Freddy the Pied Piper
Page 14
“Listen,” said Freddy. “There’s a reward for both elephants and giraffes—didn’t you know about it?”
“How much?” said one boy, and the other said: “Money?”
Freddy was still so sleepy that he couldn’t think very clearly, and he hesitated. It would be worth quite a lot to Mr. Boomschmidt to get these animals back, but these boys probably didn’t ever have much money. So he said: “A dollar apiece.”
He had expected that they would want a good deal more than that, but to his surprise their mouths fell open and they both said: “Gee whiz!” They were so astonished that they said it without closing their mouths.
Freddy was rather astonished too, but he thought he’d better close the bargain before they thought better of it. “Lead me to them,” he said, and fished three dollars out of his pocket.
But the boys didn’t lead him anywhere. They dug in their own pockets and brought out handfuls of animal crackers.
Then Freddy’s mouth fell open. “Oh, gosh!” he said, and he didn’t close his mouth when he said it either.
“What’s the matter?” they asked.
“Matter?” said Freddy, gasping a little. “Matter? Oh, nothing. Why, nothing at all.” He wasn’t going to let them know what a stupid mistake he had made. He held out the three dollars.
They sorted out the elephant and two giraffes and handed them to him in exchange for the money. And then Freddy did what I think was the only thing to do under the circumstances, and a pretty bright thing too. He put the two giraffes and the elephant in his mouth and chewed them and swallowed them, and then he smiled brightly and said: “Thank you very much. Good afternoon,” and walked off. And he had the satisfaction—although perhaps it wasn’t three dollars’ worth—of seeing their mouths fall wider open than ever. And they stayed that way, too, as they stood and watched him until he was out of sight.
So more and more animals came, and the men who had worked for Mr. Boomschmidt before gave up the jobs they had found and came too, for they all liked to work for him; and the tents were got out and put in shape, and the wagons were painted, and then one day along towards the first of June, Mr. Boomschmidt, in a brand new suit of red and yellow checks and with his silk hat on the back of his head, rode out of the gate into the road. He touched his trick horse, Rod, on the shoulder, and Rod stood on his hind legs and Mr. Boomschmidt waved his hat three times around his head and shouted: “Forward!” And then he rode on up the road, and one by one the gaily painted wagons creaked out through the gate and followed him, and as they rode, the animals sang a song that Freddy had made up for them.
We’re out on the winding road again,
The road where we belong;
By hill and valley, by meadow and stream,
On the road that’s never too long.
Never too long is the winding road,
Though it climbs the steepest hill
Though dark the night, and heavy the load,
When the rain drives hard and chill.
For the stormiest weather will always mend;
There’s a top to the highest hill;
But the winding road has never an end,
Whether for good or ill.
And we travel the road for the love of the road,
For love of the open sky,
For love of the smell of fields fresh mowed,
As we go tramping by.
For love of the little wandering breeze,
And the thunder’s deep bass song,
Which rattles the hills and shakes the trees
Like the roar of a giant’s gong.
For love of the sun, and love of the moon
And love of the lonely stars;
And the treetoads’ trill, and the blackbirds’ tune,
And the smell of Bill Wonks’ cigars.
And there, where the road curves out of sight,
Or surely, beyond that hill,
Adventure lies, and perhaps a fight,
And perhaps a dragon to kill.
Or perhaps it’s a brand new friend we’ll make,
Or a haunted house to visit,
Or a party with peach ice cream and cake,
Or something else exquisite.
So now for us all, for pigs and men,
For lions and tigers and bears,
The open road lies open again,
And we toss aside our cares,
And we sing and holler and shout Hurray!
No matter what the weather
For we’ll not be back for many a day
While we’re out on the road together.
They had gone only a mile or two, however, when Freddy saw Phil sitting on a fence by the side of the road. Buzzards are never very tidy looking birds at any time, but Phil looked worse than usual, as he raised a shaky claw to salute Freddy. The pig went up to him.
“For goodness’ sake, Phil,” he said, “what ails you? You look terrible!”
Of course that’s no way to greet anybody, even a buzzard who probably knows that he looks awful even when he feels all right. But Freddy was really quite shocked at the bird’s appearance.
“I feel right awful, Freddy,” the buzzard croaked.
“Want a cookie?” said Freddy. “We’ve got a couple in the—”
“Don’t,” moaned the buzzard despairingly. “I never want to see a—a—” He broke off. “I can’t even name ’em. It makes me sick to even hear the word.”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Well,” Phil said, “I reckon I sort of made a pig—oh, excuse me; I mean I made a hog …” He stopped and shook his head irritably. “You’ll have to excuse my bad manners,” he said apologetically. “I mean, I ate too many. I ate the whole double rule. I shore was sick! I like to have died; that’s why I ain’t been around this last month.”
Freddy was too concerned over Phil’s condition to be offended by the tactlessness of his remark about pigs. “You’d better see Mr. Boomschmidt,” he said. “He’ll know what to do for you; the circus animals are always eating too much of something or other, and he has to dose them for it.”
Phil agreed listlessly, and Freddy ran up to the head of the line and got Mr. Boomschmidt.
Mr. Boomschmidt always carried a bottle of castor oil and a tablespoon in his pocket when he was on the road, for as Freddy had said, one or another of the animals was always overeating, and it was too much trouble to hunt around in the wagons for the medicine when it was needed several times a day. He gave Phil a good dose.
He gave Phil a good dose.
To their surprise Phil didn’t try to get away, but opened his beak obediently, and even smacked it when the oil was all down.
“Right pleasant stuff,” he said. “What is it?”
“Castor oil,” said Mr. Boomschmidt.
“Never heard of it,” said Phil. “Why, I feel better already.”
“Good grief!” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “Where were you brought up?” Then he shoved his hat over to the back of his head and stared thoughtfully at the buzzard. “How’d you like to join our show?” he asked.
“Like it right well,” said Phil. “But what good would I be in a show?”
“Well,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “there’s a lot of tidying up to do around the grounds after the show’s over. You could do that. But what I’d really like to have you for is to act as a good example to the other animals.”
“Me?” said Phil. “A buzzard can only be a good example to another buzzard, and as there ain’t any other—”
“Oh, my goodness,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “let me do the talking, will you? See here; I have a lot of trouble getting my animals to take this oil. I can’t imagine why, can you, Leo? Eh, can you imagine why?—Oh, Leo isn’t here. Well, I’ll answer myself then. No, I can’t. Oh dear, now where was I?—Oh yes; oil. Well, you see, when one of ’em objects, then I can get you and give you some and show ’em how good you are about taking it, and then they’ll take it without any fuss. We won’t tell ’em y
ou really like it. You can make faces—or maybe you don’t need to; your face … h’m. But you do like it, don’t you?”
“Try me,” said Phil.
So Mr. Boomschmidt gave him some more, and Phil smacked his beak again.
That was how Phil joined the circus.
So the show went on north, stopping at the larger towns to give performances, and at last they reached Centerboro. It has often been said that Mr. Boomschmidt gave the finest performance of his career there. But this has been written about so many times that I will not repeat here what everybody already knows. For those who wish to refresh their memory of this great event, however, I recommend the account published in Freddy’s newspaper, the Bean Home News, of that date. It is complete, well considered, and—I think—not too fulsome.
Mr. and Mrs. Bean were in a box right down close to the ring, and all the farm animals were with them. They clapped and cheered with the rest. But the act that really made the whole audience whistle and stamp until the big tent bulged out like a paper bag that you blow up, was the one that Freddy put on. He rounded up the mice who had been living in the barn he had rented, and he had them hide all around the edges of the tent and among the seats. Then a bugle blew, and Mr. Boomschmidt announced that the famous Pied Piper of Centerboro had been engaged at great expense to put on his unique and stupendous mouse-charming act. Then Freddy marched out in his Pied Piper suit, blowing the first seven notes of Yankee Doodle on his fife, and out from all sides the mice came scampering, and they lined up behind Freddy, and he marched them three times around the ring and then out to the dressing rooms.
It was a great success. Of course several ladies fainted away and had to be carried out and revived with smelling salts, but as Bill Wonks said, “A circus act ain’t really a success unless a few people get so scared they keel over.”
Indeed so great a success was it that Freddy stayed with the show nearly all summer, and gave his performance in most of the big towns of the eastern seaboard. For as long as he wasn’t a real partner, and really didn’t have to stay with the show, he didn’t mind. You see, he had accomplished what he had set out to do. Just as he had managed to get his path cleared of snow without having to do any shoveling himself, just so he had managed to raise the money and get it into Mr. Boomschmidt’s hands, without having to become a partner.
But one funny thing happened along in August. They had swung around through the southern part of New York State, and stopped to give a show in Tallmanville. Freddy and Leo didn’t join the parade through the town before the show. But they took their regular part in the performance, because they didn’t think that Mrs. Guffin cared for entertainments. Leo said she never went to anything.
But she came. She came along with the people who looked at the menagerie before the performance, and when she saw Leo she recognized him. She was pretty mad. She made quite a fuss in front of the cage. She told all the people around her what had happened in the spring, and of course her account of it wasn’t much like the truth, and some of the people got mad too and advised her to call a policeman. But she said no, she was going to do better than that. She was going to wait till Leo was doing his balancing act in the ring, and then she was going to get right up in her seat and denounce him, and Mr. Boomschmidt, who had probably stolen him from her. And then she would call the police.
Leo sent for Freddy.
“I don’t know what she can prove,” said the pig. “But I suppose she can make it unpleasant for us.”
“Well,” said Leo, “no use worrying the chief with it. He can’t do anything. We’ll just have to go on with the show.”
“Nothing else to do,” said Freddy. “I never thought she’d come around.”
Freddy’s act came just before Leo’s, and when he marched in, sure enough, there was Mrs. Guffin right down in front, and looking mad enough to chew carpets. Luckily she didn’t see beneath the Piper’s suit to the pig underneath.
And then when he started to blow Yankee Doodle—which by this time he had learned, all but the last half—the funny thing happened. For the ferocious Mrs. Guffin was afraid of just one thing on earth: she was afraid of mice. And when they came tumbling out from under the seats she gave a loud yell and fell over in a dead faint. It took four strong men to carry her out of the tent, and by the time she had come to enough to be mad again, the show was over.
“Well, curl my eyelashes!” said Leo. “I wish we’d known she was scared of mice when we were here before. We’d have had a lot easier time with her.”
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Freddy. “But it wouldn’t be as much fun to look back on. You know, if we knew everything beforehand, things wouldn’t be much fun, would they?”
That was really one of the smartest things Freddy ever said.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1946 by Walter R. Brooks
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9220-6
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