Freddy and the Popinjay

by Walter R. Brooks

  Freddy had watched Miss Peebles trying hats on people, and knew how it was done. And as Miss Peebles was still out of the room, he couldn’t resist the temptation to take her place. He went up behind Mrs. Weezer and took hold of the hat and tilted it forward over her left eye. “You must wear it this way,” he said. “Very dashing now, isn’t it? And the forget-me-nots just match the color of your eyes. Oh yes, decidedly that is the hat for you, madam. It suits you perfectly!”

  “We-ell,” said Mrs. Weezer doubtfully. “Yes, I see what you mean. Yes, I will take it. And Harriet—” She turned to finish her sentence, and saw Freddy behind her where she had expected to see Miss Peebles. And she screamed.

  “Oh!” she cried. “Harriet, Harriet! What has happened to you?”

  Miss Peebles came rushing in. “Mrs. Weezer—what is it? Freddy, you here? What’s wrong?”

  At the sight of Miss Peebles, Mrs. Weezer fell back in her chair. “Harriet!” she gasped. “I thought you had changed into a pig!” She swallowed. “But—what is this animal doing in here? Upon my word, Harriet, if this is a joke …”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Freddy. “I just came in to see Miss Peebles about something, and you—well, you had that pretty hat on and you didn’t seem to like it, and I thought it did look so nice on you that I just couldn’t resist telling you so. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

  “Frighten me?—You didn’t frighten me,” Mrs. Weezer snapped. “But I must say I’m rather shocked. A pig, trying on hats!” She caught sight of herself in the glass and said, “It does match my eyes, Harriet.”

  Freddy and Miss Peebles looked at each other and Miss Peebles said: “It brings out the blue in them.” She motioned to Freddy, and he moved off and stood by the door, looking at the hats in the window.

  He could hear the conversation going on behind him, and after a while Mrs. Weezer came towards the door. She was carrying a hatbox.

  Freddy opened the door for her, and she acknowledged his politeness with a cold nod, and went on out into the street.

  “That was wonderful, Freddy,” said Miss Peebles. “How would you like to go into partnership with me? I believe you could sell the hats as fast as I could make them.” She smiled happily at him, and then asked if there was anything special he wanted to see her about. “If there is, come into the back room and we can talk while I trim another hat.”

  Miss Peebles was quite old, and some people would have thought she was funny looking. She was tall and thin, and she had a long nose and very light eyelashes, and when she stood behind a customer looking down with her head on one side, at a hat that was being tried on, she looked rather like a crane, standing in shallow water and watching for minnows. She always wore a big brooch with a picture of Niagara Falls on it, except on Sundays when she put on one that showed the Bridge of Sighs. But Freddy did not think she looked funny any more than most of the people in Centerboro did. Because if you like people a lot, it doesn’t matter what they look like.

  Miss Peebles knew all about trees and wild flowers and bushes, and she knew all the different birds. She could tell what they were by their songs even if she couldn’t see them. She spent all the time she could spare from making hats, out in the woods and fields, and there were some people in Centerboro who said, “I should think she could find something better to do than that!” But I don’t know what difference it made to them.

  So when Freddy asked Miss Peebles about the tree Jimmy had asked him about, she said at once it was moosewood, sometimes called striped maple.

  So Freddy thanked her and they talked for a time, while she stitched some brown feathery stuff around a hat brim. And by and by Freddy asked her what it was.

  “I’m almost ashamed to tell you,” she said. “It’s really nothing but part of an old feather duster. It seemed a shame to throw it away, and really it looks quite pretty. But don’t tell anybody. Nobody would wear it on a hat if they knew what it was.”

  Freddy wanted to know if she could spare a little of it, and how much would it be.

  “You can have all you want,” Miss Peebles said, “and it won’t cost you a cent. My goodness, after your getting Mrs. Weezer to take that hat, you can have anything in the store. Isn’t there anything else you want?”

  Freddy said if she had a few small soft white feathers, like little curling plumes, he’d be awfully pleased to have them. So she gave him the tips of some ostrich feathers, which he said were just the thing. And then they talked a little longer and Freddy started back home.

  He had reached the top of the last hill when he stopped suddenly and said: “My goodness!” Above him, on the right, the upper pasture of the Bean farm sloped down from the Big Woods, and across the pasture a queer procession was moving. In the lead were the three cows—Mrs. Wiggins and Mrs. Wurzburger and Mrs. Wogus—and behind them trailed Jinx and Hank and Charles and Bill—all his friends, and even some of the woods animals—he saw a dozen or more rabbits, a fox, several squirrels, and Sniffy Wilson, the skunk, and his family. They were moving up over the hill towards the Witherspoon farm.

  Freddy was pretty curious to know what was going on. But he couldn’t very well follow them until he had gone down to the house and given Mrs. Bean the things he had bought for her. So he trotted on as fast as he could. And it was when he was leaving the house that he ran into Quik.

  Quik was one of the mice who lived in a cigar box back of the kitchen stove. At least they slept there, but during the day they were busy helping Mrs. Bean keep the house neat. They cleaned the crumbs up off the kitchen floor, and once a week, on Saturday, they went over Mr. Bean’s clothes and cleaned out the pockets. Mr. Bean was a great hand to stick a few cookies in his pocket when he went out to do the chores, and of course there were a good many crumbs. Mrs. Bean made wonderful cookies, and some Saturdays the mice had regular banquets in the pockets.

  Quik was just coming across from the cow barn, and he stopped and said: “Aren’t you going along?”

  “Along where?” Freddy asked.

  “Oh, I forgot,” said Quik; “you weren’t here when Uncle Wesley came down this morning. Why, just after you left to go to town, he came tearing down here to tell us that that Witherspoon boy had hit Alice with a rock.”

  “Good gracious!” said Freddy. Alice and Emma, the two ducks, lived with their Uncle Wesley up on the little pond below the woods. They were very gentle and ladylike, even for ducks, and everybody was fond of them. “Was she hurt badly?” Freddy asked.

  “Put a dent in her bill and knocked her out for a while,” said Quik, “but Jinx gave her First Aid and I guess she’s all right now except for a bad headache. Emma said she’d have to eat soft food for a while, but ducks don’t ever eat anything but soft food anyway, do they? Just mud. Anyhow, there was quite a lot of uproar for a while. Emma fainted away and had to have First Aid too, and all the excitement upset Uncle Wesley’s stomach, and we had to take him in and have Mrs. Bean give him some peppermint. And now everybody’s gone to try to find the Witherspoon boy and teach him a lesson he won’t forget.”

  Freddy said: “I see. Well, I guess I’d better follow along.” He crossed the barnyard and went on up in the direction the other animals had taken. At the top of the hill where the Witherspoon farm began he stopped. On the slope and in the valley below him, Zenas Witherspoon’s fields, with their unpainted farm buildings, lay spread out. Eunice, the Witherspoon cow, was lying down under a tree. But there was no sign of Jimmy, or of the Bean animals.

  “Wonder where they’ve gone,” Freddy thought. Then down on a stone wall not far from the house he saw his friend Jinx, the black cat. He started to circle around, to get down to the wall without being seen from the house. And as he did so, Jinx put up his head and opened his mouth wide, and out of his mouth came a screech that could have been heard half a mile.

  “What on earth is he up to?” Freddy wondered.

  But the second time Jinx screeched, Freddy began to see. For Jimmy appeared at the house door. Jinx walk
ed along the wall a few feet, and Jimmy caught sight of him. He pulled his slingshot out of his pocket and fitted a stone into it, and then started sneaking up towards the wall. Jinx sat still. But as soon as Jimmy got within range, he jumped down on the other side of the wall, and Freddy could see him running in long leaps, without trying to conceal himself, across the next field.

  Jimmy followed; and Freddy saw the same performance repeated on the next wall, and the next. Jimmy never got near enough for a shot. And then he climbed the fourth wall, which was a long way from the house, and as he jumped down on the far side he gave a yell of terror and didn’t appear again. But Freddy could see movement behind the wall: a cow’s horns tossed up, and a white back that was probably Hank’s; and then several rabbits and two young skunks climbed up and sat there looking down with pleased expressions.

  Freddy was worried. The Bean animals had all at one time or another had trouble with Jimmy; and the injury to Alice would have made them good and mad, for she was a universal favorite. But if they really hurt him there would be real trouble. He hurried down across the fields.

  But when he got to the wall, Jimmy was on his feet. Mrs. Wogus had hooked her left horn under his right armpit, and Mrs. Wurzburger had hooked her right horn under his left armpit, and he was being marched down to the road. There was nothing he could do. Every time he struggled, or started to yell for help, Robert, the collie, would nip at his bare ankles. And they walked him that way all the way back to the Bean farm, and up to the duck pond, with the other animals trailing on behind.

  Alice was sitting on the bank under the shade of a burdock leaf. The base of her bill and half of her head was covered with a large white bandage, and Emma was fussing about her and fanning her with one yellow webbed foot. Alice didn’t like to be fussed over, but she couldn’t protest because the bandage was so tight that she couldn’t talk. Uncle Wesley was not visible, and Emma said he had gone to lie down, because he still felt a little nauseated.

  Emma was very much annoyed when she saw Jimmy. “I don’t see what you want to bring him up here for,” she said. “My sister has suffered a severe shock, and this will only upset her.”

  “Well, she’s the one that was hurt,” said Jinx, “and she’s the one who ought to decide what punishment he should get.”

  “Aw, I just popped her with a little stone,” said Jimmy.

  “You’ve popped a good many animals on this farm with little stones, young man,” said Emma. “If I had anything to say about it, your popping days would be over.”

  “I’m sorry if I hurt her,” Jimmy said. “But I don’t think she’s hurt at all. You take that bandage off and she’d be as good as ever.”

  Alice blinked her free eye, and put up one foot and pulled at the bandage.

  “She’s getting nervous again,” said Emma. “I won’t have it. Her system is in no condition to be put under further strain. Take him away. Take him away and chop him up into little pieces if you want to, but—”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, sister,” Alice interrupted. She had loosened the bandage enough so that she could speak. “The boy is right. Except for a slight headache, which in any case is probably caused by too much talk, I am as good as ever. I only let you put the bandage on because you seemed to want to so much, and you were all being so kind it seemed a pity not to let you do things for me.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, sister.”

  “Well, I never!” Emma exclaimed. “Really, Alice, I do think that was most inconsiderate of you. When we were all so worried—”

  “Oh, never mind that, Emma,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Alice, what’ll we do with this boy? You’re the one that was hit. You’re the one to decide on his punishment.”

  “Oh, let him go,” said Alice. “You’ve scared him enough, and—”

  “I’m not scared!” Jimmy shouted. “And you’d better let me go, or I’ll tell my father, and he’ll—” Mrs. Wurzburger and Mrs. Wogus still had their horns hooked under his arms, and now they lifted their heads a little and shook them from side to side. Jimmy fluttered till he looked like a suit of Mr. Bean’s underwear hanging on the line in a high wind, and his teeth rattled so that he couldn’t talk.

  “Oh, don’t!” Alice pleaded. “Really, I think he’s had enough. If you’ll just take that—that weapon away from him—”

  “The slingshot?” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Georgie’s got it. We’re going to take it down to the cow barn for safe keeping. Well, Alice, you’re the judge and the jury, and if you say let him go—” She nodded to her sisters, who set Jimmy down and released his arms.

  The boy shook himself and looked around uneasily at the animals, none of whom seemed very pleased at Alice’s decision. But none of them said anything. Instead, they moved a little closer to him. He edged away, but as he was standing on the bank above the water of the pond, when they moved up again he couldn’t go any farther. Little sharp noses and big blunt noses, horns and beaks and slant yellow eyes and round brown eyes—they pressed in on him.

  “Hey,” he shouted in a panic, “you let me out of here!”

  And then Hank’s long white nose shot forward and hit him in the chest, and with a yell he went over backwards into the water.

  “Land sakes!” said Hank. He looked down at the boy, thrashing in the water—which was only about three feet deep—and then he waded in and caught him by the collar and dragged him to the bank. “That was too bad, boy,” he said. “Guess something must have pushed me. I’m sorry.”

  Jimmy scrambled to his feet, coughing and spluttering, and ran. A little way off he stopped. “You’ll be sorry, all right, when I get through with you,” he shouted. “You wait! You just wait!” And then he ran off home.

  “That was mean, Hank,” said Alice. “Nobody pushed you.”

  “Why, I dunno,” said the horse. “Seems like they did. It’s kind of hard to tell, sometimes, though, whether it’s somebody outside that pushes you or something inside. Seems as if I was pushed. But maybe I pushed myself.” He grinned.

  “Maybe I pushed you, Hank,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “I was pushing pretty hard in my mind. Anyway, you did just right.” And the other animals agreed.

  But on the way home, Freddy shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know,” he said. “Pushing that boy will never get us anywhere. We’re going to have trouble with him yet.”

  Chapter 5

  Freddy had not thought that he would have to go back to Centerboro for another week, but the following afternoon he was again sitting in the back room of Miss Peebles’ shop. And with him was J. J. Pomeroy. Miss Peebles was sitting at her work table, and on the table was a sort of hat stand on which J. J. was perched. And Miss Peebles was trimming him. She was trimming him with the feathers she had given Freddy the day before. She sewed the fuzzy little brown feathers all over his head, and then she fastened the ostrich feather ends in among his tail feathers, so that he had a beautiful white plumy tail, almost as long as himself.

  Freddy had tried to do the trimming job himself that morning, but although he could do many things with his trotters that other pigs can’t—such as using a pencil, and a typewriter, and even a fork and spoon—he wasn’t much good with needle and thread. So he had brought the robin down and asked Miss Peebles’ help.

  When she had finished, J. J. admired himself in the mirror. He hopped back and forth in front of it, waggled his tail, and even stuck out his chest and tried to put on a noble expression, like a senator making a patriotic speech. But he hadn’t any features to speak of, and you can’t look like a senator without features. Not very much. His face still looked just like a robin’s. He was quite disappointed.

  “Well, I’m not,” said Freddy. “You look just like that popinjay on Mrs. Church’s family coat of arms, and that’s what I want. I want to raise the eight dollars for those glasses of yours. Mrs. Church wouldn’t pay any senator eight dollars to sing at her niece’s wedding, but she’d pay a popinjay, I bet.”

  “So that’s your scheme?” said Mis
s Peebles, and she laughed fit to kill. “You’re a caution, Freddy!”

  “I think it’s a good scheme,” Freddy said. “Mrs. Church is going to have that coat of arms on the wedding invitations. My idea is to have it painted up big, only instead of painting the popinjay on top, J. J. will be perched there. And then when the wedding ceremony is over he will burst into song.”

  “That is a very pretty idea,” Miss Peebles said. “But why do you go to all this trouble? If you asked Mrs. Church for the money, I’m sure she’d give it to you.”

  “So am I,” said Freddy. “But J. J. wants to earn it. And I think he’s right. He wants to pay you for your trouble, too—”

  “Nonsense,” said Miss Peebles. “It was a pleasure. I’ve never trimmed a live hat before. A hat!” she exclaimed suddenly. “My word, Freddy, I’ve got an idea! Wait a minute!”

  She jumped up and went to the phone and called Mrs. Church. “Are you coming into the village this afternoon, Mrs. Church? Starting now? … Good.… Well, will you stop in? I’ve something that I’m sure will interest you.”

  Freddy started asking questions, but she stopped him. “No. You do just as I say, will you? If it doesn’t work, then all right—you can talk to her. Now you, Mr.—Mr. Pomeroy, come out here and perch on this hat stand in the front window, among the other hats. Yes, you’re to try to look like a hat. But not until you see Mrs. Church coming towards the store. Then you put your head down and spread your wings—sort of flatten out. And then don’t move. I’ll do the rest.”

  Freddy and Miss Peebles waited, watching the street outside through the window. And in a few minutes the tandem bicycle drew up at the curb and Mrs. Church got unsteadily down and started towards the shop. As she put her hand out to open the door, she glanced into the window, and then her hand dropped and her eyes opened wide and she fixed an amazed stare on J. J. Pomeroy, who had tilted forward on the hat stand and flattened out as Miss Peebles had shown him.