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“Bert! Bert! Look what I found. Can we keep him?”
Bert stopped in the middle of his conversation with Mr. Banks to look at the little boy running toward him. Jack was carrying a sock in his hand with a large bulge in the toe and his pants legs were filthy from the knee down. But that wasn’t what caught Bert’s attention.
“Jack! Where are your shoes?”
“I think I’d better be going.” said Mr. Banks with a knowing smile.
Bert barely heard him. “Oh yes,” he said distractedly his eyes fixed on Jack’s bare feet, “It was nice seeing you again.”
Jack looked up at Bert and then down at his feet as if he’d never seen them before. “I don’t know," he said, his voice full of amazement. “I guess they’re lost.”
“You guess they’re lost?” Bert closed his eyes and counted to ten. A lost pair of shoes was a considerable expense and little less than a catastrophe on his meager income. “Where did you have them on last?” he asked.
Jack thought a moment and then said, “Over by the pond.”
“All right let’s go,” said Bert taking the boy’s hand and heading toward the pond in the park. Jack walked quietly beside him still clutching his sock. His unusual silence made Bert suspicious. Jack was only quiet when he thought he was in trouble. He stopped. “Did you go wading in the pond?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jack admitted, biting his bottom lip and looking guilty.
“Did you take your shoes off before you went in?” Bert asked with a sinking heart.
“No...not ‘zactly,” said Jack looking at the ground. Bert sighed and then headed once again toward the pond.
“What do you mean not exactly?”
“Well they sort of just comed off by themselves. Look there’s one.” Jack pointed excitedly to a shoe half buried in the mud next to the pond. He shoved the sock into Bert’s hand and ran over to the shoe his feet sinking at least two inches deep into the ooze and tried to pull it out. But the mud didn’t want to give up it’s prize that easily. Jack pulled harder and before Bert could reach him the shoe came out with a loud sucking sound and Jack sat down hard in the mud
“Got it!” he said happily waving the shoe in the air and dripping more mud on his hair and the few parts of his clothes that were still clean. Jack turned over on his knees, pushed himself up, then squished over to Bert and handed him the shoe. Bert took the slimy shoe and looked over the bank. “All right but what about the other one?” he asked.
“In there I think,” said Jack pointing to a cluster of cattails. “Do you want me to go look?”
“Yes,” said Bert. He had no desire to go wading into the pond, not when Jack was already muddy enough for both of them. Jack disappeared into the cattails and sedge grasses that lined the edge of the water. Bert watched from the bank tracking his movements by the rustling grasses and the sound of the boy’s singing. Jack was always making up songs. This one involved a toad, a grasshopper and a butterfly in a boat and how the toad ate them both for lunch. “Help me, help me.” sang Jack in a high squeaky voice meant to sound like a butterfly being eaten by a toad. “Poor butterfly,” thought Bert standing on the bank, “I know just how you feel.”
The sock in his hand started to move. The bulge seemed to throbbing. Just then Jack emerged from the pond his hair and clothes covered with cattail fluff and his hands empty. “I can’t find it,” he said looking at Bert. “The shoe ’s not in there.”
Bert handed Jack the sock and reluctantly rolled up his own pant legs. He removed his shoes and socks and gave Jack strict orders to sit on the bank and not move. Slowly he waded into the pond, the mud and the duckweed oozing up between his toes. Bert was not a child on the edge of an adventure. Today he was a worried adult who didn’t know how he was going to pay for another pair of shoes. This made him unable to ignore the discomforts that Jack hadn’t even noticed. Bert bent low looking for the shoe trying to disregard the summer heat and the biting insects. After twenty minutes his back hurt and the sun was giving him a headache. The nasty little roots and stems from the plants stabbed his feet and the sharp grasses slapped back at him and tried to poke him in the eyes every time he moved.
“Here now! What’s goin’ on?” demanded a gruff voice. The park keeper was glaring at Bert from the bank. “No wading in the pond! Can’t you see the signs?”
“Sorry,” said Bert. “I’m lookin’ for a shoe.”
The park keeper looked at Bert as if he were mad. “Why’d you wear your shoes in the pond?” he asked.
“I didn’t...It’s not my shoe.”
“Why you lookin’ for someone else’s shoe then?” said the Park Keeper. “Get out of there before I call the police.”
As Bert moved toward the bank he stepped on something. He bent over and plunged his hand under the mud and pulled up a small oxford. He swished the shoe around in the brackish water trying to get the worst of the mud out then waded out of the pond and dropped the shoe next to it’s mate.
Jack was laying on his stomach his hands cupped over something in the grass. The empty sock was laying close by. “I found a frog.” he said happily looking up at Bert. “Can I keep him?”
“No,” said Bert firmly. “No pets at the boarding house.”
“He could live in the garden and eat bugs.”
“No, you are going to leave the poor frog here in his pond where he’s happy. We need to go home and get you and your shoes cleaned up.”
“They don’t smell good,” said Jack wrinkling his nose.
“Too bad. We can’t afford another pair,” said Bert. “I’m gonna have to try and clean these up the best I can and you’ll have to wear them smell and all.”
Bert couldn’t put his own shoes back on until he cleaned off the mud that went up half way to his knees. The walk back to the boarding house in his bare feet did nothing to improve his temper. Neither did the amused looks from passers by as they observed the very muddy child skipping along beside him. If he felt a certain satisfaction in sluicing the mud off Jack with several pails of cold water as he stood in the old watering trough behind the boarding house, the little boy never noticed. Jack thought it was great fun to get his bath outside rather than in the small tin tub in the house, and since the evening was warm he was in no danger of catching a chill. Cheeks pink and rosy after his bath in the trough, Bert wrapped him in a towel and sent him up the backstairs to get dressed. Once clothed he was corralled by Professor Wittenbach for his piano lesson.
Bert could hear the sounds of the piano coming from the open windows of the house. He tossed Jack’s pants and shirt into the trough and pumped more water in until they were covered. He gave the soiled clothes a stir with a stick and than sat down on the steps with a brush and a pail of water to attack the mud caked shoes. As he worked Bert thought about George Banks and the advice he had given that gentleman two years ago. Life had been so easy back then when he had all the answers, before he had a child of his own. Bert could barely manage one and poor Mr. Banks had to raise two. As with so many things in life the answers were easy but the doing was hard.
Bert heard the door open behind him as Mrs. Simpson came out of the house. She carried a stack of newspapers and a tin of Neatsfoot oil. “Thought you might need these,” she said laying them down on the steps next to Bert. “When you get the mud off, stuff the shoes with wadded up newspaper. It will help them dry and absorb some of the smell. Once they’re dry you rub the oil in to soften them back up.” She smiled. “I raised two girls and had three nephews and not one of them could resist a mud puddle. Trust me this will work. The shoes’ll be stained but they’ll be wearable.”
Bert looked soberly up at his landlady than smiled. “‘Spose I can’t be angry can I? This is what I wanted, for him to be happy and healthy and into mischief.”
“Well, he is kind of like Alice,” said Mrs. Simpson. “You know, in Through the Looking Glass—‘It’s a child, larger than life and twice as natural.’ They tire you out.”
Bert had never read Through the Looking Glass but he agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment. He’d have to remember that ‘twice as natural’ bit.
“Now is the best time,” said Mrs. Simpson. “When he grows up you’ll wish all of his problem were as easy to solve as pair of muddy shoes. And there’s always the parent’s revenge.”
“Revenge?” asked Bert.
“Yes, they have children of their own and you get to watch.”
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“Oh my g...Stop! Don’t move! How did you get so muddy?”
Bert could hear Jack’s voice all the way up on the second floor. He leaned over the railing of the staircase to see what was going on.
Jack had the door open and was showing Freddie and Al out of the house.
“Quick march!” he ordered. “Right around to the kitchen. I’m going to have to rinse you off before you can come in. Why is your mother never home when this happens?”
Jack turned to head back through the house to the kitchen. He spied Bert at the top of the stairs. “Too bad there’s no watering trough in the back,” said Bert grinning. “It sure came in handy in the old days.”
“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” said Jack
“Yes,” said Bert. “More than you’ll ever know. Do you need help with the bucket? Just for old time’s sake.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “But pour it over the kids this time.”
“Kids,” thought Bert smiling as he went to the closet to find the mop pail, “What a fun word. Once you were over sixty it could mean so many people.”