Rover was my dog, because May had given him to me, but he was May’s dog, too, because Mr. Jack Betts had given him to May. I never knew when Rover was my dog and when he was May’s dog, because girls are mostly Indian givers. When she wanted to pet Rover and take him walking, he was May’s dog—so she claimed—but when Rover howled or needed to be fed, May would say: “For goodness’ sake, George, attend to that dog of yours!”
I guess one reason Mr. Edwin Skreever did not care much for Rover was because Mr. Jack Betts had given him to May. I guess Mr. Edwin Skreever was jealous, because when Mr. Jack Betts gave Rover to May everybody thought Mr. Jack Betts was the one she was going to be married to.
Well, no matter! I only want to tell you the awful fix Wampus and I got into on account of being left up there on the island where we would be out of mischief.
On the 9th of September Parcell came up in his big motor-launch and took May and mother and the Smales all down to town to get ready for May’s wedding. So they left Mr. Edwin Skreever on the island with me and Wampus, because we could go down in Mr. Edwin Skreever’s motorboat on the 11th, which was the wedding day. I guess they were almost as glad to have Mr. Edwin Skreever out of the way as they were to have me and Wampus out of the way.
That left nobody on the island but us three and Orpheus Cadwallader, who is the caretaker and stays on the island all winter. He was to close up our cottage when we left.
So that was all right. The last thing May said before she got aboard Parcell’s launch was:
“Now, George, you be sure you don’t let Rover wander off somewhere so you can’t bring him down when you come. You had better tie him up.”
I’ve told you about Rover, and how he would wander for miles around the island, and even swim across to Oak Island and wander there, hunting a dead fish to perfume himself with.
The only way to keep him from wandering after dead fish was to tie him up, and then he howled all night. That was his second bad habit, and it was almost worse than dead fish. He was the loudest and saddest howler I ever heard. When you tied him up, he would sit down on his haunches and put his nose up and open his mouth and just let loose all the agony of all the dogs that ever suffered pain or sorrow from the days of Adam right on to today. And loudly, too. When Rover really got interested in howling, you could hear him five miles.
The only thing in Riverbank or anywhere near it that made as much noise as Rover’s howl was Mr. Jack Betts’s motorboat. His motorboat was a speed boat and was called the Skittery III, because Mr. Jack Betts had run the Skittery I and the Skittery II onto snags and mashed them to splinters. I guess that was one reason why May did not want to marry Mr. Jack Betts—she was afraid he would mash himself to splinters some day. A husband that is mashed to splinters is not much use around the house.
Mr. Edwin Skreever used to say:
“That’s Jack Betts all over! He uses a barrel of gasoline every time he takes out that boat of his—fourteen dollars to risk his life for ten miles of idiotic speed, and he hasn’t a dollar in the bank! Twenty-seven years old and not a dollar to his name!”
Even father would not ride in the Skittery III. It was a much faster boat than the others and could make thirty-five miles an hour upstream on our old Mississippi, and that is some speed! When it was going full tilt the Skittery III stood up on about three inches of the stern end of its keel and simply skittered on the water, and all twelve cylinders screamed. It made more noise than forty airplanes. It made more noise than ten planing mills. I never knew anything that made such a noise.
And go? Mr. Jack Betts and his chauffeur had to wear leather helmets to keep the wind from blowing the hair right off their heads. Father said that if the boat ever took a nose dive it would ram itself so deep into the bottom of the water that Jack Betts would have to go around to China and pull it the rest of the way through—only there wouldn’t be any Jack Betts to go to China.
Well, about four o’clock on September 10th we heard a noise down the river that sounded like forty-seven sawmills and we knew Mr. Jack Betts was starting the Skittery III. Town is four miles down river and in about a minute the Skittery III came roaring up into our chute and Mr. Jack Betts shut off the power and taxied in to the shore of our island. He had a note for Mr. Edwin Skreever, and it was from May. Mr. Jack Betts stood around and asked if there was any answer. Mr. Edwin Skreever said there was not—that May only wanted him to go down a little earlier the next day than she had told him before. He was rather stiff about it, and Mr. Jack Betts was just as stiff, and after a minute or two Mr. Jack Betts went down and got into the Skittery III and skittered back to town.
Wampus and I
