| |
HUDGEON
TALES
By Eleanor Goodman
BOOK I
CHAPTER 3
Next morning, when it was just barely light enough to see, Mr.
Joe heard a knocking at the back door, and a child’s voice.
“Mr. Joe, Mr. Joe. Let me in. It’s me… Jimmy
Jake.”
“I know who it is.” Mr. Joe groaned and opened
the door. “And what can I do for you so early in the morning?”
“I want to see the hudgeon.”
Mr. Joe put on his bathrobe and slippers and opened the door. JJ
came in and tiptoed to the window ledge in the bedroom to peek
into the walnut shell.
“Oooooooo,” he sighed. “Isn’t it
beautiful?” And indeed it was, breathing lightly--no bigger
than the fingernail on Jimmy Jake’s finger, but perfect in
every feature.
Putting his finger to his lips, Mr. Joe whispered, “Shh… let’s
let it sleep.”
The boy nodded and they quietly left the room.
Mr. Joe began to fix Jimmy Jake’s
wagon, whistling as he worked. Suddenly, he looked at the
boy. “Didn’t I fix this the other day? And the
day before that?”
JJ’s face turned red.
“Guess you did. Guess it just keeps breaking.”
“On purpose maybe?” asked Mr. Joe.
JJ smiled sheepishly. “Guess so.”
“That sure is a lot of trouble for both of us. There must
be an easier way. How about I take you on as a helper, if
that would be O.K. with your folks.”
Jimmy Jake’s eyes grew big. “Really? You really mean
that?”
Then he added, “Aunt Janine and Uncle Nedrick want to go
away next week, and they’ve been looking for someone to take
care of me. Do you think I could stay here with you?”
His eyes sparkled. “Could I please, could I please? I
won’t be any trouble. I promise.”
Mr. Joe couldn’t resist. “All
right. I’ll go talk to your aunt and uncle now, and you can
stay here and mind the shop.” The boy could hardly
keep from jumping up and down with excitement, but he nodded and
tried to look grown-up and responsible.
Mr. Joe put down his tools and
left. He knew Jimmy Jake’s aunt and uncle, who’d been
caring for the boy since the death of his parents. They were nice
people who saw to it that Jimmy Jake was fed and clothed and went
to church and did his lessons. But they were busy people, very
busy people, who had not the time or energy to keep up with an
energetic boy. Mr. Joe was sure they would be more than happy to
let Jimmy Jake stay with him. And they were. Especially since their
trip was going to be a long one.
Meanwhile, when he was sure that
Mr. Joe was out of hearing, JJ let out a triumphant yell. He walked
around the shop, opening drawers and cupboards to see what was
in them and then closing them carefully. He knew that Mr. Joe liked
things neat and tidy.
Suddenly, he heard a noise in the house. “Burglars?” he
thought. “Not at this time of day.”
Then he remembered. The hudgeon!
JJ dashed up the stairs, through the back door and into the kitchen. Stunned
by what he saw there, he let his mouth fall open.
What a total mess! There was flour
on the floor, beans on the counters and butter looking like someone
or something had been sliding on it. Every drawer and cupboard
door was open, with jars overturned and their contents spilling
over. Who could have done this?
“Won’t Mr. Joe be mad! Sure hope he doesn’t
think I did it.”
The hudgeon? He shook his head...
couldn’t be.
But maybe it could. JJ went over to the windowsill in the bedroom
and peeked into the walnut shell. There was the hudgeon, sound
asleep. He looked closely at the innocent little face and right
at the tip of the nose was the tiniest smudge of flour.
JJ heard the back door open and
an astonished voice say,“What happened to
my clean kitchen? Jimmy Jake, where are you? What have you been
doing?”
JJ rushed to the kitchen. “I didn’t do it…honest
I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
He answered his own question. “That hudgeon.”
JJ nodded, and led him by the hand to the bedroom. They both
looked down at the little creature’s flour smudged nose. Just
then the eyes opened and focused on Jimmy Jake. Dark brown
and flecked with gold they were. The boy stared into those eyes
and stood silently for a long, long time without moving.
“JJ, are you all right?” asked Mr. Joe.
“She says she’s hungry. That’s what she was doing
in the kitchen; looking for food. She didn’t find anything
she could eat”
“How do you know? I didn’t hear anything. And how do
you know it’s a she?”
“I just know.”
There was deep understanding in JJ’s voice. “We have
to find something she can eat.”
So back to the kitchen they went. Mr. Joe cut a tiny slice of bread
and poured a thimbleful of milk, and a bottle cap of soup, a baby
spoon of ice cream and some Jell-O. JJ took it all to the
hudgeon.
“Too crumbly,” she said about the
bread. “Too slurpy,” about the soup. The
ice cream was too cold and the Jell-O too “shimmy-shaky.” Milk
was just plain “blah.”
“Let’s go out in the garden. That’s where
we found her bed,” Mr. Joe suggested.
They looked for fruit, but all the trees and bushes were bare.
JJ looked around the yard and headed for the honeysuckle bush and
picked a few blossoms. Then he very gently pulled out the center
pistil of one of them in such a way that a tiny droplet of nectar
formed at the bottom of the blossom. He did this to four blossoms,
then, ever so carefully, brought them to the hudgeon.
Mr. Joe followed him and heard a faint, pleased purring of satisfaction
and a soft voice saying:
“Oh yes indeed, this suits me fine
I really like this food of mine.”
>> Click
here to continue to next chapter >>
|
|
