CHAPTER VI

UP THE CREEK

Poppy came along about nine o’clock. And I noticed right away that he had been in the creek. I didn’t say anything about it, though. I thought it might not be polite for me to let on to him that I noticed any change in him. But I was glad that he had washed himself. I knew that Mother would like him better now.

Scoop and Red were out parrot hunting. And leaving Peg to run the store, Poppy and I hurried down the street. Pretty soon we came to our house. Mother was baking cookies.

“This is Poppy Ott,” says I, introducing my new chum.

“I’m glad to know you, Poppy,” says Mother, giving the new acquaintance a warm handshake. “Have a cookie,” says she.

“I brought Poppy home with me,” says I, “to try some of my old clothes on him.”

Mother caught on.

“Fine!” says she, in her usual generous way. “I was wondering the other day what we’d do with that brown corduroy suit of yours. It’s perfectly good. And you never wear it.”

“Gee!” says Poppy, when we were in my bedroom. “You’ve got a swell mother.”

“And I’ve got a swell dad, too,” says I. “Wait until you meet him.”

“Did you say he runs a brickyard?”

I nodded.

“Maybe he’ll give Pa a job,” says Poppy.

“He hires a lot of men,” says I.

“I want Pa to work at something useful,” says Poppy, “and quit his silly detecting. I’ve tried to get him to go to work before, but he wouldn’t. But he’s got to go to work this time. I’ve made up my mind to that.”

“Here,” says I, bringing out the suit that Mother had mentioned, “jump into this and we’ll go over to the brickyard and see Dad.”

Poppy looked like a million dollars in good clothes. My suit fitted him swell. I gave him a shirt, too, and a necktie and some stockings and shoes. To finish off I slipped him a cap and the price of a haircut.

“You’re the best friend I ever had, Jerry,” says he, when we came out of the barber shop.

“And we’re going to keep on being friends,” says I, feeling good in what I had done.

“Forever and ever,” says he earnestly.

We met Red on our way to the brickyard. He hadn’t seen anything of his aunt’s parrot, he said. While we were talking about the escaped parrot a gang of boys our age came into sight from Zulutown, which is the name that the Tutter people have for the tough end of town where Cap’n Tinkertop used to live.

“Step this way, folks,” says the gang’s smart leader, letting on that he was a showman, “and see Dumb-bell, the red-headed baboon, who picks his teeth with a crowbar and walks a clothesline on his hind legs just like a human bein’.”

This wasn’t the first time that Bid Stricker and his gang of roughnecks had called our freckled chum a baboon. And I didn’t blame poor Red for getting huffy. For a fellow can’t help his looks. If he had red hair and freckles he was made that way in heaven.

“Lookit!” says Jimmy Stricker, Bid’s mean cousin. “They’ve got a new kid in the gang. Let’s initiate him with a brick.”

“Who are they?” says Poppy, getting my eye.

“The Zulutown gang,” says I.

“They don’t act like friends of yours.”

“_Friends!_” says I, turning up my nose at the smart Alecks. “I should hope not. They hate us because we’re smarter than they are. And every chance they get they pick on us.”

“Hello, Poppy,” says Bid, sneering-like. “We know _you_.”

“The kid tramp!” says Jimmy. “Isn’t he cunning in Jerry’s old suit.”

“Where’s your ‘Charley Chaplin’ pants, trampy?” says Bid.

Poppy turned to me again.

“Do you care,” says he, quiet-like, “if I go over there and knock their blocks off?”

“It’s five to three,” says I.

“You and Red take one apiece,” says he, “and I’ll take the other three.”

The cowardly enemy beat it into Zulutown when we took after them. And putting them out of our thoughts, we separated, Red going in search of Scoop while Poppy and I headed for the brickyard office where Dad was.

It was my Grandfather Todd who started the Tutter Vitrified Brick Company. That was in 1884. When he died the business became Dad’s. Some day, I suppose, when I get to using a safety razor three times a week, I’ll be a partner in the business. It’s going to be fun being a partner of Dad’s. We found my future partner dictating letters to his secretary, Miss Tubbs.

“Howdy, Jerry,” says he, acting glad to see me. Then he grinned at Poppy. “Who’s your friend?” says he, joking. “Some influential brick buyer?”

I told him who Poppy was.

“He’s going to live in Tutter,” says I, “and go to school here. And we want to get his father a job in the brickyard.”

“Um ...” says Dad, thinking. “I can’t recall any detecting jobs that we have open right now.... How old is your father?”

“Sixty-two,” says Poppy.

“Too old to push a truck,” says Dad, shaking his head. “But if he’s dependable I might be able to use him as a night watchman. For Denny Corbin quit me last night. Suppose you send the old gentleman around this afternoon so I can have a talk with him.”

When we were in the street Poppy said that things were coming his way fast. He had a home that wasn’t on wheels, he said. And he had good clothes and good friends.

“I only hope,” says he, “that Pa won’t do something silly on his new job and lose it.”

“Dad’ll be patient with him,” says I.

“Your dad’s swell, Jerry.”

“_Your_ dad is going to be swell, too,” says I, “when we get through with him.”

In that moment Poppy’s eyes seemed to see things a thousand miles away.

“I only wish Ma was alive,” says he, dreamy-like.

It was on the end of my tongue to tell him that we would get a new ma for him. But I checked myself. He might not like that, I thought. Still, it was a thing to keep in mind, I told myself. I had heard it said by older people that it takes a good wife to keep a man steady. We wanted to keep Mr. Ott steady. And it might be, I told myself, that a new wife was the very thing he needed.

At the store Peg told us that he had had a long distance telephone call from the Cap’n.

“The old dumb-bell! What do you know if he didn’t go to sleep in his fishing boat last night and float down the Illinois River. He woke up down at Oglesby. Now he’s rowing back.”

I laughed.

“Where did you say he woke up?”

“Down at Oglesby.”

“I didn’t know that anybody ever woke up down there,” says I, in nonsense.

Later on Scoop and Red dragged themselves into the store empty-handed.

“Good-by parrot,” says the leader, dropping wearily onto the counter.

Red swabbed his face.

“Let’s go swimming,” says he. “I’m about melted.”

Locking the doors, and posting a notice that the store would be open again at one o’clock, we headed out of town on the Treebury pike, going up the Happy Hollow road past the Scotch cemetery.

“Lookit!” says Scoop, pointing over the cemetery fence. “They’re digging a grave.”

“What of it?” says I. “Graves don’t interest me.”

“But they’re digging _this_ grave in Cap’n Tinkertop’s lot.”

Red laughed at his thoughts.

“Maybe they’re going to bury the Cap’n’s wooden leg,” says he.

“I’d sooner think,” says Scoop, thoughtful-like, “that they were planning to bury the dead sailor.”

“But _he_ was buried over in Cedarburg,” says I.

“They can dig a man up and bury him twice, can’t they?”

“You’re crazy,” says I.

In the time that we were dressing after our swim Peg and Red got into an argument over the escaped parrot. It was fun to listen to them talk. For Red gets hot-headed when he tries to argue.

“What?” says Peg, turning up his nose. “Do you mean to call that ordinary hunk of green feathers that your aunt buys crackers for a _parrot_? Boy, you don’t know what a real parrot is. Take Solomon Grundy. Um ... there’s a parrot worth owning, let me tell you.”

“My aunt’s parrot can lick it,” says Red, strutting around like a bantam rooster.

Peg hooted at that.

“Your aunt’s parrot!” says he. “Go on! Your aunt hasn’t got a parrot. All she’s got is an empty bird cage.”

“I can catch her parrot,” says Red, bragging reckless-like.

“Yah,” says Peg, “and you can catch cold, too.”

The freckled one was on his high horse now.

“Here’s my jackknife,” says he, slamming the knife down, “and here’s a jaw breaker and here’s a shooter and a box of fishhooks. Now, wise guy, I’ll bet you the whole caboodle that my parrot can lick your parrot. Put up or shut up.”

Peg hooked the piece of candy.

“Um-yum!” says he, smacking.

Red looked silly. He saw now that Peg had been arguing in fun. As for old hefty, he was in his glory. He likes to get Red’s goat. And he has learned from experience that the easiest and surest way to tease the smaller one is to argue with him about his stuff or his family’s stuff. For Red has the conceited idea that whatever stuff the Meyers family owns is the best stuff of its kind in the world.

Poppy hadn’t been with us up the creek. And on our way home we met him in the road.

“I’ve got something for you,” says he, grinning. And what do you know if he didn’t pull the lost parrot out of his coat.

“Hot dog!” says Red.

“I found it in the willows,” says Poppy.

Taking the parrot, Red fell behind with Peg. We could hear the two of them whispering and giggling together, the best of pals again. Coming into town, Scoop and Peg turned south on Grove Street and Red and I went on alone.

“What’s eating you?” says I, when the freckled one kept on giggling.

“Oh,” says he, acting big, “Peg and I know something.”

And that is all I could get out of him.