Freddy and the Ignormus Page 6

  He went on up along the brook into the woods, reading the card every now and then to reassure himself. When he came to the pool where Theodore lived, he sat down a minute to rest. Pretty soon over the top of a lily pad across the pool he saw two large bulging eyes staring at him. He took off his cap and waved it. The eyes disappeared, there was a flash of green in the water, and the frog climbed out on the bank beside him.

  “My gug-gug I mean goodness, Freddy,” said Theodore, “I didn’t know you in that rig. Don’t you think it’s a little loud?”

  “Maybe,” said Freddy. “Maybe. Personally, I favor a bit of color. Makes things gayer, somehow. Not that I feel especially gay myself,” he added. And he told the frog where he was going.

  Theodore agreed that the Ignormus certainly wouldn’t bother a hunter with a gun. “I wish you’d take me,” he said. “I’d feel safe with that gun to protect me.”

  “I’d like your company all right,” said Freddy. “But whoever heard of a hunter going out with a frog?”

  “I could pretend I was a dud—I mean dog,” said Theodore. “I can bark like one.” And he gave a couple of croaks, which did indeed sound rather doglike.

  Freddy said that was all very well, but who ever heard of a green dog?

  “Well,” said the frog, “if you come to that, who ever heard of a pig in a plaid suit?”

  Freddy felt that there was something wrong with Theodore’s argument, but he was pretty anxious to have company. “All right,” he said, “but you must promise not to be scared.”

  “Sure, I’ll promise if you will,” said the frog.

  Freddy thought about that a minute, and then he said: “Well, we’ll both promise to try.” And they set out.

  Chapter 8

  They went up along the brook, and Theodore dashed in and out of the bushes croaking, to seem as doglike as possible. Just before they got to the road, Freddy stopped suddenly, looking down into the water where a corncob was bobbing along on the current. “Look!” he said.

  “What’s so funny about that?” said Theodore.

  “Good gracious,” said Freddy, “don’t you see what it means?”

  “It means somebody threw a corncob in the water.”

  “Yes, but who?”

  “Who!” said the frog. “How do I know? What’s it matter? I’ve seen quite a few cobs floating down the last few days.”

  “It matters a lot,” said Freddy. “This brook comes down from the Big Woods. Whoever threw it in the water was probably in the Big Woods. And if that isn’t some of the corn that was stolen from the bank, I miss my guess.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Theodore. “Then you think it really was the Ignormus that robbed the bank?”

  “I don’t believe in the Ignormus,” said Freddy.

  “Just because you’ve never seen him,” said the frog. “Well, I’ve never seen the President of the United States, but I believe in him all right.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t argue so much,” said the pig. “And there’s no use dragging the President of the United States into this. Come on. Are we going to explore the Big Woods, or not?”

  So they went on up the brook and across the road and into the gloomy silence of the Big Woods. Theodore dashed about barking in the underbrush, and several times gave Freddy quite a start by coming out unexpectedly in a different place. But in his disguise, and with a real gun over his shoulder, the pig found he wasn’t as scared as he had been on his previous visits. He trudged along boldly, and really made a good deal of noise, though not any more than he could help.

  There had once been a path leading to Mr. Grimby’s house, but it was now so overgrown with saplings and berry bushes that it was easier not to walk on it. They went through the trees alongside it, and pretty soon began to catch glimpses of a sagging roof, and of walls from which all the paint had long since peeled off. They crept closer, and peered out from behind the bushes at the dilapidated old house.

  “Hardly a whole window in the place,” whispered Theodore. “I bet if a mouse walked over that roof he’d f-fall right through to the cellar. Just the kind of place an Ignun-nun—I mean—normus would live.”

  Freddy didn’t like the look of the house much either. But he thought of the card in his pocket that said, “There isn’t any Ignormus,” and he took a firm grip on his gun, and walked out from behind the bushes. “Come on,” he said firmly, and went towards the house.

  There wasn’t any sound. The front door was open, and through it they could see the hall, from whose walls the paper was hanging in tattered strips. Freddy started up the steps, took a look at the rotting and broken boards of the porch, and went down again.

  “Afraid I’d fall through,” he said, “and I’ve got my best suit on. You don’t weigh much, Theodore. Suppose you go in and scout around.”

  “Not me,” said the frog. “Where we go, Freddy, we g-go together.”

  So they walked around the house. The back door was locked, but they found that the lock of the cellar door had been torn off, and Freddy laid down his gun and lifted up the wooden flap, under which a short flight of stone steps led down into darkness. The two looked at each other.

  “After you,” said Theodore politely. “You’re the leader of this expedition.”

  “Pooh,” said Freddy, “I’m a hunter and you’re his dog. The dog is supposed to go in and chase out the game.”

  “Oh, sure,” said the frog. “And suppose the game chases out the d-dog?”

  “Well,” said Freddy, “it’s just an old cellar. Probably nothing in it anyway. Dust. Old bottles. Somebody’s old overalls. And more dust. I suppose there’s not much sense spoiling my best suit.”

  “I don’t see why you should spoil it,” said Theodore, “unless you plan to lie down and roll on the floor.”

  The frog was grinning at him. “Oh, well,” said Freddy, “come on, then.” And holding his gun in front of him he started down the stairs.

  The cellar was grim and gloomy. In it were all the things Freddy had mentioned and quite a lot more: old barrels and packing cases and broken furniture. It smelt musty, because rain from the leaky roof had dripped through on to the floor over their heads, and in one or two places the boards had broken away so they could see up into the rooms above. They were standing under one of these holes when Freddy thought he heard something move upstairs.

  “Listen!” he whispered. “Sounded like something being dragged across the floor.”

  “Wind, probably,” said Theodore. “Blowing a loose shutter.”

  “I think—” Freddy began. But whether he really had a thought, or was just going to say something, the frog never knew, for at that moment several things happened very rapidly.

  The sound above them came again, and something Jong and black and wiggly dropped through the hole and came down with a slap between them. “A snake!” croaked Theodore, and he gathered his hind legs under him and in one magnificent jump soared up through the cellar door and out into the open air. At the same moment Freddy pulled up his gun and fired.

  It wasn’t that Freddy was afraid of snakes. Indeed one of his best friends was a garter snake named Homer who lived down by the brook. For in his early days as a detective, Freddy had thought that if he could only glide like a snake he could follow people he was shadowing much more quietly. And so he had taken gliding lessons from Homer. He had never shown much improvement, and had finally given the lessons up, but the friendship continued, and he and Homer often took long walks together—if a snake can be said to take walks when he hasn’t any legs.

  But it seemed to Freddy that this snake was attacking his friend, Theodore, and so he tired to shoot him. But Freddy didn’t know much about firing a shotgun. It isn’t enough to just point it at the mark and pull the trigger. You have to press the butt of the gun tight into your shoulder before firing, for a shotgun kicks like a mule and if you don’t hold it tight it will knock you off your feet. That is what happened to Freddy. The gun kicked back and knocked him heels over hea
d into a pile of old boxes which came tumbling down over him, and the last box came down and hit him on the head, and that was the last he knew for quite a while.

  That is what happened to Freddy.

  When he came to, he didn’t at first know where he was. Then he saw Theodore. The frog had waited some time before venturing back into the cellar, and I think it was very brave of him to go back at all. But frogs are pretty loyal friends. He had gone in and seen Freddy lying among the boxes, and then he had rushed out to get some water. But all he could find was an old acorn cup full of rain water. That much water doesn’t go very far on a face as broad as Freddy’s, and when he had sprinkled all he had on his friend, he picked up a little white feather that was lying nearby and began tickling the pig’s nose. That was what brought Freddy to.

  “What—what happened?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Theodore. “I wasn’t here. You shot the snake, I guess.”

  “I remember now,” said Freddy. “Then the house fell on me. I wonder if I’m badly injured.” He wriggled his nose. “Thank goodness, that’s all right,” he said. Then he wiggled his ears. They were all right, too. Then he tried to wiggle his tail, but nothing happened. “Theodore!” he exclaimed. “My tail! It must be broken. I can’t wiggle it.”

  “You’re lying on it,” said the frog.

  “Oh,” said Freddy. Very slowly he sat up. “My best suit!” he said sadly, looking down at it. “Hey, wait a minute,” he said suddenly. “Where’d you get that feather?”

  Theodore said it had just been lying there.

  Now Freddy was a good detective. That is, if he saw something, he didn’t just look at it as you or I would and then forget it. He thought about it and wondered what it meant. And by and by, if you think about something long enough, you begin to see things about it. Freddy saw that this feather was a very queer thing to find in a cellar, in the middle of a patch of woods where no birds had lived for years. And it wasn’t an old feather, all bedraggled as it would have been if it had lain there a long time. It was fresh and fluffy. He put it in his pocket and got up.

  “You got the snake anyway,” said Theodore. “At least—Well, what do you know about that!” he exclaimed. For what they had thought a snake was nothing more than a short length of old rubber hose, now well riddled with birdshot.

  Freddy looked down at it. “This is getting beyond me,” he said. “A snake, I could understand. But a piece of hose doesn’t jump through a hole in the ceiling all by itself. And what’s this on it?” He bent and picked up a small piece of paper. “Warning!” he read. “In this house pigs become pork. This means you! (Signed) The Ignormus.”

  “Hey, let’s get out of here,” said Theodore.

  “Yes,” muttered the pig. “Guess you’re right. Just as soon as I get my—Why, where’s the gun?”

  The gun had vanished.

  “Maybe under the boxes,” said Freddy, and began pulling them about. “You go on if you want to, Theodore, but I’d rather face sixteen Ignormuses with pink eyes than Mr. Bean if he knows I borrowed his gun.”

  But the gun wasn’t under the boxes. And though Freddy hunted thoroughly, it wasn’t in the cellar.

  “Maybe it flew out of the door,” said Theodore. “Look, it’s getting late. It will be dark before we get out of the Big Woods if we don’t hurry. I’m going.”

  There was nothing else for Freddy to do. An angry Mr. Bean might be worse than the Ignormus, but the Big Woods at night seemed right now worse than either of them. But he’d have to come back tomorrow and find the gun.

  By the time they got to the road it was indeed beginning to get dark. They sat down a minute and rested, because they had run pretty fast.

  “You know, Theodore,” said Freddy, “you haven’t stammered once since we got to that house. Do you suppose it got scared out of you?”

  The frog grinned. “I guess I forgot it,” he said. “I don’t really have to stammer, Freddy. I did a little, when I was a tadpole, but I got over it. Only I found that it was pretty useful. You see, when anybody asks you a question, sometimes you can’t think of an answer right away. But if you begin sort of stammering and stuttering around, it gives you time to think up a really good one.”

  “My goodness,” said Freddy, “that’s a smart; idea. Only if everybody stammered until they thought up just what they wanted to say, there wouldn’t be much conversation.”

  “No,” said Theodore, “but what there is would be better. That’s why I like to live up here in the woods. I don’t hear so much talk.”

  “You’d like Mr. Bean, then,” said Freddy. “He hardly ever says anything. Oh, dear, why did I think of Mr. Bean? What he’ll say when he finds his gun is missing I hate to think.”

  “You just said that he hardly ever says anything,” put in Theodore.

  “I guess that’s what I’m afraid of. He won’t talk; he probably won’t even give me a licking.”

  “Well, then, I don’t see what you’re so scared of.”

  “It’s what he’ll think,” said Freddy. “Whenever I see him around the barnyard, he’ll look at me reproachfully, and I’ll know he’s thinking: ‘I’m disappointed in Freddy. I thought he was an honest pig.’ You know, Theodore, that’ll hurt more than all the lickings in the world.”

  “No, I don’t know,” said the frog. “I got licked plenty when I was a tadpole, and it hurt all right. There was a lily pad down at the foot of the pool, and when we’d been bad my father used to haul us out on it and take us across his knee and spank us. There were about fifty of us, so it kept him pretty busy, and finally he gave it up. He said he was doing so much spanking that he was neglecting his business, and we’d just have to get along without it. We were all a lot happier after that, and it’s a funny thing, but we behaved better too.”

  But Freddy wasn’t listening. He had taken his coat off and was brushing the dust off it with a wisp of grass. Now he put it on. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better go down and face the music. See you tomorrow, Theodore.”

  He went down along the brook. Now that he had no gun the animals didn’t hide from him, and those that he passed looked at him curiously, but none of them recognized him. It occurred to him that it would be fun to see if any of his friends recognized him. So when he saw a small group of animals by the corner of the cowbarn he went towards them.

  Minx was apparently bragging about something to Mrs. Wiggins and to the two dogs, Robert and Georgie. Freddy heard her say: “Oh yes, when I lived there I had a whole pint of cream every day in a silver bowl. It was a wonderful big house—much bigger than the Bean house—more like a palace, really—” She stopped as Freddy came up.

  He touched his hat politely. “Pardon me,” he said, “but would ye be so kind as to tell an would man if ’tis the good Beans that do be livin’ in yonder house?” He spoke in a strong Irish brogue to disguise his voice.

  The animals as a rule did not like to have strangers know they could talk, so they didn’t say anything.

  “Deary me,” said Freddy, “’tis many a long road I have traveled to reach this place and see with me own eyes the talkin’ animals. A wonder of the world they are, I’ve heard tell. But if ’tis all a story made up by them that writes for the newspapers, and no truth in it, why ’tis a bitter disappointment, so it is.” And Freddy took out a rather grimy pocket handkerchief and held it to his eyes.

  This was too much for Mrs. Wiggins, who was one of the softest hearted cows that ever lived. “Land sakes,” she said; “we can talk. Here, stop it! or you’ll have me crying too, and believe me, when I cry, I cry!”

  Freddy knew this was true. When Mrs. Wiggins cried you could hear her down in Centerboro, and it was almost impossible to make her stop. So he took the handkerchief down. “Oh, ma’am,” he said delightedly, “’tis true, then! You do talk! And would ye say a few words that I can be after takin’ back to Ireland with me to tell my grandchildren how I heard the wonderful talking animals?”

  “I lived in
Ireland once, mister,” said Minx.

  “O’Houlihan’s the name,” said Freddy.

  “And did ye now? A talking cat, no less! Ah, it’s the fine pretty kitty ye are too!” And he patted Minx kindly on the head.

  “I lived in Dublin,” said the cat. “In a great big beautiful house on Gratton Street. It had seventy windows, and in every window was a silk cushion I could sit on.”

  “And may I make so bold as to ask whose house that was?” said Freddy.

  “It belonged to Mr. Shaemus O’Toole.”

  “I know that house fine!” exclaimed Freddy. “’I was the little gatehouse to me own fine big estate. I gave it to me grandchildren for a playhouse.”

  “I guess you’re thinking of the wrong . house,” said Minx. “This house had seventy windows; it was big—”

  “Sure, ’twould seem big to a cat,” said Freddy kindly. “Seventy windows it had, and the cushions and all. But me own house had three hundred and forty-two windows not countin’ the top floor, and in each of them a great soft divan upholstered in red plush with green fringe. A nice little place, if I do say it meself.”

  “Oh,” said Minx, and the other animals looked at her and grinned. Then she said: “Well, I didn’t mean that that was the nicest house I’ve ever lived in.”

  “Oh, sure, sure,” said Freddy. “A little dump like that! A fine cat like you must have lived in some real nice places. Palaces, no less.”

  “I was just telling the others,” said Minx, “about a prince’s palace I lived in Rome. Where I had a pint of real cream every day in a silver bowl.”

  “Did you now?” said Freddy. “Sure, them princes are stingy people. I mind when I was in Rome. The Parchesi Palace I lived in—’tis the biggest palace in all Italy. Me little nephew had two kittens, and we bought a dairy farm to keep ’em supplied with cream, and then an ice cream factory to make it up in different flavors for ’em. Every morning ’twas delivered fresh—twenty-five great shiny gold cans, in the courtyard, two of cream, and twenty-three of assorted flavors of ice cream. And a man in a general’s uniform to ladle it out for ’em.”