Ginger Pye (15 page)

"Edgar," Mama said to Papa. "I told you some time ago there seems to have been some sort of unsavory character around."

"I know it, Lucy," said Papa, looking troubled and hurt and running his fine hand through his thin red hair. He could not understand how anyone could steal a pet belonging to a child. He just could not understand it, and he stomped through the house shaking his head sternly.

Jerry could understand it. Everybody in the whole town, almost, knew about Ginger on the fire escape and made comments on the intellectual dog, because they had read the story in the
Cranbury Chronicle.
Not many extraordinary events happened in Cranbury and when one did, the ins and outs of it were naturally discussed at length and for many many days. Even the teacher in Jerry's class got over being angry about the hullabaloo when she read the story in the paper and read her name there and found she, too, was famous. Probably the unsavory character had read the story of Ginger on the fire escape and this made him decide once and for all to get hold of the brilliant puppy.

It would be hard to say why all the Pyes thought the unsavory character was a man, and not a woman, a boy, or a girl, for no one had ever really seen him.
They had heard his footsteps, and they had seen his hat on four occasions. Since his old felt hat looked like the hat of a man, naturally they just reached the conclusion that the unsavory character was a man, without even considering the other possibilities.

This shows that the Pyes were not good detectives, but none of them ever for one minute thought of themselves as detectives. Mr. Pye thought of himself as a bird man and a father, Mrs. Pye as a mother and a housewife, Jerry as a rock man and a boy, and Rachel as a bird man and a girl. There was not a detective among them. There wasn't even a detective in the whole town of Cranbury for that matter, but there was a Chief of Police named Mr. Larrimer, and they intended to speak to him.

First, however, it was sensible to ask Mrs. Speedy, who was out of the hospital now, to try and rack her brains a little and see if she could remember what the other person looked like who had wanted to buy Ginger in the first place. This they did before they went to the Chief of Police.

In spite of none of them being detectives this was a very astute step for the Pyes to take. After all, Mrs. Speedy was the only person who had ever really seen the unsavory character, that is if
that
person who had wanted Ginger and waved the dollar at her and
this
person who had stolen Ginger were one and the same. That, of course, they did not and would not know, but they all had the feeling they were the same.

So the Pyes went to Mrs. Speedy, and she said so many people came to her dairy for eggs or milk or butter or, perhaps, to buy a chicken, and last August was such a long time away, you bet, that she couldn't say whether it was man, woman, or child; and she wouldn't want to get the innocent in trouble, you bet. She said, if it ever got to the point where women served on the jury, she would always say, "Innocent." You bet. Moreover, she was awfully absentminded, and had had that stroke, so she could not walk or talk awfully well; and it was a wonder, considering she was also a little deaf and did not see too well either, that she remembered Ginger and Jerry after all these months, let alone remembering what the other party looked like. No, she could not recollect that other person, but it was a shame Ginger was gone. "A shame, you bet," she said. But then, as they were leaving, she said, "I remember now. That person had a curious hat on—it seems to me it was on the yellow. Yes. On the yellow, you bet."

The Pyes thanked her gratefully. They appreciated the interest she had shown and the description of the hat, but they knew no more than in the beginning.

Anyway, it was undoubtedly because of the hat that Jerry and Rachel, and, in fact, all of them, had it firmly fixed in their minds that the unsavory character was a man. Rachel and Jerry were so sure of this they drew a picture of him, imagining what the horrid person looked like. The picture they drew of the man was on the order of the slick villains in the moving pictures, with a black mustache. Once the picture was drawn that way, they could not think of him as looking any different. When they went with Mr. Pye to Chief Larrimer, they brought the original drawing with them, to help him spot the man.

While they were waiting to see Chief Larrimer—there was no one ahead of them but Chief Larrimer always kept people waiting to give the appearance of being terribly busy—Rachel and Jerry examined the criminals' roster posted on the bulletin board in the Town Hall. They wanted to see if any of these criminals looked the way they had drawn Unsavory. After a careful comparison they decided there was no one like their villain. Anyway the criminals in this roster were not Cranbury criminals because, until now, there were no Cranbury criminals. These, whose pictures were in the Town Hall, were nationwide criminals who held up trains and made fake money and committed such crimes. They were hardly the sort of man Unsavory was who stole just dogs.

When they finally got to see Chief Larrimer, and Jerry had shown him the unsavory character's picture, the policeman was very interested and said Jerry and Rachel should go to art school. They told him the whole story, bringing in about the mysterious footsteps and Mrs. Speedy and the yellow felt hat.

Chief Larrimer said he knew of no such char
ackte
r, but he would be on the lookout. Chief Larrimer was a new and young Chief of Police, having succeeded the recently retired and notable Cranbury citizen, Chief Mulligan. He was anxious to do a good job and now he swung his little-used stick in a high dido, indicating he meant business.

Jerry said, "Sir," and then he realized he should have said, "Chief," so he started again, and his words came out, "Sir chief," which sounded odd, but he went on nevertheless. "Sir chief," he said. "If you find a man with that sort of a hat, you can tell whether it is our man or not because the hat of our man will have a red crayon mark inside the band where Dick Badger marked it up at the res', and the hats of the innocent will not."

Chief Larrimer twirled his billy stick. "If he marked his hat," he said, "why didn't he turn the man over to me so I could jail him?"

When it was explained that they had seen only the hat and not the man, himself, Chief Larrimer was very interested. He was more impressed than ever that Rachel and Jerry had had the sense to draw a picture of him since they had seen only his
hat. He wished that the people who came and complained to him about people stealing their chickens had one-half the sense.

The children then gave Chief Larrimer one of their clippings from the
Cranbury Chronicle
with Ginger's picture, labeled "Intellectual dog," and the story of him on the fire escape. The Chief remembered having read the story. "I thought at the time," he said, chuckling, "what kind of a breed of a dog is that? Intellectual dog." He thumbtacked the drawing and the clipping on the bulletin board and they looked impressive.

"Well," he said. He obviously meant they could all go now. "I pick up stray dogs now and then," he said. "Next time I pick one up, and no one claims it, I'll give it to you."

He meant this kindly but Jerry gulped and said, "No, thanks." After all, it was Ginger he wanted and not some other dog.

Now, having told Chief Larrimer, there was nothing for the Pyes to do but continue the search and hope the Chief was searching too, in places they would not know about.

On the way home from the Town Hall they happened to meet Sam Doody. They told him about the losing of Ginger Pye and he was very angry. "If I
ever catch the fellow who stole your dog, I'll thrash the living daylights out of him," he said. He was still grinning, because Sam Doody was always grinning, but there was an angry glint in his eye. He promised to look over all tall fences and to keep an eye out everywhere he went. He was especially interested when Rachel told him it was the dollar he had given Jerry for dusting the pews that had bought Ginger in the first place.

Dick Badger's father ran an ad, free, every day for two weeks in the "lost and found" column of the
Cranbury Chronicle.
But nothing came of this.

They should run it in the headlines, not in the small lost and found type,
thought Jerry. Naturally, since the ads were free, he said nothing.

Uncle Bennie was almost inconsolable. "Ginger back yet?" he asked every Saturday when he came to lunch.

Everyone shook his head, too heavyhearted to say anything.

Uncle Bennie saw that Jerry and Rachel felt very badly. Halfheartedly, knowing it would not compensate, he offered them his bubbah. "Ginger come back soon," he promised them, to make them feel better. And he added importantly, "Uncle Bennie find Ginger. I find."

Many children in Cranbury helped Jerry and Rachel search for Ginger, the dog with the pencil. Sometimes they met at the flagpole on the Green and separated, going in six different directions, trusting one was bound to be right, some racing, some crying, "I know just where to look."

Most often Dick Badger joined in the searching. Duke was told to stick his nose to the ground and behave like a bloodhound. Duke behaved like a bloodhound, but he didn't find Ginger. He found only a great many peculiar objects which he brought to Dick and laid at his feet, hoping wistfully that these were what was meant by the earnest pleading. He even scratched his stomach without anyone scratching his back but apparently this did not do either.

Sometimes Rachel and her friend, Addie Egan, went searching on their own.

"I never knew we'd meet a vilyun in real life," said Rachel to Addie Egan one day, when they were off searching. "Only in books."

"A what?" asked Addie Egan respectfully. Her admiration for her best friend was boundless, but she had never heard the expression.

"A vilyun," said Rachel patiently.

"Oh," said Addie thoughtfully. Then rather hesitantly, for it did not seem good policy to correct her defender—and everybody would still be saying she had cooties, and even calling her "Cooty," if it had not been for Rachel—she said, "I thought the word was pronounced 'villun.'"

"No," said Rachel confidently. "It's vilyun. Like million."

"I think it's villun," said Addie Egan bravely.

"No," said Rachel. "Vilyun. It must be vilyun because vilyun sounds more vilyunous than villun, the way you say it."

Rachel Pye liked words. Sometimes, however, she attached the wrong meaning to a word. For instance, the word
detestable.
She thought detestable meant "awfully nice." It just sounded like another way of saying "awfully nice" to her. For a time she had had the habit of saying "Detestable" to everybody who came to the house, especially to Miss Meadow, who gave Jerry lessons on the piano.

"Hello, Detestable," Rachel would greet Miss Meadow affectionately, not understanding why Mama and Miss Meadow always laughed.

After a while Mama explained the true meaning of the word to Rachel.
Detestable
meant "horrid" and not "awfully nice" at all. At first Rachel could not believe it,
detestable
sounded so nice to her. Then, when she was convinced, she was appalled. She really liked Miss Meadow and what could she be thinking, being called "Detestable" the minute she put her head in the door? But Miss Meadow seemed to consider the nickname funny and took no offense.

However, to make amends, Mama suggested that Rachel give Miss Meadow a very sweet little gilt vanity case which Rachel had got from the grocery store from saving coffee coupons. Rachel had meant to keep pennies in it for it was just the right size
for pennies and had, moreover, a little gilt chain attached to it. At the end of the chain was a little ring. You could wear it on your finger.

But Mama said she should give the vanity case to Miss Meadow. Rachel was too young for vanities anyway, she said. So Rachel had. Miss Meadow was delighted and filled i' up with talcum powder instead of pennies. She hadn't caught on to the idea it would be marvelous for pennies, and Rachel did miss the pretty little case. She then, at Mama's suggestion, tried switching her greeting from "Hello, Detestable," to "Hello, Adorable,"but it never sounded as good and soon she dropped everything but the hello.