Freddy and the Dragon

by Walter R. Brooks

  Mr. Pomeroy adjusted his spectacles on his beak. “Sir,” he said, “I have only admiration for the grace and delicacy of your behavior. I apologize most profoundly for the twittings.”

  “I’ll be darned,” he said later to Mrs. Pomeroy, “if I was going to be outdone in elegance by a tough old bull.”

  So Percy went on and lay down in the shade.

  CHAPTER 9

  Percy was so polite to all the animals, indeed so much the gentleman, that Mr. Bean fixed it up for him to live in the cow barn with his daughters. Jinx and some of the other animals were rather doubtful about his being given so much freedom. “He’ll break out again,” they said. “You just wait.” But Freddy and Mr. Pomeroy were both convinced of his good intentions. As far as they knew, while he had smashed up things, he had never harmed anybody. “He doesn’t like Jack’s gangster methods,” said Samuel. “And he doesn’t like his conscience getting after him. I’ll keep him in line. I say I’ll keep him in line.” So two or three times a day he would walk along under the grass to where Percy was standing and give him a short lecture on etiquette.

  The news that day from Centerboro was bad. Mr. Metacarpus and Mr. Gorflinger had each left an envelope containing $100 on the stone wall on the back road. Several other requests for money had been received. Just before daylight that morning the headless horseman had galloped up Main Street and then back down again, and a good many people, roused by the sound of hoof beats, had run to the windows and seen him. They were scared good. That night, and for weeks afterwards, the streets were deserted after dark. No one wanted to meet that terrifying apparition.

  Along in the morning the sheriff came driving into the barnyard in his rattletrap old car. “Hey, you!” he called to Freddy, who was just coming down from Uncle Ben’s workshop, where he had been inspecting the frame of the dragon. It was made of wire and could be collapsed like an accordion. Later it would be covered with painted cloth, and the head attached.

  “Hi, sheriff,” said the pig. They were old friends.

  “Freddy,” said the sheriff, “I got to take you in. I got a warrant for your arrest.”

  “Oh dear,” said Freddy. “I suppose I’ll have to go. I guess I waited around here too long. Who swore out the warrant?”

  “Well, folks finally got around to thinkin’ that you ought to be in jail. There was a line-up in front of Judge Willey’s office door this morning, all waiting to accuse you. But Mrs. Peppercorn, she sort of elbowed her way up to the front, and she was the one responsible.”

  “Mrs. Peppercorn!” Freddy exclaimed. “Why she’s a good friend; she wouldn’t do that.”

  “She did, though,” said the sheriff.

  “Well, gosh,” said Freddy dejectedly, “when my friends begin to turn on me, I might as well give up. All right, I’ll go quietly.”

  “Better take a look at the warrant first,” said the sheriff, holding out the paper. And he looked steadily at Freddy and winked.

  Freddy took it reluctantly. “Well, I don’t see what difference—” he began. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “this is made out for Frederick J. Bean.”

  “Well, isn’t that your name?”

  “It’s my name,” said the pig, “but there isn’t any J in it. I haven’t got a middle name.”

  “No J, hey?” said the sheriff. “Well then, it don’t seem as if you’re the party mentioned in the warrant. But that’s the way Mrs. Peppercorn gave it.”

  Freddy began to catch on. “She must know—” he began, then stopped. “If I’m not Frederick J. Bean, then you can’t arrest me on this warrant, can you?”

  “Don’t see how,” said the sheriff. “You’re Frederick Bean—different person entirely. You know any pig by that name? No? Well, I’ll just have to look for him.” He started his engine, then he leaned out. “Just in case there was some mistake,” he said, “and some of those folks got warrants swore out for Frederick without the J—well, you still got that little sailor suit you wore once? You looked real nice in it.” And he backed out into the road.

  Freddy had in the back room of the pig pen a lot of disguises which he used in his detective work. There were a great number of suits and dresses, all carefully hung on hangers, and any number of hats. There was a whole drawer full of beards. He thought he had better get into one quick, before the sheriff came back with a real warrant.

  But even before he did that, there was something more important to see to. He hunted up Jinx. “Look, cat,” he said, “that headless man has his headquarters in the cave, up near the west end of the lake. He headed that way after he picked up Mr. Rohr’s money and scared you into the screeching screamies.”

  “Yeah?” said the cat. “I suppose you weren’t so scared that your legs gave out and let you fall flat on your face.”

  “Maybe we’d better not go into that,” said Freddy. “The point is, somebody has got to sneak into that cave and try to find out what goes on. You remember when Simon and Mr. Garble and the other revolutionists had their headquarters there, we never got very far in. There’s a big rock at the back of the cave, and behind that there’s an opening, and you go up some sort of steps into another room where Garble hung out. But there may be more ways in and out, and there may be more rooms. If we want to drive ’em out we ought to know about it. Now you—”

  “Stop right there!” Jinx interrupted. “If you want somebody to go cave exploring, you hire yourself another boy.”

  Freddy said he was thinking of the Webbs, and after a little discussion Jinx agreed to go see them and arrange it, while Freddy got into a disguise.

  Jinx went into the cow barn and asked the cows if the Webbs were home. The Webbs were two spiders who lived in the barn roof. But they were not like most spiders, who are usually home bodies. They had gone on that first famous trip of the animals to Florida, and it had given them a taste for travel. They had even taken a trip to Hollywood, the story of which has been told elsewhere. Nowadays they seldom went so far. But when they felt like going, they would get Mr. Pomeroy to fly them out to the state road, and then they would climb a tree and drop into a passing automobile. They had hitchhiked this way all over the east.

  “They’re home,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Mrs. Webb has had a bad cold, and she’s been taking it easy for a few days. Webb wove her a hammock—you can see it up in that corner—and most of the time she’s been swinging in it. My land, a couple of swings in a thing like that and I’d be as seasick as a cat.”

  “Cats don’t get seasick,” said Jinx, not very truthfully.

  “Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the cow. “I’ve never gone sailing with a cat. It’s just an expression my mother used to use.”

  “You’ve never gone sailing, comma, semicolon, period,” said Jinx. “So let’s just drop the subject.—Hey, Webb,” he called. “Come down a minute.”

  The spider spun a long strand down and landed on the cat’s nose, where he bounced up and down a few times until the cat sneezed, then he ran quickly back up to be out of the way.

  “Darn you, Webb!” Jinx exclaimed. “Why do you do that? You know my nose is ticklish!”

  Mrs. Webb leaned out of her hammock and laughed. She had a rather pleasant face for a spider.

  “Sorry, cat,” said Mr. Webb. “What can I do for you?”

  So Jinx explained what was wanted. “We’ll fly you up there. There won’t be any danger for you. A spider can go where an animal would be noticed.”

  Mr. Webb said sure, he’d go; and just then Mrs. Webb came down on a long strand beside him.

  “If you’re going exploring, I’m going with you,” she said firmly.

  “Now, Mother,” Mr. Webb said, “you ought to be back in that hammock and not galloping around down here.”

  “Pshaw!” said Mrs. Webb. “I was kind of upset yesterday; we had that big grasshopper for dinner the day before. But I’ve just felt kind of lazy today; that’s why I didn’t get up. Look, I’m as spry as I ever was.” And to prove it she dropped down ont
o the barn floor and danced a jig.

  Very few people have ever seen a spider dance a jig; indeed very few spiders can dance jigs. When they have parties they dance old-fashioned, very slow dances like minuets. I don’t know where Mrs. Webb had picked up dancing. Perhaps in Hollywood.

  So Mr. Webb gave in, and they got Mr. Pomeroy and hung onto his tail feathers while he flew them, up to the entrance to the cave, which was on the hillside to the left of the road going up to the Indian village.

  They had expected to explore the cave by walking in along the roof or ceiling. This is the best way to explore a strange house where there may be danger. Of course, some people can’t do it. But the roof of the cave bristled with stone icicles, which Mr. Webb explained were called stalactites. There were some of these same icicle things sticking up from the floor, but not so many. So they crept in, following a sort of path which led back to the opening behind the rock.

  Here was the room where Simon, the rat, and Mr. Garble had holed up, but there was nothing in it now but some empty pop bottles. At the far end was a wide opening. They went through it, and were in a huge hall. It was cold and very dark, but they could make out big whitish stalagmites and rock formations all about them. Even a man with a flashlight would have had trouble exploring such a place without getting lost. But the Webbs had a way of their own of doing these things. They spun a strand of web out behind them as they went on, and they could always follow it back to the starting-place.

  There seemed to be a sort of path winding in among the strange rock shapes, but just as they were starting down it, a pig with a flashlight in his mouth came trotting along it. They froze, and he went by without seeing them. After that they decided to take a route parallel to the path. They didn’t want to be stepped on, or even seen.

  A while after that they saw firelight reflected on a stalagmite that looked like a huge stone candle some distance off. They made toward it, and presently were peering in at a room which seemed to have been fitted out as living-quarters. There were rugs on part of the floor, there was a cot, an easy chair, and a bookcase with a set of Dickens in it—probably the same set that had been stolen from Dr. Wintersip’s house. In a hollow in the center of the floor there was a fire burning—for the cave was chilly. The smoke went straight up, and Mr. Webb said he thought he could see, high up in the roof, a speck of daylight. “It is probably a natural chimney,” he said, “otherwise the smoke would fill the room.”

  In another sort of room there was a horse and a man grooming him. There were sacks of oats and a pile of hay in the corner. The Webbs looked carefully at the man—a short dark fellow with a crooked nose and beady black eyes—but they didn’t go in.

  There was a horse and a man grooming it.

  They explored a good deal of the cave, though there were so many passages and halls and rooms that it would have taken a week to do it all. The entire hill seemed to be hollow. They found arrowheads and stone implements and Indian pottery in one of the rooms, and in another some bones with curved teeth six inches long, which Mr. Webb said must have been those of some prehistoric animal. They also found a way out of the cave on the west side of the hill. It was masked by thick bushes and evidently had not been used for some time, since there were no broken twigs to be seen.

  It was nearly dark by the time they had followed their strand of web back to the big hall. In exploring they had gone, of course, by a roundabout route, and they had to go back the same way. They were pretty tired, too. Even if you have eight legs it is tiring to walk and climb steadily nearly all day.

  Mr. Pomeroy was waiting for them. He had stayed near the cave entrance for fear of missing anything that went on, but no one had come in or gone out, and he had been pretty bored. He had killed the time by catching and eating a number of green inchworms that were on near-by trees. He didn’t specially care for inchworms, and they always disagreed with him, but there was nothing else to do. He was sorry for it that night, though.

  CHAPTER 10

  Freddy spent some time selecting a disguise. His favorite one was a long shapeless dress, which he wore with a shawl over his head in the character of an old Irishwoman. It was a good disguise because it concealed his feet and his long pig’s nose. With it, he used his idea of an Irish brogue. It wouldn’t have fooled an Irishman for a minute, but it was good enough for local use.

  But the dress was not much good for moving about the roads, and he felt sure that he’d have to take trips to Centerboro, and to the cave, and perhaps to the Indian village. So he put on the sailor suit that the sheriff had mentioned. It was white, and had long pants which were wide at the bottom, a wide collar, and a round hat with a black ribbon that had on it in gold letters: H.M. S. Inscrutable. At least that’s what Freddy said it was. It had belonged to Mr. Bean when he was a little boy.

  When he had it on, he looked at himself in the glass. “Really,” he thought, “I’m quite a nice-looking child. Perhaps a little on the plump side, but that’s no fault.” He certainly did fill out that sailor suit. Some people might have called him downright fat. But Freddy was used to seeing himself in the glass, and so he didn’t notice specially how tight the suit was. You know how that is yourself.

  “But I’ll have to get somebody to adopt me,” he said to himself, “in case the police get to asking questions.” So he went to the back door of the farmhouse and tapped.

  Mrs. Bean came out, and he explained what he wanted.

  “Well now, Freddy,” she said, “I’m afraid it wouldn’t do to tell folks you’re our grandchild from down east. Because everybody around here knows we haven’t any grandchildren.”

  She kept her hand over her mouth while she talked, and Freddy said: “What’s the matter, Mrs. Bean; you got a toothache?”

  She was holding her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, because Freddy really did look pretty funny in the sailor suit. But she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so she said: “No, I was just thinking—that was Mr. Bean’s suit, you know—and I was thinking how he’d look in it now.” So then she took her hand down and had a good laugh, and Freddy laughed with her.

  On the way up to the pig pen to get his bicycle, Freddy met Jinx. The cat stopped short. “Ahoy, shipmate!” he shouted. “Ahoy and a yo heave ho! Whither away? Off for a life on the roaring deep and a cruise on the bounding main?” And he stood up on his hind legs and hitched up imaginary trousers and danced a few steps of a hornpipe.

  “Keep still, you dope!” said Freddy. “I’m in disguise, and I don’t want everybody talking about it.”

  “Maybe you are,” said the cat, “but if you expect to pass for a sailor, you’d better hang a set of those false whiskers you’ve got around that long jaw. To me you look like a pig in a sailor suit.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Freddy. “This is a kid’s suit, not a regular sailor’s outfit. I’ve got an idea. Want to ride down to Mrs. Peppercorn’s with me? On my bicycle, I mean. Can’t ride Cy in this suit.”

  “What’s your idea?” the cat asked.

  But Freddy wouldn’t tell him. Jinx didn’t like riding on Freddy’s handlebars much. The last time he had done it, Freddy had hit a stone and fallen off, and Jinx had been pitched into a muddy ditch. But, like all cats, he was curious, so he said he’d go.

  On the ride into town they didn’t see anybody they knew. A few cars passed them, but nobody noticed them, except a little girl in one crowded car who yelled: “Oh, Ma, look at the cat!” and her mother slapped her and said: “Shut up!” They were not nice people, and I am glad they don’t come into this story.

  On the ride into town they didn’t see anybody.

  So they went to Mrs. Peppercorn’s. She said: “The police have been here looking for you, Freddy. And I don’t think that’s a very good disguise. You look all right from the back, but if everybody’s hunting for a pig, one look at your face and you’re sunk.”

  “Well,” said Freddy, “I thought if I could get somebody to say I was their grandson who had come to stay
with them for the summer—oh, I don’t mean you, Mrs. Peppercorn. Everybody in town would know all about your relatives. But I was thinking of Mrs. Talcum.…” He looked hopefully at Mrs. Peppercorn’s aunt.

  “I’d be quite willing to adopt you, Freddy,” said the old lady, suppressing a sneeze. “But if sobebody looks at you closely ad sees that you’re really dot a little boy, dod’t you thig it will seeb fuddy to theb that I have a pig for a gradchild? Ah—ahchow!”

  “Yes,” he said, “but suppose I have hay fever, too. It could run in the family, couldn’t it? And I can keep a handkerchief up to my nose all the time. Then nobody would notice.”

  “That’s a smart idea,” said Mrs. Peppercorn. “You can have that little back room upstairs when you’re in town. And you’ll ride your bicycle to and from the farm. Your being there a lot will look all right, because I’ve spent a lot of time there myself.”

  “How about talkig? asked Mrs. Talcum. “Ad sdeezig?”

  “I can hold my nose with my handkerchief so my talk will sound as if I was plugged up. And I think I can do a pretty good sneeze. How’s this?” And he gave an imitation sneeze which nearly blew Mrs. Peppercorn out of her chair. But, of course, she wasn’t very big.

  “Splendid!” Mrs. Talcum exclaimed. “You are by gradsud, Peppercord Talcub.” And she went on to say that he had come from Syracuse to spend the summer with his grandmother and his distant cousin, Mrs. Peppercorn. He suffered from hay fever, which was hereditary in the Talcum family, and was called Peppy for short. Mrs. Talcum was so pleased with her invitation that she sneezed eight times in a row.

  “There are several little boys on this street,” said Mrs. Peppercorn. “Wouldn’t he be expected to want to play with them?”