Chapter 10

Freddy’s study was a corner of the pigpen where he kept his books and his papers, and the disguises he used in his detective work, and his stamp collection. He had an old typewriter on a rickety desk and in front of it was an old easy chair which, if you sat down in it suddenly, puffed out clouds of dust that made you choke and sneeze. The whole place was terribly dusty, but although a number of his friends had offered to tidy it up for him, Freddy wouldn’t let them. “I like it this way,” he said. “I’m naturally one of those very energetic people who wear themselves all out by working too hard and too fast. In here, now, I have to move slowly, because if I didn’t I’d raise so much dust that I’d choke to death.”

“But you might at least have the window washed,” said Mrs. Wiggins one day. “Why, you can’t even recognize your friends three feet away through that glass.”

“That’s just why I like it,” said Freddy. “It gives me ideas when I’m sitting here working at my poetry. Everything outside looks a little different than what it is. When you go by, for instance, if the window was clean, why I’d just think: ‘There goes Mrs. Wiggins,’ and I’d remember a lot of things I wanted to tell you, and would forget all about my work. But if the window’s dirty, I’d think: ‘My goodness, what can that be? Is it an elephant?’ And then I’d have something to write about.”

But Mrs. Wiggins didn’t understand what he was trying to say, and she said: “Well, if you write about me that I look like an elephant, Freddy, it’ll be pretty mean of you, that’s all I can say. My land, I know I’m big and clumsy, but I don’t think it’s nice of my friends to make fun of me.”

Freddy had quite a time explaining that that wasn’t what he had meant at all.

Today he was sitting at his typewriter, pecking out the Cast of Characters for his play. A few of the animals had told him what parts they would like to take, and this is what he already had down:

SHERLOCK HOLMES … Freddy

A G-MAN…………………Jinx

QUEEN ELIZABETH … Mrs. Wiggins

CAPT. KIDD………………Hank

Freddy was rather worried. A play has to have at least one villain in it, and so far he had nothing but heroes. He was wondering if he could persuade the rooster to play the part of the villain. If Charles was given a lot of speeches to make, maybe he wouldn’t mind being villainous and being dragged off to jail, or having his head chopped off in the last act. Only, they would have to be pretty long speeches, and when Charles got going he seldom stopped even after all the audience had left the hall.

There was a timid tap on the door, and when Freddy shouted: “Come in!”, Alice and Emma, the two ducks, waddled into the pigpen.

“Good morning, Freddy,” said Alice. “We heard about your play, and we thought we’d just stop in and see if you could possibly find any place in it for us.”

“We’d love to be in it,” said Emma. “And you know our Uncle Wesley always said that we were born actresses. I do think we might help to make it a success.”

“I’m sure you would,” said Freddy. “The main trouble now is that I haven’t any villains. Of course everybody can choose what character he wants to play. I suppose you wouldn’t want to take the parts of gangsters, would you?”

“We-ell,” said Alice doubtfully, “we’d rather thought something more like Greta Garbo. Or maybe Norma Shearer. I don’t know. Though Emma can look awfully wicked. Emma, make that tiger face for Freddy.”

So Emma stuck her head forward and squinted her eyes and glared at him. Like her sister, she was a fluffy little white duck, and she certainly didn’t look much like a tiger, Freddy thought. She looked much more like a little white duck trying to look wicked and not succeeding very well. It was all he could do not to laugh.

“That’s wonderful,” he said. “It’s really quite startling. Quite tigerish, in fact. But I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better for you to take parts that are more like you really are. After all, we need some actors in the play who will be charming and graceful, and although you, Emma, can certainly look awfully villainous, I certainly would prefer to see you being your own delightful self on the stage. And you too, of course, Alice.”

The ducks looked at each other happily, and Alice tittered slightly. “Why, Freddy, that is a very nice compliment,” she said. “Indeed I think perhaps you are right. Don’t you, sister?”

“Yes,” said Emma. “But I don’t think just being ourselves is enough. I mean, it wouldn’t be really acting, would it? I think we ought to have very sad parts, where we cry and carry on a lot—in a ladylike way, of course.”

“Dear me, do you?” said Freddy. “Well, well, perhaps we could arrange it. Suppose you are Greta Garbo, Alice, and you, Emma, are Norma Shearer, and you are—let me see, ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. That’s Mrs. Wiggins, you know. Then I’ll make up very sad parts for you.”

The ducks thought that would be nice, and Freddy wrote it down: “Alice and Emma: two ladies-in-waiting, who have had a lot of trouble.” Then he walked to the door with them, and stood looking after them as they waddled happily off toward the duck pond.

He had just started back to his work when he heard an excited quacking and fluttering, so he hurried to the door again. Alice and Emma, with their wings spread and their short little legs working like mad, were scooting up the lane towards home. “Hey, girls!” shouted Freddy. “What’s the matter? Did something scare you?” But the ducks just went on, like clumsy little overloaded airplanes trying to get off the ground.

“They’re having trouble already,” said Freddy to himself. “Something must have scared them. Maybe a snake. I’d better go see.”

So he went slowly across the barnyard to the corner of the fence. And just as he got there, something jumped out and said, “Boo!”

“Boo!”

Afterwards Freddy said that the reason he jumped so high, and ran so fast when he came down, was that his legs were startled. “I wasn’t really frightened,” he said. “Not myself. Goodness, a little thing like that couldn’t frighten me. But my legs were, I guess, and you know how it is when your legs start to go somewhere. It takes a few minutes to stop them.” But whatever the cause of it was, Freddy was inside the pigpen with the door shut before his legs stopped going. “Whoosh!” he said, and sank into his chair.

But after a minute he got up and opened the door a crack and peeked out. “Good land!” he said. For Little Weedly was standing by the fence corner, grinning. He certainly didn’t look very terrifying. Particularly as Jinx had washed his face that morning and the eyebrows and moustache were gone.

Freddy threw the door open. “Hey, you!” he said. “Weedly! Come here.”

“Hello, Cousin Frederick,” said Weedly, coming towards him. He walked with what was almost a swagger. “Scared you good, didn’t I?”

“You come in here,” said Freddy severely. “I want to talk to you.”

Weedly stopped. “You’re mad,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to you when you’re mad.”

“I’ll be still madder if you don’t come in here,” said Freddy. So after a minute Weedly came in.

“I wasn’t doing anything, Cousin Frederick,” he said. “Just scaring a couple of old ducks! And then when you came along, I thought I’d try it on you. Golly, I didn’t suppose you’d be so scared!”

“I was not frightened,” said Freddy firmly.

“What did you run for?” Weedly asked.

“I just remembered that I had left the—ah, the door open. But we are not talking about me. Please stick to the point. Alice and Emma are kind and gentle, and they’re very much smaller than you. You might have made them quite ill, scaring them like that.”

“Pooh,” said Weedly, “they’ll get over it. Besides, Mrs. Wiggins isn’t smaller than I am, and I scared her good this morning.” He began to giggle. “Gosh, Cousin Frederick, these animals around here are a scary lot, aren’t they? I should think they’d get over it after a while. I used to be scary too, remember?”

“I wish we’d let you stay that way,” said Freddy. “My goodness, Weedly, it isn’t nice to go around scaring people. You won’t be very popular if you keep it up.”

“I wasn’t very popular when I was so scary,” said Weedly. “Anyway, it don’t hurt ’em, and it’s lots of fun.”

“Well, I give you up,” said Freddy. “Only, if some animal turns around and gives you a good licking some day, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

“Pooh,” said Weedly, “there isn’t one of them that would dare.”

“Is that so! Well—” Freddy hesitated a minute and then he said: “Well, don’t try any of your tricks on Old Whibley, that’s all.”

“Who’s Old Whibley?” Weedly asked. “A lion?”

“No. He’s an owl who lives up in the woods. You know what an owl is, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” said Weedly. “Is he very big?—Not that I’m afraid of him, no matter how big he is,” he added.

“He’s a bird,” said Freddy. “He lives in a big hollow maple that’s to the right of the path, about halfway through the woods. He’s not very big. But you take my advice and let him alone.”

Little Weedly looked at him suspiciously. “Now you’re trying to scare me, Cousin Frederick,” he said. “But it won’t work. I’m going right up to the woods now. My goodness, I’m not afraid of an old bird! Boy, won’t I make that owl jump!” And he ran out of the door.

Freddy looked after him for a minute. “I hope I haven’t done wrong,” he said. “Jinx will be mad as hops if Whibley really hurts him. But just the same, we can’t have this kind of thing going on.” And he went back to his desk.

He had been working for about half an hour, glancing up occasionally at the window with an expectant air, when at last he saw what he had been waiting for: the shadow of a spider walking up and down on the outside of the panes to attract his attention. He ran out quickly, and Mr. Webb hopped down onto his ear and said:

“It’s all right, Freddy. As soon as you’d gone, Mrs. Webb climbed right down from the picture frame and into the spout of the teapot. She certainly got a nice long ride! First, Aunt Effie carried it down and hid it in the coalbin; then she took it upstairs and put it in one of Mr. Bean’s rubber boots, and then she took it back down and hid it in Mrs. Bean’s old sunbonnet that hangs behind the kitchen door. Then she started to bake a big batch of cookies. Mrs. Webb was going to get out then, because she thought I’d be worried not finding her when I got home, but she thought maybe she’d better wait a while, and it was a good thing she did, for when the cookies were done Aunt Effie put the teapot in the cake tin and piled cookies all over it and shut down the lid.”

“My goodness,” said Freddy, “that wasn’t very nice for Mrs. Webb. How did she get out?”

“Well, she had quite a time. She said she pretty nearly smothered in that teapot with hot cookies piled all around it. She got out the spout and up through the cookies as fast as she could. But she had an awful time getting out of the cake tin. You know there are some small holes in the lid, but they’d be a tight squeeze even for an ant, and Mrs. Webb isn’t as slender as she was. But she made it somehow, and got back to the picture frame all right.”

“That’s fine, Webb,” said Freddy. “We certainly owe Mrs. Webb a vote of thanks. I hope she’s feeling all right after such an experience.”

“Yes,” said the spider, “she had a good night’s sleep. And she doesn’t want any thanks, you know. We’d do anything for the Beans.”

“Well,” said Freddy, “I guess I’d better go along up to the house and do my mind-reading stunt before Aunt Effie decides to hide the teapot somewhere else. Can I give you a lift?”

“No, I must get on down to the cowbarn.” said Mr. Webb. “But there’s one other thing you ought to know. Uncle Snedeker was trying last night to get Aunt Effie to tell him where she’d hidden the teapot. But she wouldn’t. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘you mean you don’t trust me?’ Aunt Effie said no, but he couldn’t keep a secret. ‘That pig’s clever,’ she said, ‘and when he comes in here to find the teapot I’m not going to have you keep staring at the place where it’s hidden. And you know,’ she said, ‘that’s what you’d do.’ Uncle Snedeker said: ‘Pooh! that pig can’t find it!’ ‘No,’ Aunt Effie said, ‘I know he can’t.’ And then after a minute she said: ‘But you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to give them a teaparty anyway. I know how it is,’ she said, ‘to like teaparties and never be able to go to any, and so I’m going to give the animals one.’

“Well, then Uncle Snedeker said he thought maybe it was a good idea. ‘Get the animals in a good humor,’ he said, ‘and maybe they’ll let us have the teapot.’ But Aunt Effie got quite cross at him. ‘That isn’t the idea at all,” she said. ‘I tell you, Snedeker,’ she said, ‘I didn’t think anybody could teach me much about manners and politeness, but that pig has. He’s taught me that you can be polite to people even when they’re your enemies.’ Uncle Snedeker said there wasn’t anything in her etiquette book about that, he’d bet. Aunt Effie said well, there ought to be. And then Uncle Snedeker gave a kind of grunt and went off to bed.”

“H’m,” said Freddy. “So she’ll give us the party anyway. You know, that’s kind of nice of her, Webb.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Webb, “I daresay. I’m not much for teaparties myself. But if a teaparty will keep her here a few days longer, I’m all for it. Well, so long, Freddy.”

So Freddy went over to the house and rapped on the kitchen door. After a minute Aunt Effie opened it. “Well, well; what do you want?” she demanded crossly, and then seeing who it was, her face changed and she smiled and said: “Oh, it’s you, my young friend. Come in.”

Uncle Snedeker was just coming up from the cellar with a scuttle of coal. “Eh, it’s the talking pig!” he said. “Going to tell us where the teapot is. Eh, well, you can try. But you only get one guess, you understand.”

“It isn’t a guess,” said Freddy. “I know where it is.”

“Well, you’re a smart pig if you do,” said Aunt Effie, and Uncle Snedeker said: “Pooh, he couldn’t guess it in a million years!”

“I told you how many fingers you were holding out yesterday, didn’t I?”

“Just a lucky guess,” said Uncle Snedeker. He set down the scuttle and put one hand behind him. “How many, now?” he said.

But Freddy didn’t see Mrs. Webb anywhere in the kitchen, so he said loftily: “Oh, I haven’t time for those little easy tricks now. I can tell you one thing, though. You don’t know where the teapot is.”

Uncle Snedeker looked surprised. “I don’t, and that’s a fact,” he said.

“But I do,” said Freddy. “It’s covered up with cookies, in the cake tin, in the pantry.”

“Well, my good gracious I” exclaimed Aunt Effie. “He’s right, Snedeker.” She went into the pantry and brought out the tin. “Though how he knew it, I can’t imagine.”

“Peekin’,” said Uncle Snedeker. “That’s what he was doing.”

“No, he wasn’t,” said Aunt Effie. “He wasn’t anywhere around, and neither were any of the other animals.”

“Even if I had been peeking,” said Freddy, “I couldn’t have seen you hide it in the coalbin, and then upstairs in Mr. Bean’s boot, and then down here in Mrs. Bean’s sunbonnet, before you put it in with the cookies.”

“How on earth did you find out all that?” demanded Aunt Effie, staring at him in amazement. “Why it’s—it’s magic!”

“Well, ma’am,” said Freddy, “I’d rather not tell you how I did it. Maybe I will some day. But I suppose we get our teaparty, don’t we?”

“Yes,” said Aunt Effie, “you do. Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll give you the best teaparty you ever had. —Snedeker, get away from those cookies!” she said, turning quickly to slap Uncle Snedeker’s wrist, which was just disappearing into the cake tin. “I’m keeping those for the party.”

Uncle Snedeker retreated, grumbling, and Freddy said: “You know there are quite a lot of us. If you want any help—”

But Aunt Effie shook her head. “When I give a party,” she said, “my guests are company. All they have to do is to come and have a good time.”

“Have a good time!” grumbled Uncle Snedeker from the other side of the room. “A mob of animals! There’ll be a lot of dishes broken, I bet. Eh, not that it matters much. They’re the Beans’ dishes.”

“Well, naturally,” said Aunt Effie, “we don’t expect animals to have as good manners as people.”

“Don’t you worry, ma’am,” said Freddy. “We’ll all have our company manners on.”