Freddy and the Dragon Page 6

  “Yeah,” said Percy, “I guess I do. Hey, you,” he called to a passing sparrow, “go get that pig to come here, will you? Freddy.”

  So pretty soon Freddy came and asked the bull what he wanted.

  “You said you’d scrub this awful-smelling stuff off me if I’d tell you some things,” Percy said. “Well, I’ll take you up on that.”

  “H’m,” said Freddy. “What changed your mind?”

  “To tell you the truth,” said the bull, “my conscience has been bothering me. I’ve always been kind of a rough, noisy guy, but I can see that this hookin’ up with racketeers is wrong. My conscience won’t stand for it, and that’s the truth. I guess if I want to keep my conscience quiet I’ve got to reform.”

  “Well, that’s fine,” said Freddy. “How are you going to begin?”

  “Well, you’ll want to get rid of this guy Jack. I’ll tell you about him. But first, would you mind scrubbing the perfume off just one side of me? I can stand one of those smells, but the combination of the two is terrible.”

  So Freddy got the hose and some soap and a scrubbrush, and scrubbed off one side of Percy. And while he was working, Percy told him his story.

  While Freddy was working, Percy told him his story.

  It seemed that this racketeer from the city, Jack, had retired and bought himself a rough little hill farm up on the edge of the Adirondacks.

  “He didn’t retire very far,” said Freddy, “if he’s still going on with this racket of selling protection.”

  “Well,” said the bull, “you know how it is when a man retires. He fools around in the garden, and sits around and doesn’t know what to do with himself, and then he decides he needs a hobby. So, being as it’s the only business he knows, he goes back into the same business. That’s what Jack did.”

  “But how come he picked on this locality?” Freddy asked.

  “Well, he bought some animals along with this farm—me and some pigs and horses and others like that. And he wasn’t any kind of a farmer, so most of us never got enough to eat. So when we heard about this animal revolution which started down here a couple of years ago, we joined up and came down. When the revolt got busted up, we went back home again. But we told Jack about it, and he thought it might be fun for a bunch of us to come down again and start a kind of a reign of terror. Jack and some of ’em holed up in that old cave at the west end of the lake.

  “But I didn’t know he’d gone in for a regular racketeer job like selling protection. I don’t like that stuff. I ain’t seen him for a week or more—I kind of went off on my own a while ago. I get more fun in breakin’ windows; I don’t see much fun in getting some guy to pay you not to break his windows.”

  “Percy,” said Samuel from under the grass roots. “I’m ashamed of you. Oh sure, it makes a nice smash when you heave a rock through a window. But the poor guy that owns the house—he’s the one that has to pay to get it fixed. You ought to pay for your own fun, not make someone else pay for it.”

  “Oh gosh, you again!” muttered the bull. “Did you hear that, Freddy?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said the pig.

  “I thought probably not,” said Percy. “It’s just my conscience again.”

  “I don’t expect to make a gentleman of you,” said the mole. “But I don’t want you to behave like a nasty little boy.”

  “Who said I wasn’t a gentleman?” the bull demanded.

  Samuel was silent, and Freddy said: “Nobody said anything, did they? Go on, tell me more about this Jack.”

  “Not much to tell,” said Percy. “As to this headless horseman you’ve talked about, it must be some trick of Jack’s. Only it can’t be Jack, because he hasn’t got a detachable head.”

  The other members of the gang included several pigs, two horses, a mink named Thurlow, and a black-and-tan dog named Cornelius. Jack was also expecting a friend named Gimpy Jones because he limped. Mr. Jones was an accomplished burglar, though most of his burglaries he did not do himself; he had a black snake whom he had trained to crawl in open windows and pick up small objects, such as money or watches or jewelry, and bring them out to him. They had never been caught. Freddy got a few more facts, and then he hosed Percy off and left him in the sun to dry.

  “Tomorrow,” he said to himself, “I’ll go up and scout around that old cave.”

  CHAPTER 8

  A number of things happened the next morning to postpone Freddy’s proposed scouting trip. For during the night the Bean garden had been raided—trampled and uprooted. Some tools in a shed—saws and planes and chisels and hammers—had been stolen. Mr. Bean called the troopers, who came and looked for clues. They found nothing but hoof prints of horses and pigs. They questioned Freddy and Cy and Hank, and wanted to arrest them; but Mr. Bean would not make a complaint against them. “Whoever did this,” he said, “it was not my animals. I know them, and they are not criminals. You will have to look elsewhere for the guilty parties.”

  ‘They’ll be arrested before long, whether you want ’em to be or not,” said the trooper. “Another thing: there were two more demands for money made yesterday against business houses. Mr. Metacarpus, manager of the Busy Bee Department Store, had a letter asking for one hundred dollars to protect his show windows. And Gorflinger’s drug store, the same. They were to put the money in an envelope and bring it up your back road, same as Mr. Rohr did. Everybody says it must be your animals.”

  Mr. Bean just shook his head. “Not my animals,” he said.

  “I can tell you who it is,” said Freddy, and he told the trooper what Percy had told him. Unfortunately, he also told what he and Jinx had seen—the apparition of a headless horseman.

  The man just laughed. “Headless horseman, eh?” he said. “You ought to be able to think up a better one than that.”

  “There’s an old story about a headless horseman up on the back road. My grandfather used to tell about folks seeing him,” said Mr. Bean. “I don’t say I believe it, but maybe somebody’s using it to scare people off.”

  “Sure, sure,” said the trooper. “Maybe this Jack guy, maybe he heard this story, and maybe he’s got a detachable head, and so he figured this would be a good place to do a little robbery and racketeering, because if folks saw him they’d run, instead of shooting at him. Look, you bring me in his head, and after I’ve had a talk with it, maybe I’ll believe your story.” He looked sternly at Freddy. “But I’m not going to give you much time. There’s complaints enough against you now, so I’d ought to run you in right now. And I would if I didn’t know Mr. Bean here. But we can’t hold off much longer. You’re lucky in your friends, young pig. So far Judge Willey has refused four times to issue a warrant for your arrest. But he can’t keep on doing it.”

  “All right,” said Freddy. “But how about investigating that cave?”

  “That’s where those animals holed up two years ago,” said the trooper. “Sure, I remember. Well, I’ll have a look at it. But I know what I’ll find—one big nothing.”

  He got in his car. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said menacingly, and drove off.

  Mr. Bean slapped Freddy on the shoulder. “I’ll stand by you,” he said, and turned back to the house.

  Some of the other animals had come up, and Freddy looked around at them. “The police are against us,” he said. “We’ll have to tackle this gang ourselves.”

  “Hey, Freddy,” said Rabbit No. 12, coming around the corner of the barn, “that bull—he’s all upset about something. He keeps calling for somebody named Constance. Maybe you’d better go see what’s the matter.”

  “Constance?” said Freddy. “There isn’t anybody around here named—” He broke off and laughed. “Oh, I think I’ve got it. O.K., I’ll see to it.” He went off and hunted up Samuel Jackson.

  “Percy wants you,” he said. “He’s calling for his conscience.”

  “What for?” said the mole. “I thought I had him all fixed up.”

  Freddy said he didn’t know, and Sam
uel said: “All right, I’ll go see what’s wrong.” He went to the corner of the barn and dove into the tunnel he had made up to the post where Percy was tied.

  Freddy kept out of sight and listened.

  “Well, well, I’m here,” said Samuel. “What is it you want? I say what is it you want?”

  “About time you were here,” grumbled the bull. “I thought consciences were supposed to be on the job twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Uh-uh,” said the mole. “Not if they’re pretty sure folks are going to behave themselves. We have to sleep some time.”

  “Well, can’t say I’ve missed you,” said Percy. “But I want to talk to you just the same.”

  “What you been up to now?” the mole asked.

  “That’s just it—I haven’t been up to anything,” the bull retorted. “But you said—well, you said I wasn’t a gentleman,” he added resentfully.

  “Phooey!” Samuel said. “You team up with gangsters and expect to be a gentleman. You ain’t one anyway.”

  “That’s just it. Why ain’t I? I told that detective all about Jack. I haven’t busted any fences or chased anybody since.”

  “How could you?” Samuel asked. “You’ve been tied up by the nose ring since Mr. Bean trapped you.”

  “I could have been rude to visitors,” said Percy. “And goodness knows every animal on the farm has been around here to look at me.”

  “Yeah. That’s to your credit. But you’ve always been a roughneck. You’re never mean; you’re always good-natured. That’s all to the good. But your manners aren’t so hot. And would you say you’re always considerate of other folks’ feelings?”

  “Sure, I consider ’em. But it depends on how they act whether I consider they’re offensive or not.”

  “Yeah, and then you try to scare ’em to death,” said Samuel. “That isn’t gentlemanly, when they’re smaller than you.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Percy. “But that’s easy enough to quit doing. What I want—well, I’d like to have kind of polished manners—you know? I’m bigger than most everybody else, and I’d ought to act nicer on that account. Do you suppose there’s anybody who could sort of show me how to be, kind of, refined like?”

  “What’s all the rush to be gentlemanly all of a sudden?” Samuel asked. “You never said, or even thought, anything about it before.”

  “How do you know what I thought? Anyway, nobody ever said I wasn’t a gentleman before. And you never said anything either. Where were you all the time?”

  “I guess maybe I’ve been sort of lax,” said the mole. “Still and all, I didn’t see there was much I could, do with you. You were always a rowdy.”

  “I’ve lived a rough life,” said Percy. “That farm of old Briggs where I was born—they were mean to all their animals. And you know what that place of Jack’s is like. And yet even when I was a little calf I think I always wanted to be a gentleman. I brought up the girls ladylike, didn’t I? Well, I don’t like to have them looking down on their old father because he’s a no good bum. I’d like to do something about it.” He thought a minute. “Also, I’d like to be free—not tied up like a criminal. But I realize I’ll have to prove I’ve got some manners first.”

  “Letting you loose is up to Mr. Bean,” said the mole. “As for better manners—there you’ll have to do it yourself. It’s all up to you. I say, it’s up to you.”

  They talked a little longer, and then Samuel went back to his home burrow, down near the First Animal Bank. But first he told Freddy, and Freddy talked to his friends and to Mr. Pomeroy, and pretty soon all the animals on the farm knew that Percy wanted to have better manners. And they all agreed to help him.

  So pretty soon Rabbit No. 12 came hopping past Percy. He stopped and bowed low. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “A lovely day, is it not?”

  Percy lowered his head and looked at him and made a sound that sounded like “Mmph!”

  Then Jinx came by. “Sir,” he said, “it is a pleasure to see you looking so well. I trust that you are going to enjoy your stay among us. We are all, you might say, one big happy family, and I venture to hope that you’ll take the prominent place among us which you so well deserve.”

  “Phooey!” said Percy.

  Jinx went back to Freddy. “I think we need a little more help from Brother Jackson,” he said. “And how about getting the ducks down? If anybody can bring out the gentleman in him—if there is any to bring out—they can.”

  So Samuel came back to his post as Percy’s conscience, and after a while the two ducks, Alice and Emma, came waddling along with their most ladylike waddle.

  They stopped close to the fence post. “Why, dear me,” said Alice, “why who is this handsome stranger?” She came closer to the bull. “How do you do? I don’t think we’ve met, have we? Are you a guest of the Beans’?”

  “Yeah, I guess you can call it that,” said Percy. “They got me tied up by the nose.”

  “Dear, dear, how confining,” said Emma. “But I daresay that is only temporary. May we introduce ourselves? I am Emma, and this is my sister, Alice. We are ducks.”

  “I am Emma and this is my sister Alice.”

  “Yeah?” said the bull. “I didn’t think you were alligators.”

  Samuel cut in. “Watch it, Percy,” he said warningly. “I say, watch it!”

  The ducks didn’t appear to have heard the admonition, and Percy said quickly: “Excuse me, ladies. I didn’t mean to be rude. Sometimes my lower nature kind of gets on top, and then I talk kind of rough. I’m very happy to meet you.”

  “That’s very gracious of you,” Alice said. “When you are released from what is, I am sure, only a temporary captivity, we will be delighted to welcome you at our home. We live on a pond, you know, which most of the animals use as a swimming-pool in summer. Do you enjoy bathing?”

  “I enjoyed it when that pig, Freddy, washed off the perfume he squirted on me,” said Percy. “I never was a great hand for taking baths.”

  Samuel cleared his throat.

  “It’s very refreshing in hot weather,” said Emma. “And I’m sure you’ll enjoy meeting and having a chat with our Uncle Wesley. He is elderly now, of course, but he has traveled widely and has had many interesting experiences. He is very wise in the ways of the world.”

  The bull gave a snort. “Any time I have to amuse myself with chatting with an elderly duck—” he began, contemptuously.

  “Watch it!” said Samuel.

  “—I always find myself amazed at the breadth of his experience,” continued Percy, changing his tone quickly. “I shall be delighted to meet your distinguished uncle.”

  “Thank you,” said Alice. “We shall look forward to seeing you.”

  “Ta ta, girls,” said Percy. And he heard one of them say as they waddled on: “A pleasant person! What charm!”

  “Well, conscience,” said the bull, who was plainly pleased with himself, “how about it? Did I do all right?”

  “Not bad for a start,” said the mole. “I’m not so sure about that ‘ta ta’ business. A little on the vulgar side. You could have said: ‘Good afternoon, ladies!’”

  Pretty soon Mrs. Wiggins came along.

  “Well, daughter,” said Percy, “come to see how your old father’s getting along? You’re looking very well today.”

  “You’ve changed your tune since the last time I saw you,” said Mrs. Wiggins. Like most cows, she was inclined to be rather outspoken.

  “Yes, I guess I have,” he said. “I guess I was cross at being roped up and perfumed.”

  “And I understand you want to quit this gang you came down here with,” said the cow, “and become a law-abiding citizen.”

  “That’s right.”

  Mrs. Wiggins looked doubtful. “You used to be nice,” she said. “But you got to roistering around and bragging that you could lick any animal in the neighborhood, and then you ran away, and now you’re in with this criminal. How can we believe you’ve really had a change of hear
t?”

  “I know,” said the bull sadly. “But I’ve been here and seen how nice things are on this farm. And it’s only today my conscience began to bother me. Said I was no gentleman. Well, I guess I haven’t been one.”

  “You guess!” Mrs. Wiggins exclaimed. “You know perfectly well you haven’t been. Oh, you know how to be one. But that makes it all the worse.”

  Percy nodded sadly. “I never thought I wasn’t a gentleman any more until my conscience got to nagging me. But how can I prove I’m a gentleman if I’m tied up? Not by soft-talkin’ a lot of cats and ducks.”

  “You’ve got to prove you’re gentle,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “You’ve always kept your promises. Will you give me your word not to go in for any rough stuff if I can get Mr. Bean to untie you?”

  Percy promised eagerly, and the cow went off to talk with Freddy. So the pig came and got right in and sat down beside the bull and engaged him in conversation. Freddy was an entertaining talker, even more so than most pigs, who are known for their witty conversation; and although he was pretty nervous and always ready to jump, soon they became really interested in each other. They were having a very pleasant time when Mr. Bean came around the corner of the barn.

  “What in tarnation!” he exclaimed. “Freddy, come away from that critter. He’ll h’ist you right over the barn.”

  “He’s perfectly safe,” said Freddy, and he explained about Percy and his conscience, and his desire to be gentlemanly and not tied up.

  “I got a lot of respect for your opinion, Freddy,” said Mr. Bean. “But this fellow is a smart fence-breaker. If he gets away again we’ll never catch him.”

  “He’d like to stay here, if you’ll let him,” said the pig. “You see, the three cows are his long-lost daughters. At least, he’s their long-lost father.”

  Well, of course, that altered the case and Mr. Bean said he would take a chance. And he untied the rope from Percy’s nose ring.

  “Esteemed sir,” said Percy, bowing low, “you have my eternal gratitude.” He bowed again to Freddy. “And to you, sir, my warmest thanks.” Then he walked on to where Mr. Pomeroy was sitting on a fence post. “You have, on occasion, sir,” he said, “twitted me with my lack of manners. I trust that my deportment today may have altered your opinion.”