Freddy Plays Football Page 11

  The cat snickered. “First time I ever heard of a thief taking the money he stole right into the jail with him. OK, I’ll see to it. Any messages you want to send, just whistle out the window. We’re keeping the joint picketed.”

  Mr. Finnerty and Jason Brewer called that afternoon, and they were pretty mad at Freddy. “You certainly messed up our football season by getting locked up in jail,” Jason said. “Here’s the Tushville game coming Saturday, and without you we haven’t a chance. I guess you’ve put an end to football in Centerboro all right.” But when Freddy had told him the whole story—except where the money was—Jason said: “Well, maybe you did right. But I’d call the game off if I could. We’ll be snowed under.”

  “I thought maybe you could play, if you got out on bail,” said Mr. Finnerty. “But I hear the judge set bail at $5000. Nobody’s got that kind of money.”

  Suddenly Freddy thought: “My gracious, I’ve got it myself! Only of course I can’t put it up myself, because they’d know it was Mr. Bean’s and take it away from me. Now, I wonder…” He was wondering so hard that he scarcely listened to what Jason and the coach said to him, and after a few minutes, seeing that he wasn’t paying any attention to them, they got mad again and left.

  As soon as they were gone he went to the window of his cell and looked out. A couple of prisoners were digging dandelions out of the lawn, and behind them a robin was just tugging at one end of an angleworm who didn’t seem very anxious to come out of the ground. It was Mrs. Pomeroy. Freddy whistled, and she gave up her argument with the worm, who snapped back into the dirt like a rubber band, and flew up and in between the window bars.

  “Hello, Mrs. P,” said Freddy. “How’s J.J. today?”

  “Well he’s complaining a lot,” she said, “but the wing’s doing nicely. I guess the children get on his nerves, that’s why he fusses so. Do you want something?”

  “See if you can find Mrs. Church, and ask her to come see me tomorrow morning. Tell her to drop in as if she was just paying a call. It’s very important.”

  “I’ll get her,” said the robin. “If you want anything while I’m gone, Rabbits Nos. 22 and 18 are over under that bush.” And she flew off.

  Late that night Uncle Solomon brought the money, and at ten next morning Mrs. Church came. “I brought you an apple pie, Freddy,” she said. “But I wouldn’t advise you to eat it. It was just an excuse so the sheriff wouldn’t know you’d sent for me. I never made a pie before and perhaps I didn’t get enough shortening in. The filling’s all right, I guess, but the crust—well, maybe you could get into it with a chisel. However,” she said, sitting down with the pie in her lap, “let’s get down to business. What can I do for you?”

  Late that night Uncle Solomon brought the money.

  “Well, there is something,” said Freddy. “But maybe you won’t want to do it, and if you don’t, just say so, and—”

  “Come on, come on, what is it?” said Mrs. Church with a smile.

  “Why, as you may have heard, the judge has set bail for me at $5000.”

  “And you want me to put it up?” she said. “Gladly, Freddy, gladly. I was wondering about that this morning, but—”

  “Oh, no! Please!” Freddy interrupted. “I don’t want you to put up any of your money. You might lose it. If Mr. Garble catches me and ships me off, you’d never get it back. No,” he said bringing out the package of money and handing it to her, “here’s the money that belongs to Mr. Bean. If you are willing you can take that to Judge Willey and put it up as my bail. I only want to get out so I can play in the game Saturday, and not let the team down. If I do get captured, you won’t lose anything. And the money will go back to Mr. Bean.”

  Mrs. Church laughed so hard that the pie bounced off her lap on to the floor. “You’re a caution, Freddy! You rob a bank and then when the police catch you, instead of giving up the money, you use it to bail yourself out. And yet, I don’t know. Right now I’m in possession of stolen goods,” she said, holding up the package, “and if I hide it or use it to bail you out, that makes me a confederate of the robber. I don’t know much about law, but I know that if anyone found it out, they could put me right in the next cell.”

  “My goodness,” said Freddy, “I didn’t think—here, give it back. Of course you mustn’t do it.”

  “On the other hand,” Mrs. Church went on, putting the money in her purse, “I’m on your side, Freddy. You can’t keep the money here. And if I keep it for you, I might just as well put it up as bail. Furthermore, if we are caught, and Judge Willey, who is my cousin, sentences me to prison, I’ll never let him hear the last of it!

  “And so,” she said, getting up, “I’d better take care of it right away.”

  Freddy argued, but her mind was made up. “You leave it to me,” she said. “And when the sheriff turns you loose, better come up to my house. I don’t suppose you’ll want to go back to the farm.”

  When she had gone, Freddy picked up the pie. The fall hadn’t hurt it; even the edge where it had struck the floor was undamaged. He poked at the crust, but it was as hard as wood. He looked at it a minute, then he took it out into the dining room and put it up on the plate rail, between two of the valuable plates of the sheriff’s collection of rare china.

  Chapter 15

  As soon as Freddy was released on bail, he put the pie under one arm and his dictionary under the other and went up to Mrs. Church’s.

  She laughed when she saw the pie. “I don’t know what you can do with it,” she said. “It might make a nice cornerstone for a house.”

  “Well,” said Freddy; “one thing about it: it’ll be just as good in five years, and maybe I’ll be hungry when I get out of prison.”

  Freddy spent that evening with his dictionary open at the list of Common English Christian Names, in the back. He was sure that Mr. Doty’s real initials were the ones on his trunk, and while the B might stand for any one of a thousand last names, the chances were that the C stood for one of the commoner names beginning with that letter. So he made a list of the commoner ones. He discarded the one which the dictionary list started off with—Cadwallader, however, and used his own judgment about Constantine and Cuthbert and Caesar. “If they’re common Christian names,” he thought, “that dictionary man, Mr. Webster,—well, I wonder what he’d call an unusual name?” He got a list of eight names, and decided to try those.

  The next afternoon he reported for football practice. Everybody was glad, for now there was a good chance of beating Tushville Saturday, and as word that he was back on the team got around, many people closed their offices and stores early and came up to watch. Practice was just about over when Mr. Gridley and Mr. Garble appeared.

  They walked right out on the field, and Mr. Garble shouted: “Stop! I protest against allowing this pig to be a member of the school team. I represent the School Board, and I have called upon Mr. Gridley to order the coach to dismiss him. He is well known as a hardened criminal, a bank robber, who should not be allowed to consort with our innocent children. Mr. Gridley, do your duty!”

  There was a good deal of angry muttering from the townspeople who had been watching from the sidelines, and one of the boys on the team said: “Ah, why don’t you mind your own business!”

  Mr. Gridley looked rather unhappy. “I am afraid, Mr. Finnerty,” he said, “that I have no choice. Since the School Board orders it—”

  A precise, sarcastic little laugh made him stop and look up. Uncle Solomon was perched on the crossbar of the goalposts.

  “One moment,” said the owl. “I am not a member of your distinguished Board, but as a close friend and admirer of the accused, may I be permitted to ask a question?”

  Although small, the owl spoke with such dignity that Mr. Gridley said: “Why, of course,” but Mr. Garble said angrily: “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m not going to answer questions by any little snake-eating squawk-owl!’’

  “Dear me,” said Uncle Solomon with a titter, “I fail to see what remarks on my personal h
abits have to do with what we were discussing. Would you care to explain the connection, Mr. Garble?”

  “Yah!” said Mr. Garble disgustedly.

  “Thank you,” said Uncle Solomon. “And, Mr. Gridley, since that seems to be the sum total of Mr. Garble’s argument, I suggest we simply drop the whole thing.”

  Mr. Garble had turned his back on the owl. “Mr. Gridley, do your duty,” he ordered.

  But again the maddening titter interrupted him. “May I point out,” said the owl, “that I have not yet asked my question?”

  Mr. Garble was beside himself with rage—and you can’t blame him much, for there is no sound so insulting as the laugh of a screech owl. He pulled out his pistol and pointed it at Uncle Solomon. “For two cents—” he began.

  “I haven’t the sum on me at the moment,” said the owl calmly. “But knowing your light-fingered ways with money which does not belong to you, I am not surprised at your trying to chisel even two cents out of me. I permit myself this personal comment,” he remarked to Mr. Gridley, “only because Mr. Garble has seen fit to make similar comments about me.” Then he turned back to Mr. Garble. “However, if one of the boys will advance me the two cents, I will gladly give it to you. Particularly as I do not believe that you could hit a barn, even if you were inside it. Well, dear me,” he said, as Mr. Garble hesitated; “go ahead!”

  And Mr. Garble, stung to a fury of rage, pulled the trigger.

  Mr. Garble pulled the trigger.

  Uncle Solomon had learned from the sheriff that the gun was loaded only with blanks. But before Mr. Garble could shoot again, a heavy hand fell on the back of his neck, and the sheriff said: “I’ve spoken to you about that pistol before. If you let that thing off just once more, Herb, I’ll pull your ears back and tie ’em in a bow knot behind your head. Now go ahead, owl; what’s your question?”

  “Evidently, Mr. Garble,” said Uncle Solomon, “you are no more skillful with a gun than you are with an argument. However—have you any proof of your accusation that this pig is a hardened criminal?”

  “Everybody knows it,” said Mr. Garble sulkily.

  “I do not know it. However, if such an accusation is a reason for his being dismissed from the team, I hereby accuse you of attempted murder, and I demand that you be thrown off the School Board.”

  Mr. Garble gritted his teeth, but with the sheriff’s hand still on his neck, all he said was: “You’re just trying to mix me up. I say this pig is a thief, and he ought not to be in the school, much less on the team.”

  “I am afraid that you are trying to mix me up now,” said Uncle Solomon. “Your saying he is a thief doesn’t make him one. Furthermore, since he has not confessed to any crime, nor yet been tried and found guilty … Well, dear me, I think I see one among the audience here who is not only a member of the School Board, but also a distinguished jurist. Judge Willey, would you be good enough to step forward and give us a ruling on this perplexing matter?”

  So the judge came forward. “My learned friend,” he said with a bow to the owl, “has, I think, clearly shown the unsoundness of Mr. Garble’s position. Under our laws in America, Mr. Garble, the laws of a free people, every person is considered innocent until he is proved guilty. The School Board, therefore, must consider this pig innocent. Furthermore, Mr. Garble, should we dismiss him from the team because of your assertion that he is a criminal, he could then bring suit against you for slander, defamation of character, perjury, conspiracy and bad temper. And if the case were to come up before me, I should unhesitatingly award him damages running into very high figures indeed, which you would have to pay. I think,” he said, turning with a bow to Uncle Solomon, “that that is an opinion in which my learned friend will heartily concur.”

  The owl returned the bow. “With the utmost completeness,” he said. “You have given us, my esteemed colleague, an exposition of the finer points of the legal aspects of this case which, for clarity, brevity and wit, it would be difficult to equal in the highest courts in the land.”

  They bowed again to each other and then looked sternly at Mr. Garble. And Mr. Garble growled angrily and walked off the field.

  After the practice Freddy went back to Mrs. Church’s. He found his hostess sitting on the porch. “The funniest thing, Freddy,” she said. “You know that terrible pie I brought you?—well, I’ve found out why it was so hard. You know, after my cook left, I wondered why some of the things I made turned out so queer. But that cook was a very odd person. I don’t think she could read, for she kept everything in the wrong place. The sugar was in the salt jar, and the coffee was in a tin marked baking soda, and so on. So when I made the pie, I used what I supposed was flour. But do you know what she had in the flour bin?—plaster of Paris!”

  “That was sort of dangerous, wasn’t it?” said Freddy.

  “I guess it was! But what I wanted to tell you was, I’ve baked another pie just like it, except the filling is different. —Oh, don’t look so thunderstruck; I’ll tell you why. Sit down.

  “You see,” she said, “I didn’t use Mr. Bean’s money to bail you out. The more I thought of it, the more I thought it was a bad idea. I used my own money. And the money you gave me—well, I baked it in that pie.”

  “But—but how will we ever get it out?”

  “When the time comes you can crack it open with a sledge hammer. In the meantime, it’s safe. Nobody but an alligator could take a bite out of it. Now what did you do with the other one?”

  Freddy told her. “And I think tonight I’ll take this one down and substitute it for the other. After all, it’s stolen money, and it isn’t right for you to have it here.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “But the jail is an awfully good place for it. If you can do it without making the sheriff suspicious. You can go down after supper.”

  “After—supper?” Freddy looked at her doubtfully. “Er—what are we going to have for supper?”

  She laughed. “Don’t worry. Everything’s in the right place now. I won’t give you ammonia soup or anything like that.”

  So after supper Freddy went down to the jail with the money pie under his coat. The sheriff was playing checkers with Looey, and he didn’t pay any attention when Freddy wandered out into the dining room, and he only said: “So long; drop in again,” when Freddy came back and said he guessed he’d go home.

  Freddy really did go home: he went out to the farm. On his way he threw the apple pie into some bushes, where it was found the next spring by some Boy Scouts. It looked good, and they sat down by the road to eat it. Half an hour and three broken teeth later they threw it back where they’d found it, and I guess it’s there yet.

  Freddy sneaked into the cow barn. He didn’t wake Mrs. Wiggins up at once, because he wanted to try out the idea he had for getting rid of Mr. Doty. He crept up close to her and whispered: “Hey, Mrs. Johnson!”

  Mrs. Wiggins went right on sleeping.

  “Hey, Mrs. Prendergast,” Freddy whispered.

  Mrs. Wiggins went on sleeping.

  “Hey, Mrs. Peppercorn!”

  No response.

  Then Freddy said in the same tone: “Hey, Mrs. Wiggins!” And the cow raised her head and said: “What? What is it?”

  “It’s me—Freddy,” said the pig. “Quiet! I don’t want the Beans to hear me.”

  And then he told her his idea. “You see, you didn’t wake up till I used your own name. And that same way we can find out Mr. Doty’s name.”

  Mrs. Wiggins didn’t see what good that would do.

  “It will do this much,” said Freddy, “that if he wakes up hearing somebody whispering his real name in the night,—well, who would know his name around here? Only Garble.”

  “Land sakes, what would Mr. Garble be doing in Mrs. Bean’s spare room in the middle of the night?”

  “That’s just the point,” Freddy said, and he went on and told her his plan.

  “’Twon’t work,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “How you going to get into Doty’s room? And if yo
u do, and he wakes up—there’s enough light in that room at night to recognize you by.”

  “Of course I can’t get in there,” said Freddy. “The one to do it is Mr. Webb. He can spin down next to Doty’s ear, and then if he whispers, Doty won’t see him, and—oh, I’ve worked that all out. But there’s no rush. If you’ll talk to Webb in the morning, then I’ll meet him in a day or two and fix it all up.”

  “Yes, you don’t want to stay around here. Mr. Bean is awful mad at you. All right, I’ll speak to Webb. And you know, Freddy,” she said, “you could work the same thing on Mr. Garble.”

  “Golly,” said Freddy excitedly, “that’s right. Sure we could! Oh, we’ve got to think this over carefully. Is Mr. Bean so mad at me that he won’t let you come down to the game Saturday?”

  Mrs. Wiggins chuckled. “I don’t know as he’s quite as mad as that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came down himself. The way I look at it, Freddy, there’s only half of him that’s mad at you—the half that don’t like your pretending to be him on the telephone, and running off with his money. But there’s another half that’s kind of doubtful about Doty. He’s not nearly so sure Doty is who he claims he is as Mrs. Bean is. Gracious, I’m too sleepy to talk—getting my verbs all mixed up.”

  “Well, goodnight,” said Freddy, and got on his bicycle and rode back down to his comfortable room at Mrs. Church’s.

  Chapter 16

  The crowd that streamed out to the athletic field that Saturday to see Centerboro play Tushville was one of the largest in the history of the team. Main Street was deserted; indeed the only person left in the village was old Mr. Lawrence, who had gone out the previous Saturday, under the impression that that was the day of the game, and was so mad about his mistake that he stayed home.

  Most of Tushville had come over too, for they had heard about the pig on the Centerboro team and had laughed themselves sick over it. But the players, who knew how Freddy had upset Plutarch Mills, hadn’t laughed. “If that pig tries any of his funny business on us,” they said, “we’ll sizzle his bacon for him!” And when the two teams came out to warm up, Freddy was scared. He was sure that a procession of ants with very cold feet was promenading up his backbone and he could feel that his tail had come uncurled. For the Tushvillers were big. Even those who were plainly schoolboys were big, but the right guard and the right tackle, who would be facing him, were grown men and one of the backs had a black beard.