The Alley Read Free

slide on her stomach the last few steps as though she were a toboggan. Wags was a very timid dog. But she was a noble, wonderful dog and the most beautiful of her kind anyone was apt to see anywhere. That's what Papa said, and he had seen many dogs. Wags stemmed from champions, and Papa owned the family tree. Wags was quite nervous—her weak hind legs made her so—and did not like tiny little children, who scared her with their sudden movements and squeals. She had never bitten anyone, though, mainly because Mama was always on the watch—always.
    Next in this family came the two large and fat cats named Mittens and Punk—Mother Mittens and Daughter Punk, to be exact, age two and one.
    Mittens was a cat born in the Alley and given to Connie by Billy Maloon, who owned the father. Punk was one of Mittens' first batch of four kittens, her favorite and the one who slept with her mother's front paw around her. Punk was beautiful; but she was not as brilliant as her mother. She had been pampered by her mother, had never had kittens of her own, and still tried to gobble up her mother's food. Her mother let her. The reason Punk had such an odd name was that she was born on the Fourth of July. Connie named the four first kittens of Mittens after Fourth of July things—Punk, Rocket, Sparkler, and Pinwheel. Hugsy Goode owned Rocket now, but his mother had made him change Rocket's name to Smoky because she had just lost a cat named Smoky and she liked to think she had the real Smoky back.
    That's all there was to the Ives family, unless you count Red Horsie, Bear, and Patricia. Connie still counted Red Horsie, her rocking horse, as a member of the family and still made him a Christmas card, even though he was up in the attic, being saved for her children when she grew up. Bear was a big teddy bear given to Connie on her fourth Christmas by her uncle Clare, and he still stayed in her room. Patricia had always been her favorite doll, and she still stayed in her room, too; sometimes Connie took her or Bear out to swing with her. So that was the family of Connie Ives, just one family out of the twenty-seven in the Alley.

2. CONNIE IVES
    "The famous swinger." That was Connie's nickname. She was swinging now, and she thought of how practically everyone in this Alley had a special name: Katy Starr, the lawmaker, Arnold, the great R.A. boy—in the Rapid Advancement class, that means, in school—Mrs. Carroll, the rainmaker—so called because she sometimes beat on tin tubs, yow-yowed like an Indian to make rain come—Joe Below, the
boulevardier
(or Bully Vardeer, as it was pronounced)—too many to list them all.
    Connie was watching what was going on in the Alley. Because it was Saturday morning, the iron gates were unlocked and the garbage truck would soon be here. The two pretty iron gates to the Alley were always kept locked except on the mornings when the garbage truck came in—Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Most of the littlest children were safely locked in their own back yards. They longed to get out to freedom in the big Alley, but they couldn't do this until the truck should come and go and the gates to the outside world be locked again. They waited for this happy moment by playing Superman, with sheets on for capes. One was Superman, another, a little smaller, was Superboy, and George Gwatkin, practically a baby, was Little Super. They flew from yard to yard on their side of the Alley, up one fence and over and so on all the way, shouting "Superman!" with capes fluttering behind them.
    The Carrolls lived in the end house next to the iron gate on Connie's side of the Alley. There were four little Carrolls, and since each was born on or around Christmas day, they were all named in honor of Christmas. Their names were Stephen, the oldest, who was six, then Star, four, Nicky, three, and last, the littlest one, Noel—Notesy, her nickname was, and she was practically just a baby still and had to be held on the swings. All the