pa’s face went red as a tomato.
“Beanie,” said Pa, “you got me plumb riled. Your ma tells you to go give away that kitten. And what do you do? You go and you come back, and just look at you. You still got that kitten and you got a coon.”
Beanie hung his head. The bottom of his stomach felt strange. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t talk. If only he could explain…. Instead, he gave the big apple to the raccoon. He looked up at his father and at last he found his voice. “His name’s Fat Stuff,” he said. “He likes to wash his vittles afore he eats ’em. I reckon he wants a pan of water.”
Serena climbed into the truck. She took a big cool water jar out of the icebox. She filled a frying pan full of water and carried it out to the raccoon. Everybody watched Fat Stuff wash the apple. He turned it round and round and scrubbed it with his front paws, which looked like little hands.
Pa Tatum had cooled off. He was smiling as he looked at the raccoon and listened to Beanie. At last Beanie was telling how he had kept Fat Stuff from ending in a pot.
“Well-l-l-l, I reckon you done right, son,” Pa said slowly. “We’ll find a home for the kitten and we’ll find one for Fat Stuff, too.”
The raccoon looked up at Pa. His cheeks were padded out with food. Everybody laughed.
A little while later, Mrs. Wigglesworth was clunketing on again. Fat Stuff was safely chained in the back of the truck. He was sitting on a bed of grass and dry leaves that Beanie had collected by the roadside. As Mrs. Wigglesworth rattled and lurched along, he hunched up his back and braced himself. He lowered his head in a scared unhappy way.
Beanie leaned down close to him. “Good ole Fat Stuff,” he said. “Don’t you be afeared.”
Beanie didn’t see that Tough Enough had been edging nearer and nearer to the raccoon. The hairs on the dog’s back were standing up. Now Tough Enough made a lunge. He tried to nip Fat Stuff on a leg. His teeth nipped nothing but air.
The raccoon sat up on his haunches. Out went his paw. He slapped the dog square on the nose.
That started a sudden battle, a noisy swirl of dog and raccoon. The two rolled over and over, biting and clawing, growling and snarling. They seemed all snapping teeth. Beanie, standing ready, didn’t see where he could get hold of Tough Enough, to pull him off.
“Keep away,” yelled Ma Tatum, “or you’ll git bit!” Her voice was high and thin. “A dog and a coon fightin’ it out in our truck when we’re tryin’ to git to the coast! It’s enough to give a body a double-duck-fit.”
The battle stopped as suddenly as it had started. Tough Enough seemed to have decided that picking a fight with the raccoon was not a good idea. Quickly he backed away.
Beanie looked the two over. He found they hadn’t hurt each other.
Tough Enough sat on his haunches in a corner of the truck. He was panting. His head was slightly tilted as he eyed the raccoon. Now and then he gave a puzzled whine.
Fat Stuff was gazing back at Tough Enough. Once he waddled toward the dog in an easy friendly way as far as his chain would let him.
At last Tough Enough got up. He walked slowly toward the raccoon. Beanie was ready to grab the dog’s collar, but he saw his tail wagging away. Tough Enough put his mouth close to Fat Stuff’s mouth. Their noses touched.
Beanie said, “Now those two’ll be friends, most likely.”
CLUNKETY-clunk, clunkety-clunk, on and on went the Tatums. Past villages and towns, past factories and farms, across rivers spreading wider, ever wider, on their way to the ocean.
The soil was no longer reddish. It had a white sandy look.
From the top of a little hill the Tatums looked ahead. Down there lay flat country, a sea of blue-green tree tops that went on and on and on, shimmering through the heat haze. It was the Great Coastal Plains. It was the land of peanuts and tobacco, the land of long-leaf pines.
“Oh, Pa,” Beanie asked, “are we pretty near the ocean—pretty near Great-grandma’s and Great-grandpa’s now?”
“No, son,” said Pa Tatum. “It’s still a far piece.”
Lower and lower, then onto the plains Mrs. Wigglesworth went rolling. Now the sun was very red and very far down in the sky.
Pa Tatum stopped the truck at a service station in the middle of a village. “Got to gas up and git water,” he said. “Then we’ll git ice at the store.”
“Beanie,” Ma Tatum said firmly, “now you got a chance to give away that kitty and that coon. Annie Mae and Irby, you go along with Beanie. Make certain-sure he gits rid of ’em, you hear?”
The three children started off with Tough Enough in the lead. Fat Stuff was riding on Beanie’s shoulder. Annie Mae was carrying Bobcat Bob. They went from house to house, up a street on one side, down the street on the other.
“You don’t want a kitten, do you? You don’t want a coon, do you?” Beanie made himself ask those questions over and over. And over and over again he heard “No.” He had started out with his lips down at the corners. Pretty soon he was smiling.
At last they came to a home with a roughly printed sign in a window. It said: BOX TURTLE, TALKING CROW AND FIXED SKUNK FOR SALE.
Beanie knocked on the door. A woman opened it.
“Howdy, ma’am,” said Beanie. He gulped unhappily. ‘I’m tryin’ to find a home for a kitty and a coon. You don’t want to sell a kitty and a coon, do you, along with your turtle and your skunk and your crow? ’Cause if you do, I’ll give you my kitty and my coon, but more ’n likely you don’t want ’em.”
“No, I don’t,” the woman said. “I’m moving to a big city day after tomorrow. I couldn’t take care of my pets, there. First I tried giving ’em away, then I thought if I put a price on ’em, folks might set more store by ’em.”
The woman invited the three children to come into her house and see the turtle and the skunk and the crow. She told Beanie to leave Tough Enough outside.
“Hey!” said a loud harsh voice. It came from a crow in a cage. “Hey, hey, hey!” The crow bobbed his head every time he said “hey,” just as if he were bowing to the visitors.
He hopped up on a perch. He cocked his head. Out of one bold black eye he stared at the children and Bobcat Bob and Fat Stuff. Then he turned his head and stared at them out of the other eye. Beanie and Irby and Annie Mae and Fat Stuff and Bobcat Bob stared back at him.
“His name’s Midnight,” said the woman. “And that skunk on the floor over yonder, she’s Sweetie Pie.”
Sweetie Pie put up her full handsome tail. Her long front claws made scratchy sounds as she waddled toward the children. Beanie and Annie Mae and Irby drew back a few steps, for she had a slight musty smell. Fat Stuff jumped down from Beanie’s shoulder and ran as far away from her as his chain would let him.
The woman said quickly, “Don’t you-all be afraid of Sweetie Pie. An animal doctor took away the two litt
le scent sacs under her tail. So even if she gets real mad she can’t spray anybody.”
Then the woman reached down under a chair and picked up a box turtle. She gave him to Beanie. “Here’s Biscuit,” she said.
“He’s got little red beady eyes,” said Beanie, “and a beaky nose, kind of. And a real pretty shell.”
Irby asked the woman, “Why don’t you just let Midnight and Biscuit and Sweetie Pie loose?”
“Well, if I let Midnight loose,” she said, “he’d most likely get himself shot. Farmers around here hate crows. And I reckon Biscuit’s been a pet too long to fend for himself. And Sweetie Pie, if I let her loose, she couldn’t protect herself because she hasn’t got any scent sacs left.”
The crow raised his scratchy voice again. This time he uttered a string of sounds surprisingly like words.
“Why, Midnight said some thing!” Beanie called out. “What did he say?”
The woman explained, “He said, ‘Hurry back real soon.’”
She turned toward Beanie. “Now you look like a good young-un to me, and right smart, too. While you’re asking folks do they want a kitty or a coon, you can just as well ask ’em, too, if they want a box turtle or a pet skunk or a crow. It won’t be a bit more trouble.”
Beanie gazed at the turtle and the crow and the skunk. He drew a deep happy breath. “No, ma’am, it won’t,” he said. “I’ll be mighty glad to try and find homes for ’em.”
“Pa and Ma will be real cross with you,” said Annie Mae.
“You’ll catch it, boy,” said Irby.
The woman handed Irby the cage with Midnight in it and asked him to carry it for Beanie. She put Biscuit in a box and gave him to Annie Mae. Then she fastened a leather leash to a collar round Sweetie Pie’s neck. She gave the other end to Beanie.
The skunk didn’t want to go with him. She backed off, gabbering and scolding and stamping her front feet. The raccoon pulled forward, straining to get away from her. Beanie was in the middle of a two-way tug.
Gently and politely he talked to Sweetie Pie. He told her not to be afraid; he told her she was pretty. But he couldn’t talk her out of the house. He had to pull her out.
Just outside the door, Tough Enough was waiting for the children. When he smelled the skunk he gave a shrill yipe. He stayed far behind as Beanie and Irby and Annie Mae walked back toward the truck. He barked every yard of the way.
Beanie thought he had never been so happy. He still had Bobcat Bob and Fat Stuff. And now Midnight and Sweetie Pie and Biscuit were his, too.
Then his happiness began to fade. He had started to wonder what his mother and father would say. With every step he took, he felt sadder. He said to himself, “This time, Pa and Ma will be bilin’ mad for sure.”
When he showed them his new pets they looked startled. At first they didn’t do or say a thing. Then Pa slapped his leg and burst out laughing.
As soon as he could speak, he said, “It’s the beatin’est thing! Your ma and me, we send you out to git rid o’ the kitten and the coon. And what do you do? You go and you come back with the kitten and the coon and a crow and a turtle and a skunk.”
“Well, we’re stuck with ’em now,” said Ma. Her lips looked tight. “Stuck till we can find homes for ’em.”
Beanie drew a large breath and let it out slowly. He was relieved and he was puzzled, too. Big folks were so surprising. You never could tell what would make them mad or what would make them laugh.
When all the pets and all the Tatums were in the truck again, it was more crowded than ever. But, with a good deal of managing, everything and everybody had a place at last.
Once more Pa sent Mrs. Wigglesworth clunketing along the road. But soon he turned her off on a rutty side lane. She poked along through cool woods. She stopped in a grassy clearing.
“We’re real close to the Pee Dee River,” Pa said. “Man at that fillin’ station told me. He said we could camp just anywhere round here. So, everybody out!”
As Beanie got out he began to sing. He was making the name of the Pee Dee River into a song. “Pee Dee, Pee Dee, P-e-e-e D-e-e-e,” he sang and sang and sang.
Sausage meat and eggs came out of the icebox; jars of corn that Ma had canned came out of a basket. Pa and Buck and Irby built a fire. Ma and Serena cooked a quick supper.
Beanie was the busiest of all. He was doing work he loved—feeding his many pets. Each had its own way of eating: slow or fast, delicate or greedy. Fat Stuff ate the most. After he had gorged himself he curled into a ball and went to sleep. As he slept he snored gently. Every now and then he gave a little snort.
Bobcat Bob snuggled close to Fat Stuff. Midnight tucked his head under a wing. Sweetie Pie lay down. She put her chin on her front paws. Biscuit drew his feet and his tail under his shell, then he pulled in his head. All the new pets were sleeping.
The Tatums, too, were drowsy, and so was Tough Enough.
Buck doused the fire with some buckets of water. Ma and the girls bedded down again in the back of the truck. The boys stretched out on the ground. They were under a quilt that Ma had thrown over them.
Tough Enough sniffed around, then he wedged himself in between Beanie and Irby. Beanie could feel the dog warm and close against him.
Pa Tatum had the highest bed. He got ready to go to sleep half sitting and half lying on the front seat of the truck.
Beanie lay and listened to the noises of the night.
Gurgles and suckings and lap-lap-lappings came from the riverbank. Slidy sounds.
Louder than these rose a steady song from all around the camp. It was like the ringing of bells—thousands of tiny, faint, high-pitched bells. It was the summer singing of the insects.
Up in the sky Beanie could see clear stars.
He felt a sudden prod. It came from Irby beside him. Irby said, “I can count more stars than you can count.”
Beanie didn’t answer. He didn’t want to count stars. He just wanted to think and think about his new pets. If only he could keep them for his very own…. Before he could do any thinking he was asleep.
He wakened slowly. Noises had nudged him out of slumber. What were they? His drowsy ears couldn’t tell him. Then he knew. They were whines and whimpers. “Why, it’s Tough Enough!” he told himself. “What’s the matter with ole Tough?”
Now he heard other sounds. They reached him faintly: popping noises, cracklings. He sat up.
It was still night, but not so dark as night should be. A low brightness was lighting up the clearing—the red glow and flicker of flames. It was a ground fire feeding on dry pine needles and dead leaves and grass. A gentle breeze was sending it straight toward the truck.
Between Beanie and the fire a small, dark, moving shape stood out. It was Tough Enough. The dog came bounding toward him, barking loudly.
Beanie scrambled to his feet. The other Tatums, too, were getting up, but he was moving faster. He had never been so quick. He caught up the padded quilt that had covered him and his brothers; it was damp with forest dew. He ran toward the truck. Now the fire was almost under the gasoline tank—almost under the driver’s seat. Ahead of a broad arm of flames, red fingers were reaching.
Beanie heard a grinding noise. Pa was trying to start the truck’s motor. He turned on the headlights.
Beanie threw the quilt over the flames nearest the truck. Back and forth across the quilt he tramped, stifling the fire, stamping it out. Smoke swirled up and made him cough. Hot embers scorched the quilt.
He heard a chugging. Pa was backing the truck.
Beanie jerked up the quilt. It had put out the flames nearest Mrs. Wigglesworth.
Buck came running with a pailful of water. He threw it on the flames burning farther away. Hiss-s-s-s came a long angry hissing. Serena brought a dishpan with water spilling over its sides. Irby had a frying pan almost full. Ma Tatum carried a dripping coffee pot and Annie Mae was lugging a heavy jug. Pa Tatum ran back from the truck and began to stamp out embers.
When the fire was nothing b
ut a smell in the air, Ma sat down in the brilliant path of the headlights. She called Beanie to her and drew him down beside her. She looked at his feet, to see if they were burned, but thick skin and calluses had protected them.
Ma gazed at the blackened stretches the dead flames had left. “Mercy!” she said. “Now how on earth did that fire ever git started?”
Pa plucked a wilted thirsty leaf from a tree. He said, “No rain here for weeks, the man at the fillin’ station told me. There must have been some dry dead roots underneath the earth where we built our fire. Never can tell what a fire will do if you slip up and forgit to be careful. Looks like it sneaked along slow, burnin’ and burnin’ them roots, till it flared up in dry stuff—grass and pine needles and such.”
Pa ran his hand across Beanie’s head, rumpling Beanie’s hair in a way he had. He smiled down at Beanie. No words he could have spoken would have pleased Beanie so much.
“It was Tough Enough got me up—he saw the fire first,” said Beanie. He looked hard at Irby. “Talk about a watchdog—he’s the best little ole watchdog in the world, I reckon.”
Pa’s hand went to Tough Enough. His fingers stroked the top of the dog’s head, then rubbed his neck behind his ears. Tough Enough wriggled. He licked Pa’s hand.
Pa yawned. “We was waked up sudden,” he said. “Now we can go back to sleep sudden.” So everybody did.
WHEN Beanie wakened again, dawn was just a glimmer. He sat up and rubbed his back. A small stone he had been lying on had finally made itself felt.
The other Tatums were up and around, with a camp fire burning.
Pa looked at the flames. “After we’ve put that-there fire out,” he said, “we’ll know it’s out because we made certain-sure there was no roots or leaves or such underneath it, nothin’ but earth.”
