Freddy Plays Football

by Walter R. Brooks

  “Old, your grandmother!” said Mrs. Bean. “I’m five years younger than you are, Aaron. If you are Aaron!” She pushed him away and looked at him. “I’d certainly never have known you.”

  “Well, well, I’m Aaron all right,” he said. “And I’d certainly ’a’ known you. Look of father you’ve got—round the eyes. Not the beard, of course. Remember that beard, how it tickled when he kissed you goodnight? And how he used to put it in curl papers at night?”

  “I guess you’re Aaron all right,” she said. Then she called to Mr. Bean, who was coming across from the barn. “Mr. B! Brother Aaron’s here at last!”

  “Well, I kinda thought I heard somebody tiptoein’ in the gate,” said Mr. Bean. “How are you, Aaron?”

  Mr. Doty seized Mr. Bean’s hand. “So this is William, eh? Well, well, well!”

  “He hasn’t got much of a vocabulary,” said Jinx, who was sitting with the mice in the window.

  “He’s got a good big trunk there in the back seat though,” said Eeny. “Must be planning on a long visit.”

  “My land, Aaron,” said Mrs. Bean, “you must be about tuckered out, driving so far. Come in and sit down. —Or, no, I guess we’ll have to wait a minute—the animals want to welcome you,” she said, as Charles, leading his entire family, and followed by the three cows and Freddy and Hank and the two dogs, Robert and Georgie, and Bill, the goat, strutted up to the back porch.

  Mr. Doty turned to face them. “So these are the talking animals old Boomschmidt told me about! Well, well, well! Howdy, animals.”

  Charles flew up on to the porch. “Mr. Aaron Doty, sir,” he said pompously, “as chairman of the reception committee, and as spokesman for the animals here assembled, I wish first to present you with this inexpensive, yet heartfelt token of our affectionate friendship.” He motioned with a claw to Georgie, who walked unsteadily up the steps on his hind legs with an enormous bouquet of daisies and black-eyed Susans, and presented them to the visitor.

  Georgie … presented them to the visitor.

  “Well, well, well!” said Mr. Doty. “Flowers and friendship, eh? Flowers I ain’t got much use for. Hundreds here, and only one buttonhole to put ’em in. But friendship—yes; friendship I go for. Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Also and furthermore,” Charles continued, “on behalf of all the livestock here represented, on behalf of every animal, bird and insect; on behalf of every creature that walks, flies, hops, creeps, crawls or slithers over the fields of Bean; on behalf of the inhabitants of every barn, nest, den, hole, burrow or coop on these premises, I welcome you, and extend the warm claw of—”

  At this point the animals all began to cheer. Charles looked annoyed, but when the cheering died down, he resumed. “I extend the warm claw—” Again the cheering interrupted him.

  Four times he tried angrily to go on, but each time cheers drowned him out. And at last Mrs. Bean held up her hand for silence. “Come, come, animals,” she said. “Let Charles finish.”

  But Charles was mad. He hopped down from the porch. “Let ’em make their own speech—they’re so darn smart!” he said, and stalked off towards the henhouse. So then after Mr. Doty had shaken hands with all the animals and thanked them he and the Beans went into the house.

  Freddy walked back to the cow barn with Mrs. Wiggins. Although a cow, and therefore a pretty slow thinker, Mrs. Wiggins had a lot of what is commonly called horse sense, although cows have a good deal more than horses—or indeed than some people; and Freddy valued her opinion highly. As a partner in his detective business she had solved some of his most puzzling cases. Now he said: “Charles didn’t get that warm claw extended very far, did he?”

  “I’ve been puzzling over that,” said the cow. “Wish I’d heard the rest of it. Whose claw was he talking about?”

  “Oh, that was just Charles’ highfalutin way of saying ‘Welcome.’ He was going to extend the claw of fellowship, or friendship, or something.” Freddy thought for a minute. “You know, there’s something about that Doty I don’t like.”

  “Good land,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “that’s nothing against him. I guess there’s something about everybody on this farm you and I don’t like. Even our best friends. But if they’re friends, you just have to shut your eyes to such things. Usually they aren’t very important.”

  “Goodness!” said Freddy. “Are there many things about me you don’t like, Mrs. Wiggins?”

  “Well,” said the cow, “you don’t think you’re perfect, do you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t claim that.”

  “I guess that’s your answer, then,” she said.

  After a minute Freddy said: “Well, I’m glad you like me, anyway. And I guess I’d better work a little harder at correcting my faults. What would you say was my worst one?”

  The cow shook her head. “Let’s stay friends, and you figure that out for yourself.”

  “H’m,” said Freddy. And after a minute: “Look, Mrs. W., did you notice that big trunk of Mr. Doty’s, in the back of his car? It has got initials painted on the end of it. But they aren’t his initials, which would be A. D. Don’t you think that’s funny?”

  “Don’t know as I do,” said the cow. “That boy that comes out here from Centerboro to see you all the time—Jackson, Jabez—”

  “Jason Brewer,” said Freddy.

  “Yes. Well, he has the initials C.H.S. on his sweater. But they aren’t his initials.”

  “Oh, that stands for Centerboro High School,” Freddy said. “He played on their football team last year.”

  “So that’s it!” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Well, maybe Mr. Doty played on some team. Maybe it stands for the Canastota Buffaloes, or the Catskill Bullfrogs. Did you ever do that game, Freddy, where you take somebody’s initials and make up a sentence describing them? Like with you, F.B. would be ‘fairly bright,’ or ‘fat banker’—”

  “Or ‘first-class brains,’” said Freddy. “Yeah, somebody made up one last year when the Centerboro team lost its eighth consecutive game against Tushville. They said C.H.S. meant ‘Can’t Hope to Score.’ It was about right, too—they got licked 60-0.”

  Mrs. Wiggins wasn’t interested in football. “Well,” she said, “it’s kind of funny about Mr. Doty. If he went away from Centerboro thirty years ago, and never wrote to his family or anything, he couldn’t have cared much about ’em. Why come back now?”

  “I can make a good guess,” said Freddy. “He looks shabby, and that old car of his—golly, I bet if you gave it a good wash there wouldn’t be anything left but the wheels. He’s broke, and he probably figures he can get three free meals a day as long as Mrs. Bean will let him stay.”

  “And didn’t Mrs. Bean tell Jinx that there was some money their father left them?”

  “That’s right,” said Freddy. “Half the money she got from her father was to go to him. Wouldn’t you think he’d have claimed it before this?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know about it. But I wonder how Mr. Boomschmidt happened to find him?”

  They heard something about that when Jinx came out to the barn a little later. “Boy, that Brother Aaron is quite a card!” said the cat. “Talk about adventures!—he’s been about everywhere except to the moon, and he claims he’s going there in a rocket next spring. Cousin Augustus got so excited listening to his stories that he’s got the hiccups again.”

  “How’d he find out where Mrs. Bean lives?” Freddy asked.

  “Why, ever since she asked Mr. Boomschmidt to let her know if he ever met anybody named Aaron Doty, there’s been a sign posted in the circus entrance. ‘Aaron Doty will learn something to his advantage if he will communicate with the management’—something like that. So one day, along comes Aaron, looking for a circus job, and sees the sign, and he goes in and says to old Boom: ‘What’s this about Aaron Doty?’ ‘His sister in Centerboro is trying to find him,’ says Boom. ‘Are you him?’ ‘Sure,’ says Aaron, ‘I’m her long-lost brother. Where does she live at?’ So Boom tells him and he jumps in that ban
g-buggy of his and comes along.”

  Mrs. Wiggins sighed. “How romantic!” she said. “A brother she hasn’t seen in thirty years!”

  “I guess maybe it doesn’t seem very romantic to the Beans,” said Freddy. “A brother they’ve got to hand over a lot of cash to.”

  Chapter 3

  In a short time Mr. Doty was very popular with the animals on the Bean farm. The stories of his adventures were endless, and he seemed to like nothing better than to tell them to anybody who would listen. He spent most of his time sitting on the back porch, surrounded by a crowd of pop-eyed animals, gasping at the tale of some hair-raising exploit.

  Charles was the only one that held back. His crowing, which was a signal for everybody on the farm to get up in the morning, had no effect on Mr. Doty, who simply pulled the covers over his head and went on sleeping. Sometimes it was nearly eleven before he came downstairs. This was a challenge to Charles. On the third morning he flew right up on the windowsill of the spare room and crowed as loud as he could. Mr. Doty got up all right. He got up and threw a shoe at Charles, knocked him off the sill, and badly bent one of his longest tailfeathers. Charles was pretty mad.

  One hot afternoon, Jason Brewer walked out from Centerboro to see Freddy. The pig was up by the back porch, listening with some of the other animals to Mr. Doty’s account of how he had once fought an Indian chief with bowie knives for the leadership of a tribe of Apaches. Mr. Doty broke off as the boy approached.

  “Well, well,” he said, “visitors!”

  “Hello, Jason,” said Freddy. “Come over and meet Mr. Doty.” And when the two had shaken hands: “Did you come up to go swimming in the duck pond?”

  “I thought maybe we could,” said Jason. “But if you’re too busy—”

  “Swimmer, are you?” Mr. Doty said. “Well, well, I used to do a little in that line, ’deed I did. Was on the Olympic team in—twenty-one, was it? I forget the year. Did I ever tell you, Freddy, how I once swam Lake Ontario?”

  “Why don’t you go up with us, Mr. Doty?” Freddy asked, and Jason said: “Oh, would you? You could teach us some things.”

  “Well, well, I could at that,” said Mr. Doty. “But some other time. A bathing suit I haven’t got.”

  Mrs. Bean, who was working near the kitchen window, put her head out. “I’ve got just the thing, Aaron; you wait.” She disappeared and came out presently with a brown paper package. “Mr. Bean bought this,” she said as she unwrapped it, “when we went to Niagara Falls on our wedding trip. He had some idea that he could go swimming there, I guess. But when he saw the falls he changed his mind.” She drew out the suit and handed it to her brother.

  Mr. Doty held it up and the animals giggled, for it was the kind that used to be worn fifty years ago—red and white striped, with sleeves that came below the elbow, and legs that flapped loosely around the shins.

  “Well, well,” said Mr. Doty, “so old William wore this, did he? Quite a figure he must have cut. Too small for me.”

  “Nonsense!” said Mrs. Bean. “It’ll fit fine. You go along and have your swim.”

  “I don’t believe I’d better go today,” said Mr. Doty. “My shoulder’s been kind of bothering me—it’s the old wound I got in the Spanish-American War—when we charged up San Juan Hill—”

  “You must have charged up it in your baby carriage then,” said Mrs. Bean sharply, “for you were only two when that war started.”

  Mr. Doty looked puzzled. “Well, well, is that so? I guess you’re right, Martha. I been in so many wars I get ’em sort of mixed up. Well, it don’t signify. The wound’s there, and I ought to favor it. Wouldn’t do to go in the cold water.”

  Just then Mr. Bean came around the corner of the house. “Hey, Aaron,” he said, “want to give me a hand getting that old maple by the barn down? If we don’t, the next good blow’ll topple it right over on the roof.”

  Mr. Doty hesitated for a long minute, looking at the crosscut saw that Mr. Bean was carrying. Then he said: “Why, William, I just this minute promised Freddy I’d go up and teach him some fancy diving. How about tomorrow?”

  Mr. Bean just shrugged his shoulders and went off towards the barn.

  “You go help him if you want to,” said Freddy.

  “No, no,” said Mr. Doty. “Not when I’ve given my word to you. No, sir; keep your word, no matter what it costs you—that’s my motto.”

  “But you hadn’t given your word yet,” said Jason.

  “Well, well, well; an argument, hey?” said Mr. Doty. “Why of course I hadn’t said I’d go, right out. But I’d said so in my mind. I’d made up my mind, and that’s the same as a promise, isn’t it?”

  Freddy would have liked to argue the point a little longer, but Mr. Doty got up, and with the striped bathing suit slung over his shoulder, walked across the barnyard. “Come along,” he said; and when they started after him: “Did I ever teach you the Ogallala warwhoop, Freddy? It’s a pretty ferocious sound. Makes your blood run cold when you’re camping alone on the prairie and you hear—this!” And he took a deep breath and then let out a long high screech. “Come on—try it! That’s the stuff, Freddy. Give it all you’ve got, Mrs. Wiggins—we’ll make a warrior out of you yet.” And then as they all began imitating the screech he had given, Mr. Doty waved the bathing suit around his head and started running. “Come on!” he shouted. “We’re a band of Ogallala Sioux, and we’re going up to set fire to the duck pond and scalp the ducks!” And the boy and the animals pounded after him, yelling at the top of their lungs.

  Alice and Emma, the two ducks, were sitting on the pond, entertaining a caller. The pond was really their parlor and dining room combined; the parlor was upstairs—that is, it was the surface of the pond; and the dining room was downstairs—the rich layer of mud on the pond’s bottom, where they hunted for things to eat. They were proud of their parlor, because like all ducks they looked their best on the water, where they swam easily and gracefully. On land, their movements were neither easy nor graceful; they waddled; and even some of the best-mannered animals on the farm could not help snickering when they saw the two out for a walk.

  But there were very few callers whom the ducks could entertain in their parlor. The animals usually sat on the bank, and if the ducks invited them in they always wanted to swim and splash about, which is not parlor manners and makes polite conversation impossible. But today’s caller was quite at home in the water. He was Theodore, a frog from the pool up in the woods, and he floated between Alice and Emma, with just his nose and his goggle eyes sticking out, and exchanged small talk about the weather and the local gossip.

  A third duck, Uncle Wesley, had not joined his nieces in the parlor. He was sitting under the shade of a burdock leaf on the bank, muttering grumpily to himself. “I have never associated with frogs,” he grumbled, “and I don’t intend to begin now. Horrid clammy bug-eyed creatures!”

  Alice and Emma were very much embarrassed by Uncle Wesley’s conduct. They tried to keep between him and Theodore, and they both chattered at a great rate so that the frog wouldn’t hear their uncle’s remarks. Of course Theodore did hear, but he was too polite to show it.

  Emma was just remarking that she thought we were going to have an early fall, when Alice said: “Sister, what’s that?”

  It was of course the yelling of the Ogallala Indians led by Mr. Doty, and as it approached I guess it was as frightening to ducks as to any camper on the lone prairie. Alice and Emma, quacking excitedly, spread their wings and skittered across the water for the shelter of the reeds at one end of the pond; and Theodore, after listening for a moment, dove down into the mud in the ducks’ dining room. Uncle Wesley, peering out from under his burdock leaf, saw what he thought was an armed mob charging up the slope, brandishing a red flag. They were so close that he knew it was safer to stay where he was. He crouched down closer to the ground and put his head under his wing and trembled.

  The Indians reached the pond and threw themselves down in the grass to get
their breath. Then Mr. Doty went off with Jason to put on their trunks and bathing suit. The ducks heard laughter, and familiar voices, and came gliding out from among the reeds, feeling rather foolish, and Theodore, coming up presently for air, also heard them and hopped up on the bank. But Uncle Wesley, with his head under his wing, didn’t hear anything. He stayed where he was.

  “Well,” said Freddy, “what are we waiting for?” And he walked out to the end of the springboard that Mr. Bean had put up for the animals, and jumped in. The boy and the other animals followed, until at last everybody was in but Mr. Doty.

  “Come on,” said Freddy; “aren’t you going to show us some dives?”

  Mr. Doty sat down on the bank and put his left big toe in the water, then drew it back with a shiver. “Fancy diving I never liked much,” he remarked. “Always seems too much like showing off. Anyway, my specialty was swimming races.”

  “What stroke do you use?” Jason asked. “Show us.”

  Mr. Doty shook his head. “This pool is hardly big enough for a demonstration. Terrific speed I work up—two strokes, and my head would hit the other bank.”

  “You couldn’t work up much speed in two strokes,” said Jason.

  “Ha, you don’t know me! No, you go ahead and enjoy yourselves. I’ll get in later.”

  Alice and Emma were keeping off at a safe distance from the others. “I suppose that bathing suit of Mr. Doty’s is the latest thing,” Alice said, “but I must say it isn’t very becoming.”

  “It’s in very bad taste, if you ask me,” said Emma. “So conspicuous with those bright stripes.”

  Theodore’s head popped up between them. “What’ll you bet I can’t get old Dud-dud, I mean Doty into the water?” he said. Theodore always stammered a good deal, though he really didn’t have to. He said he’d started doing it because when anybody asked him a question it gave him a little extra time to think up a good answer. And now he did it without thinking.