Freddy Rides Again Page 12

  Billy looked unhappy. “I don’t know either,” he said. “I don’t feel the same about all of you. I didn’t know what you were like. I’d like to—” He broke off and said: “Well, wait a minute. There’s one thing I ought to do first. Will you come with me?”

  He urged his horse forward and Freddy followed. They rode down through the pasture to the farmhouse. A few of the animals were in the barnyard, but they merely stared; none of them laughed. Billy rode up to the back porch, dismounted, went up the steps and knocked at the door. Mrs. Bean opened it.

  “How-how do you do, ma’am,” said the boy. “I’m Billy Margarine.”

  Mrs. Bean didn’t help him any. She just nodded.

  “Well,” said Billy, “I just came to say—I want to apologize for being rude to you the other day. I’m very sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “Good grief!” Mrs. Bean said. “Why, young man, I didn’t think—”

  “Just a minute,” said a voice behind her, and Mr. Bean looked out. “H’mp!” he said shortly. “Young Margarine. Yes. Well, boy, what brings you here?”

  “Now, Mr. B, just hold your horses,” said Mrs. Bean. “Billy came to apologize to me for being rude. Don’t bite his head off.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Billy, “and I want to apologize to you, too. I guess Freddy was the one that showed me that—well, that I wasn’t very nice.”

  “Ho! Freddy!” Mr. Bean croaked behind his beard. “Our little boy.” He nudged Mrs. Bean with his elbow. Then he frowned. “Well, boy, what did you want to be rude for?”

  “Well, I-I guess,” Billy stammered—“I guess I didn’t know any better.”

  “Tscha!” said Mr. Bean. “That ain’t so. Oh, now, don’t get mad. It ain’t so because you do know better or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Oh, good land, Mr. B,” Mrs. Bean exclaimed; “don’t badger the boy. He’s apologized and that wipes the slate clean. There’s a chocolate cake here if Mr. Bean hasn’t gobbled it all. Yes, Freddy, you come in too. Cy, I’ll send you out a piece; you’re too big. Last time we invited a horse into the kitchen he knocked over the range. That was Hank, at Mr. Bean’s birthday party last winter.”

  Half an hour later Billy came out, full of chocolate cake, and climbed on his horse. “My,” he said. “They’re awful nice people!”

  Freddy grinned. “You mean they have awful nice cake.”

  “No I don’t either,” said the boy. “And you know I don’t. Look, Freddy, how about tomorrow?”

  Freddy swung into the saddle. “I’ll ride part way with you,” he said. “Well, about tomorrow—” He didn’t say anything for a short distance. A squirrel was sitting on a fencepost, and he began to giggle when he saw Billy. “Teehee!” he said in an affected voice. “O who is that gorgeous young man with our Freddy?” Then two other squirrels joined him and they all giggled and pointed.

  Billy turned red, and Freddy thought he was going to get mad. But he didn’t. He grinned at the squirrels. “Hi, midgetbrains,” he said. “Shake the moths out of your fur.”

  The squirrels stopped giggling and stared, and Freddy laughed. “I’d like to ride with you tomorrow,” he said. “Only I have to keep out of your father’s way. How can we manage it?”

  Billy said he thought he could find out where his father would be, so they agreed to meet next morning up by the Big Woods, and Freddy turned back home.

  But it didn’t work. Twice in the next few days—once up by the lake, and once on the Centerboro road—Freddy ran into Mr. Margarine; and both times he had to ride for his life; with pellets from Mr. Margarine’s shotgun whistling around his ears. After the second encounter Cy refused to go with him any more. “I’ll ride around the farm with you,” he said. “Because Old Murderous won’t come on the Bean property, but I’m not going to get my hide all full of shot holes.”

  Both times he had to ride for his life.

  Billy wasn’t any help either. “Dad won’t tell me where he’s going to be,” he said. “I never saw him so mad about anything—he sure will shoot you if he gets a chance. And I almost think he’d shoot me if he found out I’d been with you.”

  It got so finally that Freddy didn’t dare move off the farm. And at last he made up his mind that something would have to be done. He had a talk with Jacob, the wasp, and then he wrote a note which No. 23 carried over and delivered at the Margarine door. This was what he wrote.

  Frederick Bean, Esq., has the honor to challenge Mr. Elihu Margarine to a duel. The terms of the encounter are to be as follows:

  WEAPONS: pistols, guns, knives, axes or clubs. Any or all.

  TIME: Next Friday evening, eight p. m.

  PLACE: All that tract or parcel of pasture land situated between the Big Woods on the northeast and the Margarine buildings on the southwest.

  PURPOSE: TO shoot Mr. Margarine so full of holes that he will stop bothering me and mind his own business.

  P. S. When you ride out of your yard at eight p. m. Friday, come out shooting.

  Yours truly,

  Freddy.

  Freddy wasn’t sure that this was the proper form in which to issue a challenge, but he was certain that it would make Mr. Margarine mad enough to come out. And with the arrangements he had made, he felt that he had a pretty good chance of winning, even though his gun was loaded only with blanks. But it had been hard to persuade Cy. “Me,” he said—“I’ll be just the innocent bystander—the one that always gets the free ride to the hospital.”

  “Margarine’s horse’ll be there,” Freddy said. “You going to back down in front of that slick snooty thoroughbred!”

  This appeal was successful, but Cy begged Freddy to be careful. “Keep a good distance between me and that shotgun, please!” he said. “Those buckshot he uses aren’t good for the complexion.” Of course Cy knew of the arrangements Freddy had made or he wouldn’t, he said, go out in that field Friday night for a whole freight car full of prime oats.

  Indeed the scheme was very dangerous. Freddy knew that he stood a good chance of getting killed. “I’m not brave,” he said to Mrs. Wiggins. “I’m just desperate. I can’t go on living like this, afraid to stir a foot off the farm; I’ll lose my self-respect. If he shoots me, Mrs. Wiggins, I’d like you to have all my poems. Maybe when you read them over you’ll think of me.”

  “Oh Freddy don’t talk like that!” she said, and her big eyes filled with tears.

  When Mrs. Wiggins cried, she made almost as much racket as when she laughed. You could hear her for miles. Freddy decided he had better stop her right there. “No, no,” he said; “good gracious, I’m not worried, Mrs. W. Frankly, I don’t think that Margarine will show up at all Friday night. No sir, I’ll live to write dozens more poems to read aloud to you.”

  Mrs. Wiggins looked at him, and a big sob that was coming up in her throat, turned into a laugh, and she said: “That’s what I’m afraid of.” And then she went off into a gale of her great roaring laughter.

  “Oh, dear,” said Freddy. “Now look what I’ve done!”

  Chapter 17

  At one minute to eight Friday evening, Freddy rode down along the edge of the Big Woods and then turned out into the rough stony pasture which he had selected as the field on which he was to fight his duel with Mr. Margarine. It was beginning to get dark, and there was an autumn chill in the air. Freddy shivered and said: “Golly, I wish it was tomorrow morning.”

  Cy said: “If you ask me, it will be before Margarine shows up. Shucks, Freddy, he’s a bank president; he isn’t going to fight a duel with a pig. Excuse me, but that’s what he’s going to say.”

  Freddy said: “You’re wrong. That’s just the reason why he will show up—because he won’t want people to laugh at him and say he was afraid of a pig. You boys all ready up there?” he called.

  Jacob, who with his Cousin Izzy was sitting on the brim of Freddy’s hat, called down: “You quit worrying about us. We’re right with you, kid.”

  Suddenly Freddy sat up straight and pulled his
gun from the holster. He had heard the clink of a horse’s shoe against stone. And then out from behind the Margarine barn at a fast trot rode Mr. Margarine. He was perhaps a hundred and fifty yards away.

  “Gosh, Freddy,” said Cy in a scared voice. “You said he’d have a shotgun. He’s got a pistol.”

  Freddy said through his teeth—which he was holding tight together to keep them from chattering: “That’s our good luck. He might get us with a gun; he can’t possibly hit us in this light with a pistol. Not if we keep a good distance away.”

  “Yeah?” said Cy. “And how do we do that? Look.” For Mr. Margarine had seen them; he turned his horse and rode at a canter straight at them.

  “Got to keep him off!” Freddy muttered. Then he said: “All ready, Jacob.” With a sharp buzz the two wasps rose from the hat brim, circled, and headed for Mr. Margarine. Freddy counted slowly to ten, then he raised the pistol and fired.

  Mr. Margarine who had been coming on rapidly, ducked at the shot, then reined his horse aside and rode off at an angle. Freddy, of course, had only fired a blank cartridge, but Jacob, who had been circling above Mr. Margarine’s head, at the sound of the shot, whizzed past the man’s ear. He sounded like a bullet, and a bullet which hadn’t missed that ear by more than a sixteenth of an inch.

  As Mr. Margarine sheered off he fired quickly twice. Neither shot came anywhere near Freddy, who raised his gun and fired again. And as he did so, Cousin Izzy zipped past Mr. Margarine’s other ear.

  Mr. Margarine was scared. The pig must be a fine marksman to come so close in a bad light and at nearly a hundred yards. He made no further attempt to get close to Freddy. For the next ten minutes the duelists circled warily, throwing an occasional shot at each other, then when their six-shooters were empty, hurriedly reloading. One lucky shot of Mr. Margarine’s went through the cuff of Freddy’s right gauntlet. And once when Freddy fired the wasps got their signals mixed and both whizzed past Mr. Margarine’s head, one after the other. It sounded as if the bullet, having missed him on the first pass, had turned around and made another try. He couldn’t account for it, and it scared him good.

  Much to his surprise, Freddy himself wasn’t frightened any more. If it hadn’t been for Cy he would probably have kept up the fight as long as he had blank cartridges. But Cy wasn’t enjoying himself. “Finish him up, Freddy,” he said. “Quit fooling around, will you? First thing you know one of those slugs’ll come whistling through your gizzard, and then where’ll you be?”

  “O.K.,” said Freddy. “Jacob,” he called. “Next time he starts to reload. Get set.” He held his fire.

  Mr. Margarine fired, and a second or two later Izzy landed on Freddy’s hat brim. “He’s only got one cartridge in now,” said the wasp. “When he fires again, close in as he reloads.” Izzy buzzed off.

  So as soon as Mr. Margarine fired again Freddy reined Cy around and said: “All right—let’s give it to him!” And Cy dug his hoofs in and drove straight at Mr. Margarine.

  Now Mr. Margarine hadn’t expected anything like this, and he had been a little slow in starting to reload. Before he had crammed the last cartridge into the cylinder Freddy was within ten yards of him. Bang! went Freddy’s pistol. And at the bang Jacob dove. But he didn’t whizz past this time. He slammed into Mr. Margarine’s cheek and drove his sting in right up to the hilt. With a yell Mr. Margarine threw up his hands and dropped his pistol; and Bang! went Freddy’s gun again and Izzy, who had been sitting on Mr. Margarine’s collar, walked down inside and stabbed him just below the Adam’s apple. And Mr. Margarine yelled again and shouted: “I’m shot!” and fell off his horse.

  Freddy dropped from the saddle and picked up Mr. Margarine’s gun. Then pointing both pistols at his enemy, who was rolling on the ground and moaning, he said: “Get up!”

  Mr. Margarine stopped rolling, then slowly he sat up and began feeling of his neck. He took his hand away and looked at it. “No blood!” he said wonderingly.

  “I didn’t want to kill you,” Freddy said. “You wouldn’t have had a chance if I’d used regular cartridges; I’m a dead shot. I used these special bullets—they sting, but they don’t kill. Now get up.”

  Behind the fences and walls that bounded the pasture dozens of animals had been concealed. They had come to watch the duel. All of Freddy’s friends were there, and animals from all the farms and woodlands within twenty miles. Now they all jumped up and ran out on to the field and surrounded Freddy—an enthusiastic crowd who cheered and whacked him on the back. When Mr. Margarine got to his feet, he found himself completely hemmed in by a mob of animals.

  Mr. Margarine probably believed what Freddy had told him about his special bullets. But the animals knew better. They knew that Mr. Margarine had yelled: “I’m shot,” and fallen out of the saddle, because a wasp had stung him. And all at once they began to laugh.

  That was the most enormous laughter ever heard anywhere. There must have been more than a hundred animals, large ones and small ones—cows, sheep, horses, cats, dogs, mice, woodchucks—even a couple of opossums who were on their way back from a summer vacation in the Adirondacks. The big ones roared and bellowed, the littles ones squeaked and squealed. Mrs. Wogus got the hiccups, and Hank thoughtlessly whacked a woodchuck on the back and knocked him cold. They had to carry him off to one side and throw water in his face to bring him to.

  Mr. Margarine stared around hopelessly. It must have been pretty terrifying, standing there in the dusk, and wherever he turned were the open jaws of dozens of grinning animals. He tried to say something, he tried to glower angrily at them—but it wouldn’t work. He had been scared and made a fool of, and worst of all—by a pig. He looked around once more, and then he just couldn’t take it. He fell face down on the ground and covered his ears with his hands.

  Be just couldn’t take it and fell face down.

  It was then that Mr. Bean appeared. He had heard the shots and the shouting and thought he had better see what was going on. The animals fell back respectfully and stopped laughing. Even Mrs. Wiggins stopped. He took in the scene without showing any surprise—which was not unusual, as nobody could ever see what expression he had on behind those whiskers.

  “You better go home, animals,” he said. He spoke quietly, but just as quietly the crowd melted away. Only Freddy and Cy stayed.

  Mr. Bean bent and took Mr. Margarine by the arm. “They’ve gone,” he said. “You’d better get up.”

  Mr. Margarine uncovered his ears, then sat up, looked around, and got to his feet. He looked dazed as he walked slowly over to his horse and stood leaning with one arm over the saddle.

  “Sorry those animals were trespassing on your land,” said Mr. Bean. “’Twon’t happen again.”

  Mr. Margarine waved the apology away weakly. “No matter,” he said dully. “Let ’em come. Often’s they want to. I’m through. Can’t fight ’em.” He put his left foot in the stirrup, but Mr. Bean had to help him to mount. When he was in the saddle he looked down. “That barn,” he said. “Keep it red. My wife—just have to get used to it.” He rode slowly down towards his house.

  Mr. Bean looked at Freddy and slowly shook his head. “Not askin’ how you did it,” he said. “Don’t want to know. Made a public monkey of him, I expect. That’s the one thing that kind can’t stand. Anyhow—no more trouble from him. I know him. Paint the barn red white and blue, he won’t say a word.” He put his hand for a minute on Freddy’s shoulder. Then he turned and walked off towards home.

  The only animal who had not witnessed the duel was Arthur. Everybody now, he was sure, knew that Mrs. Margarine’s name for him was Sweetie Pie, and he felt that he just couldn’t face them. He sat on the porch of the Grimby house and brooded.

  When the sound of the tremendous laughter had rolled up through the Big Woods he had groaned aloud: “They’re telling everybody,” he said. “They’re all down there laughing at me now.”

  As night came down over the Big Woods his gloom grew deeper and deeper. “Wretched creatur
e that I am,” he said—he always spoke in highflown language, even to himself—“alas, what is left for me but to move on again, to move on to exile in some foreign land, far from family and friends.” He didn’t have any family of course; he just put that in to make the sentence sound better.

  So he was sitting there bemoaning his fate, when there was a rustling in the grass and then the Horribles appeared. They trooped up on the porch and formed a circle about him. Arthur groaned. “And this, this is to be my farewell to the happy life of Bean—to be reviled by rabbits!”

  The Horribles had begun their dance, but Arthur began to perk up when he heard what they were singing.

  We are the Horrible Thirty,

  We may be bloodthirsty and dirty,

  But we know how to stick by a friend.

  With our knives we will swear to defend

  From ridicule, gossip and laughter

  Arthur the cat. And hereafter

  If anyone dares mention pie

  In his presence, that party will die

  With loud howls and most horrible yelpings

  As he’s chopped into just thirty helpings

  Of enemy hash. So beware!

  Don’t get in the Horribles’ hair.

  By spreading the tale any farther.

  With our lives we’ll protect our friend Arthur.

  As they went on, Arthur sat up and smoothed his whiskers with one paw. “True friends,” he thought—“true friends are the best. True friends,” he said to himself poetically. “Are more than great pitchers of cream!

  “Just the same,” he said to himself after a moment, “Freddy never wrote that chant for them. Freddy would never be guilty of rhyming ‘farther’ and ‘Arthur.’”

  The Horribles stopped their war dance and sat down, and No. 23 stepped out in front of them. “Brother Horribles,” he said; “gaze upon our friend, Arthur. Are we prepared to defend his honor with our lives?”

  “We are, Your Dreadfulness,” said the Horribles.