Freddy Rides Again (12 page)

“So I've heard tell. If you're skeered, better go back,” said Freddy contemptuously.

Mr. Margarine hesitated, but Billy said: “We aren't afraid. Go on.” And they went.

A minute or two later they came out in an open space. The Grimby house was a black and ominous shadow on the far side of the clearing. “There's his hideout,” said Freddy. “You and the boy watch this side. I'll go to the back and drive him out.” He stepped towards the house, then jumped aside as a whirring rattle sounded almost under his feet.

“What was that?” said Mr. Margarine.

Before Freddy could answer, another rattle came from behind them.

“Seems to be some of the varmints around tonight,” said Freddy calmly. “Just move slow; likely they won't bother us. If you do get bit—” He stopped as the same dry whirr came from several places in the coarse grass around them. Mr. Margarine gasped, and Freddy grinned under his rattail moustache. Those whirrs didn't really sound like rattlesnakes, but it was probably the best the Horribles could do in the short time given them. They were shaking pebbles and hickory nuts in paper bags and a few little boxes that Freddy had noticed in the Grimby attic.

“Rattlesnake bites ain't necessarily fatal,” Freddy went on. “You swell up and yell a powerful lot, but—” A high thin screech cut him short. “Huh, one of 'em caught a rabbit,” he said. “Well, shucks, in my time I've waded in rattlesnakes up to my hips, and—”

“You go ahead and wade in them,” said Mr. Margarine, as a dozen rattles sounded all around them. Come, Billy.” One rabbit—Freddy found out later it was No. 32 and gave him a bonus for it—managed to hiss. That finished the Margarines. They broke and ran. They stumbled and fell, and got up and ran on, bumping into trees, tangling themselves and tearing their clothes on blackberry bushes. Just before reaching the horses Mr. Margarine got into an argument with a patch of thorn brush. He got away finally, but left most of his riding breeches with his antagonist. And then they found their horses and went pounding back down towards home and safety.

“O.K., Brother Horribles,” said Freddy. “My best thanks to you. Come in and go to bed now. I guess the Margarine boys won't be hanging around this place much from now on.”

Chapter 11

When Freddy had left the mice to go out and talk to Mr. Margarine, he had left the pig pen door open. These four mice were physically fine specimens of their race; they were much more athletic than most mice, who are content to run along baseboards and gobble up crumbs; they had even tried to organize a mouse basketball team, with a field mouse named Howard as the fifth, and baskets made of paper cups tacked up by Mr. Bean, but they couldn't get any games. Mice on neighboring farms were just too lazy. But powerful as they were, no four mice are big enough to shove a door shut. They pulled and tugged and puffed and panted, but the door stayed open.

They wanted to stay and keep an eye on things for Freddy, but with the door open, if the snake decided to come back before Freddy did—well, four mice are just a gulp and a swallow for a rattler. “We'd better beat it back to the house,” said Eek.

They had got about halfway when there was a rustle in the grass ahead of them, and then suddenly a flat head with little beady eyes reared up on a long neck and swayed there in front of them, cutting them off from the barnyard.

“Well,
well
!” whispered the rattlesnake mockingly. “How thoughtful of you to bring me my supper!”

They huddled together, too scared to run. Their eyes followed the flat head as it swung from side to side. But Cousin Augustus, glancing for a second beyond the snake, saw a ripple of movement in the tops of the long grasses. Something was creeping towards them. Of course, maybe it was another rattler. But more likely it was Sniffy Wilson or perhaps John, coming to their rescue. Now if he could just gain a little time, stall the snake off and keep him interested—“Look, snake,” he said, “Do you like rabbits?”

“You wouldn't be trying to take my mind off mice, would you?” said the snake with a coarse hissing laugh. “Because that will be a lot easier to do after I've had supper. Only of course you won't be there, will you?”

The other mice moaned, but Cousin Augustus, although he was so scared that even the tip of his tail trembled, said boldly, “Certainly we're trying to. We're offering to tell you where there's a nice fat rabbit. If you'll let us go, that is. Which do you want for supper, four skinny mice or the rabbit? Full of vitamins, rabbits are.”

“We-l-l-l,” said the snake thoughtfully. Cousin Augustus knew what he was thinking. No rattler ever keeps his word to anybody, and if he promised to let them go, he was thinking that if he could get the rabbit, he would have the mice for dessert. “Sure, I'll make a deal with you,” he said.

But before Cousin Augustus could make up a reply, something brown and white and yellow exploded into action behind the snake. A big paw went smack! against one side of his head, and before he could turn—smack! went a paw against the other side, and then claws dug into his back. He thrashed about, got free, coiled, and struck, as the cat—for it was Arthur—jumped clear.

“Run, my little friends,” said Arthur in his most sanctimonious voice as he dodged the sharp fangs, and followed the snake's recovery with a pounce and a hard left and right that must have jarred the rattler to the tip of his tail.

The mice didn't run. They were too anxious to see the end of the fight, and, suspicious as they had been of Arthur, their suspicions had suddenly vanished. The fight didn't end however as they had hoped. Seeing that striking at the cat was useless, the snake uncoiled, brought his tail around with a quick hard slap at Arthur's side, then while Arthur was backing off to get his wind, he wriggled away swiftly through the grass.

Arthur accompanied the mice down to the house. He accepted their thanks with his usual saintly air. “It was nothing, nothing,” he said. “Perhaps my deed will in some slight measure make up for all the wrongs that mice have suffered at the paws of cats. I am genuinely happy to have been of service.”

“It just goes to show,” said Eeny when they were safe in their cigar box again under the stove, “that people aren't like you think they are. Well, I mean, you can't judge 'em by the way they talk. All this noble stuff about the dear little mouse-friends, stuff that makes you kind of sick—well, he really means it. He means it so much that he'll fight a dangerous snake for it. I don't get it.”

“I guess,” said Quik, “that people really mean a lot more of what they say than other people think they do.”

So they left it at that.

Late that night Freddy was asleep on the pile of sacks in the attic of the Grimby house. Freddy sounded very comfortable. He breathed in little contented puffs, as if he was thinking: “Oh boy, is this nice! Golly, how good it is to snuggle into these nice soft burlap bags!” But some time after midnight he awoke with a yelp. He sat up straight, fighting to wake up the parts of his mind that were still asleep. For something had happened. Something had fallen on the floor beside him with a faint rattle.

But suddenly Old Whibley's deep voice reassured him. The owl was perched on the windowsill. “There, my old Injun fighter; there's a trophy for you. 'Tisn't a scalp for it came off the other end, but it's just as good.”

Freddy felt around in the dark and found it. Rattles, six rattles off a rattlesnake's tail.

“Gee whiz, Whibley, did you really catch him?” he said.

The owl didn't answer the question. “I got to worrying about you tonight,” he said. “You being naturally low on intelligence, and having further slowed down your wits by eating seven or eight full meals a day, I got to wondering if you'd have the sense to take off that wig and moustache before going to bed.”

“Take 'em off?” said Freddy. “Why should I?”

“Good thing I woke you,” Whibley said. “Puffing and snorting like a heavy tank crossing a ditch. Give one of these gasps and draw that wig down your throat, and you'd choke to death in two minutes.”

“I was not puffing and snorting!” said Freddy indignantly. He didn't like any more than you or I would to be told that he snored. “You never mind my wig. Tell me about the rattler.”

Old Whibley spread his wings. “Nothing to tell. He's gone to a better land. I may say I have assisted him to a position where he gives great satisfaction.” He floated off with a hoot of laughter.

“Ate him, I suppose,” said Freddy to himself. “Snakes!” he shuddered. “And he complains about
my
eating habits!” He lay down and pulled the sacks over him.

But he couldn't get to sleep. He knew that the danger Whibley had pretended to find in sleeping with the wig on was all nonsense. The owl had been kidding him. But just the same he couldn't get the wig out of his thoughts. Suppose he drew in a deep breath and the wig did get drawn down his throat. Finally he sat up and took off the wig and moustache and laid them down beside his bed.

But even then he couldn't rest. If he rolled over in his sleep and got close to the wig and if he breathed in hard.… He got up and hung the wig and moustache on a nail on the other side of the attic.

It was nearly daylight when he woke again. Charles woke him this time. Perched on the roof he was crowing for all he was worth. Freddy bounded out of his sacks and stuck his head out of the window. “Shut up, will you, you idiot?” he shouted. “Don't you realize that you're an outlaw—that the sheriff is after you? What's the idea of getting up there and announcing to everybody within five miles that this is where you're hiding out?”

“It is my custom,” said Charles with dignity, “each day to salute the morn with the appropriate musical notes. It is also my right and my duty. No sheriff or other minion of the law is going to prevent me.” And he crowed again.

Freddy went back and got his water pistol. By leaning well out, he could just see Charles, perched on the rooftree above him. He waited until the rooster took a deep breath and pointed his beak at the sky, and then he let him have it. There was a squawk, a thump and a sort of slithering flutter, and Charles, soaking wet and mad as a hornet, was getting up off the ground under the window.

Freddy closed the window, and prudently went over and bolted the attic door. Charles and his big talk was a joke among the animals, but when he was really angry there was nothing funny about it. He had once attacked a Mr. Garble and chased him out of his office and halfway up Main Street in Centerboro.

Charles stamped around for a while, calling Freddy all the names he could think of. But as Freddy didn't answer, he got tired of it after a while, and wandered off grumbling into the woods. Freddy put his wig on then and came down and saddled Cy and rode off in search of adventure. He met it at the first open field he crossed.