Freddy’s Cousin Weedly Page 6

  So Freddy took hold of Jinx’s tail and stumbled along behind him for another mile. Then the cat stopped. “Guess you’ll have to walk the rest of the way without help,” he said.

  “What’s the matter?” Freddy asked. “We were getting along all right. Of course if you want to go on ahead—if you’re afraid of getting wet, why go on. But I can’t possibly keep on the road in this darkness.”

  “Oh, yes you can,” said the cat. “I know it, and I can prove it, too.” And he snatched Freddy’s spectacles off.

  “My goodness!” the pig exclaimed. “Why, it isn’t dark at all. It’s—I—” He stopped and looked at the spectacles. “Well, I’ll be darned!” he said, as he saw what had happened. For the dust whipped up from the road by the passing cars had settled thicker and thicker on the lenses, until they were so coated that no light could get through. Then he looked at Jinx. “And you made me walk that whole mile, holding on to your tail”

  “I could have made you walk the whole way, if I’d wanted to,” said Jinx. “But a joke’s a joke. Come on, polish your spectacles and let’s get going.”

  “What’ll I polish them with?” asked Freddy.

  “If you wear glasses, you certainly have to carry a pocket handkerchief to polish them with.”

  “A pocket handkerchief!” said Freddy disgustedly. “I haven’t got a pocket handkerchief, and if I did, I haven’t got anything to carry it in.” He looked at the spectacles and shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said, “nothing doing. If I have a handkerchief, I have to have a pocket to carry it in, and if I have a pocket, I have to have a suit to sew it in, and if I have a suit, I have to have a closet to hang it in, and if I have a closet, I have to have a house–Rats!” he said, and tossed the spectacles into the bushes. “Come on. I never did like the things anyway.”

  At the edge of town they began to meet people. Nearly everybody in Centerboro knew Mr. Bean’s animals, and there were nods and smiles as they passed by, and one little boy even took his hat off to Freddy. Little Weedly was walking between, and just a little behind the other two animals, so nobody noticed him, but pretty soon Freddy moved over to the other side of Jinx, so that people could see the fierce eyebrows and the terrifying moustache. The first person that got a good sight of Weedly was a little girl who was eating a lollipop. She had just pulled the stick out of the lollipop, in order to get more of the flavor, which was lemon, when she saw Weedly. She opened her eyes wide and drew in her breath sharply with fright, and the lollipop went with it. She began to make choking noises, and people rushed up and stood around and said, “Oh, Oh! The poor little thing!” But one man who knew what to do, picked her up and whacked her on the back, and the lollipop flew out and rolled off into the bushes. And the little girl went into the house crying, to ask her mother for some money to buy another lollipop.

  … picked her up and whacked her on the back.

  That was bad enough, but the next person they met was a little old lady. Her name was Mrs. Peppercorn. Mrs. Peppercorn was nearly ninety. She had seen a lot of queer things, but in all her nearly ninety years she had never seen a pig with a black moustache and eyebrows. She was a very active old lady, and when she came face to face with Little Weedly she jumped right over Judge Willey’s white picket fence.

  Well, a number of things like this happened as they went along. Mr. Bickey, the coal man, fell right out of his front parlor window into a rosebush, which was not very pleasant for him, and Willis Fitts, who was repairing some stonework on the chimney of the First Presbyterian Church, gave a loud cry and disappeared down the chimney. Fortunately he stuck halfway down, so no bones were broken. But it took the Centerboro fire department three hours to get him out.

  Little Weedly seemed rather pleased at these various demonstrations, and even began to strut a little. But when two automobile drivers had run their cars right up on the pavement in their panic, Jinx said: “If we go over to the movie theatre now, there’ll be a riot. Couldn’t I take him somewhere until after dark, and then slip in without being seen?”

  Freddy suggested the jail, so they turned up a side street and presently came to a large, pleasant looking house, sitting back from the sidewalk, and surrounded by green lawns bordered with flower beds. Little tables with gaily striped umbrellas over them stood about, and at them sat the prisoners, talking and playing games. There were open boxes of candy on nearly all the tables, and at one, an ice cream freezer was being opened. In the middle of the lawn, several prisoners were planting red geraniums in a large flower bed. They were working very fast, because the flower bed was to be a surprise for the sheriff. They were arranging the flowers to spell out the motto: THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE JAIL.

  The animals went around to the back, where they found the sheriff refereeing a game of croquet.

  “Sure,” he said when Freddy had explained, “sure. Go right into the living room. There’s nobody there now. Great potatoes, he is a tough looking customer, isn’t he?”

  So Jinx and Little Weedly waited at the jail, and Freddy went on down to the movies. When he got there a lot of people were going in and he paid his ten cents and went along in with them. It was dark inside, because the newsreel had started, and he slid into a seat about halfway down and folded his fore-trotters on his stomach and prepared to enjoy himself. He sat through the news and a cartoon, and a travel picture and the feature had begun and he was just wondering if Jinx and Weedly had got there yet, when a woman sat down in the seat next to him.

  At first she didn’t notice that she was sitting next to a pig. But pretty soon she turned and saw him. She jumped up and called in a loud voice: “Usher! Usher!”

  People all around them turned and stared and said: “Hush! Sit down!” But the woman just shouted: “Send an usher down here!” And then she turned and pointed to Freddy. “I demand that this animal be removed!” she said. Then Freddy saw that it was Aunt Effie.

  Uncle Snedeker, who sat on the other side of Aunt Effie, with his big hat on his knees, tugged at her shawl. “Eh, Effie, don’t make a fuss,” he whispered. “Here now; I’ll change seats with you, eh? Lordy, I’ve sat next to pigs often enough in my life, I guess.”

  “If I thought you meant what I think you meant, Snedeker,” she said, turning on him, “I’d—”

  “No, no,” he said, “I just meant—Eh, skip it. Come on, change seats. Don’t spoil the show for everybody.”

  The audience were now nearly all on their feet, trying to see what the disturbance was about. “Put her out! We came here to see the show,” someone in the back shouted. Freddy, who didn’t want to make any trouble, started to get up and change his seat, but a man behind him put his hands on the pig’s shoulders and pushed him down. “No you don’t, Freddy,” he said. “You’ve got as good a right here as she has, and there isn’t anybody in Centerboro that wouldn’t be proud to sit next to any of Mr. Bean’s animals.”

  By this time the theatre was in an uproar. The picture stopped running, and the lights went up, and Mr. Muszkiski came waddling down the aisle. “What’s all this—what’s all this, madam?” he panted. He was a very fat man, and he always panted, even when he hadn’t been running.

  Aunt Effie stood up very straight and tall. Her shawl was pulled tight around her, and her bonnet nodded at Mr. Muszkiski as she pointed a long finger at Freddy and said: “I demand that this animal be removed.”

  “Yes, madam,” said Mr. Muszkiski. Why?”

  “Why?” snapped Aunt Effie. “Why?” She drew her lips into a tight line. “A pig!”

  Mr. Muszkiski shook his head. “We make no class distinctions in this theatre, madam,” he said. “Bankers, working men, Eskimos, Hottentots, elephants, lizards—we treat them all alike. If they have the price of admission, we let them in.” He turned to Freddy. “You paid for your ticket, I suppose, sir?”

  “Sure I did,” said the pig. “But I don’t want to make you any trouble, and if this lady insists—” but he didn’t finish, for at his first word, Aunt Effie had fallen back
into her seat.

  “You—you can talk!” she gasped.

  “Yes, madam, I can talk,” said Freddy, very dignified.

  “Eh, Effie, what did I tell you?” said Uncle Snedeker. “You know what the sheriff said. Talking animals, eh? Well … What’s that?” he said sharply. For a sudden babble of voices had arisen in the back of the theater, and as they tried to see what it was, they grew louder. There were cries of fright, and then a surge of people toward the door.

  “What’s the matter with them?” said Mr. Muszkiski, who had climbed on to a seat in order to see better. “Something’s scared them. They’ll be hurt.—Open the exits!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “You—Jack! Open the doors!”

  Uncle Snedeker crammed his hat on his head and seized Aunt Effie by the arm. “It’s the Indians!” he shouted. “Eh, Effie, come along! They’ve set fire to the theatre. We must escape!”

  Aunt Effie was too amazed at discovering that Freddy could talk, to protest. Besides, most of the audience, without knowing what had happened, had become panic-stricken and were pouring towards the exit. She turned her back on Freddy and pushed out into the aisle.

  “It can’t be a fire,” said Freddy to himself, “or I’d hear the fire engines. And if it should be Indians, I’d rather take my chance with them than get kicked and stepped on by that mob in the aisles.” So he sat down in his seat again. In a few minutes the theater was empty. Only Mr. Muszkiski was left, still standing on a seat and trying to see what had caused the excitement.

  And after a minute he saw. For out from under a seat came Jinx and Little Weedly.

  “Wow!” yelled Mr. Muszkiski and he made a dash down to a little door to the right of the stage and waddled through and slammed it behind him.

  “Hi, Freddy,” said Jinx. “Well, I guess the show’s over. Going home?”

  “I guess so,” said Freddy. “What started the riot? Was it—was it this?” and he pointed to Weedly.

  “Yeah,” said the cat. “I tried to make him keep down in his seat when the lights went up, but he heard your voice and stood up on his hind legs, and some of the folks saw him.”

  “I scared ’em good, Cousin Frederick,” said Little Weedly happily.

  “Yes. You probably scared ’em so good they won’t let us come to the movies any more. Well, let’s go home.”

  The street was full of people when they came out, but the lights in front of the theater had been turned out, and they managed to get out without attracting any attention. Once away from the theater, there was only a scattering of people, and most of them were running toward the theater to see what was going on. No one noticed them. Weedly had never been in a town before and he was very much interested in all the sights, particularly the colored lights in the drugstore window. He stopped to look at them. Suddenly he gave a jump and a squeal, and then tried to crawl under Jinx. “Oh, Uncle Jinx,” he whispered, “what was that terrible animal? Oh, I want to go home!”

  “Terrible animal?” said Freddy looking in the window and catching sight of his own pleasant face in a mirror, “I don’t see any—oh, yes,” he said, “I know what you saw. Here, Weedly—look.” And he pulled him up to the window again.

  Weedly trembled, but he did look again, and there beside the dreadful face that had frightened him was the face of his cousin. And on the other side of it, Jinx appeared.

  They had some trouble explaining to him what a mirror was, and how it worked, but when he saw that if he wiggled his nose or smiled, the terrible face did the same thing, he was convinced. He was rather pleased, too. “I look nice,” he said. “I thought I looked like Cousin Frederick.”

  “Ha, that’s one for you, Freddy,” said Jinx.

  “Oh,” said Weedly, “I don’t mean that Cousin Frederick isn’t nice looking, but I think I look sort of stern and noble and—”

  “Yeah, you look lovely,” said Jinx impatiently. “But we can’t stand here all night while you admire yourself. Come on home. I promise you that you’ll look a lot more like your Cousin Frederick in the morning. Eh, Freddy?”

  “You bet,” said the pig. “We can’t have him starting any more riots.”

  Chapter 7

  After Aunt Effie took the teapot down and put it on the tea table in the parlor, the Webbs moved downstairs, and took up a temporary residence back of a framed steel engraving of Washington Crossing the Delaware, which hung between the front parlor windows. Here they could keep an eye on the teapot. The only difficulty was—how could they get word out quickly to the animals, if something important happened? Even when the grass outside was dry, it took a long time to get to the barn or the pigpen. If the Snedekers decided to leave suddenly, they would be packed up and gone before Mr. Webb could let the animals know.

  At last, however, they thought of a way. There were no mouse-holes in the parlor, but there was a way by which the mice could get in through the cellar to the space under the parlor floor. The Webbs talked it over with the mice, and the mice agreed that one of them would always be on duty under the floor. Then if anything serious happened, Mr. Webb could drop down the wall, slip through a crack under the baseboard, jump on to the mouse’s back, and gallop off to warn the animals. It was a good arrangement, and it made the Webbs feel quite important. It was almost like having a private car and a chauffeur always ready to take them wherever they wanted to go.

  On the morning after the riot in the movie theater, Uncle Snedeker hitched up Hank to the hay wagon and went out to bring in the hay Aunt Effie had cut and raked the day before. A little while later, Mr. Webb kissed Mrs. Webb goodby, and started off as usual for the cowbarn. “I don’t suppose anything will happen while I’m away,” he said, “but if it does, Cousin Augustus is on duty this morning, and he’ll bring you down there in no time.”

  It was a fresh clear morning. Mr. Webb drew in deep breaths of the cool air as he strolled along through the grass and weeds that swayed in the breeze above his head. Pretty soon he heard someone singing, and then the song stopped and a thin voice called: “Hi, Webb!”

  Mr. Webb looked up and saw a mosquito hanging to the under side of a burdock leaf.

  “Morning, Jasper,” he said. “Lovely day.”

  “Is it?” said the mosquito. “Say, look, Webb—when are the Beans coming home?”

  “What’s the matter?” Mr. Webb asked. “Do you miss the Beans, too?”

  “Why wouldn’t I miss ’em?” demanded Jasper. “I can’t get a square meal in this place any more. You know that hole in the screen in the bedroom window? Well, I buzzed in there last night and scouted around for a while. Uncle Snedeker sleeps with the bedclothes over his head; there was no use tackling him. So I lit on Aunt Effie’s ear. Gosh, I hardly touched it—you know how light I am on my feet, Webb. And then—wham! Up came her hand and missed me by—well, I’d hate to tell you how little she missed me by. Then she got up and lit the light and chased me with a fly swatter. Believe me, I was glad to get out of there!”

  “I should think so, indeed,” said Mr. Webb sympathetically.

  “Yes, sir,” said the mosquito. “’Tisn’t like the old days. Why, the Beans never minded a mosquito bite or two—as long as we didn’t overdo it, of course.”

  They talked a few minutes longer, and then Mr. Webb went on. He met a beetle he knew, and several other acquaintances, and then just as he was crossing the corner of the garden he saw a strange caterpillar. The caterpillar was eating a beet leaf, and he looked up at Mr. Webb and winked, and then went on eating.

  “Here, you!” said Mr. Webb sharply. “Just a minute! Do you know whose garden this is?”

  “Sure—old Bean’s,” said the caterpillar, with his mouth full. “What of it?”

  “There’s this of it,” said Mr. Webb angrily: “it’s a private garden and no trespassers allowed. Now get out!”

  “Oh, yeah?” said the caterpillar. And he was going to say more, but Mr. Webb, who was, like most spiders, rather short-tempered, rushed at him and nipped one of his legs. />
  “Ouch!” yelled the caterpillar. “Quit that, you big bully.” He dropped off the leaf and curled up tightly with all his legs inside, and only his furry back exposed. “You wait,” he mumbled. “We’ll fix your old garden for you.”

  Mr. Webb couldn’t bite through the caterpillar’s fur, but one thing he could do, and that was tie the creature up so he couldn’t move. But it was rather a long job, and he didn’t want to take the time.

  “I’ll let you go this time,” he said, “if you’ll get out of here quick. Come on; get going!”

  The caterpillar jumped up and dashed off. He was pretty scared, and kept trying to look back over his shoulder, with the result that his rear end went faster than his front end. He would begin to hump up in the middle and then turn a complete somersault. This made Mr. Webb laugh, but after a minute something the caterpillar had said made him frown thoughtfully, so he started after the intruder.

  He walked down through the beet rows to the far end of the garden. He passed one or two other caterpillars, but didn’t say anything to them. When he got there, he climbed on a fence post and looked out across the fields. As far as the eye could see—at least, a spider’s eye, which can only see a few yards—stretched rank upon rank of caterpillars; regiment after regiment, with their leaders out in front, standing at ease, apparently awaiting word from their scouts, a number of whom were now hurrying back to report.

  It must have been rather a terrifying sight for one small spider, but Mr. Webb did not hesitate. He scrambled down from the post and ran out to where, in front of the army, a little group of somewhat larger caterpillars, with gold stripes on their heads, were holding a conference. “Stop!” shouted Mr. Webb. “You can’t come any farther.”

  “Stop!” shouted Mr. Webb.

  The caterpillars laughed, and one, whom he took to be the leader, came forward. He looked Mr. Webb up and down, and then he said shortly: “Why?”

  “It’s Mr. Bean’s garden,” said the spider, “and caterpillars aren’t allowed.”