Henry and Ribsy (Henry Huggins #3)(9)

“I sure did,” said Scooter. “He’s a vicious dog!”

“He is not vicious. He was protecting my bike!” Henry was growing more excited. “He isn’t cross at all. He was just protecting my bike.”

Scooter did not look convinced. “Don’t you see?” Henry went on. “That explains about the garbageman. Ribsy was protecting the garbage from the garbageman because he thought it was mine!”

“He’s a watchdog,” agreed Beezus.

“Sure,” said Henry eagerly. “It takes a smart dog to be a watchdog.”

At this Robert and Scooter began to shout with laughter. “What a watchdog!” hooted Scooter.

“Whoever heard of a dog guarding the garbage?” Robert doubled up with laughter.

“Your valuable garbage,” shouted Scooter.

“Your precious garbage,” howled Robert.

“Aw, cut it out,” said Henry sheepishly and began to laugh, partly because he thought it was funny but mostly from relief at proving that Ribsy was not a vicious dog. His fishing trip was still safe!

Robert and Scooter whooped and pounded each other on the back. Ribsy, sensing that they were laughing at him, hung his head and slunk over to Henry, who hugged him and went on laughing.

“Boy, oh, boy,” gasped Scooter. “I can just see the Hugginses’ backyard a year from now when it’s ten feet deep—”

“In Henry’s very own valuable precious garbage,” finished Robert, and the boys whooped some more.

Henry stopped laughing. The picture of his backyard ten feet deep in garbage was too terrible to think about.

Mr. Huggins appeared in the kitchen door. “What’s all this about?” he asked, as he joined the group on the driveway. When he heard the story, he laughed, too. He snapped his fingers at Ribsy and when the dog bounded over to him, he slapped his side and said, “You’re a pretty good dog, aren’t you?” Ribsy wriggled with delight.

Henry’s friends, knowing it must be nearly dinnertime, started to leave. “I’ll look at your horn tomorrow if you’ll get your bike out of the garage yourself,” promised Scooter.

“Take good care of your garbage,” said Robert.

“Aw, keep quiet,” answered Henry, and grinned. When the others were gone he turned to his father. “Say, Dad, about this garbage…”

“What about it?” asked his father.

“Well, we didn’t have any trouble with Ribsy protecting it from the garbage man when Mom took it out and I was wondering…” Henry paused and looked at his father.

Mr. Huggins smiled. “Wondering what?”

“Well, I was wondering if there wasn’t something else you would rather have me do for the extra fifteen cents than take out the garbage.”

Mr. Huggins thought it over. “All right,” he said, “I’ll take out the garbage if you’ll clip around the edge of the lawn after I mow it each week.”

It was Henry’s turn to think it over. Clipping the edge of the lawn was harder than taking out the garbage. It meant crawling around on his hands and knees for about an hour. Still, as far as Henry knew now, there was no possible way either he or Ribsy could get into trouble doing it. “OK, Dad,” he said. “It’s a deal!”

“OK,” said Mr. Huggins. “But just to make sure, we’d better put Ribsy in the basement when we hear the garbageman coming.”

“He won’t mind for a little while,” said Henry, giving the garbage can a good hard whack as he and his father went into the house.





3


Henry Gets a Haircut




Henry was looking through the refrigerator for something to eat, something that wasn’t too hard and wasn’t too chewy, because he had two teeth so loose he could wiggle them with his tongue. They were upper teeth, one on either side of his four grown-up front teeth. Henry wanted to keep them three more days, so he would have something to show off to the other boys the first day of school.

Ribsy pawed at the refrigerator door. “All right,” said Henry, “you’ve been pretty good about keeping out of trouble lately.” He tossed a piece of horse meat to him.

Let’s see, thought Henry, poking first his loose right tooth and then his loose left tooth with his tongue, peanut butter is too sticky. I guess I’ll have some bread and apricot-pineapple jam.

As he reached for the jam jar, Henry heard his mother come in the front door. “Hi, Mom,” he called.

“Hi,” she answered, and entered the kitchen with her arms full of packages. “Wait till you see what I bought.”

“What?” asked Henry. He wiggled first his right tooth and then his left tooth as he took a slice of bread out of the bread box.

Mrs. Huggins dumped her packages on the draining board. “Electric clippers,” she announced. “The Colossal Drugstore was having a sale. Only six dollars and ninety-five cents, marked down from nine ninety-five.”

“Clippers for what?” Henry asked, as he spread butter on the bread. He wiggled his left tooth. Hm-m, he thought, it’s a little bit looser than the right tooth.

“Hair clippers, of course,” answered his mother.

Henry stopped wiggling his teeth. “Clippers for whose hair?” he asked suspiciously.