“It’s funny,” said Alice; “I wonder if we went over Buffalo in the night? And if we did, I suppose we’re in Ohio.”
“It’s too rough for Ohio,” said Freddy. “And look—there’s a mountain. There aren’t any mountains in Ohio. The geography says so.”
“Maybe the geography is wrong,” said Emma. “Dear me, there is the mountain to prove it.”
“It’s very odd,” said Alice; “we were going towards the sun when it set last night, and now it’s rising and we’re still going towards it.”
They puzzled over this for some time, until Emma said excitedly: “Why we’re going east! And that’s because the wind has changed in the night. It’s carrying us in the other direction.”
“Oh,” said Freddy. “Oh, of course. Should have thought of that myself. I expect I would have in a minute, when I got waked up.”
“What you’d better think about when you get waked up,” said Alice, “is where we’re going to get breakfast.”
“My goodness!” said Freddy, and fell back against the side of the basket. For if there was anything he didn’t like it was going without his breakfast. Or for that matter any other meal that it happened to be time for. Or even indeed anything to eat whether it was time for it or not. The world of the sky in which they were adventuring was a wonderful world, but if it was a world without food it was no place for him. “We’ve got to get down,” he said.
“If we have to get down to get breakfast,” said Alice, “I prefer to go without breakfast. I’m not hungry enough to jump.”
“There’s one piece of candy left,” said Emma.
So they decided to divide up the piece of candy, and when they had eaten that they could think about what to do next. But it isn’t easy to divide up a piece of molasses candy if you haven’t got a knife, or scissors or anything. The ducks took the paper off, and then they each took hold of an end and pulled. They pulled and pulled, but all that happened was that the piece of candy got longer. They pulled it until it stretched from one side of the basket to the other, and then of course they couldn’t go any farther. They couldn’t stop, either, because they had taken such a firm hold that they couldn’t get their bills open again. So Freddy took hold in the middle, and then the ducks ate towards him, and pretty soon they were all sitting there with their noses together, trying to chew. And in that way they ate up the piece of candy.
When they could talk again, Alice said: “Dear me, I wonder why it is that as soon as your jaws get stuck tight together you think of so many important things to say?”
“I did too,” said Freddy. “And now I can’t remember any of them.”
“Uncle Wesley always used to say,” quacked Emma, “that most of the things people thought of to say were better left unsaid. He said if you took all the talk that went on on this farm during a year and squeezed it out, you wouldn’t get more than two drops of sense.”
“As I remember your uncle,” said Freddy, “he was quite a talker himself.”
“A very fine talker,” said Emma. “He said many wise things.”
“Wise, eh?” said the pig. “You ought to collect them in a book. You could call it ‘Wise-Quacks.’ ‘Uncle Wesley’s Wise-Quacks.’ Hey, that’s not bad!”
But the ducks didn’t laugh, and Emma said primly: “I don’t think Uncle Wesley would like that.”
Freddy tried to explain. “A duck quacks,” he said, “so a duck’s wise-crack is a wise-quack. I mean, it’s a—”
“Uncle Wesley did not approve of slang,” interrupted Alice. “He said it was the empty rattling of a brain too small for its skull. Were not those his words, sister?”
“His very words,” said Emma.
“And quite right, too,” said Freddy quickly. “Well, let’s just—er, drop the whole thing.” He was getting a little tired of Uncle Wesley, whom he remembered as a stout and pompous little duck who had ruled his nieces with a rod of iron. Long after they had grown up, “what Uncle Wesley said” was their law, and they would no more have thought of doing anything of which he disapproved—and he disapproved of practically everything—than they would have thought of becoming burglars.
Freddy remembered something more about Uncle Wesley, too. For a band of the farm animals, who were fond of Alice and Emma and sick of seeing them tyrannized over, had kidnaped him one night and turned him over to an eagle, who for a small consideration had agreed to drop him somewhere in the next county. Freddy had not had a hand in that plot. But with his great detective ability he had of course found out about it, and while he didn’t approve of such highhanded action, he didn’t make any effort to get Uncle Wesley back. For after all, Alice and Emma would be much happier without him.
But they admired him so intensely that even after his mysterious disappearance had freed them from his tyranny they continued to quack his praises and to do as they thought he would approve. His fearlessness, his polished manners, his high moral standards, his deep wisdom—they praised these things daily. Freddy didn’t believe that anybody, even a pig, could reach such a height of perfection.
Chapter 4
As the sun got higher the breeze died down and the balloon hardly seemed to move. It rose higher as the sun got hotter, but it wasn’t as high as it had been yesterday, and they could see quite clearly everything that went on below them. Once, when the shadow of the big gas bag drifted across an untidy barnyard, a flock of chickens ran cackling for cover, and a woman came to the house door and stared, shading her eyes with her hand. A little stream ran out of the woods and across the foot of the garden and into the woods again. And in it were what looked like several large powder puffs.
“Ducks!” exclaimed Alice. She leaned over the edge of the basket. “Mercy me, sister, if that doesn’t look for all the world like Uncle Wesley!”
“Why, it does indeed,” said Emma. “He has just that same aristocratic way of holding his head. You don’t really suppose …?” The ducks stared at each other.
Freddy, who had been hanging on to their tail feathers so they wouldn’t fall, tried to look too, but the balloon had drifted on. “It’s not likely to be him,” he said. “From this height all ducks look alike.”
“Not Uncle Wesley,” said Emma proudly.
“We have always thought, Freddy,” said Alice, “that if we had come to you when Uncle Wesley first disappeared, you could have restored him to us. But of course then you hadn’t taken up detecting.”
“I could probably have found him,” said the pig modestly. “But today, even if he hasn’t been—that is, I mean, if he is still, er—”
“There is no need to try to spare our feelings,” said Alice. “We are not afraid to face the dreadful possibilities of what might have happened. If he has not, you mean, been eaten by a fox, or—”
“Oh, sister!” quacked Emma faintly.
“—or a cat,” continued Alice firmly. “But if some such thing had not happened, he would have returned to us, or at least sent some word.”
“Perhaps he got married,” said Freddy.
“Oh, I’m sure he would at least have sent us an announcement,” said Emma.
“We feel,” said Alice, “that he must have set out on some dangerous adventure. Perhaps he did not tell us, because he did not want us to worry. And he was so utterly without fear; he would not have hesitated to fight anything that walks or flies, if he felt he was in the right. Do you remember, Emma, the time he ordered that bull out of the cornfield?”
The ducks went on with their reminiscences of their intrepid uncle, and Freddy stopped listening and leaned over the edge of the basket and watched the scenery and thought about scrambled eggs and hot buttered toast and muffins with jam and other things that the people in the houses below them were probably having for breakfast at that very moment. I don’t know that you can blame him. One third of a piece of molasses candy is not a very filling breakfast.
Suddenly a large bird came soaring over the top of a distant hill, then swerved and with powerful wing beats ca
me flying towards them. He was dark, with a white head and tail. “Good gracious,” said Freddy to himself, “an eagle! I do hope it isn’t Pinckney. That would be just too much of a coincidence when we’ve been talking about Uncle Wesley.” For Pinckney was the eagle who had carried the ducks’ uncle off.
Like all birds, the eagle was curious, and he wanted to investigate the balloon. Pretty soon the ducks caught sight of him, and with frightened quacks they cowered in the bottom of the basket. The eagle was so close now that they could hear the swish of air made by each down stroke of the great wings. And then he caught sight of Freddy, and with a harsh scream of surprise turned a complete double somersault in his amazement at seeing that the balloonist was a pig.
He recovered himself fifty feet down, and beat up to their level again. “Welcome, oh pig, to the starry upper spaces of the blue empyrean,” he said as he soared alongside. “What strange chance brings you thus to adventure in your frail chariot among the trackless haunts of the feathered folk?”
Freddy had talked to eagles before, so he was not surprised at this high-flown language. Eagles, since they are the national bird, have a great sense of their own dignity, and feel that just ordinary talk is beneath them.
Freddy, however, was pretty good at noble-sounding language himself. “Hail, oh monarch of the skies,” he said, and then explained about the ascension and their present difficulties. “And so,” he concluded, “we know not where we are, nor whither we are bound, nor are we provided with the wherewithal to sustain life on this problematical and involuntary journey. Therefore we beseech your aid. If your present course should lead you within wingbeat of the domicile of that respected farmer, Mr. Bean—”
“Mr. Bean!” interrupted the eagle, and he swung in towards them, and perching on the edge of the basket, stared at Freddy with his fierce yellow eyes. “Great is the renown and widespread the repute of that excellent man, Bean, and his talented livestock among all furred and feathered dwellers within the confines of the Empire State. And you—ha! those well-weighed words I should have recognized. Are not you that pig whose noble song in praise of the eagle is taught to every young eaglet throughout the length and breadth of these mountains before he is allowed to leave the nest?”
Freddy blushed. “I did indeed, five years ago, pen some few poor lines in unworthy tribute to our national bird. But I had thought them long forgotten.”
Freddy blushed.
“Forgotten!” exclaimed the eagle. “Ha, you should hear my young Waldemar recite those glowing stanzas. How does it go?
“O eagle, mightiest of all living things,
Nor Death, nor Destiny, has longer stings—”
“—spreads stronger wings,” corrected Freddy.
“Of course. And then:
“Thy claws of steel, thy beak of burnished brass Make malefactor pigs chew up the grass.”
“That’s not just exactly as I wrote it,” said Freddy. “Though very nice. But I wrote:
“Thy claws of brass, thy beak of burnished steel Make malefactor pigs in terror squeal.”
“Ah, yes,” said the eagle. “But in either version, most complimentary. And while written, as I am given to understand, specifically for my brother Pinckney, a most elegant compliment to the entire eagle race.”
“Pinckney is your brother?” inquired Freddy. “I trust you will present him my compliments, and ask him, when he has leisure, if he will do me the honor of paying me a short call. There are matters on which I wish to consult him.”
“Ah, I do remember,” said the eagle, “that there were certain business transactions between Pinckney and various of your associates. Concerning a goose, was it?—or a—”
“If you please,” interrupted Freddy quickly, and with a gesture indicated the two ducks, who were pretending to be powder puffs, with their heads under their wings.
The eagle cocked his head and stared at them with his left eye. “Eh?” he said in a harsh whisper. “Ah, I see. The nieces? Ha, yes; you can trust me.” He lowered his voice. “There is a farm in South Pharisee owned by a Mr. Pratt. I fancy that inquiries there may be fruitful.—And now, my friend,” he said aloud, “in what can I serve you? Your high poetic talent, and your remarkably true and exact portrayal of eagle character, command my service. Instruct me, I pray.”
So Freddy told him what he wanted. It took a lot of language, which would occupy too many pages here, so I will not repeat it. But when the eagle finally took his leave, he had promised to tell the animals at the farm of their plight, and to arrange somehow for them to get something to eat. After that Freddy felt better.
Chapter 5
The eagle, whose name was Breckenridge, had told Freddy that they were now over the northern Adirondacks and headed for Lake Champlain. But the wind was almost gone. Slowly and more slowly they drifted, and at last hung nearly motionless over a long narrow lake, the wooded shores of which were almost solid rows of summer cottages and camps. Pretty soon people caught sight of the balloon, and came running down off their porches with opera glasses and telescopes, and shouted and waved. But this was getting to be an old story to the balloonists now, and they hardly troubled to wave back.
Early in the afternoon Freddy saw a speck in the southern sky which he at first took to be an airplane, but which, as it grew steadily larger, he saw was the eagle.
“Look, Alice—Emma,” he said excitedly. “Here comes Pinckney’s brother. Oh, I do hope … Yes, he’s got a hamper.” And sure enough, in his strong talons the eagle was carrying a large hamper whose contents were covered with a white napkin.
“How’s he going to give it to us?” asked Alice. “If he perches on the edge of this thing, he’ll have to let go of the hamper first. And if he keeps hold of the hamper, he can’t stop.”
Apparently Breckenridge had just had the same thought. He soared in circles around the balloon two or three times, then shouting hoarsely to Freddy to catch hold, he came in closer, beating his wings in swift strokes to hover motionless beside them. Freddy leaned out as far as he dared, but he couldn’t reach the hamper, for Breckenridge’s wings were so big that he couldn’t come in any closer without hitting the ropes.
He dropped away from them on a long slant, then came past again. “Devise something, pig; devise something,” he called.
“My goodness,” said Freddy, “what can I devise? Oh, dear, there’s our dinner right in plain sight, and it might just as well be in California.—Oh, wait!” he exclaimed suddenly. “The grapnel!” He picked up the four-pronged anchor and lowered it over the side until it hung some ten feet below them, then took a turn of the rope around a cleat and waited. The eagle, with a harsh scream of approval, swooped down and hung the hamper on one of the hooks, then flew up to perch beside Freddy and help him haul it up.
The hamper tipped dangerously as they pulled it over the side. “Careful, pig,” said Breckenridge. “Let not your native greed overmaster caution. No need to share these viands, prepared for you by the capable spouse of the worthy Bean, with the finny folk in the waters below us.
“You are indeed an accomplished porker,” he went on, as they swung the hamper to the floor. “I feared for a time that my errand was in vain.”
“You’re pretty accomplished yourself,” said Freddy modestly; “and pretty kind, too, to take all this trouble for us.” He was so hungry that he could hardly talk, but he felt it wouldn’t be very polite to start eating until he had thanked Breckenridge.
But the eagle snatched the napkin off the hamper with his beak. “Your courtesy,” he said, “should be a lesson to all quadrupeds. But now let courtesy give place to appetite.”
There was a note under the napkin. It said:
Dear Freddy:
I am sending just what I could get together quickly. I would have baked a cake, but if you are hungry you would not want to wait. Come home as soon as you can. We miss you. Mr. Bean sends kindest regards.
Your friend,
Mrs. Bean.
“Well, tha
t is nice,” said Freddy. “And now what have we got? H’m, cookies, doughnuts, peach preserves, a pail of milk, deviled eggs—” But I am sorry to say that when he had got this far in his catalogue of the hamper’s contents, his mouth was so full that the rest of what he said was not understandable.
The ducks had overcome their fear of the eagle, and they each began nibbling a cookie.
“Won’t you join us, Mr. Breckenridge?” said Emma timidly.
“I would consider it an honor,” replied the eagle, and immediately gobbled up six deviled eggs, one after the other, whole. “Very tasty,” he remarked, and ate four doughnuts. “A most accomplished culinary artist, the excellent Mrs. Bean,” he added, and spearing a jelly sandwich with his beak, tossed it in the air, caught it and swallowed it in one motion.
“How clever!” exclaimed Emma. She tried to do the same trick, but the sandwich flew out of her bill and over the side.
She tried to do the same trick …
“Careful,” said Freddy. “We may be up here a long time, and we’ll need all this food.”
But the eagle, flattered by Emma’s admiration, continued to do the trick until eight jelly sandwiches, four bananas, and six slabs of gingerbread had disappeared.
Freddy began to be worried. At this rate they’d be out of supplies again before supper time. Yet he didn’t like to say anything, when Breckenridge had been so helpful. Fortunately the eagle himself began to realize that he was eating more than his share, and suddenly putting down a cinnamon bun that he was about to toss up, he said with some embarrassment: “My good friends, I make you my apologies. I am presuming upon your hospitality.”
Freddy and the Perilous Adventure Page 3
