Free Pinky Pye by Eleanor Estes

the fog as I am.
    Well, here come the two-alike in their peppermint stripes, marching around the house, wanting to see me typewrite. It's too bad they missed the show, for I am through for the day. Still, why not practice a little, get up my speed?
    As the twins marched up, "Urra, urra, una, urra," were the words they saw on the paper.
    "What does that say?" they asked deferentially.
    "It says, 'urra, urra, urra, urra,"' said Papa courteously.
    "What does that mean?"
    "It either means 'Hurray!' or it means Pinky is purring on the typewriter."
    Since there seemed no reason for Pinky to be saying "Hurray!" the twins decided that she was purring. They then hastened off to spread the latest news about Pinky, that this typewriting cat could now even purr on the typewriter, the hardest thing yet.

8. The Big Blow
    A few days later Papa received a letter from the senator from Connecticut saying he was sorry about Papa's accident and imploring him, "Stay on, Mr. Pye, and do your work." The letter said that the same old rule prevailed in Washington of "calling in Pye," broken-footed or not, and no one would consider sending any other bird man to Fire Island in Papa's place. The senator ended up by saying, "I am sending you a wheelchair that I bought some years ago when I broke my leg in a trout stream. Perhaps you can get around in that."
    "A wheelchair!" exclaimed Uncle Bennie in delight. "Can I ride in it?"
    "Sure," said Papa. "Because I know I won't."
    Nevertheless, today when the wheelchair arrived on the early morning boat, Papa had been very pleased with it. Though he had never been in one before in his life, he knew how to ride it right away. He was pretty tired of sitting under the green umbrella, seeing the same view all the time, even if it was a marvelous view. Of course he had been hobbling around on one foot with the help of a cane, but this was pretty tiring, and he had not been able to get down on the sandy beach for long walks at all. Now with the help of the wheelchair he could get on with the study of the Fire Island birds a little better, though he still couldn't do any hunting in difficult places for hidden nesting sites.
    "Papa, won't you have to get permission to go around in a wheelchair?" asked Rachel. "After all a wheelchair is something on wheels, isn't it? And I thought only bikes and wagons were allowed in the wheel line."
    So before Papa went careening around in his wheelchair and possibly getting arrested for being on wheels, he decided to find out the rules and regulations.
    "It's all right with me," said the man in charge of such affairs. "That is, if you get a little bell," he said to Papa. "Ring it goin' around corners." The Pyes couldn't tell whether the man was joking or not, so they bought Papa a bell. Now Gracie and Pinky and Papa all had little bells. As a heavy fog had blown in, it was very handy to have the little bell, and on the return trip home Papa rang it whenever he thought someone was coming.
    This was the first real foggy day the Pyes had had since their arrival twelve days ago. Rachel and Uncle Bennie and Jerry decided to go for a walk in the fog. They couldn't get lost in a fog on this island. They knew the narrow walks by heart.
    They walked along the top of the dune, and it was so foggy they couldn't see the ocean down below, though they could hear it pounding in. They felt eerie being this close to the mighty Atlantic Ocean, with nothing between them and Europe but the invisible ocean. They listened to it booming. It might be rising and rising in the fog, unseen, and soon it might swell up and over them. Suddenly feeling scared, they decided to go home without one single roll down the dune. Can you imagine rolling down a sand dune not knowing when you might meet ocean instead of real, right, regular beach? No. Neither could they. So they started for home.
    What an unusual sort of day it was! First there was fog. And now it was beginning to grow windy. Gusts of wind blew fog away in