Freddy and the Bean Home News

by Walter R. Brooks

  “It’s me—Freddy,” said the pig.

  “Of course it’s you,” said Old Whibley. “Nobody else would be silly enough to put on a sailor suit for a walk in the woods. Or have you come to invite me to go for a sail in your yacht?”

  “It’s a disguise,” said Freddy.

  “Very poor one,” said the owl. “Fifty years behind the style. Disguise should be right up to the minute in style. Then nobody notices you. The more stylish you are, the more you’re like everybody else, and the less attention you attract. Besides which, you look foolish in that suit.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Freddy. “But I wanted to ask your advice.”

  “Of course you do. Never see you unless you want help.”

  “Why, I would come call on you when I didn’t want help,” said Freddy, “but I know you don’t like to be bothered. That’s why I don’t come.”

  “Bothers me more to have to give advice than to have you just come for a call,” said the owl. “Don’t have to think, then, and if your conversation gets dull I can go to sleep. Well, let’s get it over,” he said resignedly, and flew out and perched on a branch above the pig’s head.

  So Freddy told him his story. Old Whibley listened with his eyes shut, and when Freddy had finished he didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he opened one large yellow eye and looked at the pig.

  “Garble,” he said. “I know him. Shot my grandfather and had him stuffed. Has him over the mantel. Stuffed owl not cheerful to contemplate, even when not your own grandfather. H’m. Daresay Garble’d like a stuffed pig, too. Only on a platter. Hey?”

  “I didn’t s-say anything,” said Freddy miserably.

  “Better to face these things,” said Old Whibley. “Then we know where we are. Well, maybe we’ll have Garble stuffed instead. Not that anybody’d want him on the mantel.” He thought for a little while. “When’s the trial?” he asked.

  Freddy said he thought it was a week from Friday.

  “Got a lawyer?”

  “Why, I—no, I hadn’t thought about that.”

  The owl sighed. “Have to defend you myself. Well, can’t be helped. Now, listen carefully. First thing you do, demand a jury trial. Then, the day of the trial, you bring all your friends—Jinx, Hank, Mrs. Wiggins—all of ’em. Specially that secretary of yours—what’s his name?”

  “Ernest, Jr. But he won’t be any use; he just goes to sleep.”

  “All right, all right!” said Old Whibley irritably. “I give up; I wash my hands of you. No use my taking the case if you’re going to object to everything.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Freddy humbly. “I’ll do just as you say.”

  “Very well. I’ll tell you the rest of what you have to do later. Good afternoon.” And the owl flew back into his hole.

  Freddy would have liked to ask some more questions, but he didn’t dare. He had a lot of faith in Old Whibley, but he did wish the owl would tell him what he planned to do. It was pretty scary to be on trial for your life and not know what your lawyer was going to say in your defence.

  The week dragged slowly by. Freddy had forgiven Bill, and the goat was so grateful that he insisted on staying on at the jail to act as Freddy’s bodyguard. Luckily, Freddy was so busy writing stuff for the Bean Home News that he didn’t have much time to worry.

  He wrote a long piece defending the sheriff, and urging his reelection. But Mr. Bean had objected so strongly to any politics in the paper, that he decided not to print it. He hated to leave it out, but the sheriff agreed that Mr. Bean’s wishes must be respected.

  And then one afternoon Mr. Bean came to see him.

  “Come to tell you not to worry,” said Mr. Bean gruffly. He stared at the pig in an embarrassed way for a minute, then lugged a copy of the Home News out of his pocket and held it out. “But what I want to know is this,” he said. “Your friends are standing up for you; why ain’t you standing up for them?”

  “Why, I do. I am,” stammered Freddy.

  “Ain’t standing up for the sheriff,” said Mr. Bean. “Ain’t a word in here about him.”

  “You said you didn’t like politics in the paper,” replied Freddy. “So I thought I oughtn’t to put anything in.”

  “Don’t like castor oil,” said Mr. Bean, “but there’s times when you have to use it.”

  “Well, my goodness,” said Freddy, “I’ve got something all written, but I left it out because I thought it was politics and you wouldn’t like it.” And he got the piece and let Mr. Bean read it.

  “That’s the ticket,” said the farmer. “That’s just what I’d have written myself if I could write anything like that, which I can’t.” And Freddy thanked him and hurried over to help Mr. Dimsey set it up in type.

  On the day of the trial, all the Bean animals who were big enough to make the journey came into town. They stopped at the jail for Freddy and Bill and the sheriff, and then marched down to the courthouse. They filed in and took seats in the courtroom, and Freddy and Old Whibley and the sheriff and Ernest, Jr. went forward and sat down at a table in the railed-off space just in front of the high desk on a platform where the judge was to sit. Old Whibley perched on the back of Freddy’s chair and whispered in his ear.

  “Everybody has his instructions,” he said, “and everything will go as I planned it. There’s only one thing for you to remember. Keep your eye on Mr. Garble. And yawn. Yawn every time he looks at you.”

  Freddy was rather mystified, but there was no time to wonder what the owl was up to. The courtroom was filling rapidly. Freddy saw many Centerboro friends. Mr. Dimsey was there, and Mr. Weezer, and Mrs. Peppercorn, and yes, there were the Beans, just coming in the door, with Hank’s head peering over their shoulders. Down in the very front row sat Mrs. Humphrey Underdunk. She kept looking around at the animals seated near her. She would glare for a moment, then uncork her smelling salts bottle and take a sniff. It wasn’t very polite of her.

  When the room was nearly full, Mr. Garble came hurriedly in and sat down in the railed-off space, on the other side from Freddy and his friends. Mr. Garble was never a handsome man, but this morning he was less handsome than ever. His face was pale and his eyes were red, and he looked as if he hadn’t combed his hair. Then everybody stood up, and Judge Willey came in, in a long black gown and took his seat at the desk.

  Mr. Garble jumped up. “Your Honor,” he said, “I suggest that these animals be ordered to leave the room. A courtroom is no place for cows and cats and chickens.”

  “I object, Your Honor,” said Old Whibley. “The prisoner on trial is an animal. I submit that if all animals are cleared from the courtroom, the prisoner must be included. Moreover, these animals are the prisoner’s friends. They have a right to be present at his trial.”

  Judge Willey was a friend of Mr. Garble’s, but he was a fair and honest judge. “The animals may stay,” he said, and Mr. Garble shrugged and sat down.

  The jury was chosen quickly, and Mr. Garble got up and faced them.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I shall prove to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that this prisoner, a pig named Freddy, is not only a nuisance and a disgrace, but that he has been guilty of rioting, of inciting to riot, of unseemly and violent conduct, and of assault and battery upon the persons of several residents of Centerboro. I know that you agree with me that disturbances of this nature cannot be tolerated. Centerboro is a law abiding town; there is no room in it for vicious and unmanageable criminals …” And he went on in this way for some time.

  Ernest, Jr. sat at the end of the table nearest the jury. Every time Mr. Garble, as he paced up and down in front of the jury box, turned to walk back again, he came close to Ernest, Jr., and every time he did so, Ernest, Jr. yawned. At last Mr. Garble broke off and turned to the judge. “Your Honor,” he said, “if this pig here, this so-called secretary of the prisoner, cannot stay awake, I ask that he be expelled from the room.”

  Judge Willey peered at Ernest Jr. He was very near-sighted, b
ut he never wore his glasses on the bench because he thought they made him look too good-natured.

  “Is the secretary asleep?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not, Your Honor,” said Ernest, Jr., who had just been poked by Freddy. “May be a little—ho, hum—drowsy, but I’m wide awake.”

  “I see no reason why he should be removed,” said the judge. “Continue, Mr. Garble.”

  Mr. Garble hesitated a moment, glowering at the two pigs, and they both yawned at him. He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the jury, but as he did so, Freddy saw that he was himself struggling to suppress a yawn.

  Mr. Garble concluded his speech and called his first witness, Mrs. Underdunk, who went up into the witness stand, which was a little box with a chair in it to the right of the judge’s desk, and between him and the jury.

  “Now, Mrs. Underdunk,” he said, “will you tell us in your own words of the attack made on you by the prisoner?”

  So Mrs. Underdunk told the story of her meeting with Freddy in front of the Busy Bee. Only instead of telling it as it had really happened, she made it appear that Freddy had deliberately leaped at her and tried to bite her.

  When she had finished, Mr. Garble said: “Your witness,” and Old Whibley flew up and perched on the railing beside her.

  “Now, madam,” he began, but Mrs. Underdunk jumped up and turned to the judge.

  “This is outrageous!” she exclaimed. “Nathan Willey, I refuse to be cross-examined by a bird! No frowsy owl is going to ask me questions.”

  “Nathan Willey, I refuse to be cross-examined by a bird.”

  The judge shook his head. “There’s nothing in the law that says that the counsel for the defence should not be an owl,” he said. “Furthermore, the owl is the symbol of wisdom, and frequently used as the emblem of the legal profession. I cannot rule against it.”

  So Mrs. Underdunk sat down again.

  “You state, madam,” said Old Whibley, “that the accused rushed at you and attempted to bite you. How did you know that he intended to bite you?”

  “He had his mouth open.”

  “I suggest,” said the owl, “that he had his mouth open for a different purpose. I suggest that he was about to beg your pardon for bumping into you.”

  “He was about to bite me,” snapped Mrs. Underdunk.

  “How do you know?” persisted the owl. “Have people often attempted to bite you, so that you know how such a person looks? Or have you yourself ever bitten anyone?”

  “I object to this line of questioning as irrelevant, immaterial, nonsense, and just plain foolish,” said Mr. Garble, getting up.

  “Objection sustained,” said Judge Willey. “Mrs. Underdunk has stated that in her opinion he was about to bite her. She need not answer the last question.”

  “Well then, madam,” said Old Whibley, “did he bite you?”

  “No.”

  “So then, although he had not bitten you, although nothing had happened, you immediately called upon the sheriff to lock him up. Why?”

  “Because Main Street is no place for pigs to be running wild. That pig cannot be trusted to behave himself.”

  “Why? Because he didn’t bite you?”

  The animals in the audience all giggled, and some of the people did too, and the judge banged with his gavel and called for order. Then he said: “Mrs. Underdunk need not answer that question.” And indeed Mrs. Underdunk was in no condition to answer it, for she had turned purple with rage and was sputtering at the owl.

  “No further questions,” said Old Whibley. And she went back to her seat.

  Then Mr. Garble himself took the stand and told of the attack made on him by Charles. But he said the attack had been made by a large crowd of animals, among whom he recognized Freddy.

  This made Charles mad, and he jumped up on the back of the seat in front of him and started calling Mr. Garble a liar, but Henrietta grabbed him by the tailfeathers and pulled him down. “You keep your bill shut,” she whispered, “or you’ll get something you don’t expect when you get home.”

  Old Whibley didn’t cross-examine Mr. Garble much. He asked him a few questions about his newspaper. Mr. Garble was facing the two pigs as he answered, and they both yawned at him for all they were worth, so that he kept yawning in the middle of all his answers. The judge had to ask him to repeat nearly every sentence, and at last banged his gavel and said: “If the witness cannot refrain from howling I shall order him to stand down.”

  “I’m not howling, Your Honor,” said Mr. Garble. “I’m just—O—ha!—yawning. Excuse me. Please bear with me, Your Honor. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “That doesn’t excuse your doing imitations of wolves in my courtroom,” snapped the judge. “Counsel for the defence will continue.”

  So Old Whibley asked Mr. Garble if it wasn’t true that he wanted to get Freddy out of the way because the Bean Home News was a better and more popular paper than the Guardian.

  Mr. Garble said that it was not true. He said he welcomed competition, and if a pig could run a better paper than he could he’d retire from the newspaper business.

  “And are you thinking of retiring?” asked Old Whibley.

  “I am not!”

  “No further questions,” said the owl. “And with Your Honor’s permission, I would like to call a few witnesses to my client’s character. I think that I can prove that he is neither wild nor ungovernable, but a sober and responsible citizen.” And he called Mr. Bean.

  Mr. Bean testified that Mrs. Underdunk had called on him and threatened to have Freddy shot.

  “Did she act in a wild and ungovernable manner?” asked Old Whibley.

  “She acted pretty mad,” said Mr. Bean. “And when she started to go, she looked at herself in the shiny bottom of a frying pan, and when she saw herself, she keeled over in a dead faint.”

  The frying pan was produced and passed around among the jury, and then the owl said: “I suggest that Mrs. Underdunk’s report of what she sees is not to be relied upon. She saw Freddy in Centerboro and thought he looked ferocious. She saw her own reflection in a mirror and fainted away. I suggest that neither she nor Freddy are as terrible looking as she would have us believe, or as she seems to believe herself.”

  “Your Honor,” said Mrs. Underdunk, getting up, “I do not propose to stay here and be insulted.” And she would have swept out of the courtroom, but Mr. Garble caught her by the arm and whispered in her ear, and at last she sat down again.

  Then Old Whibley called a number of witnesses—the sheriff, Mr. Weezer, and then a number of the farm animals. He questioned them at length about Freddy, and they all agreed that he was a very kind and well-behaved pig, who certainly would never attack anyone.

  During all this, Mr. Garble sat with his arms crossed. He was almost facing Ernest, Jr., and Freddy saw that every time Ernest, Jr. yawned or nodded, Mr. Garble would himself stifle a yawn, and then his eyelids began to droop, and his chin dropped on his chest. He recovered himself several times, but Freddy began yawning harder too, and finally Mr. Garble’s head went down and didn’t come up again.

  As soon as Old Whibley saw this, he dismissed his last witness. “If Mr. Garble has no further questions to ask, Your Honor,” he said, “the defence rests.”

  “Very well,” said the judge, and after pausing a moment, he said in a sharp voice: “Come, Mr. Garble.” For it was time for Mr. Garble to sum up his case for the jury.

  “Mr. Garble,” said the judge again, and Mr. Garble stirred slightly and mumbled: “Irrelevan’ an’ highly prej’dicial.” But he did not open his eyes.

  “What’s that?” asked Judge Willey.

  “He says he doesn’t want to, Your Honor,” said the owl.

  The judge was too near-sighted to see that Mr. Garble had fallen asleep. “Dear me,” he said, “this is very irregular. You understand, Mr. Garble, that if you refuse to speak, I can only instruct the jury that you feel your case too weak to bear further discussion. Very well then, Mr.—
ah, Whibley.”

  Mrs. Underdunk looked very concerned, but Mr. Garble had his back to her, and so she did not see that he had gone to sleep either, and supposing that his silence was some sort of a legal trick, she didn’t say anything. Old Whibley winked one large yellow eye at Freddy. “Keep it up five more minutes,” he said, “and you’ve won.” And he flew over and lighted on the corner of the jury box and addressed the jury in a low tone.

  It was a short speech. He pointed out that the crimes of which Freddy was accused were not proven. “Even my worthy colleague agrees with me,” he said with a glance at Mr. Garble. “Am I not right, Mr. Garble?… Ah! His silence gives consent. Well, then, there is nothing more to say. You can only bring in a verdict of not guilty.”

  So then the judge told the jury some things about the law, and the jury filed out.

  There was a hum of conversation in the courtroom, and Mrs. Underdunk came forward and sat down beside her brother. She said something, then shook him by the arm. Mr. Garble leaped up, and glared wildly about him. “I object, Your Honor!” he shouted.

  “To what, Mr. Garble?” asked the judge.

  “To the—to the—Why, where is the jury?” he demanded.

  “The jury has gone out to deliberate on the verdict,” said the judge.

  “But they can’t!” roared Mr. Garble. “I haven’t summed up! I haven’t—”

  “You had your opportunity,” said the judge.

  “But he was asleep, Your Honor!” exclaimed Mrs. Underdunk.

  “Asleep!” The judge leaned far over the bench and glared at Mr. Garble. “Asleep in my courtroom! I ought to hold you in contempt. I ought—”

  “Your Honor,” pleaded Mr. Garble, “I am sorry. But I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, nor the night before either.”

  “Your sleeping habits are not within the jurisdiction of this court,” said the judge. “If you don’t know enough to go home and go to bed the night before an important case, you don’t deserve to win. No more, now. The jury is coming in.”

  Well, of course the jury had to bring in a verdict of “not guilty” and they did. Everybody rushed up to shake hands with Freddy and congratulate him—everybody, that is, except Mrs. Underdunk and Mr. Garble. Mr. Garble left the courtroom first, with Mrs. Underdunk following him closely and heaping reproaches on him with every step.