Miss Pickerell Goes to the Arctic

Ellen Macgregor

Description

Miss Pickerell travels to the Arctic by snowmobile to rescue a few scientists!

Sujets

• Action
• Fiction
• Adventure

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774643167
• Langue: English

Extrait

Miss Pickerell Goes to the Arctic
by Ellen MacGregor

First published in 1954
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Miss Pickerell Goes to the Arctic


by
Ellen MacGregor











To the Tacoma and the Kent MacGregors

CHAPTER ONE Miss Pickerell and Mr. Esticott
The man behind the soda fountain in the SquareToe City Drugstore, wearing a rather tight whitejacket, stood reading a large red book that waspropped up in front of him.
The man’s name was Mr. Esticott.
Mr. Esticott’s white jacket did not quite meetacross his stomach, and it revealed that he waswearing a dark blue vest with gold buttons downthe front of it. Mr. Esticott was the conductor onthe train that ran between Square Toe City andthe state capital. He only worked at the drugstoresoda fountain between trains. It was just a part-timejob.
The door of the drugstore opened, and Mr.Esticott looked up. “Hello, Miss Pickerell,” hesaid.
Miss Pickerell stood sidewise in the opening,holding the door ajar with her foot while shebriskly snapped her black umbrella open and shutseveral times to shake off all the rain.
[8]
Then she came inside, bought a newspaperfrom the druggist, crossed over to the soda fountain,and asked Mr. Esticott to make her an icecream soda.
“Fortunately,” said Mr. Esticott, laying asidehis book, “I made up a fresh batch of peppermintsyrup just yesterday, Miss Pickerell. I thoughtyou might be coming in.”
Peppermint was Miss Pickerell’s favoriteflavor. She always ordered a peppermint icecream soda whenever she came to the Square ToeCity Drugstore.
“I’d feel a little selfish being in here eating anice cream soda while my cow is waiting outside,”Miss Pickerell said, “except that I know she won’tget wet. I’ve had a canvas awning made for hertrailer, to keep her dry when it rains.” Miss Pickerelltook a paper napkin and wiped the rain offher glasses.
“That’s a very becoming black hat you arewearing,” said Mr. Esticott. “It goes well withyour pink sweater. Your niece and nephew arewell?”
“As far as I know they’re well,” said Miss Pickerell.
“I mean your oldest niece and your oldestnephew. The ones who are spending the summerwith you to keep you company.”
[9]
“For all the company Dwight and Rosemaryare,” said Miss Pickerell, “they might just as wellbe in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Dwight andRosemary are licensed amateur radio operatorsand they spend all their time at their short-waveradio set talking to people they’ve never even seen.Everytime I start to say anything to them, theytell me to ‘Sh!’”
Mr. Esticott put Miss Pickerell’s ice creamsoda on the counter in front of her, and she put astraw in it and tasted it. It was delicious.
Holding the ice cream soda in one hand, MissPickerell walked over to the store window andlooked out to make sure that her cow, outside inthe little canvas-covered trailer, was all right.Miss Pickerell and her cow were very goodfriends, and whenever Miss Pickerell had errandsto do in Square Toe City the cow accompaniedher.
The cow seemed to be comfortable, and MissPickerell returned to her stool at the soda fountain.She pointed to the large red book Mr. Esticotthad been reading.
“I’m glad to see you’ve finally finished readingmy encyclopedia,” she said.
[10]
Mr. Esticott cleared his throat. “I haven’t exactlyfinished it, Miss Pickerell. Not quite. Butthis is the last volume. This is the W-X-Y-Zvolume, and I’m sure that if I take it with meevery day to read on the train when I’m not busycollecting tickets that I’ll have it finished in anotherweek or two, so that—”
“Now see here, Mr. Esticott!” Miss Pickerellsaid. “The only reason I agreed to let you read myencyclopedia was that you promised to have itfinished long before this. Don’t you remember thatday you asked me if I’d let you take it to read onthe train when you weren’t busy collecting tickets?You assured me at the time that you are avery fast reader.”
“I am a very fast reader, Miss Pickerell. It’sjust that your encyclopedia is so interesting thatI’ve been distracted by some of the things I’veread about.”
“I’m afraid I shall have to insist on your givingit back to me anyway,” Miss Pickerell said. “Ikeep thinking of things. You know how it is whenyou think of something like that. You want to lookit up right away.”
“The H volume was very interesting,” said Mr.Esticott.
[12]
“If Dwight and Rosemary didn’t spend alltheir time at their short-wave radio set,” MissPickerell said, “if they had a little time to talk tome once in a while, I wouldn’t keep thinking ofthings to look up.”
“On the whole though,” said Mr. Esticott,“the H volume wasn’t so interesting as some ofthe others. Take the B volume for instance. Thereare a great many interesting things in that volume.You can have your niece and nephew readthat volume first. By then I’ll probably bethrough with this—”
“I don’t want it for my niece and nephew,”Miss Pickerell said. “I want it for myself. And Idon’t want to read it. I just want to be able to lookthings up when—”
“Next to the B volume,” said Mr. Esticott, “theS volume is probably the most interesting. In fact,if those two books hadn’t been so full of information,I would have finished reading the whole seta lot sooner. But I got so interested in the articleon bird banding that I began to study about howit’s possible to tell what parts of the world birdsmigrate to by putting light-weight identificationbands around their legs and then releasing them.Where the birds are found shows how far awaythey have migrated.”
“That is interesting,” Miss Pickerell agreed.
[13]
“There’s one kind of bird—” said Mr. Esticott,“it’s called the arctic tern—that flies practicallyall the way from the South Pole to the North Poleevery spring. In the summer, arctic terns maketheir nests and hatch their baby birds all over thearctic regions. Then, when it starts to be winter,they fly all the way to the other side of the world—tothe antarctic regions.”
“That doesn’t seem very sensible,” Miss Pickerellsaid. “Why don’t they stop in some nicewarm country to spend the winter?”
“A lot of birds do that,” Mr. Esticott said. “Idon’t know if you realize it, Miss Pickerell, butthere are over 8,600 different species of birds inthe world. And each species has its own specialroute of migration. Banding birds is a way to findout what parts of the world different kinds ofbirds migrate to.”
Miss Pickerell was thoughtful. “I wish Dwightand Rosemary were interested in banding birdsinstead of being amateur radio operators,” shesaid. “Then maybe I could say something to themonce in a while without having them tell me to‘Sh!’”
[14]
“They couldn’t be bird banders,” Mr. Esticottsaid. “They couldn’t be licensed bird bandersuntil they were eighteen years old. And not eventhen—unless they were familiar enough with differentkinds of birds so that they wouldn’t make amistake about what kind of bird it was they werebanding. Then, right in that same volume, there’sa very interesting article on bush pilots. You cansee now, I think, why it has taken me so long tofinish reading the whole set.”
“I don’t think that excuses you,” Miss Pickerellsaid. “You did promise.”
“I showed the article about bush pilots to mycousin,” said Mr. Esticott. “My cousin is a retiredbush pilot. His name is Foster.”
“Don’t bush pilots fly up around the NorthPole?” Miss Pickerell asked.
“Somewhere up around there,” Mr. Esticottsaid. “Bush pilots fly around the arctic regions inplaces where there isn’t any regular airplaneservice. Bush pilots will fly almost anywhere thatanyone wants them to go. How about another icecream soda, Miss Pickerell?”
Miss Pickerell shook her head and reached outfor the encyclopedia volume.
So did Mr. Esticott. “I tell you what, MissPickerell,” he said. “Why don’t they call me upon the telephone? Your niece and nephew I mean.If they want to look up anything in the W-X-Y-Zvolume, they can just call me here at the drugstoreand let me read it to them. That is, if I’mnot on the train collecting tickets, they can.”
[15]
“I’m afraid the arrangement wouldn’t be verysatisfactory,” Miss Pickerell said. “And anyway, I’m the one who wants the ency—”
“Suppose they wanted to look up somethingabout the weather,” said Mr. Esticott. “Or possiblyyou yourself. Don&#