The Big Front Yard and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

Taine. “He wouldn’t care about anything except a rabbit or a woodchuck.”
    â€œHe was working hard,” insisted Beasly. “He seemed to be excited.”
    â€œMaybe the woodchuck just dug his hole under this old tank or whatever it might be.”
    â€œMaybe so,” Beasly agreed. He fiddled with the radio some more. He got a disk jockey who was pretty terrible.
    Taine shoveled eggs and bacon onto plates and brought them to the table. He poured big cups of coffee and began buttering the toast.
    â€œDive in,” he said to Beasly.
    â€œThis is good of you, Hiram, to take me in like this. I won’t stay no longer than it takes to find a job.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t exactly say –”
    â€œThere are times,” said Beasly, “when I get to thinking I haven’t got a friend and then I remember your ma, how nice she was to me and all –”
    â€œOh, all right,” said Taine.
    He knew when he was licked.
    He brought the toast and a jar of jam to the table and sat down, beginning to eat.
    â€œMaybe you got something I could help you with,” suggested Beasly, using the back of his hand to wipe egg off his chin.
    â€œI have a load of furniture out in the driveway. I could use a man to help me get it down into the basement.”
    â€œI’ll be glad to do that,” said Beasly. “I am good and strong. I don’t mind work at all. I just don’t like people jawing at me.”
    They finished breakfast and then carried the furniture down into the basement. They had some trouble with the Governor Winthrop, for it was an unwieldy thing to handle.
    When they finally horsed it down, Taine stood off and looked at it. The man, he told himself, who slapped paint onto that beautiful cherry wood had a lot to answer for.
    He said to Beasly: “We have to get the paint off that thing there. And we must do it carefully. Use paint remover and a rag wrapped around a spatula and just sort of roll it off. Would you like to try it?”
    â€œSure, I would. Say, Hiram, what will we have for lunch?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Taine. “We’ll throw something together. Don’t tell me you are hungry.”
    â€œWell, it was sort of hard work, getting all that stuff down here.”
    â€œThere are cookies in the jar on the kitchen shelf,” said Taine. “Go and help yourself.”
    When Beasly went upstairs, Taine walked slowly around the basement. The ceiling, he saw, was still intact. Nothing else seemed to be disturbed.
    Maybe that television set and the stove and radio, he thought, was just their way of paying rent to me. And if that were the case, he told himself, whoever they might be, he’d be more than willing to let them stay right on.
    He looked around some more and could find nothing wrong.
    He went upstairs and called to Beasly in the kitchen.
    â€œCome on out to the garage, where I keep the paint. We’ll hunt up some remover and show you how to use it.”
    Beasly, a supply of cookies clutched in his hand, trotted willingly behind him.
    As they rounded the corner of the house they could hear Towser’s muffled barking. Listening to him, it seemed to Taine that he was getting hoarse.
    Three days, he thought – or was it four?
    â€œIf we don’t do something about it,” he said, “that fool dog is going to get himself wore out.”
    He went into the garage and came back with two shovels and a pick.
    â€œCome on,” he said to Beasly. “We have to put a stop to this before we have any peace.”
    IV
    Towser had done himself a noble job of excavation. He was almost completely out of sight. Only the end of his considerably bedraggled tail showed out of the hole he had clawed in the forest floor.
    Beasly had been right about the tanklike thing. One edge of it showed out of one side of the hole.
    Towser backed out of the hole and sat down heavily, his whiskers dripping