The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald Page B

him.
    “Three cheers for Basil!” Tom shouted.
    We all joined in three hip hip hoorays for Basil. Then we accompanied him to the hydrant in the corral where Tom stopped the nosebleed with cold packs on Basil’s neck. The black eye Sammy had given Basil was almost swollen shut by this time.
    I went with Tom and Basil to the Palace Cafe. I was hoping Mrs. Kokovinis wouldn’t be in the kitchen, because Basil was a sight. I felt relieved as we entered the kitchen and saw only Mr. Kokovinis. He looked at Basil and shook his head.
    “Another one,” he said sadly.
    “He did it, Mr. Kokovinis!” Tom shouted as he pounded Basil on the back. “Basil whipped Sammy Leeds in a rough and tumble fight and whipped him good!”
    Basil was so excited that he began to jabber in Greek as he described the fight to his father. Mr. Kokovinis looked so proud as he listened that I thought he would burst right out of his chef’s uniform.
    “This is a proud and happy day for the Kokovinis family,” Mr. Kokovinis said as Basil finished describing the fight. Then he looked straight at Tom. “And we owe it all to you. Thank you.”
    Tom’s face dropped the distance between a thank you and a dollar. Basil knew my brother well enough by this time to sense what was the matter. He spoke to his father in Greek.
    “Of course,” Mr. Kokovinis said. “I was so happy I forgot.” He put his-hand into his pocket and took out a silver dollar which he handed to Tom. “I’ve been carrying this dollar in my pocket, hoping for the day I could give it to you,” he said. “It is very little for the happiness you have brought to me and my son.”
    “Thank you. Mr. Kokovinis,” Tom said as he pocketed the dollar. “And to show you my heart is in the right place, I am going to teach Basil all the English I can before school starts in the fall. And I’m going to be Basil’s best friend.”
    I thought Mr. Kokovinis was going to cry. And if he had known how much it was going to cost him for Tom being Basil’s best friend, he probably would have. Now that Tom had made Basil a genuine American kid like the rest of us, it made the Greek boy fair game for my brother’s great brain.
    Right now, I thought to myself, I’ll bet Tom is trying to figure out how much to charge Mr. Kokovinis for each new English word he teaches Basil.

CHAPTER SIX
    A Wreath for Abie
    AUGUST CAME TO ADENVILLE, bringing with it the hottest weather of the year. The heat slowed everybody down. People walked a little slower. Our fathers began crowding us kids at the swimming hole to escape from the heat. Dogs became listless. My dog, Brownie, spent most of his time lying in the shade of a tree or under our back porch. I began to worry about Lady, who was expecting a litter of puppies. Tom had told me that it would take sixty-two days from the day Lady was mated with Brownie before the pups would be born. He assured me that the heat wouldn’t stop Lady from having the litter. As always The Great Brain was right. Lady gave birth to a litter of eight beautiful puppies the second week in August. I took Tom’s advice and decided to wait until three weeks after the puppies were weaned before taking my pick of the litter.
    “They will be bigger then,” Tom had told me, “and not dependent on their mother, so I can judge them better.”
    During the third week in August Abie Glassman fainted in front of the livery stable. He was carried inside by Mr. Tanner and some other men who revived him. Everybody blamed it on the heat.
    Abie had earned himself a reputation for being a miser since opening his variety store. It began when he had removed the strong box from his peddler’s wagon and placed it in the living quarters of his store. It was a box made from wood with steel bands around it and had a big padlock on it. I guess Abie needed the strongbox when he was traveling around the outlying country and didn’t get near a bank only once or twice a year. Everybody who had seen Abie carrying