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Rick and Ruddy

<h1>RICK AND RUDDY A BOY AND HIS DOG</h1> BY HOWARD R. GARIS <h3>CHAPTER I RICK WANTS A DOG</h3> Rick Dalton sat on the sandy beach tossing white stones and bits of shell into the little waves that broke almost at his feet. The tide was just on the turn; soon it would come in, and the big, booming rollers would drive Rick farther up toward the dunes, where the wind was making a queer, whistling sound as it bent the long spears of saw-edged grass, whipping off venturesome, gray hoppers, that had boldly crawled up, perhaps to get a better view of the heaving ocean. "I don't care!" murmured Rick, but, from the tone of his voice, and the look on his face, one might have said that he did care, and very much, too, about something. But still Rick said: "I don't care!" And he said it over and over, until it was almost like the song the waves seemed to sing as they swished up the beach, rolling over and over the white sand, pebbles and bits of shell, swishing them along as if they, too, didn't care what happened. "I don't care!" exclaimed Rick again, as he tossed a larger stone out so that it fell with a splash near a floating bit of wood, and frightened away an osprey that was about to swoop down and catch a sea bass which had ventured too near the surface. "I want a dog! I just want a dog, and I think mother might let me have one! I don't care!" Just why he said that Rick didn't know, for he did care very much about something—and that was to have a dog. He dug his fingers deep in the sand, scooped up a wet mass of it in his palm, and tossed it high into the air. It fell about him in a little shower, and then, as Rick was about to repeat this, a wave, larger than any of the others, rolled up and nearly wet his feet. And as Rick had on his shoes and stockings, he hastily scrambled back out of the way of the ocean, for salt water is bad for leather, as everyone knows who has ever been to the seashore. "Tide's coming in!" mused Rick. "Must be four o'clock. If I had a dog now——" He rose slowly to his feet, looked up and down the beach and out across the sea. In the distance was a smudge of smoke from a coast steamer. "Wish I was on her!" murmured the boy. "If I was maybe mother'd let me have a dog. There's most always a dog on a ship. Oh, why can't I have a dog?" No one answered Rick Dalton. There was no one there to speak, unless, perhaps, it was the fish hawk, and, if he could have talked Rick's language he might have told the small boy what he thought about him for having spoiled his dinner. For the dinner of the osprey depended on his catch of fish—and, not only his dinner, but the dinner of the hungry, little whistling birds in the dead pine tree farther inland. But all the boy heard was the swish of the waves as they whispered among the bits of shell and white pebbles—that and the whistle of the wind in the rank grass that grew atop the sand dunes. "Tide's coming in," mused Rick. "Four o'clock, and I've got to go to the store. If I had a dog he could carry the things for me. Oh, I wish I had a dog!" Rick dug the toe of his shoe into the sand, turned for a last look at the ocean and then trudged over the little hills that bordered the shore and soon was on his way to the village. It was when he was at home again, after having gone to the store, as his mother had told him to do at 4 o'clock—when the tide turned—it was then that Rick again voiced his wish. "Why can't I have a dog, mother?" he asked. "I'm old enough now, and lots of the boys have 'em! Henry Blake, he's got a dog he says I can have. Why can't I have him?" "Doesn't Henry want his dog any more?" asked Mrs. Dalton, as she took the bundle of groceries Rick had brought. "No!" was the eager answer, and Rick seemed to seize on the question as a ray of hope. "Oh, can I have his dog?" "No, Richard, dear," answered his mother gently. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but, really I don't want you to have a dog—just yet." "But when may I have one?" he asked. "Well, perhaps when Mazie gets a little older, so I could trust her around a dog. As she is now, she'd just as soon pull a dog's tail as not, or put her hand in his mouth, and she might be bitten. You wouldn't want your little sister to be bitten, would you?" "No, mother! Course not! Henry's dog doesn't bite. And if I could have him I'd take care of Mazie so she wouldn't pull his tail, or anything! Please, mother!" Mrs. Dalton shook her head. "You might think you could look after Mazie," she said with a smile, "but I'd always be afraid—for a while, at least." "How long before she'll be old enough so I can have a dog, mother?" asked Rick. "Oh, in a year, perhaps. But I wish you wouldn't tease now, Rick, dear. Bring me a few chips to boil the kettle. It's almost supper time and your father will be here soon." "If I had a dog," said Rick, in a dull, sad sort of voice, "I could teach him to bring in a basket of chips every night. It would be a good trick for him!" "Why, Richard, dear! You don't mind bringing me in a few chips; do you?" asked his mother. "Oh, no'm, course not!" he answered quickly. "But it would be a lot of fun if I had a dog and he could bring 'em in; wouldn't it, mother?" "It might, if he didn't run all over the yard with the basket, and spill my wood," she answered. "Oh, my dog wouldn't do that!" declared Rick. "He'd be a good dog. Henry Blake's dog is a good one. His name is Spot and he jumps in Weed River and brings out sticks when Hen throws 'em in." "Why does Henry want to give away his dog?" asked Mrs. Dalton, when Rick had set the basket of chips behind the stove. "'Cause he's going to move away. Hen's father's going to work over in Bellport at the electric light place and Hen said I could have his dog. He's going to get a new one. Please, couldn't I?" "No, Richard, dear! I'm sorry, but really I'd be worried if you had a dog. I'd be thinking, all the while, that you or Sister were going to be bitten. After you get older, perhaps you may have a dog. Now go get Mazie for me, please. I want to wash her and get her ready for supper." Rick found his sister playing in the front yard with Mabel Fenton, who lived next door. The two little girls had their dolls, and were dressing them up in green leaves, pretending they were new dresses. "Oh, Ricky!" exclaimed Mazie (which was a pet name for Mary) as she walked around the side path with her brother. "Oh, Ricky! What you think?" "What?" he asked. "Why Mabel and I are goin' to have a doll party to-morrow, and you can come to it if you want to, Ricky!" invited Mazie. "I don't want to come to a doll party!" exclaimed Rick, as he tossed a bit of stick up into the air, and then hit it with a swiftly-thrown stone. "Doll party! Pooh!" "We're goin' to have real things to eat—not make-believe!" went on Mazie. "Honest?" asked Rick. "Honest cross-my-heart!" exclaimed his sister. She was about two years younger than Rick, who was "nine-goin'-on-ten." "Um! Well, maybe I'll come," said Rick, as if he were giving the favor, instead of getting it. "Could I bring my dog, Mazie?" he asked. "Your dog!" exclaimed the little girl. "You hasn't got any dog, Ricky Dalton!" "I know I haven't got one now!" he admitted, very frankly. "But maybe I'll get one. I keep on asking mother, every day, and maybe she'll let me have one after a while. You wouldn't be afraid of a dog; would you, Mazie?" "Course not!" she answered. "'Cause maybe I'll get Henry Blake's dog after he moves away," went on Rick. "I wish I had a dog. He could bring in chips and go to the store with me. I was down to the beach to-day, and I just wanted a dog an awful lot." "Does dogs ever come up out of the ocean?" asked Mazie. "Dogs come out of the ocean? Course not!" exclaimed her brother. "How could they?" "Well, we get wood for the fire out of the ocean—it comes up on the beach," said Mazie, stopping to look at a little speck of dirt on her doll's nose. "Wood comes out of the ocean and once we got some lemons and cocoanuts—don't you 'member?" "Yes, I remember," answered Rick. "But the lemons and cocoanuts were washed overboard off a ship that sank, and some of the cocoanuts were spoiled sour." "A dog wouldn't spoil sour if he was in the ocean; would he?" Mazie wanted to know. "Course not!" laughed Rick. "But dogs couldn't come up out the ocean, and be washed on the beach like the lemons and cocoanuts." "A dog could, if he was washed overboard off a ship," went on Mazie, for, having lived all her life near the sea, she knew what being washed overboard meant. "If a dog fell off a ship and come on shore then you could have him; couldn't you, Ricky?" she asked. "Yes," answered her brother, slowly, "but I don't guess that will happen. But oh! I do want a dog!" It was after supper that night, when Rick was playing ball in the vacant lots back of his house, and Mazie and the little girl from next door were sitting on the side steps, talking about the play-party for their dolls next day, that Mrs. Dalton said to her husband: "I don't know what to do about Rick!" "Why, he hasn't been bad; has he?" asked Mr. Dalton. "Oh, no, Rick is a very good boy," his mother answered. "But he does tease so for a dog!" "A dog!" exclaimed Mr. Dalton. "Hum, yes, a dog! Well, I s'pose it's natural for a boy to want a dog. I had one when I was a lad." "Did he ever bite you?" asked his wife. "No, I can't say he ever did." "That's what I'm so afraid of—that if ever Rick did have a dog it might bite him or Mazie. And, if it did——" Mrs. Dalton did not finish. But she looked at her husband and shook her head. "Good dogs don't very often bite, unless they're teased," he said. "And I don't believe Rick would tease a dog." "No, but Mazie might. She isn't afraid of anything. The other day she came in with a little snake she had found out in the yard. It was alive, too." "Probably a milk, or garter, snake," said Mr. Dalton with a laugh. "I used to pick 'em up when I was a boy. They're harmless." "Oh, dear!" exclaimed his wife. "Would you really want Rick to have a dog?" she asked. "Hum! Well, I don't know," he slowly answered. "A boy and a dog seem to go together, somehow. But I don't s'pose it would do any harm to wait another year. If Rick teases you too much, let me talk to him, and——" "Oh, I wouldn't want to do that. I can manage him. He's got a notion that Henry Blake might give away his dog. But I don't just like that kind. I'd want a shepherd dog, I think, if ever I let the children have one." "I don't know much about Henry Blake's dog," spoke Mr. Dalton. "But I guess we won't let Rick have one right away. He can wait. Hello, nearly nine o'clock!" he went on, as he looked at his watch in the faint light of the moon, which, now and then, shone through the clouds. "I'll call the children in. Rick's finished playing ball long ago. I hear him talking with the boys over in the lots. We're going to have a storm, I guess, by the way the old ocean is booming to-night. Wind's in the north-east, too!" "Oh, I don't like north-easters!" exclaimed Mrs. Dalton. "The wind gets so terrible!" "Yes, a September storm can sometimes tear things up pretty badly," said her husband, as he arose from his seat on the porch. "Well, maybe this won't be as bad as they sometimes are." Rick and Mazie were called in and sent up to bed, and then their father and mother sat down stairs to read. The wind freshened and the beach, where Rick had sat that afternoon, tossing pebbles into the little waves, was covered with white-capped breakers. "Mazie!" called Rick, in a whisper from his room across the hall. "Mazie—are you asleep?" "Almost," she drowsily answered. "Are you?" "No. I say, Mazie, did you—did you ever say your prayers for anything you wanted an awful lot, like a—like a doll, or a pair of roller skates?" "Yep! I did once!" said the little girl. "Once I prayed for a doll carriage." "Did you get it?" asked Rick, eagerly. "No, but I got a cradle and that was just as good. Why, Rick?" "Oh—oh, nothin'!" he answered. "Good-night!" "G'-night," she murmured, sleepily. "She prayed for a doll carriage and she got a cradle," mused Rick. "I—I wonder if—if I prayed for a dog—if I'd get—a cat?" He listened to the distant booming of the surf. "I—I guess I'll take a chance," he whispered in the dark. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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