Freddy Rides Again (14 page)

Perhaps she might have worried more if she hadn't been sure that Freddy would hear about her capture. She had seen Mrs. Pomeroy sitting on the roof when she had been led into the stall. The robin had waved a claw, and then had flown off towards home. Pretty soon, she thought, Freddy would come to the rescue, riding, like a knight in shining armor, with a pistol in each hand, and Jinx and Bill and Hank and the rest of the animals at his back. It was a pretty confused picture Mrs. Wiggins painted in her mind, but the main fact about it was clear: Freddy would certainly come.

About noon Mr. Margarine reappeared. He opened the upper half of the stall door and said: “I suppose you can talk, like all the rest of Bean's menagerie?”

Mrs. Wiggins was one of those rare people who, when they don't have anything to say, don't say it. She went on munching hay.

“It doesn't matter,” Mr. Margarine said. “I have sent a note over to Beans, stating my terms. Either the pig gives himself up, or you will be shot. I have nothing against you personally, you understand; I am—” He broke off as a voice some distance away began calling.

“Come Sweetie!
Sweetie Pie!
Come kitty, kitty, kitty!” It was Mrs. Margarine. She came inside, still calling, and then saw her husband. “Oh, there you are, Elihu. I can't think what has become of that cat. I haven't seen him for several days. Why, what's the matter with the cow?”

“She's coughing. I suppose she choked on the hay.”

But Mr. Margarine was wrong about that as he was about so many things. Mrs. Wiggins wasn't coughing. She was trying not to laugh out loud at the thought of the saintly and dignified Sweetie Pie.

There are very few cows, or people either, who would feel any inclination to laugh under such circumstances. Freddy would organize a rescue, but would he organize it in time? If he didn't, she would be led out in the cold dawn to face a firing squad. But there's no sense in crossing a bridge until you come to it. That's what Mrs. Wiggins thought. So she went on enjoying her laugh. And it was then that she got her idea. She stopped laughing and began to think.

“Oh, here,” said Mrs. Margarine. “Here's a package that came for you, Elihu.”

Mr. Margarine took it. “Where's it from?”

“It was left on the porch,” she said. “Look, there's some writing on it.”

Mr. Margarine read it.
“Enclosed find one scalp, formerly attached to your hired man, the Comanche Kid. Compliments of Freddy, the Terror of the Plains
.
P. S.
I'll send you Billy's scalp next.
” He tore the paper off and pulled out a hank of long black hair, at which Mrs. Margarine began to scream.

Her husband snapped at her. “Be quiet. Can't you see that this is a wig? That man I hired—he wore it. He was no Westerner—he was the pig!” Mr. Margarine was so mad at having been fooled that he turned white, and his lips were pressed together in a thin line. “I'll—if it's the last thing I do, I'll—” He stopped suddenly and the wig and the paper dropped from his hands. “Billy!” he exclaimed. “Where's Billy?” He turned and limped towards the house, shouting for Thomas, and for Jenks, the chauffeur.

Mrs. Margarine was a tall woman with a long face. If she had looked out of a barn window at you in a dim light, you might have thought she was one of her own thoroughbreds. She picked up the wig and looked at it in a puzzled way, then hung it over the lower door of the stall. “Well really!” she said out loud. “That's not Billy's hair. Why is Elihu so disturbed?” She was not a very bright woman.

Mrs. Wiggins could no longer control her laughter. Partly it was relief at the assurance that her friends were really on the job. For she guessed that the threat about Billy meant that Freddy had captured the boy. But mostly she laughed because by sending the wig Freddy had made a monkey out of Mr. Margarine. He really had disposed of Mr. Margarine's hired gunman and had sent in his scalp as a proof and a warning.

When Mrs. Wiggins really got to laughing she unsettled the entire neighborhood. She roared so that a thunderstorm could come up and go crashing and banging across the sky and you would never hear it. Rabbits on distant hillsides crouched trembling in the grass, and mice and squirrels and chipmunks covered their ears with their paws. “Oh, ho, ho!” Mrs. Wiggins shouted, and Mrs. Margarine cried out in dismay and turned and ran for the house. “O, ho, hoo,
haw
!” Mrs. Wiggins roared. Only of course there aren't enough letters in the alphabet to spell what that laugh sounded like.

Up at the Grimby house in the Big Woods, Freddy heard it, and he grinned at his captive, who was sitting on a pile of sacks in the attic, guarded by Robert and Georgie. “That's my partner, Mrs. Wiggins, you hear,” he said. “She's laughing. But of course hearing a cow laugh is no novelty to you, is it?”

“She hasn't got much to laugh about,” said Billy sullenly.

“Oh, I don't know,” said Jinx, who was sitting on the windowsill. “She's got your old man; he's good for about a laugh a minute. Shucks, he don't even have to open his mouth—just looking at him gives 'em the screaming giggles.”

“Aw, lay off me, will you?” said the boy. “You wouldn't be so funny if you didn't have me locked up here.”

“I guess maybe you're right,” Freddy said. “It isn't very nice to tease prisoners. Well, you won't be a prisoner long. Your father will start looking for you as soon as he gets the Comanche Kid's scalp. We'll let him worry for an hour or two, and then we'll make him a proposition. You'll be home by suppertime.”

“You don't know my dad,” said Billy. “He said if you didn't give yourself up he'd shoot the cow, and he means just that. No matter what you do to me. But I don't suppose he thinks you'd dare do anything to me.”

“To tell you the truth, we wouldn't do anything to you,” Freddy said. “But he can't be sure of that.”

“He'll shoot the cow just the same,” said Billy, “because he said he would.”

Jinx snarled angrily. “You're a fine lot, you Margarines,” he said. “You come into a peaceful neighborhood and try to run things and push everybody around and get everybody mad and worried and upset—and now you want to start shooting them! Let me tell you something, you stuck-up little squinch: if your father shoots Mrs. Wiggins, or any other friend of ours—”

“I don't
want
him to shoot her!” Billy interrupted, almost tearfully. “But what can I do about it? Look, you've made fun of me a lot—well, I've made fun of you, too: so that makes us even, doesn't it? I'd like to live here and be friends with everybody. It isn't any fun riding around when you know every animal you see hates you.”

“We don't hate you,” Freddy said. “We just don't think … that is, we think it's sort of silly, your going around pretending to be so much better than everybody else, just because you have a pocket full of money, and a fine horse and shiny expensive riding boots—”

“I don't like these boots,” Billy said. “I'd like to have Western boots like yours. And a ten-gallon hat and a gun belt—”

“Wait a minute,” said Freddy. “Let me think.” He looked thoughtfully at the boy. “Are you as good at keeping your word as your father is?” And when Billy said yes, he hoped he was, Freddy said: “All right, I'm going to believe you. I'm going to try an experiment. You're about my size. Now by this time your father must know that we've captured you, and he'll come right here. We'll fight him if we have to, but it will be better if we don't. So we'll go down to my place and I'll fit you out with a complete cowboy outfit. Only you'll have to give me your word you'll stay with me and not try to escape.”

“All right,” said Billy. “I promise. Only if we should meet my Dad—”

“We won't meet him. He'll probably guess that we're holding you here, and he'll come into the Big Woods from your side, the west side. You and I will ride out the east side and circle around down to the farm. Jinx, you and the other animals better scatter and go home. We can't stand a siege here, because Mr. Margarine and his men will certainly be armed.”

“And how about me?” Charles said angrily. “I can't go back; I'll be arrested. If they come search the henhouse the way they did the pig pen—”

“Oh, don't be so scared,” said Jinx. “What could they do with you if they did arrest you? Who'd want a stringy old rooster—”

“I'm
not
scared!” Charles shouted. “Let old Margarine come. Let him bring on his armed cohorts, let him put guns in the hands of his greasy scullions and lead them against me. Scared?” He thumped his chest with a claw. “Let the odds be what they may—a hundred, a thousand, a million to one; this proud rooster heart—”

“Is just a giblet,” said Freddy sharply. “Dry up; there's no time for an oration now. You can hide in the spruces back of the house; nobody will find you there if you keep your noisy beak shut. Come on, Billy.”

While all this was going on at the Grimby house, Mr. J. J. Pomeroy was talking to Mrs. Wiggins. He had flown up to see how she was getting along in her prison, and to see what chances there were of helping her to escape.

When he had dropped down from the sky above the Margarine place and perched on a fence post to look things over, he had been able to see straight into the door of her stall. And what he saw startled him so that he nearly fell off the post. It was a broad pale face, over which straggled long locks of lank black hair. And as he started, it broke into song.

“Freddy the pig

Has lost his wig
,

    
And he's also lost his Wiggins,

Leave 'em alone

And they'll come home—

“How will I finish that, J. J.?” it called.

“Good gracious!” he exclaimed. “Mrs. Wiggins! I see; that's Freddy's wig, isn't it? … Well, now, how's this?

“Freddy the pig

Has lost his wig
.

    
And his Wiggins too, he's lost.

Leave 'em alone

And they'll come home—

“H'm. Bossed, frost … Oh—at almost no extra cost. How's that?”

“It's pretty, but what does it mean?” Mrs. Wiggins asked.

“Let's think about that later. Now I have to go back and report. How's everything? Anything new?”

“As a matter of fact, there is,” said the cow. “I've had an idea.”

“Bless me!” said Mr. Pomeroy admiringly.

“You may well say ‘Bless me!'” replied Mrs. Wiggins. “Now, look here. Can you mew?”

“Mew?” he said. “Me? No. I can chirp, I can warble. But mew—no. However, there's a catbird, a Mr. Johnson or Puddleford or some such name, down the road. He's a good mewer. Why?”

“There's nobody in the house but Mrs. Margarine and two maids,” Mrs. Wiggins said. “The men have gone to look for Billy. Mrs. M. was out here calling for Arthur a while ago. She wants to find him. Now you see, if you could mew, you could pretend to be Arthur and lead her and the maids away; and then, with nobody here to stop you, all the animals could come over and get me out of this place.”

“If you want mewing, why not get a cat?” said the robin.

“Gracious, I never thought of that!” said the cow. “Where's Jinx?”

“Why not get Arthur?” said Mr. Pomeroy. “He's a good guy.”

“Arthur'd be embarrassed,” she said. “Mrs. Margarine's name for him … well, he'd just be sick if all the animals heard what it is. Oh dear, even if Jinx does the mewing they'll hear it, because they'll have to be here. No, let's just forget the whole thing.”

Mr. Pomeroy started to protest, but he knew that the cow was too kind-hearted to give in; she wouldn't hurt Arthur's feelings. “O.K.,” he said. “I guess you'll be out of here soon enough, anyway.” And he said goodbye and went. But he went straight down to see Arthur.

The big tortoise-shell cat looked unhappy. “I wish we could think of some other way,” he said. “I won't be able to look any of you animals in the eye without blushing, if you know that name. But if it's Mrs. Wiggins' safety—yes, of course I'll do it. I have to. If I didn't, I couldn't look any of you in the eye at all, blush or no blush. Come on.”

The other animals were coming back from the Grimby house. Mr. Pomeroy told them the plan, and they started at once for the Margarine place. The Horribles had come back too, and they went along.

Mrs. Margarine had stationed the maids at the back windows to keep an eye on the stables, in case of an attempted rescue. Suddenly one of them gave a screech. “Oh, Mis' Margarine! Your Sweetie! He just went around the corner of the garage!”

Mrs. Margarine dashed out into the kitchen. “Come Nellie! Martha, you stay on guard.” She rushed out of the back door.