The haunted hound; Read online

  All Jonathan saw was the problem he was working on.

  At last, and for the last time, he wrote ANSWER. He had done them all.

  Suddenly he was tireder than he had ever been in his life. As he reached up and dropped the pencil in the groove at the top of his desk, his arm just flopped down. He watched it slide off the desk and dangle, his limp fingers almost touching the floor.

  When he untangled his feet, his legs ached. So did his head, a little. And his clothes were soaked with sweat. His neck was stiff and his lips dry and cracked.

  When the bell rang, Jonathan looked around, wondering what was the matter.

  Slowly everyone stood up.

  Mr. Schreiker waited until they were all quiet and then said, 'Well, I hope you enjoyed that little examination. It wasn't hard now, was it?''

  There wasn't even a movement.

  He tapped the bell. ''Don't touch a pencil," he ordered. "Just arrange your papers neatly and in order and leave them face up on your desks."

  On the way out of the building and across the yard all the rest of the boys and girls talked about the exam and the answers they had gotten, but Jonathan walked alone, too tired even to think about arithmetic any more.

  There was no place in particular that he wanted to go, so he wandered along the street, his feet dragging and his head down.

  When at last he looked up, he saw the city park. The trees were all green, making deep shadows on the clipped grass, and there was a fountain with water squirting up out of the middle of it.

  Paying no attention to the signs, Jonathan walked a little way out on the grass and sat down.

  He hadn't been there ten minutes before a policeman came and told him to get off the grass.

  Jonathan drifted on. When he was hungry, he called up and told Mamie he wasn't coming home for lunch and then ate a foot-long hot dog. After that he went to a double feature.

  It was past suppertime when he got home. As soon as he opened the apartment door he knew that his father was there by the smell of his pipe.

  Jonathan hesitated a moment, a sudden feeling of helplessness dragging him down.

  The door of the den was closed, so Jonathan decided not to bother his father right now. But as he started up the stairs to his own room, Mrs. Johnson darted out of the kitchen. ''Not so fast, young man,'' she said. 'Tour father wants to

  see you right away. And " She made a lot of looking at

  her watch.

  Now it's coming, Jonathan thought, as he turned and went toward the den. He knew almost exactly what his father was going to do, and he dreaded it. He would just look at Jonathan with that faraway expression he sometimes had and then he wouldn't say a thing. It would be a lot

  better, Jonathan thought, if his father would just get mad or something.

  He knocked on the door and went in, closing the door behind him.

  His father looked tired. On the desk in front of him were a lot of those long sheets of paper lawyers use.

  ''Hello, Dad,'' Jonathan said, standing with his back almost touching the door.

  ''Hello, son. Hungry?''

  "Well, sort of."

  His father stood up. "Let's go see if Mamie left you anything."

  As they went out the door, his father put his hand on Jonathan's shoulder for a moment. "What kind of day have you had?"

  Jonathan thought about it but could remember only the exam. "School's over," he said.

  In the kitchen he ate his supper while his father heated some coffee and drank a cup of it.

  They didn't talk much. His father told him about the trip and that he was going to buy a new car. Jonathan was interested in that and, together, they decided that the best kind would be a convertible.

  Jonathan knew that his father was waiting, just as he was. When they got back to the den, it would come. It would be rough then.

  Jonathan finished and stacked the dishes. On the way through the living room his father stopped to talk to Mrs.

  Johnson, so Jonathan went on alone and was waiting, his back against the wall, when his father came in.

  His father closed the door, sat down, and then took a long time to put the tobacco in his pipe.

  Jonathan noticed that the report was still propped up against the pens.

  After his father got the pipe going, he lifted the report card and tapped it with the pipestem. "You've had a rough summer, haven't you, son?''

  Jonathan nodded. ''Guess I flunked," he said, not wanting to drag the thing out.

  ''Have you got your exam mark yet? That's got to be counted, too."

  Jonathan tried to smile, but his lips were stiff. "I'd have to make about a hundred on the exam to pass the whole grade, I guess."

  "How did you do on the exam? Was it hard?"

  "I don't know," Jonathan admitted. "I had a kind of a feeling that I got some of the answers right, but it was just a feeling, maybe."

  His father dropped the report card in the wastebasket and smoked his pipe. "I called up Mr. Schreiker and asked him to let me know how you did as soon as he could."

  Jonathan again tried to smile.

  His father thought for a long time. "Jonathan, how would }0u like to go off to school? A prep school somewhere?"

  "A boarding school?"

  His father nodded.

  Jonathan thought about it for a while. "I don't think it would make any difference—in my low marks, I mean. It just wouldn't make any difference at all, I guess.''

  His father looked up at him suddenly and then looked away. ''Nothing makes very much difference to you, does it, son?" he asked, his voice quiet and slow.

  ''Well ..." Jonathan said, not knowing what to say. "Some things do, I think."

  "What, for instance?"

  "Well, the Farm. Things seem different out there. I mean, I feel different, I guess."

  "But that was a long time ago, son."

  "Day before yesterday," Jonathan said. "I spent almost all day out there."

  His father straightened up. "You did? Why?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Dad. I Just went out there, that's all."

  His father started to say something, but the phone rang.

  Jonathan could hear a flat voice talking, and as his father listened his face began to change. At first it was the way it usually was around the apartment—friendly, a little sad, and, somehow, far away. But now, as he listened, his face changed to what Jonathan called the "lawyer look." You couldn't tell how he felt, or what he was thinking, or anything else. His face wasn't exactly a blank—you knew he was thinking something—but you'd never find out what it was until he chose to tell you.

  "Thank you. Good-by," his father said, in the polite, cold lawyer's voice he sometimes used.

  His father swung slowly around in the chair and looked at Jonathan, the ''lawyer look" fading away. Then he got up and held out his hand. ''Congratulations, son. You made a hundred on that examination this morning."

  Jonathan \ent over to a chair and sat down. "A hundred?" he asked.

  His father was smiling. "Yep. Perfect, Jonny. You passed for the year."

  "I wonder w^hat happened?" Jonathan asked, almost talking to himself as he thought about Judy and the dollars.

  "Schreiker tried very hard to hint that perhaps you had cheated a little."

  Jonathan looked up, surprised. "No," he said. "I didn't cheat. There wasn't any way to."

  His father came over and gave him a little push on the shoulder. "Nice going," he said. "It must have given Schreiker a big surprise."

  "Me, too."

  His father walked around a little, grinning all the time. "That's really fine!" he said. "I'm proud of you, son."

  "Judy Shelley taught me how," Jonathan said.

  "Who's she?"

  "She's Mr. \^orth's niece. Her mother bought the old Forbes place, next to the Farm, you remember?"

  "I remember," his father said. Then he went back to the desk and sat down.

  "Dad," Jonathan said, his mouth suddenly dry, ''are
you still going to sell the Farm?"

  ''Well '' Then he stopped to work on his pipe. ''Well,

  yes/' he said. "The taxes are going up on it all the time. It's expensive to keep and, if we don't sell it soon, we'll have to spend a lot of money to keep the house from falling apart."

  "It's not going to fall apart," Jonathan said. "It's gray and the paint's kind of peeling off now, but it's a strong house, Dad."

  "But if we don't live in it or use the place at all, why not sell it, son?"

  "Because," Jonathan said. "Because it's where we used to live. It's where Mother lived. It's where all the dogs used to be and the horses. Just because it's our Farm, Dad." Suddenly he was afraid he was going to cry.

  His father thought for a long time. "Son, maybe it's all wrong, but there isn't any way to live your life backwards. You have to keep going into the future. And sometimes you have to forget the past entirely."

  Jonathan wondered what kind of future he would have living all his life in a city. "All right," he said.

  His father looked happier. "After all, son, it's only a piece of land and a house."

  Jonathan nodded. "Just a piece of land and a house," he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Kings were different for Jonathan in the morning. He \oke up at exactly seven o'clock and started to get right out of bed. Then he remembered that he had passed and that school was over. It made him feel so good, he got up any-wa'.

  His father \as eating breakfast.

  "Morning, Dad/' Jonathan said, sitting down.

  His father put the newspaper away. "Good morning. How does it feel to be a mathematical genius?''

  Jonathan just laughed.

  "I've been thinking," his father said. "That hundred deserves something pretty special, Jon. Think awhile and tell me what you'd like to have more than anything else."

  "I don't have to think. All I want is a dog."

  His father didn't look up. "A dog, son? Well, in the first place you couldn't keep one here in the apartment. And in the second no dog is going to be happy in a city."

  Jonathan said quietly, "If we lived at the Farm I could

  have a dog. And we wouldn't have to pay rent for this place. And we could plant crops and make some money on the Farm."

  ''Mrs. Johnson wouldn't live out there, son. Who'd take care of you when I was away?"

  ''Her!" Jonathan said. ''I don't need her to take care of me any more. So you wouldn't have to pay her salary. But Mamie would go back. Then, with a new car, it wouldn't take you long to drive back and forth." He stopped to get his breath, then went on, talking as fast as he could. ''And if anybody had to take care of me, Mrs. Worth could, couldn't she? And I could ride horseback to school with Judy. And have a dog." He paused again and then asked, "Couldn't we just go back out there for a little while, Dad? Just for a little while?"

  His father had the lawyer look again and the cold, polite voice. "That's out of the question, son."

  Jonathan didn't say anything else until he was almost through eating breakfast. At last, though, he told his father about catching the bass. "And Judy really was surprised," he added. "At first she didn't think the spinning rod was any good. But after that fish she changed her mind. You don't mind if I give it to her, do you, because I did."

  "Certainly not," his father said.

  "I won't ever need it again," Jonathan said.

  "Oh, there are other places to fish, Jon." 1 guess so.

  His father got up then and left for his office. Jonathan,

  feeling strangely sad and defeated, wandered into the kitchen.

  As soon as the door closed Mamie looked at him sternly.

  ''I heard every word you said," she told him, still stern.

  ''One of these days when you're listening at the door, somebody's going to open it and bop you/' he warned her.

  ''Ain't bopped me yet and ain't gonna. Listen, now, Jonathan, don't talk to your dad about going out to the Farm to live. It hurts him something awful."

  "How?"

  "You're too young to know. But he was a man who truly loved his wife, and when she died—oh, she was a beautiful woman—it like to have broke his heart. If he lived out there, he'd just naturally have to think about her all the time, and that would break his heart. It was out there that he saw her well and happy for the last time. Now he's coming along real good; he's getting over his sorrow. He ain't working so hard night and day to keep from thinking about her. So, maybe, after a while, we can go back. But not now, Jonathan. Not now."

  "I guess not," Jonathan said, feeling sadder than ever.

  "And don't you go out there no more. Your dad shouldn't even be made to think about the Farm. So don't you go out there and come back talking about it."

  "Suppose he doesn't even know about it? Suppose I just go and not let him find out?" Jonathan asked.

  "That'd be all right, long as you're mighty careful not to let him know." Mamie sat down. "Oh, but I'd love to go

  back out there. I can't cook in this httle old kitchen with everything shining at me all the time. And this place is too high up off the ground. Me, I like to walk right out the back door and there's the ground to put my feet on.''

  With no school Jonathan just wasted the whole morning doing nothing. He found the superintendent of the building, who pointed out to him what would happen if they let dogs into the apartment. ''Suppose all three hundred apartments had a dog, Jonathan? And all those three hundred dogs had puppies? That'd make about a thousand dogs. Then next year those thousand dogs would have puppies; that'd make five thousand dogs maybe. Man, there'd be so many dogs in here the people couldn't get in. And the racket and the dog fights. No, sir, we just can't let in the first dog."

  When Jonathan got hungry, he wandered back to the apartment. Mamie told him that there was a letter for him.

  He was surprised, and looked to see who it was from before he read it. It was signed, 'Tours truly, Judith Worth Shelley."

  Dear Jonathan:

  I hope you passed your examination all right. If you did not, I will feel sorry.

  I like the rod and reel you gave me very much and I have some real reel oil for it and keep it in a closet so nothing like a dog or a horse can knock it down or hurt it.

  It is a very nice rod and reel. I cannot make it throw anything anywhere. I tried very hard to make it throw some-

  thing somewhere. Then my uncle tried to make it throw and after him my aunt, but it will not throw. So I am writing you this letter to find out how to make it. I would be obliged if you would \Tite me a letter saying how it is supposed to throw. Write it real clear so I will know what it says and how to do it.

  The best way is for you to come back someday and show me how to make it throw.

  Yours truly,

  Judith Worth Shelley

  P.S. That dog Pot Likker went away the night you went away and he has not come back yet. It makes me sad but not as sad as I would be if it had been one of the other dogs. My uncle says he thinks a rattlesnake got him.

  It made Jonathan sad, too, and he thought about the dog as he ate lunch. Then he went into his father's den and started to wTite Judy a letter. At first it was easy to tell her how^ to take the rod with her right hand, the reel hanging down underneath, and then take the line with your finger. But when he got to the part about what to do next he got all mixed up and couldn't remember very well himself.

  He was still struggling with the letter w^hen Mrs. Johnson walked in. 'Tackage for you/' she said, handing him a long oblong package.

  'Thanks, Mrs. Johnson."

  *'What's in it?" she asked, standing in the door.

  *'I don't know," Jonathan said. 'Til open it after a while. I'm writing a letter now."

  'Who to?'' she asked.

  ''Somebody/'

  "Well, naturally. But who?"

  He knew that she would keep pestering him until he told her, so he did, and she finally left the room.

  After a few more minutes he gave up trying to
explain to Judy in writing. He opened the package and then stood there looking at what was in it and loving his father. This was a time when he could just love him and not even try to understand the way he acted sometimes, or the way he thought.

  His father had bought him a bamboo spinning rod and a reel exactly like the one he had given Judy. There were also some spinning lures and braided nylon line. The whole thing fitted into an aluminum case. There was a note in the package, too. Jonathan opened it and a ten-dollar bill fell out. On a little card his father had written: ''It's been so long since I've had a chance to go fishing, I've forgotten what they'll bite, so use the enclosed if the ones I picked won't catch 'em. Good luck, Yr. Dad."

  Jonathan went straight over to the phone and called the bus line. There was a bus leaving for Millersville in twenty minutes.

  Jonathan got out of the bus and walked through the woods to the Farm. He had brought his new fishing gear and he went directly to Mr. Worth's house.

  There were dogs on the porch, dogs under the house,

  dogs coming from everywhere. And all of them barking at him. Jonathan stopped in the yard, waiting for somebody to come out of the house. But when no one did and the dogs kept on barking, Jonathan took a deep breath and suddenly yelled as loud as he could, ''Hey, you/"

  The dogs stopped barking, all together, and at the same instant, and sat staring at him.

  Jonathan laughed out loud. He must have sounded like his father when he hollered at them at night.

  Old Mister Blue came slowly over and put his front paws on Jonathan's chest. Jonathan rubbed behind his ears and finalh' pushed him down again.

  Pot Likker was missing.

  Jonathan went up on the porch and knocked, but no one answered. The house wasn't shut up, so he decided Judy must be down around the stables somewhere.

  With some of the dogs going along with him, he went down to the stables. When he called, not too loud, for Judy, the horses came and stuck their heads out of the stalls. There were four of them and one colt, who stuck her head out, too.