Freddy and the Ignormus Read online

  Mr. Webb swung himself down on to Freddy’s nose, and then walked up almost into his ear. Spiders have very small voices, and they have to be almost in your ear before you can hear them, which is probably why so few people have ever heard a spider say anything.

  “Listen, Freddy,” he said, “if this place is spick and span, I’m a tarantula. If you’d wash your windows once a year, I wouldn’t have to risk my life trying to attract your attention.”

  “I’m dreadfully sorry,” said the pig, “but you know how it is, Webb. Time goes by, and there are so many little household duties—”

  “Never mind that,” interrupted the spider. “Can you come up to the cowbarn right away? There’s a beetle up there who’s got some information I think you should have. I came down to tell you myself because it’s about the Ignormus.”

  “The Ignormus!” Freddy exclaimed. “Who is this beetle? Where is he?”

  “I guess you don’t know him. His name’s Rudolph or Ransom or something. He lives up by the brook. He’s down in the bug swing now.”

  “The bug swing?” said Freddy. “Never heard of it.”

  “Well,” said the spider, “when Mr. Bean gave you animals that swing, the bugs thought they’d like to have one too, so me and mother, we spun ’em one. Two thick strands down from the cowbarn rafters, and fastened ’em to a chip for the bugs to sit in. But you’ll see it when you get there.”

  Jinx hadn’t of course heard anything Mr. Webb said, and he was jumping up and down with curiosity. Cats always pretend they aren’t interested in what is going on, and they turn away and wave their tails to show how indifferent they are. But some time you try doing something where your cat can’t quite see what you’re up to, and you’ll find out quickly how curious he is.

  So when Freddy had told Jinx, they went up to the cowbarn. The bug swing was very popular. Before they got in the door they could hear the chirping and trilling of excited insects, and a long line of bugs of all kinds, waiting for their turn, extended halfway across the barnyard. The swing was hung pretty high, and from its seat a long strand of web ran up to a rafter on which Mrs. Webb was sitting. She would pull the seat up to the rafter, a bug would get on, and then she would let go and the bug would swoop down and up, down and up, until Mrs. Webb thought he had had enough. Then she would pull the swing up again, and another bug would climb on. Of course some of the bugs lost their hold and fell off, but bugs are pretty light and none of them got hurt. Mrs. Wogus, who was just under the swing, didn’t like it much when they fell on her, as they frequently did.

  “It’s been practically raining bugs in here, Freddy, for the last two days,” she said. “Can’t you get ’em to move that thing somewhere else? I’ve got nothing against bugs, but I must say it isn’t very pleasant to have a continual procession of them walking down your backbone.”

  “Mother and I are going to fix that,” said Mr. Webb, who was still sitting in the pig’s ear. “We’re going to weave a net across tomorrow, and when they fall, they’ll fall into that.”

  So Freddy explained to the cow, while Mr. Webb jumped down and went over to the waiting line. He came back in a minute, followed by a large and rather clumsy beetle. who stumbled a good deal and even fell down twice before he reached Freddy, who put his head down close to the floor and said: “I guess Mr. Webb needn’t bother to introduce us. He said you had something to tell me.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said the beetle in a hoarse but perfectly audible voice. “My name’s Randolph. You must excuse me falling down so much, but you see it’s kind of a family failing. All the family—got too much of everything. Too many legs, too many wings. Look at me, now. Got four wings, but can I fly? No, sir. Come down like a kite with its tail off as soon as I try. And the same with walking. Got six legs, and what can I do with ’em? If I had four, same as you, sir, I could manage. As it is, there’s always four that’s walking and two that’s tripping the others up.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” said Freddy as the beetle paused for breath. “It must be very trying. But just what was it you had to tell me?”

  “Give me time, can’t you?” said the beetle testily. “I’m coming to it. Don’t push me.

  “Sorry,” said Freddy. “But you understand, of course, that there have been some robberies on the farm, and I’m pretty anxious to clear them up as soon as possible.”

  “Worse than robberies,” said Randolph. “There’s intimidation and threats. That’s what I have to tell you. But to get back to my legs. They keep throwing me. And sometimes I land on my back. When I do that, I’m stuck. Too flat to roll over, and too round to reach out and push myself. Have to wait till someone comes along and gives me a lift. Darn nuisance, but that’s the way I’m built. Well, yesterday I was taking a little stroll up along the brook—if you can call it a stroll when you fall down every two feet. You know the Widow Winnick?” he asked suddenly.

  Freddy knew the Widow Winnick very well. She was an elderly rabbit who lived with her dozen or so of growing children in a rather inconvenient rabbit hole up on the edge of the woods. Finding her son, Egbert, had been the first detective case the pig had ever had. “Why, yes,” he said. “But what’s she got to do with your legs?”

  “Coming to that, coming to that,” said Randolph testily. “Don’t push me. Well, then, you know the widow’s front door is under a big rock. Fine view from the top of that rock. Finest view in the county. Some people have no eye for landscape. Take my friend Jeffrey. He’s a thousand legger. Wonderful how he can travel along with all those legs when I get all mixed up with only six. But along he goes, like a little train of cars, never stumbling, never out of step with himself. Wonderful control.”

  Freddy had been pretty impatient, but like all poets he was easily turned aside from any purpose by the appearance of something new, and the problem of Randolph’s legs interested him. “The secret is,” he said, “not to watch your legs when they’re walking along. I bet you watch yours all the time.”

  “Think I’m a fool?” demanded the beetle. “Course I do. How do I know where the clumsy things would take me if I didn’t keep an eye on ’em?”

  “Well,” said the pig, “the trouble is that you can’t watch six legs all at one time. I think that’s why you get mixed up. Go on, try it. This floor is pretty smooth. Shut your eyes and start off. I’ll see you don’t run into anything.”

  “How can I shut my eyes when I haven’t got any eyelids?” said Randolph.

  “Then look at the ceiling,” said Freddy.

  So Randolph looked up at the ceiling. “Go on, legs,” he growled. “Do your stuff or I’ll chew you off.” And to his great surprise, as well as to Freddy’s, he went swiftly across the floor without stumbling once.

  “Well, upon my soul!” he said. “You’ve hit it, pig. Must be getting along now. Must tell Jeffrey about this.” And he started out the door.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” said Freddy. “You were telling me something.”

  “To be sure,” said the beetle, turning back. “H’m, where was I? Oh, yes; Jeffrey.”

  “On the rock,” said Freddy.

  “Ho, no use taking Jeffrey up on the rock. He’s no more feeling for landscape than an angleworm. No soul, I tell him.”

  “I mean you were up on the rock yesterday,” said Freddy patiently.

  “So I was. Climbed up to refresh my soul with the broad sweep of the Bean acres. Well, I didn’t refresh it much. Slipped when I got to the top and tumbled straight down the hole into the widow’s front parlor. On my back, too. I shouted and yelled for help but nobody heard me, and then I heard voices out in the kitchen. Didn’t want to listen. ’Tisn’t manners, when folks don’t know you’re around. But what could I do?

  “‘My, my, this is terrible,’ says the widow, and I heard her sniffling. Nothing unusual about that; rabbits cry a lot anyway. That’s what makes their eyes red. ‘Read it to me again, Egbert,’ she says.

  “So I heard a piece of paper crackling and then this
Egbert began to read. It ran something like this: ‘Leave one dozen prime carrots under the bridge where the brook comes out from the Big Woods Thursday afternoon. If you do this, and say nothing about it to anybody, nothing will happen to you. If you do not do it, or if you mention this letter to anybody, I, the Ignormus, will come eat you up. (Signed) The Ignormus.’

  “Well,” continued Randolph, “when I heard that I thought I’d better listen some more. ‘Dear, dear,’ says the widow, ‘wherever will we get a dozen prime carrots, when we haven’t so much as an old head of lettuce in the house for supper?’ ‘I’ll just have to steal ’em from Mr. Bean’s garden,’ says Egbert. ‘Oh, that would be awful!’ says the widow. ‘What would your sainted father say if he knew that his little Egbert, his favorite child, was a thief?’ ‘I guess he’d rather have him a thief than an Ignormus’s supper,’ says Egbert. ‘You leave it to me, ma.’

  “Well, that was all I heard, because just then some of the other children came home, and they saw me and turned me right side up. So I came up here and got Webb to send for you.”

  “And I’m very glad you did,” said Freddy. “This ought to give us something to go on.”

  “Call on me for any help you want,” said Randolph. “Glad to be of service. Don’t like robbers.”

  “You might be some help at that,” said Freddy, who was too good a detective to turn down any offers of assistance, however small. “Let me see, have I your address?”

  “Third stone above the apple tree, left side of the brook going up. Just knock twice and I’ll come out. If I’m not there, leave a message. My old mother’s always home.”

  So Freddy thanked him again, and he scuttled off.

  Then Freddy and Jinx went up to call on Mrs. Winnick. She was sitting in front of her doorway, wiping her eyes.

  It always made Jinx mad to see anybody cry. He never cried himself, for he said it was a great waste of time. “If I feel bad about something,” he said, “I go claw somebody. Then I feel better.” So when he saw Mrs. Winnick he gave a disgusted sniff. “Come, come,” he said; “your troubles will only grow if you water ’em. Turn off the sprinkler, will you?”

  “Don’t mind him, ma’am,” said Freddy. “Are you in trouble? Perhaps we can help.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Winnick. “Oh, dear!”

  “If you’re just crying because you enjoy it,” said Jinx, “tell us, and we won’t spoil the fun.”

  “I’m in trouble,” said the widow. “Great trouble. But I can’t tell you what it is. I just have to bear it alone.” And she sobbed openly.

  Jinx started to say something, but Freddy gave him a surreptitious kick, and said: “Well, now, I don’t believe it’s as bad as that. Let’s see if we can’t guess what it is. Did you get a threatening letter maybe?”

  Mrs. Winnick gulped and looked up quickly. “Why how—how did you know?” she asked, and then quickly: “Oh, no; n-nothing like that.”

  “Possibly,” said Freddy gently, “from the Ignormus?”

  “Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Winnick again, and then she burst into a flood of tears. “Oh, I did,” she sobbed. “And we don’t know what to do. But how could you know about it?”

  “Oh, I have my ways, ma’am, of finding out things,” said Freddy airily. For like all good detectives, he never let on that what he knew was just something somebody had told him. He pretended that he had found it out in some very mysterious way. “Hadn’t you better show me the letter?” he said.

  So Mrs. Winnick dove down the hole and came back with the letter.

  “H’m, ha!” said Freddy importantly. “Very significant.”

  “What’s significant?” said the cat. “It’s just a letter.”

  “Ah, my friend,” said the pig, “that’s just where you’re wrong. To the eye of the trained detective, nothing is ever just what it seems to be.”

  “What does that make you?” said the cat.

  But without paying any attention to the remark, Freddy went on. “The writing on this letter, you observe,” he said, “is just like that on the other note—the one I got in the Big Woods. We can assume, therefore, that it was written by the same person.”

  “Wonderful,” said Jinx sarcastically.

  “Now the question is,” pursued the pig, “is that person the Ignormus? But can the Ignormus (if there is an Ignormus) write? Where could he have learned to write? He has always lived in the Big Woods, we are told. Did he go to school? But if he is as terrible as they say he is, he’d have scared the children, and we’d have heard of it. On the other hand—”

  “Look, Freddy,” interrupted Jinx, “here’s the note. Well, he can write, then. So what? You’re not getting anywhere.”

  Freddy, who had been talking that way mainly to impress Mrs. Winnick, looked a little embarrassed, and then said: “Well, maybe you’re right. Just the same, there is one thing about this letter that’s funny. I’ve seen that handwriting before somewhere.”

  But Jinx wasn’t impressed. “Sure,” he said. “Probably you taught the Ignormus to write. You’ve taught a lot of animals on this farm. Probably he isn’t a big animal with horns and claws, or a little animal with white whiskers. Probably he’s just someone we see around all the time. You know, Freddy, I’ve always had a hunch that you were the Ignormus.”

  At this Mrs. Winnick gave a weak squeak and fell over in a faint.

  … and fell over in a faint

  “Now see what you’ve done trying to be so funny,” said the pig, as he bent over the rabbit and fanned her with the letter. “That kind of smart remark is dangerous. People might get to repeating it.—There, ma’am, there,” he said, as the widow opened her eyes and looked dazedly up at him. “Jinx didn’t mean it. Now you go back into the house and leave everything to me.”

  They had some trouble persuading Mrs. Winnick to go in the house. She seemed to want to stay outdoors and cry some more. But by promising to deliver the carrots as the Ignormus had requested, they finally quieted her fears.

  “Now,” said Freddy, “we must get those carrots. Today is Thursday. We mustn’t let the Ignormus (if there is an Ignormus) eat up Mrs. Winnick and her fourteen children.”

  “I expect he’d like carrots better anyway,” said Jinx. “I know I would.”

  Chapter 11

  As they came down along the stone wall towards the vegetable garden, the two animals suddenly stopped and crouched down. For among the cabbages two white ears were sticking up, where no ears ought to be. And there was a decided ripple among the beet tops, although there was no wind. Also, the small dark figure of some animal was being very busy among the onions.

  “My goodness,” whispered Freddy, “if Mr. Bean saw this he’d be wild! What’s got into all these animals anyway? They know perfectly well they’re never allowed in the vegetable garden.”

  “Let me sneak in and grab one,” said Jinx. “We’ll soon find out.”

  So he got down close to the ground and crept silently in between the bean rows and disappeared. There was a squeak and a flurry among the onions, and after a minute Jinx came out, carrying a very small and very terrified squirrel by the nape of the neck. He set him down in front of Freddy.

  “Well, young man,” said the pig severely, “can you give me some explanation of your strange and reprehensible actions?”

  “Yes, sir,” stammered the squirrel. “I mean, no, sir. My actions are not rep—what you said. I was just—sort of—looking around.”

  Freddy bent down and sniffed. “As I thought,” he said. “You’ve been eating onions. Mr. Bean’s onions,” he added more sternly. “Mr. Bean’s best onions,” he shouted suddenly.

  The squirrel cowered. “Oh no, sir,” he whimpered. “I didn’t eat any. I just—well, sort of pulled one up. To see how they grow. I—I’m interested in how things grow,” he added.

  “Indeed!” said Freddy. “Interested in how things grow, eh? I suppose you never thought how the onion feels about it—being pulled up by the roots, just so someone cou
ld see how it grows? Pretty callous, you are, for such a young one.”

  “And, oh boy, will Mr. Bean pull you up by the roots when he hears of this,” put in Jinx.

  “Unless, of course,” said Freddy, “you had some good reason.”

  “Oh, I did,” said the squirrel. “But I can’t tell you. My mother—”

  “I expect she got a note this morning,” interrupted the pig. “From someone we don’t talk about much. Eh? Was that it?”

  “Oh, sir, then you know about it! Yes, she—But I mustn’t tell anybody, mother says.”

  So they went to see the squirrel’s mother. It was as Freddy had suspected: she had received a demand from the Ignormus. One dozen large onions to be laid under the third tree from the left of the bridge, or he’d eat her family all up.

  “This is serious,” said Freddy. “The Ignormus (if there is an Ignormus) must have written at least a dozen such notes from the look of things. Tell you what we’ll have to do. We’ll hide under the bridge tonight and watch. He’ll have to come for all these vegetables before they get wilted. Then if he’s what I suspect: a small animal with white tail and whiskers, we’ll pounce on him and capture him. And if he’s really a big animal with horns and claws—”

  “He’ll pounce on us,” said Jinx. “That’s a swell idea, Freddy.”

  “We’ll just stay hidden,” said Freddy. “There’s no danger—or not much. Come on, Jinx. You know there’s none of the other animals that I can ask, the way they all feel about me now. Look, Jinx. I’ve done things for you. Remember the time your head got caught in the cream bottle, and I got you out before Mrs. Bean found you? Remember—”

  “O.K., O.K.,” said the cat. “You’ll have me crying in a minute. I’ll go. But I’m not going for old friendship’s sake; I’m going because I know if there was very much danger you’d be eight miles from that bridge tonight. If I’m not braver than you, pig, I’ll eat my own tail.”