Chapter 14

Down in the barnyard Mrs. Wiggins was mustering her troops. She had been President of the F.A.R. for so long that she had got used to being in authority and giving orders, and she was a much better general than you’d expect a cow to be. The smaller animals were divided into companies of twenty, each under a leader of their own choice. Of course they couldn’t be expected to do much fighting against a creature like the Ignormus, or even against rats, but they could do a lot of shouting and running around, which is a large part of any battle anyway, and they could also be used as scouts. The center of the advance would be led by Mrs. Wiggins in person, supported by Robert, Georgie, Jinx and Minx. In recognition of his recent gallantry, Charles was assigned to command of the left wing, and under him were Henrietta, with several of their more robust children, Weedly, and a fox named John, who spent his summers on the farm. The right wing, commanded by Peter, the bear, was made up of Mrs. Wurzburger, Mrs. Wogus, Sniffy Wilson and his family, Bill, the goat, and a porcupine named Cecil.

Mrs. Wiggins had gone into the barn to get the flag of the F.A.R., which of course would be carried in the advance, when Mr. Bean drove into the yard. He had been to Centerboro to buy some traps to put in the vegetable garden, although he said he didn’t know what good they would do now: there were so few vegetables that hadn’t been stolen. When he saw the animals lined up in the barnyard, he hooked the reins around the whip socket and jumped out of the buggy.

Mrs. Bean had come to the kitchen door and was watching.

“What in tarnation is going on here?” he demanded, walking out in front of the army and looking them over as he puffed furiously at his pipe.

The animals looked at one another, but didn’t dare say anything. And just then Mrs. Wiggins came out of the barn with the flag in her mouth.

“Humph!” said Mr. Bean. “Another of your parades, hey? Tomfoolery, I call it! Why don’t you get busy and stop this thieving that’s going on? Instead of giving parties.” He looked around. “Ain’t the pig here? Freddy? Humph! Run away, I suppose. Good riddance, too. I don’t like animals that steal things.” He clasped his hands behind him and took a turn up and down with his eyes on the ground. Then he lifted his head. “Why don’t you ask,” he shouted, “if you want things? Oats, vegetables. Have I ever grudged you anything? I—I—” He stopped, glared, then turned to Mrs. Bean. “You tell ’em, Mrs. B.,” he said.

Mrs. Bean came down off the kitchen porch. She was a round, apple-cheeked little woman, with snapping black eyes. All the animals were very fond of her.

“Mr. Bean only wants to say,” she said quietly, “that he’s always been very fond of all of you. You’ve done a great deal for him, and he appreciates it. You can have about anything on this farm that you want. And so he doesn’t understand why you—some of you, that is—want to steal things from him. Is that about it, Mr. B.?”

“That’s it exactly,” said Mr. Bean. “And all this marching and flag-waving—”

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Bean. “He doesn’t think that this is any time for parading around, as if everything was all right.”

This was too much for Mrs. Wiggins. She dropped the flag from her mouth and said: “We don’t think everything is all right. And this isn’t a parade: it’s an army. We’re going out to fight the robbers, and defeat them, and make them give back what they’ve stolen.”

Mr. Bean didn’t look at Mrs. Wiggins when she spoke. It always embarrassed him to hear an animal talk. I don’t know why, but it did. But he stopped puffing his pipe so he could hear her. And Mrs. Bean said: “You know who the robbers are?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the cow. “It’s a long story, and I haven’t time to tell you now. But if Mr. Bean would only trust us for a little while—”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the cow.

Mr. Bean didn’t say anything, but he stopped puffing on his pipe so long that it went out, and that shows you how deeply he was affected. The only time I can ever remember that he stopped puffing so long that it went out before was when Mrs. Wiggins’s grandmother broke her leg, and that was way back in 1903. He stood thinking for a minute; then he said to Mrs. Bean: “Guess Hank’ll want to go along.” And he went over and unharnessed Hank from the buggy.

Now Hank hadn’t heard the stirring speeches of Charles and Freddy, and he didn’t know any more about what had been going on than Mr. Bean did, because he had been in Centerboro. And as the Beans walked back and got up on the porch to watch the army march away, he said to Mrs. Wiggins: “What’s this all about?”

“War,” said Mrs. Wiggins grimly. “No time to tell you now; I’ve got to get this army under way. But Freddy’s found out that the rats are living in the Big Woods. They’ve made some kind of an alliance with the Ignormus, and that’s what’s behind all this robbing and plundering. So we’re going to clean them out You’d better carry the flag, Hank. We can stick it through your halter.”

“Oh, I dunno,” said Hank doubtfully. “If it’s war—well, I’ve never attended any wars, and I don’t expect I’d be much good. Fighting, I suppose?”

“Who ever heard of a war without fighting?” said the cow.

“I was afraid of that,” said Hank. “Oh, I guess you’d better count me out. I never did like fighting—noisy, uncomfortable thing to do. ‘Tain’t that I’m afraid, you understand—at least I guess I’m not. Or am I? Well, maybe I am, a mite. I ain’t any hero, and that’s what you need for wars and such. I’m just an old horse that wants to be comfortable and—”

“You’re a worse talker than Charles, when you get started,” interrupted Mrs. Wiggins. “Anyhow, you’re going, so pick up that flag. As for being afraid, you aren’t any scareder than I am, and that’s the truth. But we can’t either of us back out—not when the honor of the F.A.R. is at stake.”

“Mebbe you’re right,” said the horse. He sighed, then picked up the flag, and when Mrs. Wiggins had helped him poke the staff through his halter so he could carry it upright, he moved to the center of the line. And Mrs. Wiggins stepped up beside him and shouted in her deepest voice: “Forward!”

Mr. Bean took off his hat and stood at attention as the flag of the F.A.R. went by. The army marched through the barnyard, and then spread out as it advanced across the meadows towards the woods. At the duck pond, Alice and Emma watched it go by.

“Almost seems, sister, as if we ought to be with them,” said Alice. “Though what use we’d be in a battle I can’t imagine.”

“Our Uncle Wesley always said,” replied Emma, “that it wasn’t strength that counted in warfare, it was courage. And what courage he had, what spirit! He was small, even for a duck, but do you remember the time he spoke so sharply to that tramp cat that was hanging around here?”

“He would have liked us to go along,” said Alice. “Sister, I think we should.” So the two ducks climbed out of the pond and waddled after the army, a small but very determined rearguard.

Up through the Bean woods the animals went, as quietly as possible, and then spread out by companies along the road while Mrs. Wiggins gave them their orders for the day. Charles would lead the left wing of the army into the Big Woods, keeping well to the left of the Grimby house until he had passed it, when he would swing right to get into contact with the right wing, under Peter, which would have swung around in the same way from the other side. Mrs. Wiggins would give them ten minutes’ start, and would then lead the center directly upon the house. Thus the enemy would be completely surrounded, and at a signal from Mrs. Wiggins the army would attack from all sides at once.

Freddy and Randolph were waiting as patiently as they could for the farm animals to put in an appearance. They really didn’t have to wait long. Pretty soon the silence was broken by distant sounds, rustlings and snappings, which grew to a continuous crackle and swish, interspersed with occasional crashes as some animal plunged over a fallen log. The noise grew and grew, on both sides of them, and Freddy said:

“I suppose that’s their idea of sneaking up on someone. Sounds more like a cyclone coming than anything else. Why can’t they be quieter?”

There was a tremendous crash off to the right, and then the voice of Mrs. Wogus: “I declare! I believe I’ve sprained my right horn. It hit on that tree when I fell. What’s the idea of having these trees growing all higgledy-piggledy like this? They ought to be in nice neat rows, then you’d know where you were.”

“A swell soldier she makes!” remarked Randolph. “Talk about me not being able to keep my legs from getting mixed up!”

The crashing died down gradually as the animals on the wings took up their positions. But then from behind Freddy came more sounds. The center was advancing directly upon them.

“I’m going up this tree,” said Randolph. “No place for me with this mob galloping around. See you later.” And he ran quickly up the trunk.

In a minute more Freddy could see Mrs. Wiggins’s white nose pushing through the bushes, and to the left of her, and high up, the red, white and blue banner of the F.A.R. jigged along as Hank clambered over stumps and through tangled underbrush. A dozen squirrels came bounding along ahead, and darted up trees to observation posts from which they could watch the activities of the enemy. Then the two dogs came into sight. But only the stealthy movement of a leaf here and there betrayed the presence of the two cats.

Mrs. Wiggins halted her followers behind a screen of trees and surveyed the house. All the animals with her had now seen the gun pointed at them, and the enthusiasm with which they had set out began to evaporate. Freddy ran over to them.

“It’s all right,” he said. “There’s nothing in the gun. I’ve seen to that. There’s no danger.”

“Says you!” remarked Jinx. He went over to Mrs. Wiggins. “Listen, General,” he said, “if anything happens to me, you kind of look after Minx, won’t you? She isn’t very bright, but she’s all the sister I’ve got, and—”

“What kind of talk is that on the eve of battle?” demanded the cow severely. “Get in there and fight, cat. Freddy says the gun isn’t loaded—”

Several voices were raised. “Oh, he does, hey?” “Let him walk up and look in it, then.”

“Silence in the ranks,” said Mrs. Wiggins sternly. She stepped out boldly into full view of the house. “Inside the house, there,” she called. “If there’s anyone there who has any good reason to offer why we shouldn’t come in and tear you to pieces, let him come out under a flag of truce.”

There was a scuttling and whispering inside the house, then the door opened a crack and Simon came out, carrying in his mouth a piece of white cloth which looked a good deal like the sleeve of one of Mr. Bean’s Sunday shirts.

“Why, as I live and breathe!” he said. “If it isn’t my old friend, Mrs. Wiggins!” His upper lip curved back from his long yellow teeth in a sneering smile. “How glad my master, the Ignormus, will be to hear your cheerful moo. Yes, he has been quite peevish today because he had feared to have nothing more tasty for supper than that rather insipid pig there, garnished with carrots and onions, and perhaps a few hard boiled eggs. But a whole cow, now—that is something like a meal! So you are doubly welcome—both as an old friend, and as something for supper that is big enough for everybody to have a second helping.”

“Always the joker, Simon,” said Mrs. Wiggins calmly. “But is that all you have to say? Because, if it is, we’re coming in.”

“My dear Mrs. Wiggins!” said Simon with an oily smirk. “Of course you’re coming in. A supper invitation from the Ignormus—I tell you, they are not offered to everyone.”

“H’m,” said Mrs. Wiggins; “with such a soul for hospitality, it does seem odd to me that the Ignormus doesn’t come out to greet his guests.”

“He’ll be out, never fear,” replied the rat. “But as you see, he has at first prepared a little reception for you.” And he waved a paw towards the window from which the gun protruded.

Mrs. Wiggins didn’t like the gun much. Neither, apparently, did her army. For with the exception of Hank, who stood stolidly holding the flag, all of them had become remarkably invisible. If there was going to be a charge, it looked as if she was going to make it all by herself.

Freddy, however, realized what was going on. There was no time to explain about how the gun had been unloaded. He dashed out in front of the army, and directly towards the gun. “Come on, animals!” he shouted. “Down with the Ignormus! Death to Simon and his gang! Oh, go on; shoot your old gun; who’s afraid?”

Some of the animals, afterwards—some of them, that is, who were a little envious of Freddy’s fine reputation, both as detective and as poet—said that it wasn’t very honest of him to act as if he were being a hero, when all the time he knew the gun wasn’t loaded. But Freddy knew that it needed a heroic action—at least, one that looked heroic—to get the army to attack the house. He really intended to tell everybody afterwards about the gun, and if he forgot it, and it only got around later through something Randolph said to his old mother, which was repeated to a June bug of her acquaintance, and thus passed on (for the June bug was a terrible gossip) to various insects, and thence to the animals,—well, if he forgot it, I guess we all forget things like that sometimes.

Anyway, his apparent bravery had its effect. The animals jumped up; “Charge!” bellowed Mrs. Wiggins; and Charles on the left and Peter on the right echoed the command. With a crashing of branches and pounding of hoofs and scrabbling of claws the army charged, closing in from all sides on the Grimby house. The din was terrific enough to frighten a dozen Ignormuses, for as the animals charged, they yelled; and since each animal has a different kind of yell, there was a combination of roars and squeaks and screeches and bellows such as has probably never before been brought together at any one time, even in a zoo. And the gun went off with a thunderous Bang!