XII

A meeting of the leaders of the Farmers’ Party was held in the cow-barn next morning to talk over what could be done to combat this new danger. Ferdinand, the crow, who, although a bird, was still faithful to Mrs. Wiggins, reported that on a scouting trip through the woods and the upper part of the farm he had seen more than fifty new nests. “And with each nest containing at least two voters,” he said, “you can see where that leaves us.”

Freddy had his pencil out and was figuring. “Even with the chickens on our side,” he said after a few minutes of intense concentration, “Grover can win by about seventy-five votes.”

“This is a fine business!” said Jinx. “Here we are, a dozen or so of us, who have been with Mr. Bean and done everything of importance that has been done on this farm for years. And we’re turning over the whole farm to be run by a lot of strange birds who haven’t lived here any time at all.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “I guess it’s our own fault. We ought to have made a rule that nobody could vote who hadn’t lived here a certain length of time. But as long as we didn’t, and as long as we think it’s all right for Grover to bring in a lot of outside voters, I don’t see why we can’t do the same thing.”

“More birds?” asked Jinx doubtfully.

“I don’t care what they are, as long as we’re sure they’ll vote our way. But certainly we’ve got more friends in this countryside than a stranger like Grover. Naturally, we can only bring in small animals, since they’ll have to live here for a while. We couldn’t feed a hundred cows—not if they’ve got appetites like mine. But there’s room in the different barns and sheds around the place for a thousand small animals, and there are hundreds of unoccupied trees up in the woods. Free board and lodging for the rest of the summer in pleasant surroundings—where’s the animal that wouldn’t jump at the chance?”

“Gosh!” said Jinx enthusiastically. “That’s a swell idea. What a president you’ll make! Come on, boys. Scatter. Get busy. I’m going down the valley to the flats, where all those field mice live. They owe me a favor or two. I caught their head man one night two years ago—I just caught him for fun; I haven’t eaten a mouse since I was a kitten, but they didn’t know that. So they all came out and begged me to let him go, and one of his sons even volunteered to be eaten in his place. He was much fatter and tenderer and of course was a good trade, just considered as something on the bill of fare. I was really quite touched. I made them a little speech, and let him go, and they said if there was ever anything they could do for me—Well, now they can.

“Only there’s one thing. We’ll have to provide transportation. It’s three miles to the flats.”

“I’ll take the buggy down,” said Hank.

“That’s fine,” said Jinx. “Then I can get a ride down myself.”

So the animals all started out to hunt for voters, but Freddy went back to his study to prepare the ballots for the election, which was now only three days away. The plan was to give each animal two pieces of paper when he came to the polls, one with a G on it for Grover, and one with a W for Wiggins. Then he would drop the initial that stood for his candidate into the ballot-box.

Freddy tore some paper into squares and started to work, but he had done only about twenty W’s when, glancing out of the window, he saw a man strolling through the barnyard. He was a small plump man who walked with short, quick steps and he had a face a little like a pig’s, which made Freddy mistrust him at once. For he said to himself: “When a pig has a face like a pig’s, it’s only natural. But when a man has a face like a pig’s, there’s something wrong somewhere.”

So he went out and ran after the man, who was walking past the house and pretending that he wasn’t trying to peek in the windows.

“Excuse me,” said Freddy, “is there anything I can do for you?”

“Deary me!” said the man, turning around with a very bright smile. “What a nice little piggy! And you can talk, piggy. Isn’t that lovely!”

“My name is Freddy,” said the pig. “And if there is anything I can do for you, please let me know. If not, I’m afraid—”

“You’ll go get all the other little piggies,” interrupted the man, smiling even more brightly, “and drive me off the place. Is that it? And quite right, too. You must defend your master’s property, like a brave little piggy.”

“Please stop calling me a piggy,” said Freddy crossly. “I told you my name.”

“You did indeed,” said the man. “And a very pretty name it is. Well, well, I mustn’t be thrown off the place by a piggy, so I had better tell you what I am doing here, hadn’t I? Well, I am interested in banks. Yes, I think I may say I am very much interested in banks. And I heard there was an animal bank on this farm, so I just dropped in to get a look at it. Deary me! A bank for animals! What won’t they have next!”

“The bank is down the road a little way, on the left,” said Freddy.

The man thanked him, but he didn’t go. Instead he turned and looked at the house. “And so this is the famous Bean farm,” he said. “You said the family were away?”

“I didn’t say so,” said Freddy, “but they are. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to. Good morning.”

“Business!” said the little man. “Deary me, what a farm this is, to be sure! A piggy with business to attend to!” And he laughed heartily.

But Freddy didn’t wait any longer. He didn’t like the man, and he didn’t trust him. Of course the Bean animals were known all over the country, and their exploits had been written up in newspapers and magazines, and people often came to see them and take their pictures and exclaim over them and generally act, as Jinx said, “as if we were Niagara Falls or something.” Such people were a nuisance, but usually they weren’t anything worse than rather silly. Freddy felt about this man, however, that there was something wrong about him, and so instead of going to work when he got back into his study, he watched through the window.

The man walked all around the house, looking at it carefully, and smiling all the time. He peeked in the windows and even tried the door. And then he went off with his little quick steps toward the bank. “Oh, dear!” said Freddy, and he hurried out and down to the bank the back way, and when the man got there he was sitting behind the counter.

“Deary me!” said the man, as he came in the door. “Another piggy! A banker piggy. Will wonders never cease?”

“I’m the same piggy,” said Freddy. “That is, I’m Freddy. And stop calling me piggy, will you?”

“Certainly, my little piggy-wig, certainly,” said the man. “No offense, now. I just wanted to have a look at your charming bank. You have a good deal of money on deposit, I suppose? Actual cash, that is?”

“We don’t give out information to strangers,” said Freddy.

“Quite right,” said the man. “Very sound practice. And your safe-deposit vaults, now—they’re just under the floor?”

Freddy didn’t say anything.

“Deary me, I’m afraid you don’t like me, piggy-wig,” said the man. “And I’m very fond of piggies—yes, I am.”

“With plenty of gravy, I suppose,” said Freddy sarcastically.

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” said the other. “That’s certainly one way of looking at it.” And he gave Freddy one of his too bright smiles, and said good morning, and left.

“If he comes around here again,” said Freddy to the squirrel on guard at the vault entrance, “let me know right away. The bank is going to be closed until after election, but I want you or one of your brothers to be on guard all the time.”

“Yes, sir,” said the squirrel respectfully, and Freddy watched the man through the window until he was out of sight round a bend in the road; then he went back to the study. And there was John.

“News for you, Freddy,” said the fox. “There’s another candidate for the presidency.”

“What!” said Freddy. “Do you realize how many of these things I’ve had to make out? Three hundred W’s and three hundred G’s, and now even that won’t be enough. Now I’ve got to make out a whole new set?”

“Guess you have,” said John. “Marcus is going to run.”

“Marcus!” Freddy exclaimed. “That rabbit? Why, nobody’d vote for him. Is it a joke or something?”

“I don’t know what it is,” said John, “but there’s something funny about it. Marcus just announced it at a meeting Grover was speaking to in the woodshed. Grover let him talk, and even got up and congratulated him when he said he wanted to run for president. Grover said he showed fine public spirit, and he welcomed him as a worthy opponent, or something like that. And then yesterday I saw Simon talking to Marcus down by the duck pond. There’s some trick in it, and Grover and Simon are both in it.”

“Probably a trick on me,” said Freddy. “That’s three hundred M’s I’ll have to get ready now. Nobody’ll vote for a rabbit, but I suppose I’ll have to give them a chance, and that means an M ticket for everybody.

“It’s a queer thing, though,” he said after a minute. “I agree with you, John, there’s some plot of Simon’s and Grover’s behind it. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how they will benefit by it.”

They talked for a while about the political situation, and then John’s quick ears caught the sound of a horse’s hoofs coming up the hill at a trot. They ran out as the hoofbeats broke into a gallop and came nearer and nearer until in through the gate dashed Hank, drawing behind him a buggy crammed to the dashboard with field mice, who were singing and shouting and yelling: “Faster! Faster!” at the top of their lungs.

the sound of a horse’s hoofs

“What’s got into Hank?” said Freddy. “He hasn’t run like that in ten years.”

The buggy circled the barnyard once and then stopped, and the mice piled out. There were about a hundred of them, and a wild crew they were. “Hurray for the F.A.R.!” they shouted. “When do we eat? Where’s the place we’re to live in?”

“Where’s Jinx?” Freddy asked Hank.

“They pushed him out down the road about a mile,” Hank panted. “You’d ha’ laughed yourself sick, Freddy. Bunch of mice gangin’ up on a cat. They yelled to me to run away from him and let him walk home. Then Jinx got mad, and I was afraid he might hurt some of ’em, so I did run. Well, I dunno—maybe it seemed kinda funny to me, too. Anyway, I ran.—Here’s Jinx now.”

The cat, very dusty and out of breath, loped in the gate. Then he stopped and stared at the field mice, his whiskers twitching angrily, and the mice quieted down at once, although they kept giggling and nudging one another.

“Smart, hey?” he said. “Well, you’re too smart for us. Go on home, the lot of you. We don’t want you. Maybe a three-mile walk will cool you off a little.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” put in Freddy. “We need these mice, Jinx. You can’t send ’em back after you went all the way down to get ’em.”

“It was just a joke,” said one of the mice. “But if the cat can’t take it, why, sure, we’ll go home. He was pushing us around in the buggy and having a swell time, and then when we pushed back, he don’t like it.”

“How about it, Jinx?” said Hank. “You really want to send ’em back and lose all these good votes?”

“Well,” said Jinx, “I don’t like mice playing jokes on a cat. It—it isn’t dignified. And you’d better not try it again,” he said, glaring fiercely at the mice, “or I may forget myself.

“All right, Freddy,” he added, turning away. “You show ’em their quarters. I want nothing more to do with them.” And he stalked off.

All that afternoon the new settlers came marching into the barnyard. Georgie and Robert collected fifty rabbits from neighboring farms and persuaded them, with a promise of free lettuce and protection from hawks and weasels, to set up housekeeping in the lower meadow. Ferdinand flew twenty miles north and interviewed a cousin of his who was chief of a large band of robber crows that lived in the high woods and flew out daily to plunder the neighboring farms. The chief, whose name was Lester, held out for a high price, but finally agreed, for ten sacks of corn, to bring the band down and settle in Mr. Bean’s woods for a week, until after election. By night there were several hundred new citizens of the F.A.R., all of whom could be counted on to vote the straight Wiggins ticket. Mrs. Wiggins’s election, Freddy felt, was assured.