Homer Price (13 page)

The shouting broke into a chant of “We want Dulcey. We want Dulcey. We want Dulcey Doooooooooner.”

Uncle Ulysses could do nothing. He had given his plans and diagrams to Dulcey—so the signs could be put up correctly. Miss Enders had another set of plans and diagrams in one of her handbags or somewhere, but it couldn’t be located at the moment.

“We want Dulcey Dooner!” the crowd roared.

The Judge began to worry about the reputation of the town. “There has never been a lynching in Enders County,” he said.

It was Homer and Freddy who finally found Dulcey, quietly sleeping on a street corner that was just like all the other street corners, except for the post hole Dulcey’d started to dig.

The crowd gathered around. They shook and prodded Dulcey, shouting “Where are the plans?”

“Where are the diagrams?”

“Where is Ulysses Terrace?”

“Where is Ezekiel Road?”

It was soon apparent that Dulcey was more than just
asleep.
He finally opened one eye and answered all questions the same: a shrug of the shoulders, “I dunno,” and a hiccough. The plans and diagrams couldn’t be found.

It was Homer and Freddy (still dressed as Indians, of course) who found the little wooden keg near the corner. They smelled it. They tasted it. Freddy shouted, “I know—it’s cough syrup!”

“And Elixir Compound!”
added Homer. “Dulcey dug it up! This is where Ezekiel buried it! And this is where the Homestead stood!”

That was it! And it didn’t take the worthy tenants long to count their way home.

Old Doctor Pelly diagnosed Dulcey’s trouble as “an overdose of Cough Syrup and Elixir of Life Compound, aged over a hundred years in a wooden keg.” Dulcey was up and about the business of installing street signs late the next day.

“One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week” came to a close with peace and prosperity. Time and progress move ahead. The Ezekiel Enders Homestead moved back to take the place of the one hundred and first house too. You see, the worthy tenants, though up and coming, aren’t taking any chances.

Meanwhile the whole nation is singing:

Robert McCloskey was born in Hamilton, Ohio, and lived there until he won a scholarship to the Vesper George Art School in Boston. After two years there he went back to his home town to carry out his first important commission, the bas-reliefs for the municipal building. Several months later he moved to New York and entered the National Academy of Design. While in New York he went to call on an editor of children’s books, with his portfolio under his arm. “She looked at the examples of ‘great art’ that I had brought along (they were woodcuts, fraught with black drama). I don’t remember
just
the words she used to tell me to get wise to myself and to shelve the dragons, Pegasus, and limpid pool business, and learn how and what to ‘art’ with. I think we talked mostly of Ohio.”

He began to draw and paint the things around him in everyday life. The result was
Lentil
, the story of a boy and a harmonica in a typical Midwestern town.

In the six preposterous stories of
Homer Price
, Mr. McCloskey looks back with humor and affection at the Midwest America of this childhood. When you realize how much Homer resembles his grown-up author-illustrator, it adds to the fun. In fact, Mr. McCloskey, like Homer, was once an inventor: “I built trains and cranes with remote controls, my family’s Christmas trees revolved, lights flashed and buzzers buzzed, fuses blew and sparks flew!”

Two of Mr. McCloskey’s picture books,
Make Way for Ducklings
and
Time of Wonder
, have been awarded the Caldecott Medal, given annually for “the most distinguished American picture book for children.” He was the first artist to receive this honor twice.

Robert McCloskey and his wife divided their year between the Virgin Islands in the winter and their island in Maine in the summer, until his death in 2003.