I felt like telling him, “None of your beeswax.” But I held in. For a boy doesn’t gain anything by being sassy to older people.
But when Bid Stricker percolated into the summer scenery and tossed some more of the “Aunt Jemima” stuff at me. I took after him lickety-cut I couldn’t run him down, though, for I had on my tight leather shoes. So I gave him a few rocks to remember me by. One of these flying rocks went kersmack! into the tin stomach of Doc Leland’s old Lizzie as it gurgled around a corner. Gee! Doc almost swallowed his false teeth. Then, in the thought that he had a blow-out he socked on the brakes with such force that his hat and nose glasses shot right over the top of his head into the back seat.
“Just my confounded luck,” he wheezed, throwing the jack and other tire tools out of the car. Carrying the jack from wheel to wheel, and finding all four tires full of air, he stood and stared.
“I’ve had punctures,” he rumbled, “that I never heard. But this is the first time I ever heard one that I haven’t got.”
Grinning, I asked him how Mr. Weckler was.
“Him?” he slam-banged the jack and other stuff into the back of the car on top of his straw hat. “Oh, he’s jest about the same. Opened his eyes once an’ started talkin’. But it was stuff we couldn’t make any sense of fur the most part.”
“And he hasn’t told you yet who hit him?”
“Nope.”
At the church Poppy led me quickly into the basement, as he wanted to talk with me in secret behind the furnace.
“Jerry,” came excitedly, “I’ve found out something. Did you know that this river pirate of yours used to raise cucumbers?”