Freddy Rides Again

Freddy Rides Again

Walter R. Brooks

Illustrated by Kurt Wiese

The Overlook Press

New York

Chapter 1

Jinx, the cat, was curled up in Mrs. Bean's rocking chair on the back porch of the farmhouse. Hanging over the arm of the chair was his gun belt, and over the other arm was a cowboy hat, cat size. For since the early summer when Freddy, the pig, had learned to ride horseback, the cowboy craze had hit the Bean farm in a big way. Even the mice who lived in the cigar box under the stove went about the house with little gun belts strapped about their middles. Mrs. Bean had made the belts for them out of bits of material from her sewing basket and Mr. Bean had whittled out little wooden pistols. Any hiker, cutting across the Bean farm pastures, was likely to be stopped a dozen times by a shout of “Stick 'em up, stranger!” and the sudden appearance of a squirrel or a rabbit, armed, apparently, to the teeth.

Though Jinx was asleep, his whiskers twitched irritably every time the argument, which was going on around the corner of the house, got louder. Finally, he opened his eyes. “Oh,
gosh!
” he exclaimed, and then he jumped down, buckled on his belt, and went around to where Georgie, the little brown dog, and Bill, the goat, and Mrs. Wiggins, the cow, were sitting under the maple tree.

“Look,” he said, “Why do you have to ruin a nice peaceful summer afternoon with all this hullabaloo? Why can't you do your hollering somewhere else?”

“Why can't you do your sleeping somewhere else?” Georgie asked, and Bill said, “Yeah, or else put up a little sign: ‘Silence! Cat asleep!' How would we be supposed to know that your lordship was enjoying his noble slumbers? We'd have been as quiet as mice.”

“Oh, sure,” said Jinx, “That shows how much you know if you think mice are quiet. You just try sleeping in the kitchen some night, with those four under the stove in their cigar box. Eeny snores and Cousin Augustus has nightmares, and Eek walks in his sleep. Walked over to where I was sleeping the other night and bit me in the ear. Said he dreamt it was a piece of cheese.”

Georgie giggled, and Bill said, “Ha! Piece of cheese, hey? So Eek thinks our Jinx is a big piece of cheese! And I suppose you still believe he was really asleep?”

“What!” said Jinx. “You mean you think—Why, that little—”

“Oh, good land, cat,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “can't you ever take a joke?”

“Not when I'm asleep, I can't. Not in the middle of the night. Oh, well …” He yawned and began washing his face. “What were you arguing about?” he asked.

“I thought we'd get around to that pretty soon,” said Bill with a grin. “You're so afraid you're going to miss something, Jinx. Curiosity—”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Jinx interrupted with a weary sigh. “Curiosity killed the cat. I wonder how many million times I've heard that! As if cats were any more curious than other animals. I bet if all the goats curiosity has killed were laid end to end they'd reach from here to San Francisco.”

“Well, what's so wrong about being curious anyway?” Mrs. Wiggins said. “I'm perfectly free to say I'm curious as all get-out. My land, all the great inventions were discovered by curious people. What's curiosity anyway but trying to find out something you don't know? That's what schools and colleges are for—to satisfy people's curiosity about things they don't know about. Gracious, that's all our argument was—trying to decide what kind of a dog Georgie is.”

“I keep telling you—I'm part wolfhound,” said Georgie.

“It must be an awful small part, then,” said Jinx. He looked critically at Georgie. The dog was small, and everything about him was just sort of halfway—neither curly nor straight-haired, neither brown nor grey, with legs and ears neither long nor short. It is almost impossible to describe him; he was just a dog. But he had a very pleasant and friendly expression.

“I'm part wolfhound,” Georgie repeated, “and part police dog, with just a little Siberian boarhound mixed in.”

Jinx laughed. “Look, you dope,” he said, “those are all big dogs. And you aren't much bigger than a rabbit. How could you be descended from them?”

“Lots of big people have little children,” said Georgie. “Anyway, I'm not through growing yet.”

“Well, one thing I'm sure of,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “is that you're part beagle. It's the expression on your face. All beagles have it, kind of eager and anxious to please.”

“Kind of sweet and foolish,” said Jinx. “That's what I heard Mrs. Bean say about him once—Ouch!” he yelled. “You quit that, Georgie, or I'll claw you good.” For the dog had turned and nipped him sharply in the leg.

“It's the wolfhound in me,” said Georgie with a satisfied smile. Then he jumped up quickly. “Hey, look up in the pasture there.”

They all looked. “For Pete's sake,” said Bill. “That's the silliest performance I ever saw. What's he think he is—a kitten? Let's go see.”

Jinx grinned. “See what I mean?” he said. “Curiosity killed the goat.” But he followed the others across the barnyard.

Freddy, the pig, was apparently chasing something. He would crouch and pounce, then leap up and swat the air with his fore trotters—exactly like a kitten trying to catch a butterfly. Only of course a pig's performance was not nearly as graceful to watch as a kitten's, and the four animals, after looking on for a minute or two began to giggle and then to laugh outright.

When he heard them, Freddy stopped and came over to the fence, looking rather sheepish. “Cy says I'm too heavy, so I've gone on a diet,” he said. “Grasshoppers. They say they make you thin.” Cy was a pony. Freddy had bought him to keep him from being beaten by his former owner. In return, the pony had taught him to ride, and now it was a familiar sight to see Freddy, in cowboy clothes with holstered pistols at his thighs, cantering about the countryside.

“Yeah, I've heard of that diet,” said Bill. “But you can't eat 'em if you can't catch 'em. So what good does all this toe-dancing do? You haven't caught one yet.”

“I expect it's the exercise trying to catch them that makes you thin,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Not the grasshoppers.”

“I did catch one,” said Freddy. “But when it came to eating him … well, you know he looked up at me with such a pathetic expression on his little face—well, I couldn't. Those big mournful eyes—”

“Stop, stop!” said Jinx. “You're breaking my heart. You remind me of my Uncle Herbie. He used to cry so when he caught a mouse he could hardly swallow him. He—”

“That reminds me, Jinx,” Mrs. Wiggins interrupted; “there was a tortoise-shell cat came to call here yesterday when you were out riding. His name's Arthur, and he belong to those folks that bought the farm west of here. City folks named Margarine. They just moved in. But he wants to quit 'em. Wanted to know if he could come live with us.”

“Well, he's got a nerve,” said the cat. “I hope you told him where he got off.”

“I said Mr. Bean had a cat and I didn't think he wanted another. But I said you'd probably return his call. He was a real nice quiet-spoken cat.”

“Well, I might drop in on him,” said Jinx. “Just to make sure he doesn't get any big ideas, and understands who runs things around here.”

“And just to satisfy your curiosity about this Magarine outfit, hey, Jinx?” said Bill.

“Well, what's the harm in that?” Jinx demanded. “They're city folks … got lots of money. They've rebuilt the house and they've got riding horses and servants and so on; I expect there'll be parties and all kinds of goings-on—sort of pep things up around here.”

“My land, I hope not,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Parties! Singing and carrying on and whooping it up half the night, I suppose. It'll just spoil our nice quiet life.”

“Hey! Look, coming in the gate!” said Bill. “That's one of 'em now.”

They turned to look. A boy on horseback had ridden into the barnyard. He had on expensive looking riding breeches and boots, and his horse wasn't a Western pony, like Cy; he was a tall, beautifully groomed thoroughbred. Both boy and horse looked around contemptuously; evidently they didn't think much of the Bean farm.

“That's the Margarine boy,” said Georgie. “Billy, his name is.”

“Let's creep down and have a look at him,” said Jinx.

After hesitating for a few minutes, the boy rode up to the back porch. Without dismounting, he rapped on the railing with his riding whip.

Mrs. Bean came to the door, “Good morning,” she said pleasantly. “You're Mr. Margarine's boy, aren't you? Won't you come in? I've just made a batch of sugar cookies.”

Billy didn't answer her. “Is this Beans'?” he asked.

Mrs. Bean was a small, plump, apple-cheeked woman with merry black eyes. But now she drew herself up, and she looked about six feet tall, and her eyes weren't merry any more. “I am Mrs. Bean,” she said, “and I just invited you in. Is this the way you usually reply to an invitation?”

The boy's face got red. “An invitation?” he said. “Oh, you mean asking me to come in. Yeah. Well, I didn't want to come in; I just wanted to see the talking animals I heard you had here.”

Freddy and his friends had come up close to the porch. Bill whispered in Jinx's ear: “If this guy's name is Billy, I'm going to change my name to something else.”

“Guess we're going to have to teach him some manners,” Jinx muttered.

Mrs. Bean waved her hand towards them. “These are some of the animals,” she said. “Whether they'll talk to you or not is another matter. And now if you'll excuse me—” She put her hand on the doorknob, but stopped as the boy, who had turned to look at the animals, suddenly burst into a loud laugh. “Oh, golly!” he exclaimed, pointing to Freddy. “What is
that?
”