The Saturdays (7 page)

Rush turned the corner. He began to wish he hadn't lingered so long; his teeth were chattering in his head; but just as he was about to break into a run he saw something that made him stop.

Across Lexington Avenue with its heavy traffic a dog was running. Running wildly, like a small flickering shadow, he narrowly escaped extinction beneath the wheels of two large trucks and a taxicab. “Here, pup!” yelled Rush as the dog reached his side of the street, and the taxi driver, who had missed hitting it only by applying the brakes with a tearing squeal, leaned out his window and bawled furiously, “Don'tcha know enough to keep ya dog on a lead!”

“He isn't mine,” Rush tried to explain, but the cab was departing, its taillights looking indignant, and the dog was halfway up the block. Rush began to run after it. Nobody else seemed to be paying any attention, and you couldn't let a lost dog go barging around a city at night and in a snowstorm!

“Here, pup, come back,” called Rush, and then he tried whistling but the dog never even paused. It turned left into a side street with Rush hot on its heels, and when it ran down some steps into the snow-filled areaway of a vacant house Rush cornered it.

“Here, boy,” he said wheedlingly. “Come on out. Come on, pup. I wouldn't hurt you.”

He approached it with his hand outstretched for encouragement and to his delight the wet and shivering dog suddenly raised a front paw and placed it in the hand. Rush's heart was won forevermore.

“You're a smart guy!' he told the dog admiringly. “You come on home with me and I'll give you some supper. Come on, puppy, come on.”

The dog, which had been trembling against the iron grating, made up its mind about Rush. Its tail wagged tentatively once, twice, and it gave a short conversational bark. It was a smallish dog with long ears and large melting eyes; not quite a thoroughbred face, but much better: one that was full of character. It was hard to tell what color he was, for he was so dirty and wet; his longish fur clung together in damp strings and he had no collar. Rush had never seen a dog he liked better.

“Come on, boy,” he coaxed. Then he picked up the shivering stray, and held it close. All its ribs were sharp beneath his hands.

“Everything's going to be all right now,” he kept saying. “I'll hide you in the cellar till Cuffy gets used to the idea; Willy Sloper's going to like you, and you'll be warm down there and I'll find you a bone too.”

The boy and the dog were equally wet and dirty by this time. The snow still fell swiftly and Rush's shoes were so wet that they squelched louder than ever. The dog shivered in short, hard spasms and gave Rush's ear a lick with his warm tongue. It was a long walk home and the dog grew heavier with every block. At the house Rush hesitated. He didn't want to go in by the front door, partly for fear of muddying the carpet, but mainly for fear of meeting Cuffy or Father before he had prepared them for the dog. A glance through the kitchen window revealed Cuffy charging busily about with pot lids clashing like cymbals. The kitchen door was closed, he was glad to see. The areaway iron gate was also closed and locked, but Rush knew how he could open it; his hand was still small enough to push through the narrow apertures of the grille and turn the knob from the inside. The house door beyond was unlocked, fortunately, and presently he was tiptoeing slushily along the lower hallway toward the cellar stairs. He had a bad moment when Cuffy threw open the kitchen door and released a smell of boiled turnip and a snatch of song. “Sweet and low, sweet and
low,
” sang Cuffy at the top of her healthy lungs. “Wind of the western sea-ea.”

But she didn't come out, and quick as a thief in the night, Rush had opened the furnace-room door, pulled it to behind him, and snapped on the lights. He went tiptoe down the iron cellar steps into the great warm subterranean room where the furnace crouched glaring amid its coiled tentacles of pipe like the minotaur in the labyrinth. Rush remembered the old man with earmuffs and what he had said about the world of machines. Boy, I'd hate to be left alone with this one when it came alive, he thought; it looks like it could be mean.

At the far side of the furnace room were the washtubs. Into one of these he put the dog. Then he took off his cap and coat and jacket, letting them fall in a drippy heap on the floor.

“I hate to do this to you, pal,” he told the dog, “but I want you to look handsome when Cuffy sees you. Everything depends on it. She'd never let you stay if she saw you like this.” Then he rolled up his sleeves, turned on the water, reached for the brown soap and began to scrub. The dog stood without a sound, trembling wildly, and gazing with horrified eyes at Rush as if to say “This is the most awful thing that has happened to me yet!” He made Rush feel so guilty that he had to keep apologizing. “Gee, I'm sorry. Honest, I am. But it's for your own good, I promise you it is.” Nevertheless, in spite of his apologies, when Rush stooped to pick up the soap which had flown from his hand, the dog with a scramble and a leap had cleared the washtub, and, covered with lather, was streaking up the stairs. Rush, scarcely less wet, went racing after him calling in a loud whisper, “Come back! For Pete's sake, do you want to get us both in Dutch?” The door at the top of the steps had not been tightly closed, alas, and the dog pushed it open and sped down the lower hall. Then there was a crash, a clatter, and a loud cry, all at the same instant, and Rush was just in time to see Randy sprawled on the floor surrounded by knives, forks, spoons, the tray, and all the salt cellars.

“Where's he gone?” hissed Rush fiercely.

“What was it anyway? Gee whiz, it came at me like a thunderbolt,” said Randy, getting up.

There was no need to answer, for at that moment another loud cry issued from the kitchen. “Mad dog!” yelled Cuffy's voice. “
Mad dog!
MR. MELENDY, THERE'S A MAD DOG!”

Rush and Randy flew to the kitchen where they found Cuffy standing on a chair wild-eyed.

“Get out!” she shouted. “Lock yourselves in your rooms and call the police or the fire department or somebody!”

“He's not mad,” said Rush dispiritedly—the game was up now, he knew. “Where'd he go?”

Father appeared in the doorway. “What's going on down here?” he demanded sternly.

“I tell you he's mad!” insisted Cuffy. “Covered with foam he was; I saw a dog covered with foam!”

“It's just soapsuds,” said Rush sadly. “I was just washing him so you'd like him, maybe, and I could keep him.”

“What dog are you talking about?” inquired Father blankly.

“Just this dog I found,” Rush explained. “All wet and lost, without a collar.”

Cuffy climbed down off her chair looking rather foolish.

“Where is this dog?” said Father.

“I think it's under the stove, Mr. Melendy,” said Cuffy in a dignified voice. She bent down with a grunt and hauled out the miserable bundle of fur and soapsuds.

“Well!” remarked Father. “You must have seen
something
in him, Rush, but I can't imagine what.”

“He'll look all right when he's clean,” Rush said eagerly. “I think he's a pretty high-bred dog. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a spaniel.”

“One-third spaniel, I should judge by the looks of him,” said Father. “And two-thirds miscellany.”

“What kind of a dog is a miscellany?” asked Randy, already on her knees by the dog.

“He means it's a mutt,” said Rush bitterly. Everything was awful.

Cuffy, still red in the face, opened the oven door with a clank and out came an unbearably delicious smell of chops. It was then that the dog solved the problem. Wet, unkempt, far from beautiful, he walked right over to Cuffy, turned his melting eyes upon her, and sat up on his hind paws, begging. Rush's heart swelled with as much pride as if he'd taught the dog this trick himself.

“Oh, how wonderful! Oh, Rush, how smart he is!” gasped Randy.

Cuffy frowned at the bedraggled mutt and tried not to smile.

“Begging, dirty rascal!” she said, but the way she said it kindled a great suffocating blaze of hope under Rush's ribs. He looked at his father.

“He can shake hands too,” he said.

“Finish washing him,” ordered Father. “Then feed him. When he looks a little less like a half-drowned famine victim I can tell better. Maybe (remember I said
maybe
) if no one claims him in the lost and found ads, which they probably will—well, we'll see.”

“Boy!” cried Rush, in a burst of gratitude.

“Boy!” echoed Randy, with a leap and two pirouettes.

“You've got to take good care of him, Rush,” commanded Cuffy. “I don't want no fleas in this house. Nor no puddles on the carpets neither. Remember that! And when you're finished with that dog you go upstairs and take a good hot bath yourself!”

Rush gave Cuffy a squeeze around her ironclad waist that knocked the breath out of her.

“Gee, you're swell!” he said. “You're keen!”

“Just as long as you can get something out of me,” Cuffy said, and gave him an affectionate shove. “Go on, now, get that animal out of here.”

Really after he was clean and dry the dog looked very nice. He was a becoming shade of tan. The spaniel in him showed up to advantage; his ears were long and he had a feathery fringe around each paw.

“He turned out better than I hoped,” admitted Father. “He even has a certain style.”

Everybody was pleased with him; but Cuffy made Rush leave him in the basement while they ate supper. Rush could hardly eat, he was so excited, and of course Cuffy had to catch him stuffing bread and bones into his pockets.

“Now then,” said she. “No use to smuggle things and get them pants all greasy. That dog had a big supper, as you very well know. If you want bones you can come to the kitchen and ask for 'em; and remember, Rush, he's going to sleep
down cellar
!”

Nevertheless, it happened that after Cuffy was safely in bed, two feet creaked quietly all the way downstairs, and then up again with a few soft thumps and “ouches.” Only the keenest ears could have heard the accompanying patter of four paws. Then all was still.

By and by there was a little tap at Rush's door and Randy came in wearing her blue-and-white striped pajamas.

“How is he?” she said.

“Look,” whispered Rush. He was on the floor gazing down at the dog who lay stretched out on an old quilt with a bone beside him and his paws crossed. The pads of his paws looked very leathery and careworn, as though they had walked a thousand weary miles. As Rush and Randy watched the dog his nose quivered nervously and he whimpered faintly from the distance of his sleep.

“See, he's dreaming,” said Rush, looking as much like a doting mother as it is possible for a boy of twelve to look.

“Oh, I hope nobody claims him,” breathed Randy fervently. “I'm going to get down on my knees every night until it's safe, and pray that nobody claims him. What will you name him if they don't, and you can keep him?”

“What will I name him?” said Rush. “I bet you'd never guess. First I was going to call him Siegfried, but then I changed my mind because I found him on my Saturday. I'm going to call him Isaac!”

CHAPTER IV

Saturday Four

Randy sat on her bed watching Mona get ready to go. Lunch was over and the dishes washed, but a faint odor of baked potatoes and lamb chops lingered comfortably in the house.

Mona's side of the room was covered with photographs of actors and actresses; some signed and some just cut out of magazines and thumbtacked to the wall. The most precious ones were framed and stood on her bureau with her brush and comb set, two artificial roses in a vase, and a bottle of perfume called “Night on the Nile,” which had never been opened. It was all very tidy and correct. The only thing about Mona's side of the room which led you to suppose that she wasn't a young lady was her bed. It was very flat (she never used a pillow) and at the head of it sat a giant panda, made out of plush, and an ancient cloth doll named Marilyn whose face had entirely disappeared.

The sunlight came into the room and so did weaving branch shadows from ailanthus trees in the backyard. Mona was brushing her hair; electricity made it stand out in a silken skein and Randy could hear it crackle like burning leaves. It was almost too bright to look at in the sun.

“You have beautiful hair,” she said.

“Oh, beautiful!” scoffed Mona brushing as if she hated it. “Nasty old straight stuff. You and Rush are the lucky ones.”

“Rush doesn't think so. He's always trying to make his lie down and be straight. Remember the time he put the gelatine on it?”

They both laughed.

Mona's fingers deftly plaited the golden hair. Then she put on her cleanest sweater and skirt and her green coat and hat that matched. But where were her gloves? She jerked open the bureau drawers, burrowing through them till they boiled over. Not a glove in sight. Randy got off her bed and joined the search and at last they were located in the strangest places! One in the kitchen beside the alarm clock and one upstairs in the Office on the piano.