Freddy and the Perilous Adventure Read online

  But Charles said no. “I wouldn’t feel right about it, Freddy,” he said. He looked very noble and self-sacrificing for a minute, then he winked at Freddy, and edging closer along the rail fence he said in a low voice: “No, Freddy, my boy; I guess you’re stuck with it.”

  “I guess I am,” said Freddy to himself as he walked back home. “Oh, why am I such a fearless character?”

  Two other volunteers for the ascension presented themselves, however. Unfortunately, as they had voices that could only be heard for about two inches, neither of them could take Freddy’s place. They were Mr. and Mrs. Webb, the spiders.

  Quik, one of the mice who lived in the farmhouse, came down to the pigpen just before supper time to tell Freddy that the Webbs wanted to see him. Since it was an hour’s hard walk for Mr. Webb from the house to the pigpen, he usually asked one of the mice to go for Freddy when he wanted to talk to him. The pig found the Webbs in a crack between two boards on the back porch where they usually waited when they had an engagement with one of the farm animals. He put his snout down and they climbed up on it, and then, trying not to tickle, walked up close to his ear.

  “How about taking us up on this balloon trip, Freddy?” said Mr. Webb. “Couldn’t you smuggle us aboard?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said the pig. “But—are you sure you’d like it? We may be carried hundreds of miles before we get to earth again.”

  “We went to Florida, didn’t we?” said the spider. “And we’d like to get away. We both need a change—mother particularly. She’s been trying to shake that cough ever since early spring. And you know how it is: you can’t catch flies if you begin to cough every time you try to creep up on one.”

  So Freddy said all right, he’d pick them up if they would ride over to the fair grounds in the phaeton with the other animals.

  Usually on summer mornings Freddy woke up as quickly as possible and dashed off to the duck pond to take his morning dip with the others. But on the morning of the Fourth he tried to wake up as slowly as possible. First he just listened. That rushing sound—could it be rain? He tried to pretend it was rain and to go back to sleep, but he knew that sound too well—it was wind in the treetops. Wind! And he was going up in a balloon!

  But maybe it was cloudy! He opened one eye and looked at the window. But the eye didn’t tell him anything, because the window was so dirty that from the inside it always looked as if a storm was coming up. He opened his other eye, sighed, and slowly crawled out of bed. And then he saw a streak of sunlight under the door.

  Now of course Freddy could have run away, or he could have pretended that he was sick or something like that, but he was not that kind of a pig. If something unpleasant had to be done, he did it. He just wanted to be sure first that it really had to be done. So now he went over to the looking glass and tried different expressions on his face, to see which one would be the most suitable for the occasion.

  Of course pigs don’t wear regular clothes, so all Freddy had to put on was an expression when he got up in the morning. And on important mornings it often took him longer to dress that it would you or me. For he had a good many different expressions. When he went down to the First Animal Bank, of which he was president, he wore the “serious-pig-with-grave-responsibilities-on-his-shoulders” expression. When he was doing detective work, he wore the “keen-eyed-pig-who-misses-nothing” expression. And when he was writing poetry the one he put on was the “dreamy-poetic-pig.” This morning he hesitated between the “in-trepid-pig-who-scoffs-at-peril” and the “pig-who-is-about-to-go-up-in-a-ballon-and-thinks-nothing-of-it.” They were a good deal alike, so he combined the two and wore them both.

  The resulting expression was one of such iron determination that it greatly impressed all the animals with whom he talked that morning. “Why you aren’t scared at all, Freddy,” said Mrs. Wiggins, the cow. “Land sakes, you wouldn’t get me to go up in one of those contraptions.”

  “Pooh, you wouldn’t be any more scared than I am,” said Freddy truthfully.

  He hung around the barnyard most of the morning, enjoying the admiration and congratulations of his friends, for he felt—very sensibly, I think—that he might as well get all the glory he could out of the ascension beforehand, in case he drifted out to sea and was never heard of again. And when, after dinner, the animals set out for the fair grounds, he and the two ducks rode in the place of honor, in the back seat of the phaeton.

  The Bean animals were very popular in Centerboro, and Freddy bowed and waved to many old friends as they went along through the fair grounds to where the balloon, now almost fully inflated with gas, was tugging in the breeze at the ropes that held it to the ground. The sideshows and the merry-go-round were almost deserted, for everyone had crowded up to listen to Freddy’s speech and see the ascension. Mr. Golcher greeted them warmly.

  “How’s this for a crowd?” he said. “We’re going to have an ascension today that is an ascension! And these are the two ducks? Happy to meet you, I’m sure. And all these are your friends? Golcher welcomes you, one and all.”

  On the ride over from the farm the two spiders had climbed up on to the top of Freddy’s head, where they had prudently anchored themselves to a few strands of web spun between his ears. But when Mr. Golcher had led Freddy and the ducks over and helped them into the basket which was swung from cords that formed a net over the bulging surface of the balloon above them, the spiders found a safer place in a crevice of the basket, where they would be out of the way and still see all that was going on.

  “Now,” said Mr. Golcher, “you want to know what all these things are for. This here cord is attached to a valve that lets the gas out of the balloon. If you want to come down, you let a little gas out. If you’re coming down too fast, you throw out some of these bags of sand, fastened along the side of the basket. If you’re drifting along close to the ground and want to stop, you throw out this grapnel,” he said, picking up a thing that looked like a sort of four-pronged anchor, which was fastened to the end of a coil of rope.

  “This here cord is attached to a valve …”

  “But we don’t need to know about those things,” said Freddy. “I mean, you’ll know better than we would what to do.”

  “I would if I was with you,” said Mr. Golcher.

  “You don’t mean you’re going to send us up alone?” said the pig.

  “Why, sure. ’Twouldn’t draw a crowd if I just took a pig up with me. Pig goes up alone—there, now you’ve got something.” He took a handbill out of his pocket. “That’s the way we advertised it, see? ‘See the Flying Pig! Daring animal aeronaut braves dangers of the stratosphere! Hear the talking pig! Accomplished porker delivers patriotic address. Witness this breath-taking, super-stupendous phenomenon—the first and only quadrupedal orator and balloonist will make a balloon ascension at four P.M. sharp.’ and so on and so on.”

  “That’s very nice,” said Freddy. “Only I’ve never—er, driven a balloon.”

  “I’m sure you’ll drive it very capably, Freddy,” said Alice calmly. She and her sister were sitting on the edge of the basket, watching the crowd.

  “Oh, dear,” said Emma; “are you sure it’s quite, quite safe, Mr. Golcher?”

  “Be still, sister,” said Alice severely. “Of course it isn’t safe. But it won’t be any safer if you tremble all over. What would Uncle Wesley say if he could hear your bill chattering?”

  “I’ll try to stop it,” said Emma. “Oh, here’s that nice sheriff.”

  The sheriff, who had come over to the fair grounds with some of the prisoners, came up and wished Freddy a pleasant journey, and handed him a large paper bag. “Some of the candy the boys pulled yesterday,” he said. “They thought you might like something to chew on when you’re chargin’ around the sky.”

  At a signal from Mr. Golcher the band began to play. “Soon’s the band stops,” he shouted to Freddy, “we’ll begin to cast off the ropes, and while we’re doing it, you make your speech. Then we’ll le
t her go.”

  Freddy nodded mournfully, then almost absent-mindedly he opened the bag of candy and unwrapped several pieces and put them in his mouth. They were good. He started to chew them—that is, he closed his jaws down on them. But when he tried to open his jaws again, he couldn’t. His upper and lower teeth were stuck as tight together as if they had been glued. And just then the band stopped playing.

  The crowd gave a cheer and looked expectantly at Freddy, while the men began casting off the ropes that held the balloon to the ground.

  “Your speech!” whispered Mr. Golcher. “Make it! You’ve only got three minutes.”

  “Mmmmmmm!” said Freddy, rolling his eyes, and the muscles on the sides of his jaws stood out as he tried to pull them apart.

  “Speech! Speech!” shouted the crowd, and Alice said: “Freddy, what on earth—?”

  “Mmmmmmmmmm!” said Freddy, pointing to his mouth.

  “I dunno what’s the matter,” said Mr. Golcher angrily, “but by gormly, it’s the last time I ever make a business deal with an animal!” He turned to the sheriff. “Look at him! Your friend, that’s so brave—and he’s so scared he can’t talk!”

  Freddy shook his head violently. “Mmmmmmmmmmm!” he said.

  Some of the rougher elements in the crowd, who did not know Freddy very well, began to shout: “Boo! Boo!” while others, who had heard a good deal about his past exploits, shook their heads mournfully.

  “Well, if you won’t make a speech, I will!” exclaimed Alice. She flapped her wings. “Ladies and gentlemen—” But the crowd was making so much noise now, some attacking and some defending the pig’s failure to speak, that no one heard her.

  “Let her go, then!” shouted Mr. Golcher.

  And with a rush the balloon shot up into the air.

  Chapter 3

  Freddy, leaning over the edge of the basket, saw the crowd drop away beneath him. There was no feeling of going up into the air; it was as if the earth was falling away from the balloon. One minute the fair grounds were spread out beneath them, and then they shrank rapidly, slid away sidewise, and below was only a sort of colored map, in which fields were no more than green and brown squares, and the barns and houses, red or white dots, with roads like pieces of string connecting them. It was rather exciting, but not frightening at all.

  Up where they were in the sky, the wind was stronger than it had been on the ground, and it carried them along swiftly. Emma had got down inside the basket, but Alice still sat on the edge, hanging on to a rope with her bill. “Look, look! Here comes the Bean farm!” she exclaimed, and sure enough, over the horizon came rolling the familiar fields and woods, with the tiny white house and barns and stable and henhouse …“And that little speck you can hardly see is my home,” thought Freddy. “Oh, when will I enter it again?”

  “Why, there’s the duck pond, that little blue dot,” said Alice. “Sister, come up here; you’re missing everything.”

  “I’m all right here,” said Emma miserably.

  “Oh, come up! What would Uncle Wesley say to such talk!”

  “I’ll hold on to you so you won’t fall,” said Freddy, who had at last got the better of the candy and found his voice.

  “Oh, dear—all right,” said Emma faintly. And then when they had got her up on the edge beside Alice: “Why, it—it’s quite pleasant!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Dear me, not at all alarming! I suppose that moving speck out in the hayfield is Mr. Bean. What time do you think we’ll get home, Freddy?”

  “You may get home sooner than you expect to unless you stop talking and hang on to this rope,” said Alice.

  “I think perhaps we ought to go down a little,” said Freddy. “We’re pretty high up, and we don’t want to be carried too far.” And he gave a short tug at the valve cord.

  But nothing happened.

  “That’s funny,” he said. “Mr. Golcher said you didn’t have to let much gas out if you wanted to come down.”

  He gave two longer pulls, and then as the balloon still kept on at the same level, he called: “Hey, Webb! Come up here a minute.”

  The spider came up over the edge of the basket and climbed up by Freddy’s ear. “We’ve been riding on the bottom of this thing,” he said. “My word, what a view!”

  Freddy explained what was the matter. “I wish you’d climb up this cord,” he said, “and see if that valve works.”

  So Mr. Webb climbed up, and in a few minutes he climbed down again and reported that the valve cord had got tangled in some of the ropes so that the valve couldn’t be opened. “Guess there’s nothing you can do,” he said. “I’m not strong enough to fix it, and you’re too heavy to climb up.”

  “My goodness, do you see what that means?” said Freddy. “We can’t get down.”

  “She’ll come down some time,” said the spider unconcernedly. “Anyway, you can always jump. No, no; I’m just fooling, Freddy. But what’s the use of worrying?”

  “But suppose she comes down in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?”

  “We’re being blown away from the Atlantic Ocean at about thirty miles an hour,” said Mr. Webb. “I’m hoping we’ll be over Niagara Falls in the morning. Mother and I have always wanted to visit the Falls.” He walked down to the end of Freddy’s snout and dropped from it to the edge of the basket.

  “What’s that you’ve got on your back?” asked the pig, for on the spider’s shoulders—or at least the shoulders of his first pair of legs—was a little bunch of something grey that seemed to be fastened around him with strands of web.

  “Parachute,” said the spider. “Mother spun a couple of them for us to take along. Kind of foolish, I thought. But you know how women are.”

  “H’m,” said Freddy. “You and Mrs. Webb have parachutes, and Alice and Emma have wings, but what have I got?”

  “My goodness, you’ve got one of the finest views below you a pig ever set eyes on. Why don’t you enjoy it and stop worrying?” And the spider disappeared over the edge.

  The view was indeed impressive. Directly below them now was a good-sized lake, set among rolling hills, wooded towards the tops, but laid out on the lower slopes and in the valleys in different colored shapes of cultivated land like a jigsaw puzzle. At the end of the lake was a tiny white village, and off in the distance, to the northwest, a big city sprawled under a smoky haze. Syracuse, Freddy thought.

  The view was indeed impressive.

  He discovered suddenly that he was enjoying himself. He had only been scared because he had thought he ought to be scared, but after all he was having one of the most remarkable experiences of his long and colorful career. Of course, there was that speech he hadn’t made; people were going to criticize him for that. But he could deliver a speech when he got back that would make them forget that unfortunate incident, or he wasn’t Freddy.

  The balloon drove on westward. They were over Syracuse now; they could see strings of cars moving through the streets like ants; and an airplane came up and circled them twice and then flew away. Alice and Emma waved their wings excitedly at the pilot, who waved back. Syracuse rolled off down over the eastern horizon. “Next stop, Rochester,” called Alice.

  “And the next one is Buffalo,” said Freddy, and then he became thoughtful. For he had an idea that the next stop after that would be Lake Erie, and while it wasn’t as big as the Atlantic Ocean, it wasn’t a place he wanted to stop at on a balloon trip. He wished he had brought his geography along.

  By and by the sun began to go down. The shadows of the hills grew longer and longer, and they flowed together and darkened the roads and the fields and the villages, and finally covered them with a dark blanket, although the balloon, high up in the air, was still in the bright sunlight. Little lights pricked out here and there on the earth, some of them moving along the roads, others stationary in windows. And then the sun slid down out of sight.

  It got cool. Alice and Emma jumped down inside the basket.

  “I’m hungry,” said Emma.

&
nbsp; “My goodness, I hope there’s something to eat here,” said Freddy. He rummaged about. “Cans!” he said disgustedly. “Soup, beans, corned beef. Can opener, too. But what good is that?” For though he was very clever with his trotters, and could run a typewriter and even write with a pencil, he couldn’t hold a can opener with them. “Well, we’ve got that bag of candy, anyway.”

  So they ate the candy for supper. They didn’t talk much while they were eating it, but when they could open their jaws again Freddy said: “It’s going to be cold up here, and there’s nothing more to see tonight, but we’ve got a blanket, and I vote we get under it and go to sleep.”

  So they did. And Freddy was just dozing off when he felt a tickle in his ear and Mr. Webb’s voice said: “Getting kind of chilly for mother out there, so we thought we’d crawl in with you if it’s all right.”

  “Sure, sure,” said the pig. “Only thing is, aren’t you afraid you’ll get squshed? If I was to roll over in the night—”

  “Well, we’d rather not be squshed, and that’s a fact,” said Mr. Webb drily. “But you’ve got good roomy ears, Freddy. Suppose we sleep in one of them? We’ll be very quiet.”

  “Yeah?” said Freddy. “And suppose you get to thrashing around in your sleep? Suppose you fell down into my ear and couldn’t get out? It makes me shudder to think of it. No, I’m sorry but that’s just out. Hold on, though. Ducks don’t lie down when they sleep; they just stick their heads under their wings. Suppose you get in with them—under the other wing? Nice and snug, and no danger. Real feather bed.”

  So the Webbs fixed it up with Alice to get in under her left wing, and then they all went to sleep.

  When they awoke next morning the balloon was drifting along over rough and heavily wooded country. There were no villages in sight, and only here and there in a clearing a ramshackle house. They were much nearer the ground now, because in the cool night air the gas in the balloon had condensed so that it wasn’t as light as it would be later when the sun heated it up again. At least that was how it was explained to Freddy later, though at the time he just thought they had begun to come down. The basket wasn’t more than a hundred feet from the ground, though it might as well have been a thousand, Freddy thought, as far as getting out was concerned.