Rufus M. Read Online Free PDF Page A

the one who had hoisted him onto the platform. He wore his khaki hat way back on his head and it was a wonder it did not fall off. He was a real husky soldier. Rufus reached his hand up and pressed his washcloth into the soldier's large palm.
    "Here," yelled Rufus. "You want it? It's a washcloth."
    The soldier's fist closed on it. "Ouch!" he said. "What bit me?"
    "Oh," warned Rufus, too late. "Look out for the pin. It's just my name."
    "And is this for me?" asked the soldier, holding the washcloth up.
    "Yeah. I made it. I knitted it," explained Rufus.
    "Gee, thanks!" said the soldier, and he mopped his face with it and gave Rufus a broad grin and a wink.
    Rufus smiled. He forgot he was supposed to be in line with Room Three. He did not know that everybody was watching him, including Mr. Pennypepper, and he started to back down the slope, thinking he'd go home now that he'd delivered his washcloth.
    His teacher thought differently. "Rufus Moffat, come back here," she called.
    But Rufus did not hear her because all the soldiers were having a good time cheering him and he had to wave back. Mr. Pennypepper, who had been holding Room Four at bay until Rufus should be out of the way, and who had been rocking back and forth on his toes, and jingling the keys in his pocket through all this interruption in the plans, hurried after Rufus himself and turned him around.
    "Criminenty!" exclaimed Rufus when he saw Mr. Pennypepper, and he tore back to his place in line amid more loud cheers from the soldiers.
    All of this inspired Mr. Pennypepper to make a little speech. He stood on the platform beside the train and, turning now to the soldiers and now to the children of the school, he said that one washcloth was a symbol. It was a

    symbol representing how the people of Cranbury were behind our soldiers in the great combat overseas.
    When the cheering that greeted Mr. Pennypepper's impromptu speech subsided, Room Four proceeded with the regular program. From then on everything went according to schedule. Nobody else had brought washcloths. Just asters and chrysanthemums. Finally the whole school sang songs, and at last the train began to move slowly, slowly, down the tracks.
    Rufus happened to be standing near a telegraph pole. He quickly shinnied up it to see if he could see his soldier. There he was! And he saw Rufus, too! He mopped his face again with the washcloth and pointed to his chest. Rufus saw that he had pinned his name, RUFUS ML, to his khaki coat. Rufus laughed. This was some soldier! The train began to gather momentum now. Faster and faster it went, but Rufus's soldier hung way out of the window and waved his washcloth as long as you could see anything, until the train disappeared down the tracks and across the marsh.
    "Good-bye, soldier!" yelled Rufus, and he slid down the pole.
    Mr. Pennypepper started leading the classes back down the hill and away from the railroad station. All the children marched as far as Elm Street and there they were dismissed.
    Rufus went straight home. He looked around for some string. He found some wound up in a ball in the pantry. It was red string. This would make a good washcloth, he thought, for he intended to make another one. Of course, he couldn't cast on. But Jane did that for him.
    "What's this gonna be?" she asked.
    "Washcloth," said Rufus. "A red one."
    But Rufus did not have enough red string to make a whole washcloth, only enough for two or three rows. He did find some blue and some white string and he wondered how it would be to make a red-white-and-blue washcloth. Nobody could tell him. "Try it," they said. So every now and then he knit a row of white and then a row of blue. The trouble with this washcloth was that it had knots in it where he joined the red to the blue.
    "You should learn to splice," said Joey, who could splice rope. But before Rufus finished his red-white-and-blue washcloth, one day the postman came right into Room Three.
    "Is there a Rufus M. in this room?" he