The Story of Freginald Read online

  “You never could take a joke, Leo,” said Mademoiselle Rose.

  Mr. Boomschmidt came riding back. “Never heard a thing to beat it,” he said. “Did you hear that roar? Says he’s been practicing it ever since he was a lamb. Can you imagine that, Rose? I offered him a job, but he can’t come unless he brings his family and of course we can’t have all those sheep around. But it just goes to show. There’s plenty of talent if we can only find it. Now, boys, here’s the proposition.” He rode on, apparently having forgotten Leo’s misbehavior, and although Rod looked around at him reprovingly several times, he said no more about it.

  “You did a good job when you found Eustace, Freginald. Now I want you and Leo, as we work north, to scout around for more animals that can do things. The show can get along without you; we won’t be giving any more performances until we get into York State. You can travel the back roads, keeping pretty close to the show all the time, and the more animals you round up, the better. My word, we’ll have a circus that is a circus!”

  CHAPTER 5

  So the next morning Freginald and Leo started out. They turned their backs on the circus and took a little stony road that ran due west. They stepped out briskly and their shadows stepped out ahead of them. Leo kept making funny little jumps and pounces and by and by Freginald asked him what he was trying to do.

  “Trying to jump on my shadow. My Uncle Ajax told me once that nobody could do it. He said if I ever did it I’d be smarter than anyone in the world. I used to spend hours practicing it. But it’s funny—no matter how quick you are, your shadow’s quicker.”

  “Pooh! I bet I can do it,” said Freginald. So he tried ten times.

  “Pshaw, you’re even slower than I am. I almost got it that time. Look,” said Leo. He jumped. “Oh, look, look! I got it!”

  “That’s my shadow you’re on,” said Freginald.

  “Oh,” said Leo, “so it is. Well I would have had it if your old shadow hadn’t got in the way.”

  “You wouldn’t either,” said Freginald, who had been thinking. “Look, Leo, you couldn’t, because that would mean that your shadow would stand still when you moved. And it has to move when you do.”

  “Who says so?”

  “Nobody says so. It just has to be, that’s all.”

  “That’s a fine way to argue,” said Leo. “Why should it have to move when I do any more than I have to move when it does?”

  “You do.”

  “Oh, is that so?” said the lion. “Well, now, you watch. I’m going to stand perfectly still until my shadow moves. And then I’ll stay still. I bet you won’t see me move.”

  So Leo stood perfectly still in the middle of the road, watching his shadow. Neither of them moved for about two minutes. Freginald sat down in the grass.

  “No old shadow can make me move,” said Leo, and went on standing still.

  “You see? He doesn’t dare move. It’s no use,” he finally said. “He’s just made up his mind not to move first. Come along.” He started up the road again. “I guess that proves it, doesn’t it?”

  But you never get anywhere arguing with a lion, and Freginald knew it, so he just said: “Oh, sure. Sure.” And then the road began to go uphill through the woods, and their shadows disappeared and Leo had to save his breath for climbing.

  The road went over the hill, getting rougher and rougher, and then it wriggled through a swamp. And then it stopped. It stopped so short that they walked right on into the underbrush before they noticed it. Then they backed out and looked at each other.

  “This is a fine note,” said Leo. “Now I suppose we’ll have to go all the way back and start again. It’s an outrage, that’s what it is. Who ever heard of a road just stopping? All the roads I ever saw went somewhere.”

  “Maybe this one used to,” said Freginald. “But maybe the place it went to has gone. Anyway, we won’t have to go back. We can travel through the woods.”

  “Oh, sure, and get my mane full of burs and prickers,” grumbled Leo.

  “Well, there must be something at the end of this road,” said Freginald. “I’ll climb a tree and look.” So he did and, sure enough, back among the trees he saw the roof of a house and behind it a barn and some fields.

  So they began to shove their way through the laurel thicket that closed the end of the road. But they had only gone a little way when a voice shouted: “Halt! Who goes there?” and a big shaggy horse poked his head through the bushes ahead of them.

  “Hello,” said Leo. “We’re from the circus. We represent Mr. Boomschmidt. Can we have a few minutes of your time?”

  “We don’t like strangers around here,” said the horse. “You-all better go back the way you come.” He spoke with a strong Southern accent.

  “Oh, come,” said Leo pleasantly. “We just want to talk to you for a few minutes. It will be greatly to your advantage to hear us. Come on, Fredg.” And he started forward.

  “Stand where you are,” said the horse sharply. Then as they stopped again: “I done warned you, stranger. You’re headin’ into trouble.”

  Freginald would have gone back, for he didn’t see the sense of getting into a row. But lions aren’t used to being told by other animals what they can or can’t, do and Leo got mad.

  “Look,” he said, “there isn’t any rat-tailed old plow-dragger going to give me orders. Get out of the way, boy; we’re coming with our tails high.” And he bounded forward.

  The horse reared and struck with his forefeet, but Leo dodged and struck like a cat with a powerful paw that jolted the other animal’s jaw and made his teeth rattle. At that the horse turned and galloped off, neighing shrilly, and Freginald followed his friend out into the little clearing in front of the house.

  It was a big house with pillars across the front and had once been very imposing indeed; but now the porch sagged, the windows were all broken, and the wood, from which the paint had peeled off many years ago, was cracked and rotten. But they didn’t have time to examine it more closely. For from the fields behind the house and from the woods all about them came a great trampling and crashing, and then by twos and threes twenty or thirty animals came bounding toward them—lean brown pigs, big ferocious-looking dogs, heavy shaggy horses, and a herd of unkempt cattle with long, vicious horns, led by a tough old bull with red eyes.

  “H’m,” said Leo. “My mistake.”

  But they were surrounded before they could retreat.

  “Into the barn,” ordered the bull in a hoarse rumble. And the sharp horns herded them round the house and into the tumbledown barn. Leo protested and explained, but nobody paid any attention.

  “Well, I guess I spoke out of turn,” said Leo when the other animals had gone, leaving two unpleasant cows on guard. “But you can’t take that kind of thing from a horse!”

  “Did you see any people around the house?” Freginald asked.

  “Why, now I come to think of it, I didn’t,” said Leo. “That’s funny. You don’t suppose these pirates could be living here alone?”

  “There aren’t any curtains in the windows, or tools and things around the house,” Freginald said.

  “H’m,” said Leo. “That’s bad.”

  They both knew it was bad. When tame animals go wild they’re a great deal wilder and more ferocious I than any wild animals can possibly be. They talked it; over in undertones, but couldn’t think of any plan. It would be easy enough to break out of the barn, but it would take them some time and be a noisy business, and by that time all the horns and hoofs and teeth would be ready for them.

  “We’ll just have to wait and see,” said Leo.

  They didn’t have to wait very long. Half an hour later the bull came to the door. “You,” he said, nodding to Freginald. “Come here.”

  Freginald stepped forward.

  “What’s he?” said the bull, looking toward Leo.

  “Who, Leo? He’s a lion.”

  “What’s that—some kind of dog?”

  “Dog!” sputtered Leo. “Do
g! Why, dye my hair! I’m head of the cat family and king of all the animals, that’s what I am.”

  “Look like a dog,” said the bull. “Silence!” he bellowed as Leo started to shout angrily. “Go on, bear. Why’d you come here?”

  He listened while Freginald explained. Then he blew thoughtfully through his nostrils. “Too bad,” he said. “Got nothing against you. But you’ll have to stay now.” Then he turned and lumbered away.

  CHAPTER 6

  For the next hour the two prisoners were left alone. Leo paced back and forth, swishing his tail irritably and muttering angrily under his breath. Every time he came near the door the two guards lowered their horns menacingly.

  Freginald was rather cross with Leo. It seemed to him that a good deal of planning was to be done if they were to escape. But the lion couldn’t seem to think of anything but the remark the bull had made about him. “Dog!” he growled. “Calling me a dog. Me that’s taunted elephants and bearded the rhinoceros in his den. Me whose roar was making the jungle tremble with fear when he was just a blatting calf.”

  So Freginald tried to do some planning by himself. It seemed to him that the only possible thing to do was to try to let Mr. Boomschmidt know where they were. If he could persuade someone to carry a message—perhaps a bird. He could hear birds on the roof and in the trees outside.

  In a dark corner of the barn was a ladder leading up into the hayloft. If he could get up there, perhaps there would be holes in the roof through which he could talk to the birds without being overheard. He started for the ladder when an exclamation from Leo made him turn his head. The guards at the door were standing at attention. And then between them a small important-looking figure marched into the barn.

  It was a very slick and dapper rooster. “Morning, gentlemen,” he said, with a brisk nod. “Quite comfortable, I hope? Yes, yes.” He held up a claw as Leo started to say something. “I quite understand. Most unfortunate, the whole occurrence. No one, I assure you, regrets it more than I do. However, the captain has asked me to come lay our proposition before you. Will you sit down, please?”

  “Now, gentlemen,” he said, “here is the situation. To make it quite clear, I must go back a few years. Seventy-odd, to be exact. At that time this was a prosperous plantation owned by Colonel Jefferson Bird Yancey. Then war broke out between the North and South. Colonel Yancey marched off at the head of his regiment. He was gone a year, two years. Nothing was heard from him. His slaves drifted away. Finally only the farm animals were left.

  “Well, they had all been fond of Colonel Yancey. They carried on as best they could. After a while they heard rumors that Colonel Yancey had been killed in battle. Later there were other rumors—that peace had been made; that the South had been defeated. Meanwhile most of the neighbors had moved away. Trees and brush grew up about the neglected plantation, whose very existence was forgotten.

  “But the animals were pleased to be cut off from the world. They hated the Yankees who had brought ruin to their master and his friends. And at last, at a historic meeting which took place in this very barn, they formally swore undying allegiance to the Confederacy and agreed to defend this plantation, the last unconquered territory of the C. S. A., even from the armed forces of the Federal Government.

  “Well, gentlemen, the animals who made that compact are all dead. But their children’s children still hold to the very letter of it. I am proud to say that it was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather who raised his venerated bill and led his comrades in the long Rebel yell which ratified the agreement. Ah, sirs, that was a truly great day for our beloved Southland.”

  He covered his eyes for a moment with one claw. Then he said: “Forgive me, gentlemen, if I am deeply moved. Though I have heard that tale a thousand times, my fiery Southern blood thrills anew at each rendition. Ah, of what chivalries, of what tendernesses, are we of the South not capable! But there; our knightliness is too well known to the world to need further advertisement from me. But let me say this: from that day to this no blue-coated Yankee soldier has ever set foot on this land.”

  “They don’t wear blue any more,” said Freginald.

  “I was speaking metaphorically, suh,” said the rooster with dignity.

  “He means he’s just sounding off,” said Leo, who was getting tired of their visitor’s oratory. “Look, rooster, when are we going to be let out of here?”

  “I am commissioned by the captain, whom you have already seen—” began the rooster.

  “That old bull?” asked Leo.

  “The bull, yes. He offers you this choice: to join our band, or to remain our prisoners.”

  “You mean we can’t go back to Mr. Boomschmidt?” Freginald asked.

  “Precisely,” said the rooster. “If you join us, you will swear allegiance to the Confederacy. You will agree to become members of our band, and to obey our captain’s orders. If you refuse, you will remain under guard until you change your minds.”

  “I don’t call that much of a choice,” said Leo. “See here, I’m not a Northerner, I came from Africa. You’ve no reason to pick on me.”

  “Indeed?” said the rooster. “Our slaves were from Africa, you know. H’m, I shall have to speak to the captain about that.”

  “Slaves!” the lion exclaimed, with a sudden roar. “You think I’m going to be a slave to a moth-eaten bull and a silly, strutting little bug-eater like you? You think—”

  “Wait a minute, Leo,” Freginald put a restraining paw on his friend’s shoulder. The rooster, with an excited squawk had fluttered backward through the doorway, where the guards’ lowered horns closed in front of him. “You can’t blame Leo for roaring at you,” he said. “That slave talk is all nonsense. But I want to ask a question or two. Can we have a little time to think over your proposition?”

  “A year if you want to,” said the rooster. “Or ten. You’ll just be kept here till you agree.”

  “And if we join your band, what will we have to do? I mean, how do you live? You can’t raise corn and oats and so on, yourselves.”

  “Naturally, we don’t. We raid the enemy, suh. We cross into Federal territory and take whatever we need—by force, if necessary.”

  “I see,” said Freginald. “Well, thank you. We’ll think it over and let you know.”

  “Raid into Federal territory indeed!” said Leo when the rooster had gone. “That’s somewhere off the plantation. They’re just a gang of robbers.”

  “Sure they are,” said Freginald. “But look here, Leo. You keep the guards amused for a while. I’m going up into the loft and see if I can’t make a deal with some bird to take a message to Mr. Boomschmidt.”

  He went up the ladder as quietly as he could, and sure enough, there were a dozen big holes in the roof. He poked his head through one, and there at the edge of the roof stood a wren with a piece of straw in his beak.

  “Hi, wren,” said Freginald.

  “Well, well, bear,” said the wren. “I saw ’em bringing you in. Too bad. I bet you wish you were back with your circus.”

  “Oh, so you know about the circus?” said Freginald.

  “Oh, I get around.”

  “Are you a Confederate, too?” the bear asked.

  “Well, yes and no,” said the wren. “You see, I spend the winters in South America, and if I were to say down there that I was a citizen of the C. S. A. they wouldn’t know what I was talking about. While if I say I am a citizen of the United States, I get more respect and consideration.”

  “Oh, that’s fine,” said Freginald. “Now look, I want—”

  “Stop right there,” said the wren. “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to ask me to take a message to Mr. Boomschmidt. Well, it can’t be done. I’m too busy. I’ve got a nest to build, bear. I can’t take time off to go tearing around the country playing postman every few minutes.”

  “Why, that’s just silly,” said Freginald. “You’d be back in a couple of hours. The circus hasn’t got far a
way.”

  “Yes, and what will my wife say if I go gallivanting off and the floor not even done yet?”

  “Mr. Boomschmidt will give you anything you want. Pounds and pounds of corn meal, enough to last all summer. Or ribbons for your nest—”

  The wren shook his head. “The old house is full of stuff to build with. And we get all we want to eat from the captain. He sees to it that the birds get their share of everything.”

  “Ah, you’re afraid of your old captain. That’s it,” said Freginald. “Hool Afraid of an old bull. Well, what a scairt cat you turned out to be!”

  “Oh, you can’t get me that way,” said the wren. “Sure, I’m afraid. Nope, you’d better apply elsewhere.”

  “Oh dear,” said Freginald. “Well, I guess that’s that. But you don’t mind just talking to me a little, do you? Leo’s in such a bad temper, and I do enjoy a little conversation.”

  “Not at all,” said the wren. “I suppose you’re going to try some other way now, to fool me into taking a message. Well, go ahead. If you can kid me into doing anything, why, you’re welcome.” He laughed his sly little rippling laugh. “As if anybody could fool a wren! But,” he said, “I would like to know about your circus.”

  So Freginald told the wren about life on the road, and what all the different animals did. The wren was interested and asked very intelligent questions. But finally Freginald brought the talk around to nestbuilding. So the wren told him what materials were used and how they were woven together. And finally Freginald said: “This is all extremely interesting to me. By the way, did you ever hear of the African dip-dip?”

  “I can’t say that I have,” said the wren.

  “He’s a bird,” said Freginald, “that’s about your size. Only his coloring is very bright—red and blue and yellow—Forgive me,” he said as the wren glanced down at his own dull and dowdy plumage rather sourly, “I wasn’t making comparisons. We can’t all be beautiful, like the dip-dip. I myself have often wished I could wear a tiger skin instead of this ragged, rusty old coat. However, I was thinking of the dip-dip because he builds a nest much like yours. Only he builds it—will you believe me?-of nothing but those long coarse hairs from the lion’s mane.”