Freddy and the Bean Home News

by Walter R. Brooks

  So Mr. Binks went hurriedly out and closed the door.

  “He certainly was looking for you, Freddy,” said the sheriff when he heard about this, “and if he’s the man I saw coming out of the Guardian office yesterday, we know who’s hiring him. Well, it’s about what I expected. Herb Garble and Mrs. Underdunk know that if they want to keep the Guardian going, they’ve got to put the Home News out of business. And the quickest way to do that is to put you out of business. I guess you got a war on your hands, Freddy.”

  “Well, if their side is going to use detectives, we’ll use ’em too,” said Freddy, and that evening he took Jerry Peters down the back way into the yard behind the Guardian office and pointed out Mr. Garble’s window. “You can get in through a crack,” he said, “and hide somewhere, and then every evening at eight-thirty I’ll come to find out if you have anything to report. Eight-thirty sharp, remember, you be right in this knot hole.”

  “O. K.,” said Jerry. “And you keep an eye on Fido, won’t you, Freddy? In case he gets lonesome?”

  “I’ll try,” said the pig. “It’s kind of hard even to get an eye on anything as small as Fido, much less keep it there. But I’ll try.”

  And Jerry waved his feelers and climbed up the wall.

  The presence of Mr. Binks in Centerboro hampered Freddy a good deal in his movements, and he hardly dared go out any more in the daytime. Mr. Dimsey also reported that someone answering to the detective’s description had called to ask questions. For the first day or two, Jerry had little to report except a letter which he had read. It was a letter from Mr. Binks to Mr. Garble, agreeing to take on the job of finding Freddy. It was merely proof of what Freddy had already guessed, but it was useful. For Jerry had also been able to read and tell Freddy everything that was to be in the next issue of the Guardian, and one of the items was a line or two, saying that Mr. Jason Binks was in town on business. So Freddy wrote a paragraph telling exactly what the business was and who had hired Mr. Binks, and at the end of the paragraph, he wrote: “We believe our readers will be interested in comparing the full statement of the facts published in this paper to the incomplete account published in our esteemed contemporary, the Guardian. And then they will perhaps be interested in comparing the names of their two newspapers. The Bean Home News gives them the news; the Guardian appears merely to guard the secrets of its editor.”

  As a result of this, a large number of people wrote to the Home News, congratulating Freddy on having the best newspaper in town; and expressing disgust at the cowardly attempts of Mr. Garble to put him out of business. What puzzled Freddy was that half of them did not sign their names.

  “Nothing funny about that,” said the sheriff. “They’re afraid you will print their letters in the News, and while they are secretly on your side, they’re afraid to come right out and say so. They’re afraid of Mrs. Underdunk.”

  Of course this made Mr. Garble madder than ever, and Jerry reported that he just sat at his desk and growled. He called up Mr. Binks several times a day and bawled him out for not doing more, and whenever he saw an animal on the street—not just a pig, but any animal—he threw stones at it and called it names. Then the people who owned the animals, if they happened to be there, would throw stones back at Mr. Garble and call him names.

  “Looks as if we were getting the town divided up into parties,” said the sheriff. “The proanimal party and the anti-animal party. The farmers, and the folks around town who own horses and dogs and cats, are going to get mad at Herb Garble if he keeps on this way. Looks to me, if I want to win my election this fall, as if I’d better come out strong pro-animal.” So wherever he went, he stuffed his pockets with lumps of sugar and bones and sprigs of catnip for the horses and dogs and cats he met on the street, and he went out of his way to pet them and be nice to them. And Freddy put a piece in the Home News, saying that nobody wanted a man for sheriff that was unkind to animals, and if Mr. Garble was going to run for the office he would have to mend his ways.

  Well, Mr. Garble was no fool, and he did mend his ways—at least outwardly. He took to carrying sugar and bones and catnip around in his pockets too, and he made a great show of his affection for animals, and even wrote a piece in the Guardian about how everybody should be good to them. But he said at the end: “I have spoken about mankind’s debt to our dumb beasts. I have said that we should treat them kindly. But dumb beasts are one thing, and talking beasts are another. I do not include among our animal friends those notorious talking animals owned by William Bean. They have shown themselves, by a series of outrageous offences, unworthy of our affection. It is the opinion of this paper, as of all right-minded citizens, that the severest justice should be meted out to them.”

  But when nobody was looking he still threw stones at every animal he saw.

  Of course with two men going around town, stuffing every animal in sight with delicacies, there was bound to be trouble. Judge Willey’s horse came down with the jaundice, and Mrs. Wilgus’ cocker spaniel Benny got so fat that he couldn’t get up the front steps, and four cats developed fits. When Mr. Bleek spaded up his garden he got out two bushel baskets full of bones. And there were so many complaints that the sheriff and Mr. Garble finally had to stop the feeding part, though they kept on going out of their way to pat every animal they saw on the head. It was said that Mr. Garble, who was a little near-sighted, had patted old Mrs. Peppercorn on the head one day when she was down on her hands and knees, weeding the garden. He thought she was Judge Willey’s police dog, Olga. “How’s my good old girl?” he said. “Digging up a nice bone for supper?” He lost a vote there, and nearly got hit with Mrs. Peppercorn’s trowel, which she threw at him.

  One afternoon Freddy was sitting on the front steps of the jail. On the lawn, some of the prisoners were sitting at little tables, shaded with brightly striped parasols, drinking the tea and eating the little cakes which were always served at half past four. Freddy didn’t know what made him look down at the sidewalk in front of the steps, but he did, and there was an ant, acting in a very queer way. He would dart a few steps in one direction, then in another, then would fall over on his side and wave his legs in the air. It is as hard to tell one ant from another as if they were all twins, but there seemed to be something familiar about this one, and Freddy got down close to him and said. “Is that you, Jerry?”

  The ant tried to wave his feelers and fell over on his side again, but Freddy picked him up and carried him into his cell and put him in the paper cone. And Jerry’s voice said weakly: “Dizzy! Soon’s I feel better—tell you. Bad news.”

  “I’ll get you some tea,” said Freddy, and he got some in a saucer and put Jerry down by it. As soon as it was cool Jerry drank some, and in a minute or two he sat up and washed his face with his front legs, and waved his feelers to show that he could talk. So Freddy put him back in the cone.

  “It’s that detective, Freddy,” he said. “He knows where you are. He bribed the goat to tell him.”

  “Bill?” said Freddy. “Oh, I don’t think Bill would give me away.”

  “Well, he did. Mr. Binks had been talking to all the animals out at Bean’s, and some of them told him about Bill looking for Aladdin’s lamp. They thought it was a great joke, but Mr. Binks went right to Bill and said that he had the real original lamp, and if Bill would tell him where you were hiding, he’d bring it out. And today he went out with an old brass lamp and gave it to Bill, and Bill told. And as soon as he can get the troopers, they’ll be here.”

  “But Bill would find out as soon as he rubbed the lamp that it wouldn’t work,” said Freddy.

  “Mr. Binks told him not to rub the lamp until he was off by himself somewhere. He said the genie that would appear was eighty feet high, and if he appeared when the Beans or any of the animals were around he’d scare them into fits. He made Bill promise to go up in the woods before he rubbed it.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Freddy. “I suppose I’ll have to hide somewhere else now. But what made you so dizzy, Jerr
y?”

  “Well, I wanted to get here as quick as I could, and I knew it would take me till midnight to walk it, so I thought I’d better hitch-hike. I went down into the street and got on the wheel of an automobile that was headed this way. It started before I’d had time to get on to the running board, and so I just went round and round with the wheel. Golly, Freddy, it was awful. It makes me sick to think of it.”

  “Maybe if you’d shut your eyes you wouldn’t have got dizzy,” said Freddy.

  “I had to watch, so I could jump off when I got to the jail. Round and round, with the road swinging up and over me at every turn—Ugh!”

  “You’re a darn brave ant,” said Freddy. “Well, go up on the shelf and get Fido—he’s all right, I saw him this morning. At least, I guess it was him, though maybe it was just a speck of dust. We’ve got to get going.”

  But before Jerry could get back with his pet, there was a tramp of heavy boots on the porch and the two troopers, accompanied by Mr. Binks and Mr. Garble, came down the hall and into Freddy’s cell.

  “That’s him,” said Mr. Binks. “That’s our pretty little piggy-wig.” And one of the troopers snatched off Freddy’s sailor hat, while the other held him by the elbows.

  “Good work, boys,” said Mr. Garble. He came forward and stared at Freddy. “So!” he sneered. “You and your friend the sheriff thought you could put something over on me, did you? Well you’re a gone pig now, my friend And your sheriff will be a gone sheriff, too, in a short time. Guess we’ll put an end to this animal reign of terror right now. Put the cuffs on him, boys.”

  “Oh, yeah?” drawled a voice from the door. “Who’s putting any cuffs on one of my prisoners?” And they turned to see the sheriff lounging in the doorway, with his thumbs hooked in the armholes of his vest.

  “You’ll keep out of this, sheriff, if you know what’s good for you,” snarled Mr. Garble.

  “Yeah?” said the sheriff. “Well, suppose these boys take him; what are you going to do with him, officer, hey?”

  “Why, we’ll arrest him,” said one trooper. “Put him in jail.”

  “Well, he’s in jail now, you dodunk,” said the sheriff, and began to laugh. “By Roger, you’re smarter than I thought you were. You don’t go to all the trouble of arresting people outside of jail that are trying to hide from you. You come around and arrest folks that are in jail already. Why, you could come here and arrest all my prisoners every day for a year. Then you could say you’d made a couple of thousand arrests in that year, and it would look fine on the record. Maybe you’d get promoted. But boys, it don’t work that way. This pig is my prisoner. You can’t arrest anybody that’s in jail already. So put those handcuffs in your pocket and be on your way.”

  “Well,” said the trooper doubtfully. “If you put it that way, sheriff—”

  But Mr. Garble stepped forward. “Oh, no you don’t!” he said. “This is a put up job. The pig isn’t a prisoner; he’s been hiding here. We’ll take no chances on our smart sheriff letting him escape. We’ll lock him up where he’ll be safe until he comes up for trial before Judge Willey.”

  “But we can’t lock prisoners up anywhere but in the jail, Mr. Garble,” said the trooper.

  “We can lock him up in my sister’s cellar,” said Mr. Garble. “It’s a little damp, but he’ll be safe there.” And he stepped forward and took hold of Freddy’s shoulder.

  But the sheriff unhooked his thumbs from the armholes of his vest and said with a smile: “Look, Herb, do you get out of here, or do I sock you right on the nose? And do I then lodge a complaint against you for illegal entry and search, false arrest, and usin’ profane and unbecomin’ language to an officer of the law, which is me?”

  Mr. Garble looked at him a moment steadily. He was younger than the sheriff, and he was short and powerfully built where the sheriff was long and lazy looking. But at last he backed away. “Very well,” he said. “But I call these troopers to witness that you have said that the pig is your prisoner. You will be held responsible for his appearance in court when his case comes up before Judge Willey. Come, men.”

  They trooped out, but they were only about halfway down the walk when there was a rattle of hoofs and Bill, the goat, came galloping in the gate. He stopped a minute as he saw the group of men. He glared at each in turn with his wicked billy-goat eyes, pawing the ground. Mr. Binks gave a low moan of fear, then suddenly turned and ran as fast as his short little legs would carry him. He ran across the lawn between the little tables, and with a snort Bill lowered his head and shot after him.

  Mr. Binks running was a broad mark, and Bill did not miss. The curve of his heavy horns caught the detective squarely beneath the flying coat tails and lifted him fairly over the table where Bloody Mike and a friend were having tea. Mr. Binks gave a whoosh! like a rocket when he went up and a thump when he came down. “Goal for our side,” said Bloody Mike calmly, and sipped his tea.

  —and Bill did not miss.

  Mr. Binks lay where he was, and Bill walked around to him. “Cheat!” said the goat. “That lamp wasn’t any good. It isn’t the one, and you knew it.”

  “Oh, please, my young friend,” moaned Mr. Binks. “It might have been the right one. But if you say it isn’t, of course I’ll take it back—”

  “And who’ll give me back my friend, Freddy?” demanded the goat. “I only told you where he was because I thought I could rub the lamp, and then I would have told the genie to take you and Mr. Garble and Mrs. Underdunk and carry you off to Greenland. If the lamp had worked, it wouldn’t have mattered if you knew where Freddy was. But you just cheated me.” He lowered his head again. “Will you get up, or do I butt you up?”

  Mr. Binks got to his knees. “Oh, please, Mr.—er, Bill, don’t do that again. I didn’t mean any harm. I—”

  “I’ll give you till I count ten to get to that fence and over it,” said the goat.

  “That great iron fence?” squealed Mr. Binks. “Why, it’s ten feet high. It—”

  “If you can’t get over, I’ll help you,” said Bill, with his blattering laugh. “One, two—”

  Mr. Binks gave an agonized look at the troopers. But they said afterward, they were too interested in knowing if Bill could lift the detective over the fence to care about interfering.

  “Three, four—”

  Suddenly Mr. Binks scrambled to his feet and started running. Bill waited honorably until he had counted to ten. Then he started. He reached Mr. Binks before Mr. Binks reached the fence. There was a smack—whoosh—thump! and Mr. Binks was sitting in the road outside. “Oh, well played, sir,” said Bloody Mike; and he raised his teacup to Bill, while the other prisoners cheered. And Mr. Binks limped off down the road and none of them ever saw him again.

  Chapter 11

  “Of course,” said the sheriff, “this is an awful easy jail to escape from.” He and Freddy were eating tutti-frutti ice cream at one of the little tables on the lawn the following afternoon. It was not the regular time of ice cream, which was always dessert at dinner, but the sheriff often had a freezer full made and served to the prisoners just any time he felt like it, and this was one of the times. “Awful easy,” he said, and licked his spoon meditatively.

  But Freddy shook his head. “I can’t escape,” he said. “You’re responsible for me, and it would get you into trouble.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said the sheriff. “It would be kind of a novelty, in a way. We ain’t ever had an escape in all the years I’ve had charge here. Trouble seems to be to get ’em to go when their time’s up. One little escape wouldn’t be held against me.”

  “The Guardian would make an awful fuss about it,” said Freddy. “And with you coming up for election and all—no, I won’t do that. I guess I’ll just have to stand trial. After all, if I’m found guilty, they can’t do any more than send me to jail. Then I’ll just be back here again.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” said the sheriff. “You see, there’s that new law that says that any animal found o
n the streets unaccompanied by his owner, becomes the property of the town. My hunch is that Herb Garble will ask the judge to sentence you to be sold at auction. And if that happens, he’ll buy you in.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Freddy. “That would be pretty bad, wouldn’t it? But Mr. Bean would buy me at the auction.”

  “Mr. Bean hasn’t got as much money as Herb Garble has. And I’m afraid Herb would be willing to pay a lot to get you out of the way. It’s getting so nobody reads his newspaper at all any more; they just read the Bean Home News. Well, if he owns you, and you own the Bean Home News then he owns the Bean Home News and can stop publishing it.”

  “And if he owns me, he can take me down to the butcher shop and sell me,” said Freddy. “Oh, dear, what shall I do?”

  The sheriff said again that he thought Freddy ought to escape, but Freddy said no, he wasn’t going to do anything to get the sheriff in trouble. “I guess I’ll go up and see Old Whibley. He’s pretty cross, but if I’m careful not to make him mad he’ll tell me some way out, I bet.”

  Old Whibley was an owl, who lived with his niece Vera in the Bean woods. Freddy went up there that afternoon. Spring was pretty well along now, and the leaves were all out, so that Freddy walked along in a green twilight under the big trees. It was wet underfoot, and in sheltered hollows there were still patches of dirty snow. Freddy wore the sailor suit. He hadn’t wanted to wear it because it was uncomfortable, and he didn’t need a disguise any more. But he had eaten so much ice-cream with the sheriff that he couldn’t get it off. He went to the old beech tree in which Whibley had his nest and rapped on the trunk.

  He had to rap several times before the owl’s head finally appeared in the hole high up in the trunk.

  “Well, what is it?” he said testily. “Don’t knock the tree down.”