Freddy the Politician

by Walter R. Brooks

  “Good morning, Mrs. O’Halloran,” said Mr. Weezer.

  “Good mornin’ to you, sir,” said Freddy. “I’ve come to do business with you.”

  “Good,” said Mr. Weezer.

  “’Tis an agreement I want from you, Mr. Weezer,” said Freddy. “You’ll agree that the day the First Animal makes a rule that it will take no more business from anybody but an animal or a bird, you will do certain things.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Weezer, “and what are the things?”

  So Freddy told him, and after a little argument Mr. Weezer agreed. And he wrote out the agreement and signed it. And when Freddy had folded it up and tucked it away in the shopping bag, he took off his sunbonnet.

  Mr. Weezer’s mouth and eyes flew open as if they had little springs in them, and his glasses didn’t fall off—they jumped. And he said: “A pig!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Freddy. “And very glad not to have to talk that Irish stuff any more, for it was beginning to get the best of me, and if it had gone on much longer, I would never have been able to talk anything else.”

  Mr. Weezer leaned down and brushed up the fragments of his glasses from the floor and threw them into the wastebasket.

  “I’m sorry about the glasses,” said Freddy.

  “They’re only window glass,” said Mr. Weezer. “As a matter of fact, I can see better without them. I only wear them because it makes me look more like a bank president.”

  “I never thought of that,” said Freddy. “I shall have to get a pair. That is, if the First Animal stays in business.”

  “What!” said Mr. Weezer. “You are Freddy, the president of the First Animal? The famous detective? Of course, I might have known.”

  “You might,” said Freddy, “but you didn’t. And now, as one bank president to another, and to be perfectly frank with you, I don’t want to injure the First National, and from now on the First Animal will do business only with animals. And now for your part of the contract.”

  So Mr. Weezer sat down and wrote the following letter:

  Hon. Grover

  President First Animal Republic

  Bean Farm, N.Y.

  Honored Sir:

  Having learned of the magnificent project which you have recently undertaken, and of the glorious victories of your armies, on which I heartily congratulate you, I take the liberty of writing to ask if you will do me the favor of calling on me at my home tomorrow evening, Friday, at eight o’clock. Knowing that you are a banker of wide experience, there are several matters which I should like to discuss with you. I need hardly point out that in waging a war of conquest, it is important to have the bankers on your side. I am on your side, respected sir, but in order to be practically useful, I feel that we should come to an agreement.

  Awaiting your esteemed reply, I am,

  Yours respectfully,

  Henry Q. Weezer

  President, First National Bank of Centerboro

  The letter was sent at once by messenger, and half an hour later a starling flew in the bank window carrying Grover’s reply in his beak. Mr. Weezer opened it and spread it out on the table. It had been written on Freddy’s typewriter, and there were a good many mistakes in it, for Freddy was the only animal on the farm who could use a typewriter. But it speaks very well for Grover, I think, that he had been able to type it at all.

  mR. Hen!yQW33zer

  president Frst Nat.Bank

  centerboro

  Inreply to yours of eveb date

  wish tolstate#I SHall

  be plexscd to waitt on/you

  at ¢ at $ at 8 o(clok onevening

  of FRIDAY MAY *—may @¢

  may *!3!” i will bethere

  Grover President FAR

  “Good!” said Freddy. “I thought he’d come. I expect he was pretty thrilled to be asked to call on a real banker in his home. Well, now for our arrangements.” He put on his bonnet and hurried back to the sheriff’s barn, where Jacob was waiting to carry his instructions to the farm.

  XVIII

  Mr. Henry Weezer lived at 125 Winker Street in Centerboro. Mrs. Eliza Blench, who lived at No. 124, across the street, and who always wrote down in her diary whatever she saw going on through her front parlor window curtains, was kept pretty busy that Friday. She wrote so fast and furiously that by nine o’clock in the evening she ran out of ink and had to go upstairs and borrow some from her boarder, Mr. Wilfred Attlebury. But by the time she got back, everything was all over.

  Some of the entries in Mrs. Blench’s diary have nothing to do with our story, such as the one at 9.15 a.m., about the little Linderman boy falling off his velocipede, and though interesting enough if we only had time for them, I shall have to leave them out. But here are some that she wrote down about No. 125:

  8.30 a.m. Mr. Weezer left for the bank. Looked worried.

  9.05. Boy from Lieber & Wingus delivered large fire-extinguisher at Weezer’s.

  10.15. Old lady in sunbonnet let herself in Weezer’s front door with key. Query: new housekeeper?

  11.04. Large swarm of wasps on Weezer’s front porch.

  11.20. Wasps all flew in through open window. Must warn Mr. W.

  12 m. Very strange thing has just happened. Two roosters came down the street, stopped in front of Weezer’s, looked at the house, then flew in through parlor window.

  1.33. Queerer and queerer. Two large birds just flew in W.’s parlor window. If I had ever seen an owl, I should say they were owls.

  2.05. Called up Mr. Weezer at the bank and told him about owls and roosters. Also wasps. Offered to go over and shoo them out. Was told politely to mind my own business. Hope he gets good and stung.

  3.15. I simply cannot understand this at all. An old white horse just came down the street, climbed up on Mr. Weezer’s porch, and rang the front doorbell with his hoof. Was admitted by little old woman, still wearing her sunbonnet. Before the door was closed, a cat and two dogs dashed around the house and in after the horse.

  admitted by little old woman

  4.25. Just back from Dr. Payne’s. He says my glasses don’t need changing. Says my eyes are all right. Didn’t tell him about horse.

  5.04. Horse just looked out of W.’s parlor window. Saw me, and grinned and waved hoof at me.

  At this point Mrs. Blench’s writing becomes so bad, and her words so confused, that the diary is too hard to read. But it is plain that all day long, by ones and twos, the animals had been sneaking away from the farm and gathering at Mr. Weezer’s. Mostly, of course, the small animals; for the absence of the bigger ones would have been noticed by Grover. Mrs. Wiggins and the others hadn’t really wanted Hank to go, but he had insisted, and as Hank rarely insisted on anything, they thought it better to humor him. It was easy enough for Hank, anyway, for he had some plowing to do in one of the upper lots, and it was not noticeable when he slipped out of his harness and trotted off toward Centerboro.

  Grover, indeed, didn’t notice anything at all. At the head of an army which now, with all the new farms he had added to the F.A.R., was nearly three times as large as it had been at first, he returned from a forced march of six miles to annex three small hill farms, and late in the afternoon held his usual court in the loft over the barn. He was in very high spirits. For an invitation to call on the most important banker in the county wasn’t something that everybody got. Probably no woodpecker before him had ever been so honored. That there might be danger in going never even crossed his mind. Bertram was always kept wound up tight, and he was certainly a match for any five animals on the farm. But none of them, he felt sure, would dare to attack him, for they could only fail, and his punishment would be swift and sure. Besides, they had been pretty quiet lately. Evidently they had given up hope of ever defeating him. Even old Whibley hadn’t made a raid in two days.

  So at seven thirty that evening, leaving John Quincy and X in charge of things, Grover, accompanied only by Lemuel and Eliphalet, pulled the levers that made Bertram walk, and steered him for Centerboro.
>
  It was a pleasant walk, in the cool of the evening, with an important banker at the end of it, and Grover’s mind was filled with dreams of empire when he mounted the steps of Mr. Weezer’s porch and rang the bell. A little old lady in a sunbonnet opened the door and dropped him a curtsy, and ordering the two herons to stand guard outside, Bertram strode in.

  And at the sight Mrs. Blench, leaning panting on the windowsill, with her nose to the pane and her eyes goggling almost out of her head, fumbled with shaking fingers at her fountain pen.

  Mr. Weezer’s front parlor was a good deal like Mr. Weezer: that is, it had not changed its appearance much in fifty years. There were a lot of black-walnut chairs with slippery horsehair seats, and a large center table covered with a red table-cover, and a whatnot containing a collection of minerals Mr. Weezer’s grandfather had collected. There were some crayon portraits of some very forbidding-looking people, and there was a bunch of gilded cattails in a blue jar. There was also a stuffed owl over the mantelpiece. And in one of the chairs was a brand-new fire-extinguisher—one of the brass cylinder kind with a handle at one end, which works like a pump that you pump up tires with.

  “Good evening, sir, good evening,” said Mr. Weezer, coming forward and holding out his right hand.

  “Good evening,” said Grover. And his right arm started to move and then dropped, and he held out his left hand. “You will excuse my left hand,” he said, “but the right one doesn’t work well.”

  Freddy, hiding behind the door, stifled a groan. He felt sure that Grover, always very correct, would rather take the chance of having his right arm throw Bertram’s machinery out of kilter than offer his left hand. However, he had several tricks yet to try.

  “Lovely weather we’re having,” said Mr. Weezer, as they sat down. “I don’t know when I’ve known it to be finer.”

  So they chatted a few minutes about the weather, and then there was a tap on the door and Mr. Weezer’s housekeeper brought in a tray.

  “I thought you might like some refreshment after your walk,” said Mr. Weezer. “Perhaps a cup of tea? And a little cake?” He handed Bertram a cup of tea, which the clockwork boy took in his left hand, and then passed him the cake.

  Now, this was a very clever trick of Freddy’s, I think. For in the first place, Grover, priding himself on his good manners, would be anxious to show that he knew how to manage a cup of tea and a piece of cake without setting anything down on the table. And that is one trick that you can’t possibly do with one hand. And in the second place, one of Bertram’s best tricks was eating things. Of course he was all clockwork inside, but his mouth opened and shut, and when you pushed a piece of cake in, his mouth shut behind it, and there it was on a little wooden tray, all ready for the engineer to eat if he wanted it. As for the tea, if Bertram drank tea, it just splashed down on the clockwork and did no harm, because the wheels were of brass and couldn’t rust.

  Well, Bertram took the cup and saucer in his left hand, and then his right hand came up a little way as if to select a piece of cake. There was a pause, and a click inside Bertram, and all the hidden animals held their breath, and Mr. Weezer’s glasses nearly fell off, and if Grover had been looking at the stuffed owl over the mantel he would have known something was wrong. For the owl blinked rapidly three times.

  But then Bertram’s right arm sank down, and he said: “Thank you, no. No cake.”

  “What, no cake?” said Mr. Weezer.

  “No cake,” said Bertram firmly. “And, thank you, no tea. I’ve just had my supper, and I couldn’t eat a thing. I hope you don’t mind?”

  “No, no,” said Mr. Weezer hastily. “Certainly not.” And he looked pretty unhappy. For he had tried twice, and failed, to make Bertram move his right arm. And the third and last trick which Freddy had thought up was one which he had protested against for a long time before agreeing to have it tried.

  Mr. Weezer talked on awhile about the weather, but he was so nervous that he took a large bite out of his saucer instead of his piece of cake and had to go out and get another one. And when he returned he got terribly mixed up. “Yes, yes,” he said, “the weather, now. Such a lot of it as we’ve had! Day after day, nothing but weather, weather, weather. I don’t know what people are thinking of, to be sure.”

  “Weather never affects me,” said Bertram, and then suddenly he sat up very straight. “What’s that?”

  Mr. Weezer’s front parlor had two windows on Winker Street, and two doors: one into the hall and one into the back parlor. And suddenly at each of the windows appeared a red glow that grew brighter every second, and heavy smoke, shot through with bright flashes of flame, poured in at the doors.

  Now, if there was one thing Grover was afraid of, it was fire. For Bertram was made almost entirely of wood. And he was a year old now, and good and dry from sitting month after month up in the loft.

  Bertram jumped up and went to the hall door, but the flames flared up brighter, and he dashed for the other door, only to be driven back into the room.

  “Can’t get out here!” called Mr. Weezer from the window. “Flames are licking the windowsills. Get the fire-extinguisher!” And suddenly he toppled and fell in a heap, as if overcome by the smoke.

  Now, it was only the animals burning red fire at the windows, and burning newspapers in washtubs outside the doors. But Grover didn’t know that. He saw himself trapped. He thought he could probably get through either the doors or the windows, but he saw there were flames there, and if a flame got one good lick at Bertram, there would be no way of putting him out. And without Bertram he could not rule the F.A.R.

  There is only one way to work a fire-extinguisher, and that is with two hands: one to hold it, and one to pump. Bertram picked the extinguisher up and turned it on the door. But he hadn’t pumped it more than twice when there was a loud click inside him, a whir and a rattle, and then his right arm seemed to go crazy. It whirled around three times, smashing Mr. Weezer’s chandelier—which wasn’t a very pretty one, however—and then grabbed his left leg and tried to pull it off. Then it did several other odd things, while inside Grover tugged frantically at the levers, and finally it did the thing it had done once before—it reached around behind and opened the little door and pulled the operator’s tail-feathers.

  Immediately the wasps swooped from behind the crayon pictures on the walls, and although the door shut again, there were ten of them inside with Grover. It was more than flesh and blood could stand—even the flesh and blood of imperial Grover. He wrenched open the door with a claw and flew out into the room, and the wasps followed him—not stinging, but merely buzzing and circling until they had driven him cowering into a corner. And old Whibley, who had been posing as a stuffed owl over the mantel, dropped down and held him with one claw until the animals came in out of the hall.

  Bertram was lying on his face, thumping the floor heavily with his right arm. Ronald climbed into the little control room and managed to quiet him down. The room was full of smoke, but there was no fire to be seen, and Mr. Weezer was standing by the whatnot, panting with excitement.

  “Congratulations!” he said to Freddy. “As one bank president to another, I’ve never seen a smarter piece of work.”

  XIX

  At ten o’clock that night Bertram came clumping up the stairs to the loft. The place was in an uproar. Eliphalet and Lemuel had returned a little earlier with a story of having been driven from their posts on Mr. Weezer’s doorstep by a party of eagles, and of having watched from a distance the destruction of Mr. Weezer’s house—and of course of Mr. Weezer and Bertram—by fire. The party of eagles was Vera, who, because she could see in the dark, had been able to make short work of the herons. And the destruction by fire was a slight exaggeration, due to the herons’ anxiety to tell a good story.

  A silence fell when Bertram came up the stairs, and John Quincy said: “Father! We were just about to send out a rescue party.”

  “There is no need, my son,” said Bertram, with his voice turned
up so high that it was impossible to tell whether it was Grover’s or not. “A dastardly attempt was made on my life, but it has been foiled, and the conspirators will be punished. Eliphalet, and you, Lemuel, you deserted me in my hour of need. Go! Never let me see those beaks again!”

  The herons looked at each other.

  “That’s gratitude for you!” said Eliphalet.

  “Well, it’s all right with me,” said Lemuel. “I never did think much of this job. Boy, will I be glad to get back to the swamp!”

  “Me too,” said Eliphalet. “The heck with this military rank and martial glory. A couple of nice shiners for supper, and then a good snooze on one leg. Come on, Lem.” And the two walked to the window and spread their wings and disappeared in the darkness.

  “Father,” said John Quincy, “let me take your place tonight in Bertram, and you perch on the rafters and get a good night’s sleep.”

  “No!” shouted Bertram. “Go to bed, all of you. Staff meeting and general audience at dawn, as usual.” And he sat down in the chair.

  The birds, after whispering together for a few minutes, settled down and tucked their heads under their wings. But Simon, who had been looking a little puzzled, lifted his chin at Ezra, and followed by their entire family, the rats went down to the feed-bin, where they had taken up residence.

  Now, the feed-bin had a cover, and the whole bin as well as the cover was lined with tin. When Grover’s decree had given the rats the freedom of the feed-bin, they hadn’t bothered to build for themselves in the barn any of the winding tunnels with many exits which are so useful in time of trouble and which make it so hard to drive rats from a barn they have once settled in. They had been so sure that Bertram would always keep the upper hand that they had merely got him to raise the cover of the bin. And here they were all now gathered.

  “Children,” said Simon, “there is something strange going on. Something queer. I don’t like it.”

  “In other words, Father,” said Ezra with a laugh, “you smell a rat.”