The haunted hound; (6 page)

While they were eating a calf came and poked its head in the open doorway. Jonathan saw Judy and Mr. Worth look at it, but neither one of them did anything about it.

The puppies went over and barked at the calf and it backed away, but soon it poked its head in again and, when the puppies got too close, it would blow at them and run them back to the other side of the room.

Finally, though, the calf went too far. It kept stretching out its neck, its wet square lips feeling around on the scrubbed floor and coming farther and farther into the

room. At last it heaved itself up and put one foot in and started to put the other one in.

Judy watched it out of the corner of her eye as she ate the meat off a drumstick as fast as she could. Just as the calf got the other foot in, Judy cleaned the drumstick and threw the bone. It hit the calf smack between the eyes.

''Get your feet out/' Judy told it.

The calf, looking a little sad, took its feet out and put them down on the ground.

Jonathan, eating slowly, wondered what would happen to him at his house if he threw a drumstick—or anything else—at the table.

The puppies began to fight over the drumstick, growling and tugging at it and swirling across the floor. At last, when they got the bone under the table and were all over people's feet, Mr. Worth said, ''J^^Y? ^^^^ ^™^ make those bones bounce outdoors. Some of those puppies under there are mistaking my foot for that drumstick."

Judy reached down, got the bone away from them, and threw it out the door. Jonathan watched the bone go sailing out, falling toward the ground.

It never hit the ground. A big dog appeared from somewhere. He was just walking along, but at the right instant he lifted his head a little and snapped. The bone disappeared and the dog walked on out of sight.

The calf came back and started nuzzling around on the floor again. The puppies ran at it, and then stopped so quickly that their feet slid on the smooth wood. Whenever

one slid too far and rammed into the calf, it would yelp with terror and start running, taking five or six leaps before it could get its body to move.

But one little puppy went right up to the calf, watched it for a moment, and then jumped and grabbed it by the ear. The calf bellowed and flung up its head. The puppy hung on for a second longer, but the fling tore it loose and it came sailing over the table.

Mr. Worth put his knife and fork down and caught the puppy just before it landed in the gravy bowl. He put it down tenderly on the floor and looked at Judy. "We'll keep an eye on that one, Judy. He's going to make a good catch dog. You see how he figured the best angle on that ear and then went right in and grabbed it? And he hung to it, too. If he'd had something more than those little needles for teeth, he'dVe had that calf yet."

Judy said, ''He better learn soon to catch cows by the nose and hogs by the ears or he'll get his head taken off."

''One of these days," Mrs. Worth said, towering over her lanky husband, "I'm going to put my foot down. No doggone dogs in the house unless they're sick or have to be bottle fed. Yes, sir, one of these days I'm going to put my foot down."

"Aw, Little Bird," Mr. Worth said, still eating, "you love having these little shysters underfoot all the time. They keep you company."

"Well, I'll admit they keep me better companv than some," Mrs. Worth said. "They keep me a sight better

company than you do traipsing around in the woods all the time. And I declare, Dan Worth, you're going to ruin Judy turning her into a woman wanting to hunt and fish all the time. What's her mother going to say?''

''Nothing wrong with that kind of woman, Little Bird," Mr. Worth said calmly. ''A good kind of \\'oman to be, I figure. Gives her something to do besides moon around a house all day." He smiled over at Judy.

Mrs. Worth smiled at her, too. Then she looked at Jonathan. ''Where you go to school in the city, do the girls wear britches, Jonathan?" she asked.

Before he could say anything, Judy interrupted. "Aw, Aunty! How can I ride a horse to school and wear a dress? Aw, Aunty!"

"Do they, Jonathan?" Mrs. Worth insisted.

He was glad he could help Judy out and still not tell a lie. "Yes, ma'am. Most of the girls wear blue jeans. But they don't look as good as Judy does though, because they wear shirts but they don't tuck the shirttails in."

For a second Judy beamed at him, then went on gnawing another drumstick.

Mrs. Worth sounded amazed. "Well, I declare. And they don't ride horses to school either."

"No, ma'am. Nobody rides a horse to the school I go to. The ones who live close enough ride bicycles or walk, and the rest come on streetcars or school busses."

Mrs. Worth sounded happy. "You see, Judy? City girls ride the school bus. City girls don't ride horses to school."

"They haven't got a horse," Judy stated. 'Tve got a horse. Aw, Aunty! I've aheady showed you and Mother a milhon times that I ean get to scliool faster and get home faster on a horse than if I rode that old school bus wandering all over the plaee/' She suddenly turned to Jonathan. ''How long does it take \'ou to get to sehool?''

''About ten or fifteen minutes. Depends on the traffic lights."

"See?" Judy said, jumping up and down in her chair. "I can make it in fifteen minutes any time I want to, especially when I ride Spark Plug and let him run."

Jonathan wished they'd stop talking about school. It had reminded him of the report card lying on his father's desk.

But they didn't stop. Judy looked at him over an ear of corn she was mowing down. When she got to the end, she asked, "Are you smart in school?" and started down the ear again, going the other way.

Jonathan shook his head. "I'm dumb."

Mr. Worth looked up. "Bill Barrett's boy dumb?"

Jonathan nodded again.

"I don't believe it," Mr. Worth said.

"I've been in summer school all summer and I still get F's," he said quietly.

Judy, her mouth full of corn, gulped. "F's!"

"That's right."

She was almost whispering. "You mean you flunked?"

Jonathan nodded.

Judy's eyes were big. "What's your father going to do to you?" she asked, still whispering.

''I don't know. Til find out when I get home."

Judy looked at him but didn't say anything more.

Mr. Worth wiped his mouth. ''Jori^^han, you better stay out here the rest of the afternoon. I'll take you home this evening in the truck. That'll give your dad a chance to cool off some about those F's. You and Judy go catch some fish for us. You like fishing?"

''I used to/' Jonathan said, remembering. And he remembered also that he hadn't been fishing for two or three years.

''All right, }'0u stay and go fishing. Judy, go dig some worms."

''I think I've got some fishing tackle up at the house," Jonathan said. 'AVhen we moved I left it all in my closet."

''You won't need it. We've got plenty of poles and lines and Judy's got some of the liveliest wiggle worms you ever saw. Fish come for miles just to admire 'em."

Jonathan kept thinking about the rod and reel his father had brought him from England. He wanted to see it again, and to fish with it again. "While she's getting worms, I can run up to the house and get my rod," Jonathan declared.

As he went past Judy digging worms beside the cow stable with a pitchfork, he told her that he was going after his rod and reel.

"Rod and reel!" she said scornfully. "I thought we were going to catch some fish."

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'Tve caught fish with a rod and reel/' Jonathan said coldly.

''Shucks/' she said. "Rod and reel.''

''Worms/' he said, just as scornfully, and went on toward the house.

On the porch he stopped and turned around slowly. Through the woods, years and years ago, a vista had been cut so that you could see for miles across the land of the Farm. See the fields and pines and rolling land. Off to the left the Big Pond glistened dark and calm under the sun, and, farther, the Little Pond was spotted with green lily pads.

At first he was so busy looking at the view that he didn't see the dog walk slowly out from behind a tree and come, step by step, up the drive toward the house. It was the same black-and-white dog, Pot Likker. The dog with no instincts.

It stopped and sat down exactly where it had sat that morning.

Jonathan called to it and was a little pleased to see that Pot Likker at least raised its long ears a little and cocked its head.

But it wouldn't come any closer, so Jonathan gave up and went to get his fishing tackle.

It took some rooting around in the closet to find it all. He had put the reel away in a chamois bag so it looked bright and new, and the nylon line on it was all right. The rod was bamboo and the varnish was still smooth and clear. But his

baits were in bad shape. The gang hooks on the plugs and spoons were all rusty and the colors had faded.

Jonathan locked the door behind him and went back to the Worths'. Judy was waiting for him with two long cane poles and a can of bait.

He left the key, and together they started off for the Big Pond. ''Is the boat still there?'' Jonathan asked.

''There's a boat Uncle Dan built."

"I guess the one we left rotted away," Jonathan said. ''How long have you been living here?"

"I don't Jive here," she told him. "I live with my mother over there." She pointed across the woods.

"The Forbes' place?"

"We bought it. Oh, a long time ago."

"What happened to your father, Judy?"

"He got killed in the war. He was in the Navy. Before that he was a painter."

"What'd he paint?"

"Pictures," she said. "My mother does, too. That's where she is now, down in the Everglades painting pictures of wild birds. Sometime I'll show you some of them. They're beautiful."

"Can you paint?"

She shook her head. "I'm going to be a farmer when I grow up. I'm learning from Uncle Dan now."

"I like him," Jonathan decided. "I like Mrs. Worth, too."

"They're wonderful. Uncle Dan is my mother's brother, although he's a lot older than she is. Ever since we came

here theyVe been niee to me, and I always stay with them when Mother goes away to paint things because she has to go to places where she has to wait all day maybe for a certain kind of bird to come. I've been with her, but I get restless just waiting all da}' long. So now I stay here. I guess I spend as much time over here as I do on our own place."

''Do you ever go down to the river?''

''Lots/'

"W^hat's it like now?" he asked, remembering days upon days when he had pla\ed along its banks or fished in it or gone swimming in the Glass Hole.

"Too much rain lately. She's a little high," Judy told him.

"Is there a sand bar at the curve below those rocks?"

"Why shouldn't there be?"

"I just wondered." That sand bar was where, in the old days, he had always had his birthday parties. His mother and father and lots of children would go down there and cook hot dogs and swim and eat. Those days had been fun, he remembered.

The boat Mr. Worth had built was a double-ender, narrow and tippy, and leaked like a sponge, but it was easy to row and the wind didn't blow it all over the pond.

Judy put in the poles and the bait and then looked at him. "You got that fancy rod and reel ready to scare fish with?" she asked.

Jonathan, wondering whether he still knew how to cast, decided that he'd try pole fishing for a while first. If they caught enough with the worms, he wouldn't need to use his

rod. Anyway, he ought to practice a httle first, he decided. He left the rod unjointed as he got into the boat with her.

''Since you don't know where the fish are, Til paddle," Judy told him.

'Who says I don't?''

"I do."

''They're over on the far side, near those stumps. At least that's where the big ones are."

''Never caught one over there," she said. "So I'll show you where they are."

Jonathan started to argue with her, but then remembered that it had been a long, long time since he had been fishing.

Judy paddled the boat slowly along until she found a big open space of water among the lily pads. She dropped anchor at the edge of it and got her pole.

For the first five minutes after she started fishing she didn't move or speak, just sat watching her cork. But nothing happened. Judy at last allowed herself to glance o\ er at his cork.

"Not biting," Jonathan said.

"They will," she said positively.

He leaned back in the boat, resting his pole on his knees. "I don't much care whether they do or not." He sighed. "This is better than going to school."

She looked at him, frowning. "What's the matter with you in school anyway?" she asked.

"Nothing's the matter with me. The trouble's with the school."

'Those F's/' she said.

''What about those F's?" he asked lazily. Then he grinned. "After all, anybody can make B's and C's—even A's. Not many people make F's."

Judy said slowly, ''I used to, too.''

Jonathan was suddenly interested. ''In what?''

"Arithmetic."

"That's what's got me," he confessed. "That stuff! I can do it pretty good when it's just adding or long division-just numbers. But when they give you those problems . . ."

She nodded in agreement. "They used to bother me, too. But I whipped 'em."

"I'll bet," he said, laughing.

"I did, too. I used to get F's sometimes. Now I never get lower than a B."

"I'll bet."

"All right, you don't have to believe me. I don't care."

Jonathan pulled his line up to see whether his worm was still on the hook. It was. "How'd you whip 'em?" he asked, not caring much one way or the other.

"I made 'em all me," she told him. "Me and dollars."

Jonathan twisted his head around to look at her. "You goofy?" he asked.

"Not as goofy as you are. I don't make F's any more. Ssssh. I got a bite!"

But the fish didn't nibble again, and she relaxed. "Every time thev make me do problems I just turn them into me and dollars."