Freddy’s Cousin Weedly Page 8

  “Oh, shut up, Snedeker,” said Aunt Effie exasperatedly. And then to Freddy: “May I ask how you intend to stop us?”

  Freddy hadn’t the slightest idea, and he began to wonder if he hadn’t said too much. If they should suddenly decide to go now …

  “The sheriff is a very good friend of ours,” he said.

  “The sheriff!” said Aunt Effie. “Dear me, I wouldn’t count on him too much if I were you. He would hardly believe your word against mine. He has been most helpful since we have been here. He wrote me such a nice note about the hay.”

  “Signed it ‘An Admirer’,” put in Uncle Snedeker triumphantly. “I guess that surprises you, eh? I guess you won’t get much help from him.”

  “The sheriff didn’t write that note,” said Freddy. “I did. On my typewriter.”

  “Well, tear off my collar and necktie!” Uncle Snedeker began, but Aunt Effie interrupted him.

  “I will not have this dreadful swearing, Snedeker,” she said. “Remember, there are ladies present.”

  “Why, he ain’t a lady,” said Uncle Snedeker, pointing at Freddy.

  “Why, he ain’t a lady.”

  “And don’t point,” said Aunt Effie. “No,” she said, “but I am, I hope?”

  “Eh, yes, yes, I see what you mean,” said Uncle Snedeker, and subsided.

  Aunt Effie turned again to Freddy. “Will you explain,” she said, “just why, if you wrote that note, you signed it in the way you did?” She looked at him almost pleasantly, and he was both surprised and relieved, for he had expected that she would fly into a rage. But he didn’t, of course, know that for all the nice teaparties she gave back in Orenville, nobody had ever said that he admired her before.

  “Well,” he said, “I expect you won’t believe me, but I signed it that way because I—well, I really do admire you.”

  “Eh, dry-clean my Sunday vest!” said Uncle Snedeker under his breath.

  Aunt Effie was still looking expectantly at Freddy, and in spite of his embarrassment, he had to go on.

  “I thought it was very good of you to do so much work around the farm just to keep it running properly. And then—well, I like teaparties pretty well myself.”

  “You like teaparties!” said Aunt Effie, looking at him now almost kindly. “What a pity that there is no way for animals to give them.”

  “Mrs. Bean sometimes gives teaparties for the animals,” said Freddy.

  “Well, curl my eyewinkers!” said Uncle Snedeker. “Do you propose that Aunt Effie—?”

  “No, no,” said Freddy quickly. “She wouldn’t want to give us a party when we think she’s taking something that doesn’t belong to her.” He stopped a minute, looking up at Washington Crossing the Delaware. There was Mrs. Webb, listening to every word, and as he looked up she waved at him. He had just thought of a way, if he could work it, of keeping the Snedekers at the farm a few days longer. “And about the teapot,” he said, “if you did try to go away with it, we’d tell the sheriff. And if you stay here and hide it–well, you couldn’t possibly hide it where we couldn’t find it. Why, I’ll prove it to you. When I’m gone, you hide it somewhere—anywhere in the house or barn or outside, only of course you mustn’t take it away. And I’ll come back tomorrow this time and tell you where you hid it. I won’t hunt around for it—I’ll just tell you.”

  “Hey!” said Uncle Snedeker leaning forward. “That’s a good one, that is. Eh, Effie? Mind-reader, hey?” He put one hand behind his back. “Maybe you can tell me how many fingers I’m holding out, eh?”

  Freddy looked up at Washington Crossing the Delaware. Mrs. Webb was holding up three legs. Freddy said: “Three.”

  “Eh!” shouted Uncle Snedeker. “He’s right, Effie! Why, he is a mind-reader. He read my mind like an open book.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Snedeker,” said Aunt Effie. “He couldn’t read your mind. You have to have a mind before anyone can read it. It was just guesswork.”

  “I guessed right, though,” said the pig. “And I can guess right with the teapot. You try it.”

  “Very well, I will,” said Aunt Effie. “And if you can find it—”

  “If I can find it,” Freddy interrupted, “you’ll promise to stay here until the Beans get home and ask Mrs. Bean if she’ll give you the teapot.”

  “Oh, no,” said Aunt Effie. “I won’t do that. I don’t have to make any promises. Not that I think you can find the teapot, but you might happen to guess right. No,” she said, “but I tell you what I will do.” And she smiled at Freddy, which surprised Uncle Snedeker so that he nearly fell off his chair. “I’ll give you animals the best teaparty you ever had.”

  “Will you really?” exclaimed Freddy. “That would be wonderful.”

  “Eh, look out, Effie,” said Uncle Snedeker. “You get all those animals in here and they’ll just grab the teapot and run off with it.”

  “No, we won’t, either,” said the pig. “I give you warning that after the teaparty’s over, we’ll try to get it, because we don’t think you have any right to it. But just because we disagree on that one point, doesn’t mean that we can’t forget our differences for one afternoon. Anyway, it wouldn’t be very polite to do anything like that. There isn’t one of the animals, Mrs. Snedeker, who will as much as mention the teapot at your party.”

  “Eh, well,” said Uncle Snedeker, “I don’t see why you’d come to the teaparty anyway. If I didn’t like people, I wouldn’t accept their invitations.”

  “We didn’t like you when you came,” said Freddy. “And we still don’t like your trying to get the teapot. But you’ve fought the caterpillars and done a lot of things for us, and to keep the farm going, and we like you for that. We’ll fight you for the teapot if we have to, but in the meantime I don’t see why we can’t be pleasant about it.”

  “Well, that’s settled then,” said Aunt Effie. “You better go on back to your haying, Snedeker. And you, er—Freddy, is that your name?—you run along now and come back tomorrow at this time and tell me where the teapot is hidden.”

  “I don’t get you, pig,” said Uncle Snedeker as he and Freddy went across the barnyard together. “Eh, I expect you’re just trying to throw us off our guard, pretending to like us.”

  “I told you that I admired Mrs. Snedeker,” said Freddy, “and that’s true.”

  “Well, maybe,” said Uncle Snedeker doubtfully.

  “And as Mrs. Snedeker enjoys giving teaparties, and as we enjoy going to them, why shouldn’t we all be polite to one another for an afternoon?”

  “Eh, I dunno,” said Uncle Snedeker. “Effie’s great on politeness. I don’t say I dislike it myself. In other people, that is. It’s kind of an effort for me to be polite. I guess maybe I wasn’t brought up right.”

  “Why, I think you’re polite all right,” said Freddy.

  “Eh, there you go. Now you’re just being polite,” said Uncle Snedeker.

  “You’re getting me all mixed up,” said Freddy. “Honestly, I think you’re polite.”

  “Eh, well,” Uncle Snedeker sighed. “I suppose you don’t admire me especially?” he asked. “Just a teeny bit, eh?”

  Freddy looked thoughtful for a minute. “Well,” he said, “you remind me a good deal of a circus lion who’s a great friend of mine. The things you say. He’s always saying, ‘Well, dye my hair!’ and things like that.”

  Uncle Snedeker was greatly pleased. “Remind you of a lion, eh? Well, that’s admiration if anything is. A lion. Big, strong, ferocious beasts—”

  “Snedeker!” came Aunt Effie’s voice from the door. “Go get that hay in!”

  “Going, Effie. Going,” said Uncle Snedeker and scuttled off.

  “So, he’s like a lion, is he?” said Jinx, coming around the corner of the barn. “Reminds me more of a mouse. What’s been going on, Freddy?”

  The pig told him. But Jinx wasn’t pleased. “Teaparty indeed!” he said. “What do we want a teaparty for? You weren’t very smart, Freddy, telling her that we liked h
er. I don’t like that woman and never will.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Freddy. “I do admire her, as I told you. And honestly, I’m beginning to kind of like her. Oh, I know she’s trying to grab Mrs. Bean’s teapot. But what’s the harm of a party? It’ll keep her here a couple more days, and then we can think of something else. And I don’t believe she’s ever had much fun. She loves to give teaparties, and she’s pretty unhappy here with nobody to give them to. What’s the harm?”

  “She must have buttered you up good to get you feeling so loving towards her,” said Jinx. “Paid you a lot of compliments, I expect. You always were a sucker for compliments, Freddy.”

  “Well, she did say I was exceptional,” said Freddy modestly. “But why are you so down on the party? Milk in little bowls—cream, maybe—and a sprig of catnip at every place—things like that. Only of course I suppose if you feel that way about her you won’t go.”

  “Who says I won’t go?” demanded Jinx. “If everybody else is going, I’m certainly not going to stay away. Only of course you’ve got to find the teapot after she hides it. I guess that’ll give you something to think about. I guess I won’t get dressed up for the party just yet.”

  “Pooh,” said Freddy. “That’s the easiest part of it.”

  Chapter 10

  Freddy’s study was a corner of the pigpen where he kept his books and his papers, and the disguises he used in his detective work, and his stamp collection. He had an old typewriter on a rickety desk and in front of it was an old easy chair which, if you sat down in it suddenly, puffed out clouds of dust that made you choke and sneeze. The whole place was terribly dusty, but although a number of his friends had offered to tidy it up for him, Freddy wouldn’t let them. “I like it this way,” he said. “I’m naturally one of those very energetic people who wear themselves all out by working too hard and too fast. In here, now, I have to move slowly, because if I didn’t I’d raise so much dust that I’d choke to death.”

  “But you might at least have the window washed,” said Mrs. Wiggins one day. “Why, you can’t even recognize your friends three feet away through that glass.”

  “That’s just why I like it,” said Freddy. “It gives me ideas when I’m sitting here working at my poetry. Everything outside looks a little different than what it is. When you go by, for instance, if the window was clean, why I’d just think: ‘There goes Mrs. Wiggins,’ and I’d remember a lot of things I wanted to tell you, and would forget all about my work. But if the window’s dirty, I’d think: ‘My goodness, what can that be? Is it an elephant?’ And then I’d have something to write about.”

  But Mrs. Wiggins didn’t understand what he was trying to say, and she said: “Well, if you write about me that I look like an elephant, Freddy, it’ll be pretty mean of you, that’s all I can say. My land, I know I’m big and clumsy, but I don’t think it’s nice of my friends to make fun of me.”

  Freddy had quite a time explaining that that wasn’t what he had meant at all.

  Today he was sitting at his typewriter, pecking out the Cast of Characters for his play. A few of the animals had told him what parts they would like to take, and this is what he already had down:

  SHERLOCK HOLMES … Freddy

  A G-MAN…………………Jinx

  QUEEN ELIZABETH … Mrs. Wiggins

  CAPT. KIDD………………Hank

  Freddy was rather worried. A play has to have at least one villain in it, and so far he had nothing but heroes. He was wondering if he could persuade the rooster to play the part of the villain. If Charles was given a lot of speeches to make, maybe he wouldn’t mind being villainous and being dragged off to jail, or having his head chopped off in the last act. Only, they would have to be pretty long speeches, and when Charles got going he seldom stopped even after all the audience had left the hall.

  There was a timid tap on the door, and when Freddy shouted: “Come in!”, Alice and Emma, the two ducks, waddled into the pigpen.

  “Good morning, Freddy,” said Alice. “We heard about your play, and we thought we’d just stop in and see if you could possibly find any place in it for us.”

  “We’d love to be in it,” said Emma. “And you know our Uncle Wesley always said that we were born actresses. I do think we might help to make it a success.”

  “I’m sure you would,” said Freddy. “The main trouble now is that I haven’t any villains. Of course everybody can choose what character he wants to play. I suppose you wouldn’t want to take the parts of gangsters, would you?”

  “We-ell,” said Alice doubtfully, “we’d rather thought something more like Greta Garbo. Or maybe Norma Shearer. I don’t know. Though Emma can look awfully wicked. Emma, make that tiger face for Freddy.”

  So Emma stuck her head forward and squinted her eyes and glared at him. Like her sister, she was a fluffy little white duck, and she certainly didn’t look much like a tiger, Freddy thought. She looked much more like a little white duck trying to look wicked and not succeeding very well. It was all he could do not to laugh.

  “That’s wonderful,” he said. “It’s really quite startling. Quite tigerish, in fact. But I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better for you to take parts that are more like you really are. After all, we need some actors in the play who will be charming and graceful, and although you, Emma, can certainly look awfully villainous, I certainly would prefer to see you being your own delightful self on the stage. And you too, of course, Alice.”

  The ducks looked at each other happily, and Alice tittered slightly. “Why, Freddy, that is a very nice compliment,” she said. “Indeed I think perhaps you are right. Don’t you, sister?”

  “Yes,” said Emma. “But I don’t think just being ourselves is enough. I mean, it wouldn’t be really acting, would it? I think we ought to have very sad parts, where we cry and carry on a lot—in a ladylike way, of course.”

  “Dear me, do you?” said Freddy. “Well, well, perhaps we could arrange it. Suppose you are Greta Garbo, Alice, and you, Emma, are Norma Shearer, and you are—let me see, ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. That’s Mrs. Wiggins, you know. Then I’ll make up very sad parts for you.”

  The ducks thought that would be nice, and Freddy wrote it down: “Alice and Emma: two ladies-in-waiting, who have had a lot of trouble.” Then he walked to the door with them, and stood looking after them as they waddled happily off toward the duck pond.

  He had just started back to his work when he heard an excited quacking and fluttering, so he hurried to the door again. Alice and Emma, with their wings spread and their short little legs working like mad, were scooting up the lane towards home. “Hey, girls!” shouted Freddy. “What’s the matter? Did something scare you?” But the ducks just went on, like clumsy little overloaded airplanes trying to get off the ground.

  “They’re having trouble already,” said Freddy to himself. “Something must have scared them. Maybe a snake. I’d better go see.”

  So he went slowly across the barnyard to the corner of the fence. And just as he got there, something jumped out and said, “Boo!”

  “Boo!”

  Afterwards Freddy said that the reason he jumped so high, and ran so fast when he came down, was that his legs were startled. “I wasn’t really frightened,” he said. “Not myself. Goodness, a little thing like that couldn’t frighten me. But my legs were, I guess, and you know how it is when your legs start to go somewhere. It takes a few minutes to stop them.” But whatever the cause of it was, Freddy was inside the pigpen with the door shut before his legs stopped going. “Whoosh!” he said, and sank into his chair.

  But after a minute he got up and opened the door a crack and peeked out. “Good land!” he said. For Little Weedly was standing by the fence corner, grinning. He certainly didn’t look very terrifying. Particularly as Jinx had washed his face that morning and the eyebrows and moustache were gone.

  Freddy threw the door open. “Hey, you!” he said. “Weedly! Come here.”

  “Hello, Cousin
Frederick,” said Weedly, coming towards him. He walked with what was almost a swagger. “Scared you good, didn’t I?”

  “You come in here,” said Freddy severely. “I want to talk to you.”

  Weedly stopped. “You’re mad,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to you when you’re mad.”

  “I’ll be still madder if you don’t come in here,” said Freddy. So after a minute Weedly came in.

  “I wasn’t doing anything, Cousin Frederick,” he said. “Just scaring a couple of old ducks! And then when you came along, I thought I’d try it on you. Golly, I didn’t suppose you’d be so scared!”

  “I was not frightened,” said Freddy firmly.

  “What did you run for?” Weedly asked.

  “I just remembered that I had left the—ah, the door open. But we are not talking about me. Please stick to the point. Alice and Emma are kind and gentle, and they’re very much smaller than you. You might have made them quite ill, scaring them like that.”

  “Pooh,” said Weedly, “they’ll get over it. Besides, Mrs. Wiggins isn’t smaller than I am, and I scared her good this morning.” He began to giggle. “Gosh, Cousin Frederick, these animals around here are a scary lot, aren’t they? I should think they’d get over it after a while. I used to be scary too, remember?”

  “I wish we’d let you stay that way,” said Freddy. “My goodness, Weedly, it isn’t nice to go around scaring people. You won’t be very popular if you keep it up.”

  “I wasn’t very popular when I was so scary,” said Weedly. “Anyway, it don’t hurt ’em, and it’s lots of fun.”

  “Well, I give you up,” said Freddy. “Only, if some animal turns around and gives you a good licking some day, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

  “Pooh,” said Weedly, “there isn’t one of them that would dare.”

  “Is that so! Well—” Freddy hesitated a minute and then he said: “Well, don’t try any of your tricks on Old Whibley, that’s all.”

  “Who’s Old Whibley?” Weedly asked. “A lion?”