CHAPTER IV
Sunday afternoon Mark came and got me to go for a walk.
“Where to?” I asked him, because I was pretty tired and didn’t feel like I needed to do any unnecessary scattering around.
“Uncle Ike Bond’s,” says he.
Then I knew there was a reason for it, so I didn’t make any complaint. Uncle Ike drives the ’bus in Wicksville when he isn’t too busy fishing—which is mostly. He’s a great friend of ours, and if anybody in the world admires Mark Tidd more than he does then I want to see that person. Uncle Ike would get up in the middle of the night to stand on his head in the middle of the road if Mark was to ask him.
So we went to his house, which is close to the river and just outside of town. Uncle Ike was sitting on the front stoop, whittling out one of the things he’s always working on—this time it was a double chain with ten links and a sort of a bird-cage with a ball in it at the end.
“Howdy, Uncle Ike!” says Mark.
“Um?” says Uncle Ike, not speaking to us at all, “if ’tain’t that Mark Tidd ag’in. Um! Alfiredest smartest kid in town is what I say, and I been drivin’ ’bus here long enough to know.”
“G-goin’ to be busy to-morrow, Uncle Ike?” asked Mark.
“Middlin’ busy, middlin’ busy.”