“Ha!” said the head caterpillar, turning to the members of his staff. “You hear that? Caterpillars not allowed. Give the order to advance!”
At once, several of the others reared up and swayed the upper parts of their bodies back and forth. The motion was taken up by the officers all along the line, and then the whole army surged forward toward Mr. Webb.
Mr. Webb said afterward that the thunder of their marching feet shook the very ground. Caterpillars have a good many extra feet but I think perhaps he exaggerated a little in this. Of course he was in a pretty dangerous spot. He couldn’t decide whether to stay and sell his life as dearly as possible, or to run away and warn the animals. But at last he decided to postpone the decision. He would go see if Freddy could think of something. He could come back later and fight, if he wanted to.
The pigpen was not far away, and in a few minutes Mr. Webb was walking up and down the outside of the window beside Freddy’s desk. Although the window was pretty dusty, he could dimly make out Freddy, sitting at the desk and he thought that this would be the quickest way to attract the pig’s attention. And sure enough, after a minute Freddy looked up, and then he came running outside.
“Hello, Webb,” he said; “I thought it was you. What’s wrong?”
“Caterpillars,” panted the spider. “Chewing up the garden. There won’t be a leaf left by night if we don’t do something.”
“Gosh,” said Freddy, “that’s bad. I wish Mr. Bean was here. The only way to stop ’em is to dig a trench across their line of march, and then pour kerosene in and set fire to it. We animals can’t do that. Well, I’ll have to go see Aunt Effie. No time to write her another note. I’ll have to go right up to the house.” He sighed and shook his head dismally. “I’d rather face a den of rattlesnakes than that broom.”
Chapter 8
Aunt Effie hadn’t slept very well that night. First, there had been the mosquito, and then there had been a lot of troublesome thoughts arising out of what had happened at the movie theater. She had been within her rights in demanding that the pig be removed. Nobody would care to have the seat next her occupied by a pig. But the manager had refused to put him out, and the audience had backed him up. It was disgraceful!
The pig had acted well, too. He had not tried to stand on what he evidently thought were his rights. He had been quite gentlemanly, preferring to leave quietly rather than cause a disturbance. Somehow Aunt Effie felt that she had not come out of the encounter very well.
And then the discovery that the pig could talk! That was more disquieting than anything that had happened to her in a long time. She didn’t really believe it, of course; she couldn’t make herself believe it. And yet, if it hadn’t been the pig who spoke, who was it?
She worried all night about these things, and at breakfast she was as cross as two sticks. Uncle Snedeker wanted to talk about what had happened at the theatre, which was quite natural, for if you have really heard an animal say something it makes a good topic of conversation. But Aunt Effie was pretty short with him.
“I do not care to discuss the matter,” she said. “If you wish to talk to pigs you are of course free to do so, but I don’t wish to hear about it.”
“Eh, but it was you that talked to the pig, Effie, not me,” he protested.
“We will not discuss it,” said Aunt Effie. “Snedeker, take your elbows off the table!”
“Eh, I’m sorry, Effie, I’m sorry,” said Uncle Snedeker, hastily drawing back his arms from the cloth. Uncle Snedeker’s manners were usually almost perfect, thanks to Aunt Effie’s training, but once in a while he would forget. It was an unlucky thing for him if he forgot when Aunt Effie happened to be sewing, because then she would rap his head with her thimble, and as he didn’t have much hair, it hurt. This morning she was across the table, so all she could do was glare at him.
Nobody likes to be glared at, particularly when he is eating. Uncle Snedeker got nervous and choked on his coffee, and then he said: “Excuse me,” and rose and went out to get the hay in.
When Aunt Effie had washed up the breakfast dishes, she went into the parlor and sat down in a chair to admire the silver teapot. It was a beautiful teapot. But what good was the most beautiful teapot if there was no one to give tea parties to? “No one but pigs!” she said bitterly. “Talking pigs!”
And at that moment there was a rap at the kitchen door, and she went and opened it and there stood Freddy.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said quickly, “but there’s trouble in the garden, and we thought you ought to know.”
Aunt Effie couldn’t seem to find her voice. She just stared.
Freddy explained. And at once Aunt Effie leaped to action. She didn’t even wait to put on her bonnet. She got a hoe and the kerosene can from the woodshed and started for the garden. “Go get Snedeker,” she called over her shoulder.
When Freddy and Uncle Snedeker reached the garden the battle was on in earnest. The beets had already been eaten right down to the ground, and the caterpillars had started on the beans. And in the little space between the first two bean rows, Aunt Effie and Robert and Georgie and the three cows were digging away with hoe and hoofs and paws. Pretty soon they had a trench dug, and Aunt Effie poured kerosene in and lit it. More animals were coming up all the time, but there wasn’t much they could do to help. If they attacked the invaders, they would do more harm than good by trampling down the beans. They stood around in helpful attitudes, and watched the smoky flames run along the trench.
Caterpillars are not very bright, and usually if there is anything between them and what they have decided to eat, they will keep on marching right through it. If it is a trench full of fire they keep on until they are all burnt up. But these caterpillars were better trained. They had learned to obey orders, which is an important thing for anybody to learn, whether he is a caterpillar or a human. So when the officers ran rippling up and down the edge of the trench, shouting: “Column right–march!” the whole army turned as one caterpillar and rolled up along the trench. And in a few minutes they had turned the end of it and were in among the beans and the lettuce and the tomatoes on the other side.
“Another trench!” shouted Aunt Effie, swinging her hoe. “Come along, you animals!” She realized that by the time the other trench was dug it would be too late. Already a dozen of the best tomato plants had been captured, and squads of hungry caterpillars were pushing in among the young corn. But she was not one to give up easily, and the animals followed her willingly.
In the meantime, Mr. Webb, unwilling to remain in idleness when there were deeds to be done, had returned to the battlefield. Not that any deeds he could do would make much difference in the outcome. A few caterpillars tied up and helpless wouldn’t save the garden. But he had an idea. He reached the trench just as the caterpillars abandoned the attempt to storm it and turned to outflank it. He dashed down the bean rows, peering through the smoke that almost stifled him. Now and then a flame, blown by the wind, licked toward him, and he darted back to avoid being burnt. But fortune favors the bold. Standing on a stone and surveying the operations with a satisfied smile, was the head caterpillar.
Mr. Webb also smiled a satisfied smile. Quickly he spun a strand of web, and holding it in his mouth he crept up behind the caterpillar. When he was close enough he jumped, and bit the caterpillar in his third right hind leg, at the same time slipping the loop around it. The caterpillar reared up and half turned around, and Mr. Webb pulled the loop around his first left front leg, quickly jerked it tight, and fastened it. Then he rolled the helpless caterpillar off the stone and after tying a few more of his legs together, hid him under a plantain leaf. “There,” he said, “I guess nobody will rescue you for a while.”
… slipping the loop around it.
Although the caterpillars were deprived of a leader, and although the second trench was nearly dug, so many of them were now in the garden that there was little hope of saving it. Caterpillars are fortunate in one respect; they can eat twenty
-four hours a day without ever getting a stomach-ache. And so, although they are small, they eat a great deal. The garden was just disappearing.
As Mr. Webb came out after hiding the leader, he saw that there was some commotion among the caterpillars. Many of them had stopped eating and were staring with lifted heads toward a corner of the garden. One whole regiment, who were now advancing on the cabbages had stopped, and seemed to be thrown into confusion. Mr. Webb climbed up a tomato vine and joined a group of them to see what they were looking at.
“Hey, spider,” said one of the caterpillars, “what kind of an animal is that?” He nodded his head toward a clump of bushes at the edge of the garden, from which a head was peering out.
It was a pretty queer kind of a head. Mr. Webb had never seen anything like it before. It looked like a pig, but it had fierce black moustaches and scowling black eyebrows. It was, of course, Little Weedly, though Mr. Webb didn’t know that. What he did know, though, was that here was a chance to give the caterpillars a good scare.
“Wow!” he said. “You boys better go while the going’s good.”
“What do you mean?” said the caterpillar.
“Just what I say. He eats caterpillars.”
“Go on!” said the caterpillar. “Are you trying to kid me or something? There aren’t any animals that eat caterpillars.”
“Is that so!” said Mr. Webb. “Well, of course, maybe you know best. Go ahead, boys. Tuck into your dinner. Maybe it’s the last one you’ll eat, so don’t waste time talking.”
This seemed to make the caterpillar nervous. “But there aren’t, I tell you,” he insisted. “I guess I ought to know.”
“You ought to,” said the spider, “but you don’t. Remember that circus that was here last year? No, I guess you don’t; you weren’t around here then. Anyway, they had this animal in a cage—at least, I suppose it’s the same animal, for he was the only one in captivity. He must have escaped. I did hear yesterday that some of their animals escaped.”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted the caterpillar impatiently, “but what is he?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? The Greater Siberian Caterpillar-Eater. Yes, sir; that’s what they called him. Eats nothing but caterpillars—all kinds. People came from miles around to see him, and some of them—Hey, where you going?” he called, for the caterpillar and his friends had dropped to the ground and were making off as fast as they could go.
In five minutes word had gone through the entire army that a Greater Siberian Caterpillar-Eater was at large and about to attack them. None of the caterpillars had ever heard of such an animal, but that made him even more terrible to them, and as each one added something to the story as he passed it on, in no time at all the whole army, with no leader to rally them, was in a panic-stricken retreat.
“H’m,” said Mr. Webb to himself, “I expect it would be sort of a joke on me if he turned out to be a Greater Siberian Spider eater. I wonder what he really is?” And then Little Weedly came out of the bushes with Jinx beside him. “Why, it’s that Weedly!” said the spider. “Who on earth painted him up like that? Well, I guess I’d better go back and tell mother about the excitement. She’ll be wild, not being in on it.”
Chapter 9
Freddy had helped in the digging of the second trench, and was watching Aunt Effie set fire to the kerosene. There was something, he kept thinking—something important that he ought to remember. Something he had seen that day,—what on earth was it? If he could only remember it, he knew somehow that it was of the utmost importance to every animal on the farm.
He looked around. Uncle Snedeker and the cows and the dogs and a whole crowd of smaller animals were standing in a big half-circle, looking on. “Every last one of them has his mouth open,” he thought. “I wonder why people can’t seem to look at a fire without having their mouths open. Open!” he exclaimed suddenly. “That’s it! The back door is open. Aunt Effie left it that way in her hurry.” He turned and ran for the house.
The kitchen door was wide. Freddy dashed through, across the kitchen and down the hall to the parlor door. But the parlor door was shut.
It isn’t an easy thing for a pig to turn a doorknob, particularly a slippery white china one. Freddy could get it in his mouth all right, but turning it was something else again. “Patience,” he said to himself. “Patience. The more haste the less speed, old boy. Anyway, she’ll be busy for a couple of hours with those caterpillars.” And finally he got it.
And there glittered the teapot among the tea things on the little table by the window.
Freddy should have seized the teapot and made off with it without a moment’s delay. But he was a poet as well as a pig of action. It was very quiet and cozy in the parlor, with the chairs pulled up about the teatable, and the large framed photographs of Mrs. Bean’s father and mother looking down from the wall. Freddy was no greedier than most pigs, but he thought how nice it would be to have tea in this pleasant room, with little cakes and sandwiches and tea biscuit and buttered muffins and doughnuts and perhaps a few candies and possibly ice cream to follow. He sat down in a deep red plush chair and pretended that he was a guest at such a teaparty, and then he began to make up a poem about it.
When day is done and shadows creep
Across the lawn, then set to steep
The teapot on the table-top
And lay aside the broom and mop
And pile the plates with little cakes
Nor think at all of stomach aches,
But gather round and fill your cups
And—
He had got as far as this when his eye, rolling in poetic frenzy, rested for a moment on George Washington Crossing the Delaware, and on the corner of the frame he saw Mrs. Webb waving frantically to him.
“Pups,” he said, “—no, that won’t do. Hiccoughs? No, no,—what is it, Mrs. Webb?”
He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but there was no mistaking the urgency of her gestures. She wanted him to hurry, to take the teapot and run. Well, perhaps she was right. She didn’t know how busy Aunt Effie was going to be for the next hour or so, of course, but perhaps it really was the sensible thing to get the teapot into safety first. He put his fore-trotters on the table, seized the spout of the teapot in his mouth, and started out of the door.
And ran straight into Aunt Effie.
“Well, well,” said Aunt Effie, closing the door and putting her back to it. “Put the teapot down, please,” she said quietly.
So Freddy put it down and she picked it up, wiped it on her apron, and set it back on the table. Then she said: “Sit down: I want to talk to you.”
Freddy sat down on a little ottoman covered with carpet which had a pattern of red roses on a pink background. He looked, and felt, very uncomfortable, partly, of course, because he had been caught, but partly, too, because he knew that pink wasn’t his color. It made him look very fat.
Aunt Effie sat down by the teatable and rested her elbow on it, and put her forefinger against her head. “I have never liked animals very well,” she said. “Especially pigs. They have no manners, and I have always found that people who have no manners can’t be trusted.”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Freddy, “but I think you can’t have known very many animals or you wouldn’t say that.” And he blushed bright pink, which was very becoming to him, because it made him more nearly the color of the ottoman. But of course he didn’t know that.
“Please let me finish,” said Aunt Effie. “Last night I refused to sit next you in the theatre. I am bound to admit that you acted very well about it. I found that though you could talk, you didn’t say anything, which seemed to me truly remarkable. I do not change my mind readily, but I began to think that maybe I had been wrong,—not about all animals, but about you.”
“The other animals on this farm are no different than I am,” said Freddy.
“Perhaps not,” said Aunt Effie. “But it was not the other animals who warned me about the garden this morning. It was you, an
d it was a very friendly act. At least so I supposed. But now I find you in here stealing my teapot.”
“It’s not your teapot,” said Freddy bluntly, “it’s Mrs. Bean’s.”
“It’s in Mrs. Bean’s house, but it is not Mrs. Bean’s teapot,” said Aunt Effie. “It belonged to my mother, Mr. Bean’s grandmother. It was supposed to be left to me.—But I don’t know why I should explain all this to a pig. Even a very exceptional pig.”
“You might have to explain it to a policeman,” said Freddy.
Aunt Effie sat up very straight. “See here,” she said, “do you mean to accuse me of being a thief?”
“No,” said Freddy. “No, not exactly. I think you think the teapot should be yours. But then why don’t you ask Mrs. Bean for it when she’s home? I know Mrs. Bean, and I know she wouldn’t keep anything that didn’t belong to her—not for two minutes.”
“Bah!” said Aunt Effie explosively. “She’s kept it ten years.”
“Then it belongs to her,” said Freddy firmly. “And I might as well tell you, Mrs. Snedeker—” He stopped, for the door had opened and Uncle Snedeker came into the room.
“Eh!” said Uncle Snedeker. “Well, pickle me and preserve me if it isn’t the talking pig! So you talk, eh? Hold conversations and make speeches and all. Eh? Come, speak up. If you can talk, why don’t you do it, eh?”
“Be quiet, Snedeker, and sit down,” snapped Aunt Effie. “How can he talk when you gabble all the time? Go on,” she said to Freddy.
“I was only going to say,” said the pig, “that we animals aren’t going to let you leave here with that teapot. If you want to stay and look after the farm until the Beans come home, that’s all right with us. But if you try to take the teapot away—well, we just won’t let you do it, that’s all.”
“Ha!” said Uncle Snedeker. “Very high and mighty, aren’t you, pig? Telling us what we can and can’t do, eh? Telling us—”
Freddy’s Cousin Weedly Page 7
