Freddy and the Popinjay

by Walter R. Brooks

  Chapter 17

  Two days later Peter came back. With him were Joseph, and Joseph’s wife, and his two children, Orson and Brunnhilde. They set to work at once preparing the cave above Peter’s den for the school, and Freddy spent a good deal of time up in the woods watching them.

  The bears agreed that he had done just right about the wildcat, of whom nothing had been seen since their arrival. “We couldn’t take the chance,” Joseph said. “I remember thinking he was quite a nice fellow when I first met him, and the children were very bright and quick in their studies—I’ll say that for them. But you never can tell about people, can you?”

  “Well, I never did like him,” said Joseph’s wife. “You remember, Joseph, I told you the first time he came to see us—”

  “Yes, dear,” said Joseph. “So you did. Yet you know,” he continued to Freddy, “I thought that he even might like to join the faculty of the school. He’s the athletic type; he could do some quite remarkable acrobatic stunts—”

  “Very bad taste, I always thought,” put in Mrs. Joseph, “showing off that way before the children.”

  “Indeed, dear, you’re perfectly right,” said Joseph. “I thought he would perhaps like to be put in charge of sports. Our school has been rather weak on that side.”

  There was a queer flash of color in the trees overhead and they all looked up. “Good grief!” Mrs. Joseph exclaimed. “What’s that?”

  “That’s—oh, that’s just J. J. and his wife,” said Freddy. “Hello, J.J.”

  The two birds flew down beside him. “Afternoon, Freddy,” said the robin. “And Peter; good old Peter. And this is Joseph, and Mrs. Joseph, I presume? I’m J. J. Popinjay—formerly J. J. Pomeroy. You may have heard of me. And this is Mrs. P. I just came up to welcome you to the Bean farm.”

  “Such a pretty place you have here!” chirped Mrs. Popinjay.

  “Why, that’s—er, very kind of you,” said Joseph.

  “Not at all,” said J. J. grandly. “We feel it our duty to welcome newcomers.”

  Freddy grinned. “J. J. is thinking of taking over the management of the farm from Mr. Bean,” he said. “Perhaps he’ll buy Mr. Bean out. How about it, J. J.—have you made him an offer yet?”

  “Ha, ha!” said J. J. “You will have your joke with me, won’t you, Freddy? And by the way, if you aren’t doing anything tomorrow evening, why don’t you all come down to the movies in Centerboro? I’m going to sing.”

  “You’re going to what?”

  “Sing! Sing!” said J. J. irritably. “You know I’ve sung at parties at several people’s houses this last week—people who heard me at the wedding, and wanted me to give little song recitals at their homes. Mr. Muszkiski, who runs the movie theatre, heard me, and I think I may say he was very much impressed. He has a picture called The Bird of Paradise coming, and he thought it would add something if he had a real bird singing during some of the scenes. So he hired me. Haven’t you seen the posters outside the theatre? ‘Musical effects by J. J. Popinjay’?”

  “What’s the scene you sing in?” Freddy asked. “Where the hero has a fit?”

  “I’m to sing,” J. J. replied with dignity, “before the show. And then during the scene where the hero sails away on a ship, and the heroine stands on the shore and weeps.”

  “Such a sad little song!” said Mrs. Popinjay. “But beautiful, too.”

  “Sounds sad to me all right,” Freddy said. “Look, J. J., I’m getting worried about you. After all, you’re just a robin dressed up. When Mrs. Church had you sing at the wedding, she thought it was just a good joke. And we thought you thought that too. But you’re beginning to take the whole thing too seriously. You fooled ’em into thinking your robin’s song was something pretty special. But now you’re beginning to think it really is wonderful.”

  Peter, who had been digging in the new schoolroom, now came out and sat down, dusting his paws. “I don’t have to go down to Centerboro to hear a robin sing,” he said. “I can hear a dozen, any hour of the day, right up here.”

  “I don’t have to go down to Centerboro to hear a robin sing,” said Peter.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way about it,” said J. J. huffily, and he looked down his beak at them indignantly through his little glasses.

  Mrs. Popinjay flirted her feathers angrily. “Come along, J. J.,” she said. “How true it is that the great artist never gets anything but ridicule from his own friends.” And they flew off.

  The bears went back to their digging, but they had hardly begun again when Freddy called them, and they came out to see Mac, the wildcat, standing in front of the cave. The bears drew together and moved slowly towards the wildcat, growling angrily. But Mac stood his ground, and then they saw that he had on a sort of muzzle, sewed together, of pieces of leather straps, and buckled around his neck.

  “Hello, Joseph,” he said. “You needn’t growl. I couldn’t fight if I wanted to.” He went over to Freddy. “You said you’d help me get my kids into Joseph’s new school, if I could prove that I had turned over a new leaf, didn’t you? Well, I’m proving it.” He raised his voice. “Mother, bring the children up here.”

  The mother wildcat, followed by three little wildcats, came out from behind a bush and sat down in a row in front of Freddy and the bears. They all had muzzles on.

  “Hold up your paws, children,” said Mac. And the little wildcats held out their paws. Freddy could see that their claws had all been clipped off short. And when Mac and his wife held out their paws, their claws were clipped too.

  “Well, Freddy?” said Mac.

  Freddy nodded. “I guess you meant what you said. You certainly couldn’t do much harm now if you wanted to. What do you say, Joseph?”

  “Why, with their claws clipped, and if they’re willing to wear those muzzles,” Joseph said, “I guess we have to believe they mean what they say. Eh, mother?”

  “I say a wildcat is always a wildcat,” returned Mrs. Joseph firmly, “and the less I have to do with them—”

  “Quite right, dear,” Joseph interrupted mildly. “Well then,” he said, “let’s consider it settled. We’ll take the children back. But they’ll have to wear their muzzles, and so will you, until we’re entirely sure of you.”

  “Who made the muzzles?” Freddy asked.

  “Jimmy,” said Mac. “His father gave him some old straps—”

  “His father?” Freddy exclaimed.

  Mac grinned. “I guess Mr. Witherspoon has begun to wake up. The way I look at it, he always thought that people admired him for being stingy and saving his money. If they bawled him out, he thought they were just envious. When the boy blossomed out in that good suit, he thought everybody would criticize him for being extravagant, but instead, they complimented him on Jimmy’s appearance. That’s how Jimmy figures it. He’s talked to me quite a lot about it.”

  Yes, Freddy thought, Jimmy would talk freely about his troubles to Mac. Because he felt that Mac was in the same boat. People had disliked and distrusted them both.

  “Jimmy figures that probably nobody had ever complimented his father on anything he had done before,” Mac went on. “Well, you work it out for yourselves. Anyway, they’ve gone to town together today, and I understand it’s to be a big spending spree.”

  A big spending spree for Mr. Witherspoon would probably run to about ten cents, Freddy thought. Still, maybe Mac was right. Maybe the leopard could change his spots. In that case he’d have to revise the poem he’d written about it.

  Well of course when a man has been stingy for forty years he doesn’t turn into a spendthrift overnight, and Mr. Witherspoon didn’t just untie his purse strings and invite his family to help themselves. But he did change a little. For after he had bought Jimmy that shirt, and the haircut, he found that he felt different. Paying out the money for them had been pretty painful; it had been a lot worse than having a tooth pulled. But after it was done and he saw how nice Jimmy looked, and then people came up and congratulated him on having such a
fine looking son, he couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself.

  He got quite angry with himself for feeling pleased. Here he had gone and spent money he wasn’t obliged to spend, and he felt good about it. What was the matter with him? He was worried, too. Maybe he’d go and do it again, and maybe he’d like it still better, and goodness only knew where it would stop. What would become of all the money he had saved if he began spending it like that?

  He thought and he thought about it. He thought about it this way and that way and crossways. But always he ended up by thinking about what the Beans had said to him—that nobody, except perhaps Mr. Weezer, knew he was a rich man. What was the good of being rich, if nobody knew it? He got so worried about it that finally he talked to Mrs. Witherspoon about it, although he knew she wouldn’t agree with him.

  She didn’t. She said: “What good is all your money, Zenas? If you stuffed it all into the stove and burned it up, nothing would be a bit different. You’d work just as hard, and we’d all dress in the same old things, and have as little to eat.”

  “But I’d be a poor man!” said Mr. Witherspoon.

  “You’re a poor man now. Your money is just like that cake of soap there.” She pointed towards the sink. “You’re always fussing about my washing my hands too often, because it will wear the soap out. What’s a cake of soap for—to look at?”

  “I bought the boy a shirt,” said Mr. Witherspoon.

  “But you wouldn’t buy him a tie to go with it.”

  “I’ve got a necktie upstairs somewhere,” said Mr. Witherspoon. “He can wear that.”

  “The mice chewed that tie up in 1912,” she replied. “That was before they all left the house because they couldn’t find enough to eat here.” She looked out of the window. “There comes Jimmy now,” she said. “He looks nice, don’t he? Looks like a rich man’s son. But you can’t take any credit for that. And nobody’s giving you any either. It was William Bean that outfitted your boy.”

  Mr. Witherspoon scowled angrily. “I guess I can afford to outfit my own boy,” he growled. “I don’t need old Bean’s help—him and his animals!”

  Mrs. Witherspoon got mad. “You say you can afford it, and then when he really needs something you say you can’t afford it. Now which is it? Make up your mind, Zenas. And don’t go shouting down the Beans. Why, even their pig dresses better than we do!”

  I guess maybe it was this last remark about the pig that decided Mr. Witherspoon. Anyway, he didn’t say any more, but went out and hitched up Jerry and drove down to Centerboro and bought Jimmy a necktie.

  And the next day he drove down again and bought him a hat and another shirt.

  And the third day—which was the day the bears came back home—he really did go on a spending spree. He took Jimmy into the Busy Bee and got him a complete new outfit. And when they came out with their packages under their arms he stopped as he was climbing into the buggy. He had a sort of dazed expression on his face. He tried to think how terrible it was that he had spent so much money, but somehow the thought just pleased him. He felt in his pocket and he had just two quarters left. He pulled them out and handed them to Jimmy. “Here, boy,” he said gruffly. “You might as well have the rest of it.”

  Jimmy took it, but instead of climbing in beside his father he looked across the street at the drugstore. “Ice cream soda,” he said. “I never had one. Say let’s go over and have one on me.”

  And then a queer thing happened to Mr. Witherspoon. Nobody had ever asked him to have an ice cream soda before. At least not since he was ten years old. He forgot that it was really his own money that was buying the soda. He didn’t even stop to consider that a boy who could suggest such unheard of extravagance would probably grow up into a waster and a spendthrift. He opened his mouth to refuse, and to his amazement heard himself say: “Why, thanks. Nothing I should like better.”

  Chapter 18

  For the first showing of The Bird of Paradise, Mr. Muszkiski, the owner of the Centerboro theatre, had planned quite a gala evening. The hall was trimmed up to represent a tropical jungle, with festoons of colored paper and a lot of Christmas tree decorations, and two small trees had been cut and set up, one on each side of the screen. After the newsreel had been shown, the lights went up, and Mr. and Mrs. Popinjay flitted about, in and out of the strands and loops of paper, and then flew up into the trees and J. J. sang.

  Everything went well up to this point. The Bean animals were all there, and all had seats together, and nearly everybody in Centerboro was there too. After J. J.’s song, Mr. Muszkiski had planned to start the main picture, during which J. J. was to sing some more. But J. J. had just started to sing when back in the rear of the hall somebody laughed. It wasn’t really a loud laugh, but it was a shrill, tight little sarcastic ripple, that cut sharply across J. J.’s warblings and stopped them dead.

  The first time everybody was very indignant. People turned around and said: “Sssssh!” and there were cries of “Throw him out!” And then after a second or two J. J. went on.

  And again he was interrupted by that nasty laugh.

  This time several people giggled, and I am sorry to say that Jinx was one of them. He leaned over and whispered to Freddy: “That’s Uncle Solomon, the old rip! He just came down here to crab J. J.’s act.”

  “Well, it’s pretty mean of him,” Freddy said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said the cat. “J. J.’s got it coming to him. It won’t hurt him to be taken down a peg.”

  J. J. had his glasses on, and the third time the laugh interrupted him, he stared so indignantly through them in the direction from which the sound had come that practically everybody in the audience began to giggle, and then when he glared at them they laughed right out, and pretty soon the whole crowd was just rocking and roaring with laughter. Even Freddy joined in, for when everybody is laughing it is pretty hard to keep a sober face.

  “Look at him!” Jinx exclaimed. “Why doesn’t the idiot laugh too? Then he’d have the crowd with him. Talk about a stuffed shirt!”

  “Look at him” Jinx exclaimed.

  But J. J. had become so conceited during the past few weeks, and had got to taking himself so seriously, that it was impossible for him to see it as a joke. He ruffled his feathers and even stamped angrily, and then he and Mrs. Popinjay flew right back over the heads of the audience into the shadows at the back of the hall.

  Everybody turned around but they couldn’t see anything. They could hear a lot, though—flappings and flutterings, and sharp chirps and twitters, and then the robins chased Uncle Solomon back towards the front of the house. He dodged in and out among the decorations, diving on the Popinjays to tweak out a feather, then darting off as they twisted to corner him. The feathers floated down—now a white plume from J. J.’s tail, now a red or blue one from Mrs. Popinjay’s fan—and the audience reached up eagerly to catch them, as souvenirs of the most unusual evening they had ever spent.

  But at last Uncle Solomon had had enough of it. He gave his tight little laugh and then darted out of an open window into the night, and the Popinjays lit on one of the trees and set about smoothing down their rumpled feathers.

  But they weren’t popinjays any more. “Why, they’re nothing but robins!” said someone in a loud voice. And the audience began whispering: “You mean to say Muszkiski made all these elaborate preparations to have a robin sing?” And they laughed some more. So the Popinjays sat there for a minute looking very crestfallen, and rather dilapidated, too, with half their trimming missing, and then they too flew out of the window into the night.

  Freddy felt sorry for them, and he left his seat and went outside. He didn’t see them anywhere, but by the light of a street lamp he saw Uncle Solomon sitting on a telephone wire. “Well,” he said, “you spoiled J. J.’s show for him. I expect you’re pretty pleased with yourself.”

  “My good pig,” said Uncle Solomon, “you cannot expect something which you believe has already happened. You can no more expect that I am pleas
ed today, than you can remember that I will be pleased tomorrow. You must have had very bad marks in English at school.”

  “I expect I did,” said Freddy, and grinned at him.

  Uncle Solomon shook his head disapprovingly. “It is hardly worth while attempting to converse with an animal who cannot talk plain English.”

  Freddy looked gloomy. “I expect not,” he said.

  The owl began to get angry. “Stop it!” he said. “Stop using that word! After I have explained to you that you cannot use it in that way, it is sheer insolence for you to continue.”

  Freddy nodded. “I expect it is,” he said.

  And at that Uncle Solomon flew into a rage. “Stop it—stop it—stop it,” he shrieked angrily, and he jumped up and down on the telephone wire. “I won’t have it! You can’t argue like that—it’s against all the rules.”

  “But I’m not arguing with you,” said Freddy. “I’ve agreed with everything you say. I guess that’s the way to win arguments with you, Uncle Solomon—to agree with you, and then to use the wrong words. And then when you show me they’re wrong, to agree, and keep right on using them.”

  The owl just muttered something into his feathers. Freddy had indeed agreed with everything he had said. Yet at the same time he had certainly disagreed with him about the word “expect.” And nobody had ever succeeded in both agreeing and disagreeing with him in the same argument. He couldn’t seem to think of anything to say next.

  Freddy was pretty pleased. Nobody had ever managed to silence Uncle Solomon before. And so he changed the subject. “All I meant,” he said, “was that I didn’t think you were very nice to J.J.”

  The owl recovered himself. “You must understand, young pig,” he said, “that there are two effects of every action. There is an immediate effect, and a long range effect. If you spank your little boy for being bad, the immediate effect is to hurt him, but the long range effect is to do him good. In the same way, the immediate effect of what I did tonight was to make J. J. look like a fool. But the long range effect I sincerely hope will be to cure him of his foolishness. You see that, I trust?”