Freddy Rides Again (9 page)

“No?” said Mr. Margarine with a sneer. “Your friends, Witherspoon and Macy and the rest of them seem willing enough to do as I want them to. And they're paid well for it. They're smart; they know which side their bread is buttered on.”

“They're smarter than you think,” said Mr. Bean. “Sure, they like your money. But they don't like being pushed around. And before long they're going to decide that no money is big enough to put up with it any longer—” He stopped, as a sudden great cackling and laughing broke out over by the henhouse.

While his father talked, Billy had been exploring the barnyard. The henhouse had what was rather an unusual feature, a revolving door. With twenty-seven children running in and out all day long, and often forgetting to close the door after them, it isn't surprising that it had been hard to keep the place warm; and when Henrietta had complained of the cold, Mr. Bean had had the door put in. It was this door that had caught Billy's eye. And as he watched the door whirl and the chickens run in and out, he began to laugh.

It was a perfectly natural thing for him to laugh at, but the animals had had about enough of Billy's laughter. And now they knew how to stop it. Charles, who was sitting on the henhouse roof, and Jinx and Bill, who were standing nearby, watching Mr. Margarine, started it. They began to laugh. Then the chickens rushed out and Freddy and Georgie and Robert, the collie, came up and they all joined in. They stood around Billy and laughed at him, and their laughter was three times as loud as his.

Billy couldn't take it. He turned and rode over to his father and, pointing his finger back at the henhouse, evidently accused the animals of making fun of him. But nobody could hear what he said, for the animals had followed him, and the cows and Cy and Hank had come out, and even Sniffy Wilson, the skunk, and his family, who had come down to call, joined the crowd, and they formed a circle about Billy and his father and just laughed.

The animals closed in slowly, keeping one eye on Mr. Bean, who was inside the circle too, of course. If he had shown even the faintest sign of disapproval, they would at once have stopped and gone away. But he didn't move a finger—just stood there in the deepening twilight looking up at Mr. Margarine.

The animals laughed for a full minute—and a minute is a long time when you're being laughed at. And if Billy couldn't take it, neither could Mr. Margarine. Probably nobody had ever dared to laugh at him before. He raised his whip threateningly as if to cut at Mr. Bean. “Drive these animals away!” he shouted.

Probably he didn't really intend to strike Mr. Bean. But the animals weren't taking any chances with him. The laughs turned into growls, and they moved in quickly. Hank and Cy and the cows shoved against the horses and the dogs nipped their heels and herded them towards the gate. The smaller animals crowded to get a bite or a scratch if they had a chance. Mr. Margarine and Billy tried to use their whips, but they were pushed around so violently that it was all they could do to stick to their saddles.

They were herded through the gate, and it was there that Charles performed probably the most spectacularly heroic act of his entire career. The rooster always talked very big, but when the time came to act he was usually somewhere else. Once in a while, though, when he was good and mad, he would become completely reckless. And now, as the Margarines turned out into the road, Charles took off from the henhouse roof, sailed across the barnyard, and flew straight into Mr. Margarine's face. Squawking angrily, he beat at the man with his wings, pecked him twice on the nose, and ended by knocking off his elegant derby hat, which fell into the dirt and was trampled by the horses.

And then to complete their defeat, as they started up the road towards home, Freddy pulled out his pistol and fired two of his blank cartridges in the air.

As the sound of galloping hoofs died away, the animals fell back. Mr. Bean was still standing in the middle of the barnyard. And then as they watched to see what he would do, he walked across and picked up the battered derby hat and set it carefully on the gatepost. He looked at it a moment critically, then they saw him bend over and slap first one knee and then the other, and they heard the sound of his creaking laughter.

Chapter 8

Mr. Margarine wasted no time. Late the next morning Sheriff Higgins came rattling out from Centerboro in his old car. As he shut off the engine and climbed out, Freddy came running down from the pig pen, for the sheriff was an old friend.

“Hi, sheriff,” said the pig. “How's everything at the jail?”

But the sheriff just peered blankly at Freddy, then pulled out a paper and held it close to his nose, glancing every now and then at the pig as if comparing him with a written description.

After a minute he looked up. “Is your name Charles?” he asked, and as Freddy grinned and started to say something: “Charles,” he said. “A rooster. With a sharp beak and blue and green tailfeathers.” He looked Freddy over as if he had never seen him before. “You've got the beak all right. But no tailfeathers. Turn around—no, no tailfeathers at all.”

Freddy thought it was some kind of a joke at first, but the sheriff's manner made him think that there was something serious back of it. He decided not to laugh, but to play up for a minute or two.

“No, sir,” he said. “You wish to see this Charles?”

“I got a warrant for his arrest,” said the sheriff. “Also for some queer kind of animal—half pig and half cowboy, according to this description here. Ever see any such critter around here?”

Freddy said no, he hadn't.

“I have to do my duty,” the sheriff said. “If I was to
see—and
recognize—either of these animals, I'd have to take 'em down to the jail. Hold 'em for trial. Seems they attacked this here rich Mr. Margarine last night. Tried to scalp him, shot at him, pecked his nose and damaged his nervous system.”

“I heard something about it,” said Freddy cautiously. “But how could he prove that they attacked him?”

“Man's got as much money as he has can prove most anything,” said the sheriff. “But I guess there ain't any trouble to prove it. Seems Mr. Bean saw it all, and he wouldn't lie about it, even to keep his animals out of jail.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Freddy. “What do you think will happen to them—if you catch them, that is?”

“Why, they'll be tried before Judge Willey, likely. Tried and convicted and sentenced to—oh, probably they'll get off with a couple years at hard labor. Peckin' a rich man's nose—that's a pretty serious crime in this state. And shootin' at a rich man—why for shootin' at a poor man I've seen 'em get six months. As for attemptin' scalpin'—well, we ain't had a scalpin' case as long as I've been sheriff. Hard to tell how a jury'll feel about it.” He peered at the paper again. “Forgot my readin' glasses, I can't make out the descriptions of these criminals. Maybe you'd like to read 'em to me.” He held the paper out.

Freddy said: “I'm afraid I haven't got time just now. There's something I have to do.”

The sheriff nodded. “Good thing to do things quick if they have to be done. Folks that fiddle around and put things off, they sometimes end up in jail.” He looked hard at Freddy and nodded again. “Like these criminals. If they're smart, they'll take to the woods for a while. They'll know that if I don't catch 'em today, I'm too busy a man to go chasing them. Well, good day to you. I'll go in and see if Mr. Bean knows where they are.” And he started for the house.

Ten minutes later he was still inside the house, helping Mr. Bean with a large pot of coffee and a jar of doughnuts, and he didn't see Freddy mount Cy and ride across the barnyard and up towards the woods. The pig had on his cowboy outfit, his guitar was slung at his back, and on the saddle before him perched Charles.

The two fugitives from justice rode up through Mr. Bean's woods, across the back road and into the Big Woods. There was an old abandoned house, the Grimby house, in the Big Woods, where Freddy had hidden out once before. That night he slept on a pile of old burlap bags in the attic, while Charles perched in a tree outside, and Cy trotted back to the farm with messages for Freddy's friends which there hadn't been time to deliver before leaving home.

Cy spent the night at the farm, but was back at the Grimby house by sun-up, to report that the sheriff had gone back to Centerboro after assuring himself that neither Charles nor Freddy was anywhere on the place. Freddy was pleased at the news, for he felt sure that the sheriff wouldn't make much of an effort to arrest him; but a report brought by Mr. J. J. Pomeroy later in the morning was disturbing. The Pomeroys had flown down to Centerboro and hung around the jail on the chance of picking up some bits of news that would be of use to Freddy. They had been sitting on the windowsill of the sheriff's office when Mr. Margarine had come in. “Are you going to sit here twiddling your thumbs,” he had demanded, “while these ruffians who attacked me are still at liberty?”

“That question falls into two parts,” the sheriff had replied. “As to twiddling my thumbs, I don't know how to twiddle 'em, and that's the truth. So the answer to that is no. As to whether I'm going to sit here—yes, I am. I've got work to do and I'm going to sit here and do it.”

Mr. Margarine got mad and accused him of not doing his duty, but he only answered mildly that there was a great deal more duty around the place than there was sheriff. “If you want all that duty attended to, you got to provide me with about a dozen deputies,” he said.

“Very well,” said Mr. Margarine. “Swear me in as deputy. I'll bring in those two myself.”

“I guess the sheriff didn't want to do it much,” said Mr. Pomeroy, “but he couldn't get out of it. He'd seen us there on the sill and knew who we were, I guess. For when old Margarine had gone he came over and looked out the window and sort of talked to himself. ‘I'd like to warn that pig,' he said, ‘bein' he's a friend of mine. But I'm the sheriff—I can't do it.' So we flew right out to tell you.”

This was not the first time Freddy had had to go into hiding. Twice before not only the sheriff but the state troopers, had been after him; but on both those occasions he had been innocent. “This time,” he said, “I'm guilty, because I really did fire off my pistol. And so are you, Charles. You really pecked his nose and knocked off his hat. If they catch us—Hey!” he said suddenly. “That hat! We can use it. J.J., tell Georgie if he can find it, to bring it up tonight after dark.”

Later in the day Mr. Pomeroy returned to report that Georgie would bring the hat. But other information which he brought was more disquieting. Mr. Margarine had called on Mr. Bean's neighbors—the Macys, the Schermerhorns, the Witherspoons, the Halls—and had offered a large reward for Freddy's capture. All had agreed to help.

“You can't exactly blame them, Freddy,” said Mr. Pomeroy. “I heard Mr. Schermerhorn talking about it. ‘I don't like to go against Bean and his animals,' he said. ‘But that Freddy's awful smart. He's got out of it before all right when they were after him, and he'll get out of it this time. So what's the harm in our getting a chunk of old Margarine's money? I don't specially like the man, but I do like the crackle of those fifty dollar bills.'”

“The trouble is, they're not mad at Margarine,” Freddy said. “If we could get 'em really good and sore.… H'm, I wonder. Look, J. J.; tell Robert to come up with Georgie tonight. And Hank. And Jinx on that wild bucking broncho of his. We'll meet here at nine o'clock.”

So that evening when they had all come, Freddy got up on the porch of the Grimby house and addressed them.

“I've asked you to come up because I need your help,” he said, “but it is not just help for me—it's help for Mr. Bean, too. Because he's the only farmer in this neighborhood who won't knuckle down to Mr. Margarine. Margarine couldn't do much if all the farmers stood together against him. So one thing we can do is to get all the farmers mad at him. And this is how to do it.”