Freddy Goes Camping

by Walter R. Brooks

  Freddy’s first one flew up into a tree.

  Freddy Goes Camping

  Walter R. Brooks

  Illustrated by Kurt Wiese

  The Overlook Press

  New York

  Chapter 1

  The pigpen on the Bean farm stood a little above the barnyard. On the door was a small brass plate which said: Frederick Bean, Esq. Above the door was a sign:

  Frederick & Wiggins

  Detectives

  Office hours: Wednesdays, 2-4 P.M.

  To the left of the door was another sign:

  Subscriptions taken here for

  THE BEAN HOME NEWS

  The animals’ own newspaper.

  This was the outside of the pigpen. Inside, sitting in his broken-down old armchair before his desk, was Freddy. Freddy, the pig: editor, poet, banker, detective. Today being Thursday, he was Freddy the editor, and he was getting the material in shape for the next issue of the paper. He had almost enough now; there was just one blank space left to fill. A small poem would just fit it. So he leaned on his left elbow and put his left front trotter to his brow and thus became Freddy the poet, waiting for inspiration.

  So he waited. Every now and then he would lick his pencil. He had licked it so often that there was a black line right around his mouth. But there still wasn’t a black mark on the blank leaf of his notebook where the poem was supposed to be. And there was a knock at the door.

  “Rats!” said Freddy. Then he called impatiently: “Come in!”

  The door flew open and a short red-faced man with rather loud clothes and a bristly mustache came in.

  “Mr. Camphor!” Freddy exclaimed.

  “Jimson to you, my boy, always,” said the man.

  They shook hands and Freddy said: “Well, Mr.—er, Jimson, do sit down. It’s pretty nice of you to come see me. Of course if I’d known you were coming I’d have tidied up a little. Hate to have you see the place in such a mess.”

  Mr. Camphor glanced around. Papers were piled on the desk and overflowed onto the floor. Freddy hadn’t had time to make his bed, or clear away his breakfast dishes, and the only other chair in the room was heaped nearly as high as the desk. “I’d have had to give you about three days’ notice, I guess,” Mr. Camphor said with a laugh, “and I wouldn’t want you to go to all that trouble on my account. Anyhow, I can’t stop. Got to get back to see what Aunt Minerva is up to.”

  “I didn’t know you had an aunt,” Freddy said.

  “Goodness, everybody has aunts. I’ve got two. I’ve made quite a study of aunts. There’s two kinds: there’s the regular kind, and then there’s the other kind. Mine are the other kind. You’ll see when you meet ’em.”

  “Meet them?” said Freddy. “They’re here?”

  “Oh, no. See here, Freddy.” Mr. Camphor sat down on the edge of the bed. “I need your help. I want you to …” He stopped. “No, better not tell you till you’ve seen them. See here. Can’t you bring your partner and come up for a few days? Look the ground over; see what can be done. Eh? You’ve been promising to pay me a visit for a year. How about it?”

  “Why, I could,” said Freddy. “Sure, we’ll come. But what is it you want me to do?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Camphor, getting up, “but there’s no time to tell you why. I want you to get rid of my aunts.”

  “Good gracious!” said Freddy. “You mean …?”

  “Oh, no—not kidnap them or push them in the lake or anything,” said Mr. Camphor with a laugh. “Get them to leave—that’s all. Ha, think it over. And I’ll expect you and Mrs. Wiggins tomorrow, eh?” He was gone before Freddy could ask another question.

  Freddy hurried after him. At least he tried to, but the springs of his old chair were broken so that he was sitting almost on the floor, and he had to be specially careful because the ends of some of them stuck through the upholstery. If you moved too quickly, they jabbed you. By the time Freddy got outside, Mr. Camphor’s car was rolling out of the Bean gate.

  Freddy realized that his guest had been pretty smart. “He’s told me just enough to make me want to know more,” he thought. “He knows that’s the way to get us up there.” But he would have been glad to go in any case. For he had been the caretaker last summer on Mr. Camphor’s big estate, and they had become fast friends.

  Sitting on the roof of the pigpen was Mr. J. J. Pomeroy. Mr. Pomeroy was a robin, and he was the messenger who would fly Freddy’s manuscript down to the printing office in Centerboro, when Freddy had it ready. He was hopping up and down with impatience. “For goodness’ sake, Freddy,” he said, “hurry up! I want to get back home before dark. You know I don’t like night flying since I’ve been wearing glasses.” Mr. Pomeroy was nearsighted, and had had a lot of trouble until Freddy had taken him to an optician and had a little pair of spectacles made for him.

  “Oh, do shut up,” said Freddy crossly. “If I could think of something I was interested in enough to write about, I’d be through in … What are you interested in, J.J.?” he asked, looking up at the robin.

  Mr. Pomeroy lifted a claw and took off his glasses and polished them on his wing. “Why, let me see,” he said. “My wife and family, of course. After that—why, I guess I’d say, worms.”

  “Worms,” said Freddy thoughtfully. “I’ve never written a poem about worms. Not much to say about them, as far as I can see.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said the robin. “Worms are one of the first subjects we robins teach our children about. Why worms, my dear sir, are the staff of life! Do you realize that there are more than two thousand edible varieties in the United States alone?”

  “Ugh! That’s an awful thought,” said Freddy with a shudder. “An incredible thought—hey, wait a minute!” He ran in and brought out his notebook.

  “Of course,” Mr. Pomeroy went on, “some kinds are better than others, if you know what I mean.”

  “You mean ‘worse’ instead of ‘better’ don’t you?” Freddy looked up from what he was writing.

  “Not at all. Better. Deliciouser. For my money one of those small, light green inch worms—what you call a measuring worm; you know the kind—he has some feet in front, and then for quite a long distance he’s just worm, and then at the back end there are some more feet. So when he walks, he stretches out and puts down his front feet, and then brings his back feet up close to them so that his body makes a kind of loop. Very handy to pick them up by. They’re really very tasty, Freddy. So crisp and tender! Let me find you one, and you just try it once, will you?”

  “Not for a million dollars!” said Freddy. “It makes my stomach flutter just to think of it. Listen, J.J.; how’s this?”

  But before he could start to read, Jinx, the cat, came running up. “Hi, pig; how’s the old inspiration this morning—hitting on all six?”

  “Hi, pig; how’s the old inspiration this morning?”

  “Go away,” said Freddy. “I’m busy.”

  “What’s that black lipstick you’ve got on—some new fashion you’re starting?” Jinx asked. “Hey,” he said, “don’t throw anything! I just came over to tell you there’s a chipmunk here to see you. Got a message for you—he won’t tell us what it is. He’s over at the barn.”

  “Well, I can’t come now,” said Freddy. “Tell him to wait. I’ll be over in a little while.”

  “OK, I’ll tell him you’ll be over when you get your make-up on.” And Jinx sauntered off.

  “Smart aleck!” Freddy growled. “Well now, listen, J.J.” And he read:

  “To say that worms are edible

  Will seem to you incredible.

  For you to eat a measuring worm

  Would take more courage and determination than to take a dive into a cl
ump of poison ivy

  Yet robins eat them every day;

  They smack their beaks and shout Hooray!

  They gobble them with joy and pride

  And do not seem upset inside.”

  “It doesn’t get anywhere,” said the robin.

  “No,” said the pig; “that’s true. There’s no moral. Unless …” He wrote again for a minute. “How’s this?”

  “The moral here is plain to see:

  What pleases you does not please me;

  What pleases me to you is hateful,

  And for this fact we should be grate—”

  “Look, Freddy,” Mr. Pomeroy interrupted. “You want me to be quite frank, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Freddy. “Of course, my dear chap. An honest opinion is worth more than all the flattery in the world.”

  “OK, then,” said Mr. Pomeroy. “I think it’s just plain dull. Everybody knows that if we all liked the same thing, there wouldn’t be enough to go round.”

  Now when people say they want an honest opinion about something they’ve done, they probably mean it all right, but if it isn’t a favorable opinion, they’re apt to get mad.

  “So what?” said Freddy crossly. “You’re so smart—suppose you write it.”

  “Why not?” said Mr. Pomeroy. He thought a minute. Then he said:

  “To say that worms are edible may seem to you incredible,

  And yet I most emphatically assert

  That hardly any dishes are more filling or deliciouser

  Than angleworms pulled freshly from the dirt.”

  “H’m,” said the pig. “Not bad, not bad at all for a first effort. I might sign your name to it. How would you go on from there?”

  “Well, I’d go on to other kinds—plan a well-balanced meal, do you see? Beetles, flies, and then maybe go into caterpillars …”

  “No,” Freddy said. “No. Our readers aren’t squeamish specially, but I doubt if they’d care for a description of a complete bug dinner. Tell you what I’ll do, J.J. I’ll print that verse, and take up the rest of the space with a little note: With the following deft and original verse, our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. J.J. Pomeroy, makes his debut as a full-fledged poet in this issue. Possessing a degree of technical skill unusual in a beginner—and so on and so on. How about it?”

  Mr. Pomeroy was delighted and as soon as Freddy had written it out, he took the paper and flew off to Centerboro. Freddy was pleased, too. His own verses, he knew, weren’t much good. “My goodness,” people would say when they read them, “Freddy is slipping.” Of course the robin’s weren’t very good either. But nobody would criticize Freddy for them.

  When Freddy got over to the barn the chipmunk had gone. “He’s kind of an impatient guy,” Jinx said. “Fidgeted around and got cranky when you didn’t show up. Said he couldn’t wait all day. But he left a message for you. I don’t know whether you’ll want to do anything about it or not.”

  “I don’t either, unless you tell me what it is,” said Freddy.

  “I am telling you. This chipmunk lives on Macy’s farm, down on the flats. Says he’s got some information about Simon and his gang.”

  “Simon, eh?” said Freddy thoughtfully. Old Simon was the head of a large family of thieving rats who had given the Bean animals a good deal of trouble in the past. Freddy’s last fight with them had been when he had driven them out of Mr. Camphor’s attic the summer before. Since then he had heard nothing of them. He shook his head. “I’m not interested in Simon. As long as he’s not bothering me, I’m not going to bother him. Where’s he living—over at Macy’s?”

  “Search me, chum,” said the cat. “I’m just telling you what the guy said. You going over to see him?” When Freddy said no, Jinx said: “OK, maybe I’ll gallop over there myself this afternoon. He said he wanted a dollar for his information, but I guess if I give him a touch of the old third degree he’ll sing without getting paid for it. Things are kind of dull around here; I wouldn’t mind a little rat hunting. So long, old kid.”

  Chapter 2

  Mrs. Wiggins, the cow, was Freddy’s partner in the detective business. Some people thought it was pretty funny for a cow to be a detective, but as a matter of fact they made a splendid team. Pigs are full of ideas, but cows are full of common sense, and when you get that combination to work on a problem it’s pretty near unbeatable.

  They plodded along next morning up past the duck pond and through the woods, and then across a shallow valley and up a hill, from whose top they looked down on the wide lawns of Mr. Camphor’s fine estate, spread out, smooth and green, along the blue waters of the lake. They went down through the tall iron gates and up the drive to the front door.

  Bannister, Mr. Camphor’s butler, answered their ring. He was a tall man in a black tail coat, and he held his head so high and stiff that he couldn’t see anything in front of him except his nose, which pointed right over their heads at the tops of the trees outside.

  “Hello, Bannister,” Freddy said. “Is Mr. Camphor expecting us?”

  “Who shall I say wishes to see him?” inquired the butler.

  “Mrs. Wiggins and Mr. Frederick Bean.”

  “Kindly step in, sir and madam,” said Bannister, standing aside. “In the drawing room, please. I will announce you.” And he wheeled stiffly and marched out.

  “My land!” said Mrs. Wiggins crossly. “I should think we’d known Bannister long enough so he could at least say How de do.”

  “He isn’t being snooty,” said Freddy. “He’s just being a good butler. He explained it to me once. A good butler has to be dignified and formal for everybody in the house. That’s what he’s hired for—to keep everything very high class and ceremonious. That’s the advantage of having a lot of money like Mr. Camphor: if you don’t want to bother about being dignified, you can hire somebody to be dignified for you.”

  Just then Mr. Camphor came hurriedly into the room. “Freddy!” he exclaimed. “My dear fellow! And Mrs. Wiggins! I’m so glad you’ve come. And not just because I need your help either. I’ve missed you animals; began to think all my old friends had deserted me.”

  “There’s no friend like an old friend,” put in Bannister.

  Freddy grinned, remembering how Mr. Camphor and Bannister were always arguing about proverbs, and testing them out to see whether they were really true or not.

  But Mr. Camphor frowned. “I think you’ve got that one wrong, Bannister. The one you’re thinking of is ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ and I fail to see where that applies to anyone in this company.”

  “Certainly not, sir,” said Bannister, turning pink. “Forgive me, sir; I fancy I became a bit confused in the pleasure of seeing old friends.”

  “That’s real nice of you, Bannister,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “and I know you mean it. But I don’t see how you can say you’ve seen us when you’re looking over our heads all the time.”

  “The lady is right,” Mr. Camphor said. “Relax, Bannister. As you say, we’re among friends. Sit down, will you?”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Bannister, and sat down stiffly on the edge of a small gilt chair.

  “Well, Mr. Cam—that is, Jimson,” Freddy began, “we feel rather ashamed that we seem to have come only because you sent for us.”

  “If you hadn’t come when I sent for you, you’d feel ashamed, wouldn’t you? And now you say you’re ashamed because you did come. I don’t see how you can have it both ways, you’d just be ashamed whatever you did. Well, well; business before pleasure. Come meet Aunt Elmira.”

  “‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard,’” Bannister quoted.

  “Eh?” said Mr. Camphor sharply. “Really, Bannister, I’d prefer you to keep your opinion of my character to yourself. Just because you’re up before I am every morning …”

  “I beg pardon, sir,” said the butler. “I was not referring to you as a sluggard. That is a proverb.”

  “Oh, yes. Quite so. But when I mentioned my aunt, I was referring to
a female relative, not an insect. So that makes us even on referring.”

  “Freddy had a pet ant once,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “His name was Jerry. He could read and write.”

  “Very interesting,” said Mr. Camphor. “But unless we want to get hopelessly mixed up, let’s stick to the female relatives. I want you to meet them anyway, so you’ll understand why I need your help with them.”

  Miss Elmira Camphor was an enormously fat old lady who sat wrapped in shawls in a large wheel chair out on the lawn. On her head she wore a little old-fashioned bonnet like those you see in the pictures of Queen Victoria, and as they came up she peered at them through steel-bowed spectacles with an expression of deep gloom on her broad face.

  “Aunt Elmira,” said Mr. Camphor, “may I present my friends, Mrs. Wiggins and Mr. Frederick Bean, the celebrated poet?”

  The animals bowed, and Miss Elmira didn’t say anything.

  “Aunt Elmira and Aunt Minerva are spending the summer with me,” Mr. Camphor explained. “They’ve been coming up here for the summer for—let’s see, forty years, isn’t it, Aunt? Only they’ve always stayed over at Lakeside. You see over there on the far shore—that big building among the trees? That’s Lakeside. A summer hotel. But this year, Mrs. Filmore, who runs the place, couldn’t take them. Just when she was getting ready for the summer season everything went wrong: pipes burst, porches collapsed, the help left—you never heard such a hard luck story. From what I hear, Mrs. Filmore won’t even try to open the place this year. But that, you see, was my good fortune; my aunts have come to stay with me.” He didn’t look as if he felt very fortunate.

  “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” put in Bannister.

  “Eh?” said Mr. Camphor. He looked hard at Bannister. “Well, if you call …” he began, and then caught himself up. “Ha, to be sure, to be sure!” he said hastily. “A delightful summer for us all,” he added gloomily. “Eh, Aunt Elmira?”

  Miss Elmira paid no attention to the question. She was looking at Freddy, and now her mouth opened very slowly—it was like a slow motion movie of someone speaking—and she said in a hoarse voice: “Recite!”