Freddy the Politician

by Walter R. Brooks

  “Good morning, Jinx,” said the spider. “Webb’s off for his morning walk. Anything I can do?” She had a brisk, pleasant voice, though it was very small. Spiders are very talkative, but few people know it, for they have to get almost in your ear to make themselves heard, and they don’t like to do it much because they know it tickles.

  “Just a matter of business,” said the cat. “Which way did he go?”

  “The roof, I guess. Go right up.”

  Mr. Webb, who was rather stout, liked to take regular exercise to keep his figure down. But in the early spring it was too wet underfoot to do much walking, so he usually took his walks on the roof of the cow-barn. Four times around the edge of the roof was a spider’s mile. Jinx found him sitting on the peak of the roof with four of his legs dangling over the barnyard.

  There was nothing Mr. Webb liked to do better than talk about his banking experiences, and so for an hour or more he went on and on and Jinx listened attentively. But of course what the cat wanted to know was how to start a bank, and hearing all about the time the robber came into the bank and Mr. Webb bit him on the leg and made him run away, or about the terrible fight Mr. Webb had with the black caterpillars who started to eat up the paper money, wasn’t much good to him. So finally he said: “Yes, yes, that’s all very interesting, but how do you start a bank?”

  “Start a bank?” said Mr. Webb. “Nothing easier. You just start it, that’s all. Then people bring you their money and you keep it safe for them. Then when they want to get some out, they write a check.”

  “What’s that?” Jinx asked.

  “Well,” said Mr. Webb, “suppose I have some money in your bank and I want to pay Robert forty cents I owe him. I don’t go and get the money and give it to him. I give him a check that says: ‘Jinx’s Bank. Pay to Robert, forty cents.’ And I sign it with my name. And he brings it to you and you give him the money.”

  “I don’t believe any of the animals I know would let me keep their money for them,” said Jinx thoughtfully. “Even if they had any.”

  “Well, frankly,” said Mr. Webb, “I don’t think they would either. Nobody doubts your honesty, Jinx. I don’t mean that. But you’re up to too many tricks. No, you’d have to have somebody else as president of the bank, somebody they’d feel was thoroughly reliable, like Mrs. Wiggins. Or somebody with a big name. Did I ever tell you about the time President Harding—”

  “Yes, you did,” Jinx interrupted. “But that reminds me. Who do you suppose blew in last night? John Quincy Adams.”

  “John Quincy—what?” exclaimed Mr. Webb. “Oh, come, Jinx, you don’t mean to tell me—”

  “I do, though,” said Jinx. “That’s his name. Only he’s just a woodpecker.” And he told the spider about it.

  Mr. Webb was much excited. “But good gracious, Jinx, he’s just the one to be president of your bank. Don’t you see? ‘Jinx’s Bank. President: John Quincy Adams.’ Why, every animal for miles around will want to have an account in that bank. Can’t you get him to stay and be president?”

  “Gosh, that’s an idea,” said the cat. “Thanks, Webb. See you later.” And Jinx hurried off back to the barnyard, where quite a number of the animals had gathered to admire the distinguished visitor.

  The distinguished visitor, however, had now climbed so far up among the leaves of the elm that he was invisible from the ground. They could hear the tap, tap of his strong beak, and an occasional “Delicious!” as he ate another bug.

  “Hi, John Quincy!” shouted Jinx. “Come down here a minute. I’ve got a proposition to make to you.”

  The woodpecker flew down and perched on a low limb. “Really, my friends,” he said, “I must apologize to you for knowing so little about your wonderful state. Your bugs are really marvelous.” He smacked his beak. “Such crispness! Such flavor—full, yet delicate! I am half tempted to stay here for a time if you will permit me, to feast on these delicacies.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Jinx. And then he told him about the bank, and that he wanted him to be president.

  “It is a great honor,” said the woodpecker. “But I will be frank with you. I know very little about banking.”

  “We don’t know anything about it, either,” said Jinx, “so I don’t see that that makes much difference.”

  “Well,” said John Quincy, “you tempt me. I admit you tempt me. Washington can be very tiring. The balls, the parties, the political conferences, the diplomatic intrigues—one grows weary of the constant round of gaiety. I have often thought that I should like to spend a summer among the plain country people, sharing their simple pleasures. And perhaps—who knows?—my wide experience and deep knowledge of men and cities might be of some help to them too. Yes, I accept.”

  “Good,” said Jinx. “Then come along and talk to Freddy with me. I have to see him anyway this morning about our election.”

  “Who’s Freddy, if I may ask?” said the woodpecker.

  “Freddy? Oh, he’s just—Freddy. He’s a detective and a poet and—oh, lots of things. He’ll have to be our secretary, because he’s the only animal on the farm that can read or write. He’s a pig.”

  “A pig!” exclaimed John Quincy, and he laughed heartily. “Dear me, I am going to be rural and no mistake. A pig! Well, well!”

  III

  The next two weeks were very busy ones on the Bean farm. The idea of electing a president was enthusiastically received. It would be a great thing, the animals all felt, to found the first animal republic. Of course none of them knew very much about how to start a republic, or how to hold an election, but Freddy read up about it in his encyclopedia, and John Quincy was a great help too. For of course, living in Washington, the woodpecker knew all about government.

  Freddy and Jinx and some of the others were all for holding the election right away, but when John Quincy heard of this he said he thought they ought to wait until they had got the bank started.

  “Oh, you just say that because you are to be president of the bank,” said Freddy.

  “Dear me,” said John Quincy, “I am in no hurry for that, I assure you. No, it merely occurs to me that your main reason for starting a republic is so that the farm will be well run in Mr. Bean’s absence. But Mr. Bean isn’t planning to go abroad for another month, so I am told, and in the meantime, if you don’t convince him that you are capable of taking on such a responsible job, he may not go at all. The quickest way to convince him is to start your bank.”

  “Well, why can’t we do both right away?” asked Jinx.

  “Because it will take longer to get the bank going,” said the woodpecker. “Anybody can start a republic in five minutes. But a bank—well, you haven’t even got any safe-deposit vaults yet.”

  “Safe-deposit vaults?” said Freddy.

  “Sure,” said John Quincy. “That’s what a bank has to have. Burglar-proof vaults. Underground, with steel doors and somebody to guard them. For money and valuables.”

  They were going to have the bank in an old toolshed that stood by the side of the road some distance from the house. So Jinx hired a family of woodchucks that lived in the upper pasture to come down and dig some vaults under the shed. They dug a tunnel about twenty-five feet long, big enough for Jinx to crawl through, and at the end they dug two rooms: a smaller room for money and a larger room for valuables. They put a board over the opening to the tunnel, and whoever was on guard sat on it.

  The day the bank opened for business Freddy brought out the sign he had painted and they hung it up. It read:

  FIRST ANIMAL BANK OF CENTERBORO

  President: John Quincy Adams Treasurer: Jinx Secretary: Freddy

  Capital: None yet Resources: Unlimited

  These names are the guarantee of your security. Why worry about the safety of your money and valuables? Bring them to us and let us do the worrying. Do business with the old reliable firm.

  For the first few days the bank was crowded from dawn to dusk. Animals came from miles around to open account
s, or to leave valuables in safekeeping. Most of them came out of curiosity, to see how a bank worked, or to have a talk with its distinguished president, but of course they all brought something. There was a line at the door that extended away off down the road. And as each one came in, John Quincy would talk with him for a minute, explaining how the bank worked, and then Freddy would write down in a notebook what they had brought, and one of the squirrels whom they had engaged as cashiers and clerks would take it down to the vaults. By the end of the third day there was $21.03 in the money room, and the valuables room was so full that there wasn’t space for anything more.

  “It’s a good thing the entrance to the vaults is so small,” said Jinx. “Suppose we’d had to take in things like that ox-yoke that that cow from Lakeville wanted us to keep for her because her great-uncle used to wear it!”

  “We have to draw the line at foodstuffs, too,” said John Quincy. “I turned away several dogs that came in with bones. And squirrels have been bringing in thousands of nuts. What kind of a bank is that to be president of—one that has its vaults full of nuts?”

  “Well, for that matter,” said Freddy, “what kind of a bank is it that doesn’t charge for its services? I vote we charge a cent a month on all accounts.”

  As soon as this monthly charge was announced, business fell off badly. But although most animals haven’t much use for money, they can always get a little if they need it. In a district that has been settled for a hundred and fifty years, many thousands of coins have been lost. They have slipped from purses, dropped through holes in pockets, fallen through cracks and down mouse-holes. They are sprinkled all over the countryside, and it is the little animals, and particularly the birds, who know where they are.

  And so if a squirrel knew where there was a nickel, it was worth his trouble to bring it along with his winter supply of nuts to the bank. For five months his hoard would be safe from the robbers against whom he must be always on the watch.

  But there were many other things besides nuts brought in for safekeeping. Oddly enough, the three wealthiest depositors in the bank were Ferdinand, the crow, and Alice and Emma, the two ducks. Ferdinand, like all crows, was a great collector. In his nest in the dead pine over in the woods he was popularly supposed to have hidden a treasure worth a king’s ransom. Indeed, there were some valuable things in his collection—half a dozen gold coins, a brooch set with diamonds in the form of a rabbit, a number of unmounted emeralds and sapphires, and so on. But Ferdinand collected things that were bright and glittered, regardless of their value, and so mixed in with these things which men, too, like to hoard, there were bits of glass and shiny bottle-caps and pins and pieces of tin and a brass thimble. All these things Ferdinand brought into the bank for safekeeping, for lately he had noticed a number of blue jays hanging around the pine tree, and blue jays are great thieves.

  Alice and Emma didn’t care much about collecting, although in exploring the mud in the bottoms of ponds and creeks they often picked up things that had been dropped out of boats. But they had inherited their Uncle Wesley’s collection, and that was a very fine collection indeed. For Uncle Wesley had traveled a great deal and had stirred up the mud at the bottom of many much-traveled lakes and streams and had found and brought home more jewelry than you could shake a stick at. Alice and Emma kept the collection at the bottom of Mr. Bean’s duck pond, but they were nervous, fluttery little ducks and were always worrying about it. Emma didn’t care for jewelry and never wore any, but Alice occasionally put on a string of pearls when she went calling. She would have liked to wear some of the diamonds, but Emma did not think that diamonds were refined. The ducks were very much relieved when they had entrusted all this wealth to the bank.

  One day when the bank had been open about a week Mr. Bean harnessed Hank, the old white horse, to the buggy and started into town. But when he came opposite the shed, with the big sign in front, he pulled on the reins. “Whoa, Hank,” he shouted. “What in tarnation’s this?”

  Hank looked around but didn’t say anything. Mr. Bean knew that his animals could talk, but he was a pretty conventional man. That means that he didn’t like new things very much. He liked to have everything go on as it had when he was a boy. That was the reason he still drove a buggy instead of a car. And so it made him feel uncomfortable and a little embarrassed when he heard animals talk. He just couldn’t get used to it.

  It was a little confusing for the animals sometimes. Mr. Bean thought them impolite if they didn’t answer, and, on the other hand, it upset him if they did. But in this case Hank decided that no answer was necessary. If Mr. Bean wanted to know what the bank was, he only had to read the sign.

  Which he did. “First Animal Bank, hey?” he said. “So that’s what they’ve started. Good, sound idea. Teach ’em the value of money. ‘President: John Quincy Adams—’ Hey, hey; we can’t have this! You animals’ll be getting me into trouble with the government—using that name. Tut, tut; we’ll have to see about this!” And he dropped the reins on the dashboard and climbed out.

  He walked into the shed and up to the counter that the two boys, Byram and Adoniram, had built for the bankers. A horse with a straw hat on who had come in to inquire if the bank would lend him the money to buy a new pair of shoes moved aside respectfully, and John Quincy, who had been talking to the horse, hopped forward.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said. “What can we do for you?”

  Good morning, sir. What can we do for you?

  Mr. Bean gave a slight shudder, as he always did when he heard an animal speak. “Who are you?” he said. “Stranger here, ain’t you?”

  “Not any longer, I hope, sir,” said the woodpecker. “Let us say, rather, a new arrival in your delightful community.”

  “This is John Quincy, Mr. Bean,” said Jinx. “The president of our new bank.”

  Mr. Bean gave a grunt. Then he said: “Well, if his name’s John Quincy, his name’s John Quincy. If he’s president of the bank, he’s president of the bank. But you got to take that name Adams off your sign.”

  “But that’s his name,” protested Jinx. “He was named after the President.”

  “I was named after my grandfather,” said Mr. Bean, “but I don’t go round pretending I’m him.”

  “Neither do I,” said the woodpecker indignantly.

  “Go round pretending you’re my grandfather?” said Mr. Bean. “I should hope not.”

  “Go round pretending I’m the President,” said John Quincy.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Bean. “Well, maybe you don’t. But it looks like it. And whether you are or not, folks are going to criticize me for letting you do it. So fix up that sign.”

  He turned to go, but the horse with the straw hat said nervously: “Don’t you—don’t you approve of this bank, Mr. Bean? Don’t you think it’s a good bank?”

  “Approve of it? Certainly I approve of it. It’s the first animal bank in the country, ain’t it? It’s run by my animals, ain’t it? That is, all but this John Quincy, here, and I expect he’s all right. Who says it ain’t a good bank?”

  “Why, n-nobody,” said the horse.

  “Well, then,” said Mr. Bean. He looked sharply at the horse. “I’ve seen you before somewhere,” he said.

  “I’m Zenas Witherspoon’s Jerry,” said the horse. “I just came over to see if I could borrow enough to buy some new shoes.”

  “Oh, sure. I thought I recognized that long nose,” said Mr. Bean. “Why don’t Zenas buy shoes for you?”

  “He hasn’t any money. He had a bad year last year.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Bean, “he hadn’t ought to bought you that hat. In my day horses didn’t wear hats. They weren’t afraid of a little sun.”

  “It’s Mrs. Witherspoon’s hat,” said Jerry. “She don’t ever go out, so she gave it to me.”

  “’Twa’n’t much of a present,” said Mr. Bean dryly. Then he said to John Quincy: “Well, president, what you going to do about this loan? I want to see how your bank works.�
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  “We can’t lend you our depositors’ money unless you can give us good security,” said John Quincy. “I guess we’ll have to refuse the loan.”

  “Security,” said Jerry. “What’s that?”

  “It’s anything of value that you’d leave with us. Then if you couldn’t pay back the money when you’d promised to, we’d sell the thing and get our money.”

  “Or maybe you could get somebody to go on your note,” suggested Freddy.

  “Gosh,” said the horse perplexedly, “you certainly have a lot of ways of saying that you won’t lend me the money.”

  “He just means you might get somebody to promise to pay back the money if you can’t yourself,” said Jinx.

  The horse dropped his head. “There ain’t anybody,” he said sadly. “I guess I’ll just have to try to do the spring plowing in my bare hoofs.” And he turned to go.

  “I’ll go on your note,” said Mr. Bean suddenly. “Give him the money, Jinx, and I’ll sign the paper. I suppose I’ll lose out on it and old Zenas’ll laugh his head off at my buying shoes for his horse, but I can’t see an animal put on that way—even somebody else’s animal.”

  So they gave Jerry six dollars and he thanked Mr. Bean and galloped off to the blacksmith shop, Mrs. Witherspoon’s hat cocked gaily over his right ear.

  “What’s more,” said Mr. Bean, “I guess I’d better make a little deposit in the First Animal myself.” And he drew out a roll of bills and peeled off a hundred dollars and opened an account with it. Then he went out and got in the buggy and picked up the reins and said: “Giddap!”

  When Mr. Bean got to town he went first into the First National Bank of Centerboro, which was an imposing white marble structure on the corner of Main and Liberty Streets. He went into the handsome office of the president, Mr. Henry Weezer, and sat down.