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recognition. "Hey, Curt, that white-headed kid won the 'Spot' bowl. Hey, there
he is now. See if you can trade him."
"Hey, white-headed kid." Curtis yelled. and he went and traded a "Fritz"
bowl for a "Spot" bowl. He gave the bowl to the dog Spot.
"What other dogs?" he asked then, and he surveyed the bunch. "There's
Pepper and Fat Pat and Donnicker. I'll go try to win bowls for them. I sure am
good with those lopsided baseballs."
The kids were back into the park through that free-swinging door; and
Elroy Hunt, rushing giddily at the opening, was slapped silly by the
nick-of-time closing of that door. That really finished Elroy.
In a hopeless mood, he rejoined the dogs. Three of them were happy with
their bowls, and three of them were hopeful. But Elroy Hunt himself was
frustrated and bitter. The old complaint "It shouldn't happen to a dog" seemed
to take special and sinister significance in his mind.
"Ah, there's another old regular," a man coming out of the park said to
Elroy. "I believe that you and I both make opening date at the amusement park
every year. Have you been in yet?"
"No, I - I probably will go in after a while," Elroy said. "I was just
sitting here on the bench watching the people, and the dogs."
"It's too bad the dogs aren't allowed in the park this year," the man
said. "But there's a new state law that bars dogs from amusement parks. Say,
have you noticed the jazzy doors they have this year? Very scientific."
"Ah, yes, I have noticed the doors," Elroy said. That other elder lover
of amusement parks went away then, and Elroy Hunt sat and wondered what was
behind it all.
After a while the boy Curtis came out again with his friends and with
two more dog bowls, a "Pepper" bowl and a "Pat" bowl.
"I knocked the bottles down for the 'Pepper' bowl," Curtis said, "and I
whipped a little kid and took the 'Pat' bowl away from him. They didn't have a
'Fat Pat' bowl. A plain 'Pat' howl will have to do, Fat Pat."
Curtis gave the two bowls to the two dogs, Pepper and Fat Pat.
"Hey, there's Hearn's dog, Donnicker," Curtis said then. "And they do
have a 'Donnicker' bowl. I didn't think they'd have one with a dumb name like
that, but they do. It wasn't out on prize row yet, but they'll put it out with
the next bunch. Then I'll win it and bring it to you, Donnicker."
And Curtis and his friends went back inside. Five of the dogs admired
their pretty white and empty bowls.
Well doggone, guys, I'll treat," Elroy said suddenly. He went across the
street to the Whistle Stop grocery store. He bought a mastiff-size box of
Wigby's Dog Chunks for a dollar and nineteen cents, tax included. He brought
it back across the street and filled five dog bowls with it, and it wasn't
even a quarter empty. There was a park department faucet there, and he added
water to the chunks, and the dogs went about the happy business of eating
them.
"Don't worry, Donnicker," Elroy said. "There's plenty left. And Curtis
will win you a 'Donnicker' bowl and bring it out pretty soon. Then you can
have your feast."
Bascomb Whizzer himself, the owner of the park, came out and sat with
Elroy Hunt on the bench.
"Ah, it looks like a good season," Whizzer said. "Everything is greatly
improved, and our theme for this year is 'Science of Today.' How do you like
the park this year?"
"I haven't been in yet," Elroy confessed. "I may just possibly go in
later."
"I thought you always came early and stayed late," Whizzer said. "And
the doors, the highly scientific doors, how do you like them9"
"I think they're a fraud," Elroy Hunt said.
"No. That's impossible," Whizzer said. "They are absolutely scientific
in their selection. They let in all people of every sort. They let in most
other things. And they keep out all dogs. That's because of the new state law
that we can't have dogs in an amusement park. And the doors can't be fooled,
and they can't make a mistake."
"Everything can make mistakes," Elroy maintained. "And if one door
should make a mistake, suffer a malfunction of its mechanism, then all the
doors would suffer the same malfunction, since, l presume, you have them all
wired together in some manner."
"Absolutely not," Whizzer said. "The doors work independently of each
other. A fault in one door, if it should happen once in a billion times maybe,
would not have any effect on the working of the other doors at all. What one
door says is right is right. And what all seven doors say is right has got to
be right. There is just no way to argue with science when it is right. There
isn't a human in the world who can't go through those doors. There isn't a dog
in the world who can." And Whizzer himself went back inside his park with that
cocksure
walk of his. The door closed very slowly after him, and Elroy -
"I swear that damned door giggled at me!" he said furiously. And he was
thoroughly miserable.
Curtis and the other boys came out again after a while, and Curtis had
two dog bowls with him.
"Here's yours, Donnicker," he called, and Donnicker accepted it with
glad yelps. And Elroy Hunt filled it with Wigby's Dog Chunks and water. And
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