The animals hurried in across the lawn. But they had hardly got the rope looped around the deer’s neck when Mrs. Underdunk, followed by her brother, came out on to the lawn. “Back to the hedge,” whispered Freddy. “They can’t see us until their eyes get used to the dark.”
“It’s all that wretched pig,” Mrs. Underdunk was saying. “It was he that made that announcement about the deer; not the senator.”
“He wants it for their scrap pile,” said Mr. Garble. He peered nervously out into the darkness. “It is still there.”
“And it’s going to stay there,” said Mrs. Underdunk. “I have no objection to giving any old iron that we have no use for, but I certainly don’t intend to give up that deer, whether the government needs it or not.”
“You shouldn’t have offered to give it up, then,” said Mr. Garble.
“How could I help myself after that announcement, and everybody praising me for being so patriotic!”
“Well,” said Mr. Garble, “they won’t praise you if you don’t give it up now.”
“You’ve got to get it, Herbert, before anybody else does,” said Mrs. Underdunk, “and hide it in the barn. You can say you sold it to the junk man. When the war’s over I can bring it out again. I’d like to kill that pig!”
“I intend to kill that pig,” said Mr. Garble.
“Well, go ahead and kill him,” said Mrs. Underdunk. “You talk a lot about it, but people are beginning to laugh at us. Even Judge Willey says now that he guesses you wouldn’t make a very good sheriff if you can’t get the best of a pig.”
“You can’t get the best of him yourself,” said Mr. Garble. “He’s got your iron deer away from you.”
“He hasn’t got it yet,” said Mrs. Underdunk, and turned and went back into the house, and after a minute Mr. Garble followed her.
“All right, animals,” said Freddy, and they rushed back to the deer. Mrs. Wiggins and her two sisters, Mrs. Wurzburger and Mrs. Wogus, hooked the rope around their horns and the deer went over with a crash.
“We ought to have waited till the music starts again,” said Jinx. “I bet they heard that. Pull, girls! Out through the gate.”
Mrs. Underdunk had indeed heard it, for she came to the window and looked out, then turned and called: “Herbert! Herbert!”
There was a pile of small branches at one side of the lawn where someone had been trimming the trees. Freddy rushed over to it and pulled out several small ones. “Here, Hank,” he said. “You’ve got to be the deer. We’ll tie these on for antlers. No, no time to tie them. Take ’em in your mouth.”
The cows, assisted by all the smaller animals who could get their teeth on the rope, were dragging the deer out of the gate. Hank took some of the branches in his mouth and Freddy arranged them so that they did indeed seem to sprout out above the horse’s head like a pair of antlers.
“Now, hold your head up,” said Freddy. “And stand perfectly still.” He giggled. “You make a wonderful deer, Hank. You look just like that picture in the Beans’ dining room, of the Monarch of the Glen.”
“Looks more like the Monarch of the Milk Wagon,” whispered Sniffy Wilson. “Psssst! Here they are.”
Looks more like the Monarch of the Milk Wagon.
Mrs. Underdunk and Mr. Garble came hurrying out on to the lawn. They stopped, peering through the darkness at Hank.
“Why … it’s there!” exclaimed Mrs. Underdunk. “But when I looked out the window I was sure it had gone.”
“Well, it’s there now,” said Mr. Garble crossly. “I keep telling you: Those animals couldn’t possibly take it away.”
“But it looks—different, somehow,” she said. “It looks white, instead of brown. And—surely it never had a long tail! No deer has a tail like that. Where’s your flashlight?”
“I lost it. But why do you worry so? It’s there, whatever kind of tail it’s got. Look at it in the morning.”
“I’m going to look at it now,” said Mrs. Underdunk, and started across the lawn.
“Well, I’m not,” said Mr. Garble. “There are skunks around tonight.”
“Don’t be vulgar, Herbert,” said Mrs. Underdunk. “There are no animals of that nature in my grounds.” And she went on.
Sniffy Wilson started out from behind the bush where he and Freddy were crouching. He looked over his shoulder at the pig. “Shall I, Freddy?”
“No, no, Sniffy,” whispered Freddy. “Better not.”
“Oh, rats!” said Sniffy. “What’s the good of being a skunk anyway?” But he went out into the middle of the lawn.
Even at night it is easy to see a skunk because of the broad white stripe down his back, and as soon as Mrs. Underdunk saw Sniffy she stopped. “Shoo!” she said.
But Sniffy kept right on coming.
“Well, dear me!” said Mrs. Underdunk, and stepped to one side to go around him. But Sniffy moved to the same side and blocked her. Several times they did this, and Freddy saw that Sniffy was doing the dance step that the senator had tried to teach Mrs. Underdunk: two to the right, kick, two to the left—he began to giggle.
Up to that moment Hank had been standing perfectly motionless, and it hadn’t been easy, either, with Mrs. Underdunk and Sniffy dancing a minuet right in front of him. But when Freddy giggled, Hank broke down and laughed. And when he laughed he opened his mouth and the branches fell out of it, and then he wasn’t a deer any more, he was just an old white horse, and Mrs. Underdunk turned and ran back to the house.
“Herbert!” she cried. “Get the station wagon. They’ve got the deer!”
In three minutes the station wagon swung out of the gate with the chauffeur driving and Mr. Garble sitting beside him with a shotgun in his hands.
The cows had dragged the deer a little way down the road, and when they saw the lights of the station wagon behind them they tried to pull it off into the ditch and out of sight. But they were overtaken before they succeeded. They dropped the rope and galloped off across the fields. And Mr. Garble got out and tied the rope to the rear bumper.
When the station wagon got back to the gate, dragging the deer behind it, it stopped, and the two men got out and tried to lift the deer into it. They heaved and tugged and panted, but it was a big deer and they could only get one end of it an inch or two off the ground.
Freddy had been watching from behind a gate post. He saw that they had left the engine running; and he knew that this would be the last chance to get the deer. He had never driven a car, but he had ridden in one often enough. “Just push a few levers around and step on the gas,” he said to himself, “and off you go. Nothing to it.” So he rushed out and made a flying leap into the driver’s seat. And then I don’t know what happened, but I guess he must have pushed the wrong levers around, for the station wagon gave a sort of jerk forward as if someone had stuck a pin in it, and let out a roar like a wounded lion. The jerk threw Freddy on the floor, and the next thing he knew the chauffeur was sitting on his head and Mr. Garble was tying his legs together with a piece of cord.
“There!” said Mr. Garble, getting up. He smiled wolfishly at Freddy. “I guess that finishes the Bean Home News!”
Chapter 14
Freddy stood on top of a rickety table and looked out through the iron bars of the little window. There wasn’t much to see. A yard full of weeds, and a fence overhung by straggling lilac bushes, and beyond the fence, a field that sloped up to the top of a ridge beyond which, as far as Freddy was concerned, there was nothing. He didn’t recognize any of it. He knew he must be within a mile or so of Centerboro, for the station wagon hadn’t driven far before it had stopped, and Mr. Garble and the chauffeur had carried him down the stone steps into this cellar and untied him. Then they had got poles and pried at the deer, levering it along until it had slid down the steps after him. And then they had closed the flaps of the cellar door and he had heard them drive away.
Freddy hadn’t been able to do anything in the dark, and he had very sensibly tried to sleep. But the earth floor
was hard, and he had had a pretty bad night. As soon as daylight began to come through the little barred window, he got up and explored his prison. There were no stairs up into the house above him; the only ones were those down which he had come from the outside. And the door was either locked, or had had stones piled on it; he pushed with all his might but couldn’t lift it. Besides himself and Mrs. Underdunk’s iron deer, there was nothing in the cellar but the rickety table and a tattered easy chair. He had tried to sit in the chair, but his weight made the broken springs poke up through the upholstery, and he got up faster than he had sat down. So he pulled the table under the window and climbed on it, and looked out.
There were a number of goldfinches and warblers flying around in the lilac bushes, and Freddy thought if he could only attract their attention, he might get one of them to fly up to the Bean farm and tell his friends where he was, so they could come rescue him. They were flitting about and chasing one another and chattering at the top of their lungs, and at first they paid no attention to him. And then suddenly they all seemed to catch sight of him at the same moment, and the whole flock flew over and perched on weeds and twigs and peered at him.
Freddy stuck his nose out between the bars. “I beg your pardon,” he said politely. “I wonder if you would be good enough to—”
But none of them would listen to him, for they all began chattering at once.
“What is it—an animal? Do you suppose he lives in that cellar? Isn’t he quaint, girls? Honestly, did you ever see anything so funny!” And they laughed until they rocked back and forth on the weed stalks.
“He looks ferocious to me,” said a song sparrow. “Maybe he eats birds.”
At this, with a whir of wings, the flock burst from the weed patch and took refuge in the lilacs. But in a minute or so they were back, giggling and poking fun at Freddy, until their silly chittering laughter so enraged him that he abandoned politeness and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Shut up!”
At that, they quieted down. “You don’t have to lose your temper,” said the sparrow.
“I’m sorry,” said Freddy. “But I was simply trying to ask you a civil question—”
“‘Civil,’ he calls it!” chirped a goldfinch. “Telling us to shut up!”
Freddy apologized again. “I just wanted to find out where I am,” he said.
“That may be a civil question,” said the sparrow, “but it’s a very silly one. You’re in the cellar. Where did you think you were—on the roof?” And they all laughed again.
Freddy kept his temper as well as he could. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Of course I know I’m in the cellar. What I want to know is—where is this cellar?”
“That’s easy,” said a yellow warbler. “It’s right behind you.”
“You’re very witty,” said Freddy when the laughter at this sally had died down, “but I need help, and I’m willing to pay for it. Listen. Do any of you know where a farm is that is owned by Mr. William Bean?”
“Is he one of the Boston Beans?” said the warbler, and nearly fell off his mullein stalk in appreciation of his own wit.
“He has a farm a few miles northwest of Centerboro,” said Freddy. “And if one of you would fly up there—it can’t be far—and tell his animals—”
But again the birds interrupted him. “Well, of all the nerve! Telling us to shut up and then asking us to do him a favor! Why doesn’t he run his own errands—not ask perfect strangers?” They were as noisily indignant as they had been noisily derisive a minute earlier.
And then as Freddy was about to make the final effort, they all went up into the air with a rush, swooped over the lilacs and vanished. And Freddy heard the hum of a car approaching.
A few minutes later Mr. Garble appeared in front of the window. He looked at Freddy with a satisfied smile and rubbed his hands. “Well, pig,” he said. “I guess you’re sorry now you tried to buck Herbert Garble, eh? I guess you wish you’d stayed on your farm where you belong.”
Freddy didn’t say anything. He jumped down from the table and went over into a dark corner of the cellar where Mr. Garble couldn’t see him. After a minute he heard the stones being rolled off the cellar door, and then the door was lifted up and the chauffeur began backing down the steps, tugging a big crate after him.
“I’ll stand guard up here with the gun, Smith,” said Mr. Garble’s voice. “As soon as you’ve caught him, I’ll come down and we’ll put him in the crate.”
“O. K.,” said the chauffeur. “Watch out he don’t slip past you.” He knocked off one end of the crate, which was nailed on lightly, then laid down his hammer and started for the pig.
Freddy knew that he didn’t have much chance to escape, but he was not going to be caught without putting up a fight. He dove for the chauffeur and upset him, but the man got hold of one hind leg and was dragging him towards the crate, when suddenly he let go with a yell, stood up, and began slapping at the back of his neck with both hands. “Wasps!” he yelled. “Help! Ouch! let me out of here!” And he dashed up the stairs, almost knocking over Mr. Garble who was stationed at the top with his gun. And then the door was slammed down.
Freddy got up from the floor and looked at an express tag that was fastened to the crate. “Mr. Orville P. Garble,” it read, “Twin Buttes, Montana.” Another tag said: “Livestock. Rush.” And a third said: “Fragile. Do not crush.”
“My goodness!” said Freddy. “I wonder—” And then he saw a wasp sitting on the crate. “Jacob!” How’d you get here?”
“Hi, Freddy,” said the wasp. “Nice little place you’ve got here. Oh, the gang sent me down to keep an eye on old Garble, and see if I could find out where you were. I hitched a ride on the station wagon. Now I’ll go back and tell ’em, so they can come rescue you.”
“Well, I was never so glad to see anybody in my life,” said Freddy. “They’re going to ship me off to Montana in that crate. I’d never get back from there. But where is this place, anyway? I haven’t any idea where I am.”
“You’re on the old Cassoway farm, on the hill east of Centerboro. They know nobody would ever look for you here, because it has been abandoned so long everybody’s forgotten about it. They’re going to send you to Garble’s uncle. He has a stock farm out in Montana. Garble wanted to shoot you, but Mrs. Underdunk thought this was a better plan. But I spiked that.”
“You sure did,” said Freddy. “You must have jabbed that chauffeur good.”
Jacob shook his head. “I don’t like this hit and run stuff,” he said. “It’s never very satisfactory I like to settle down easy and pick out a good tender spot—the back of the neck, for preference—and then, zip! give ’em the works. It’s an art, Freddy. It’s like—well, it’s like you writing one of your poems. You do a good careful job and then folks remember it. A poem by Freddy, a sting by Jacob—well, it makes an impression. But I mustn’t stay here talking shop. I must get back and tell the animals where you are.”
“Maybe you ought to stay,” said the pig. “If they come back again—”
“Nobody’s going to come back into a cellar where there are wasps. It’ll take ’em some time to figure out a way of getting you into the crate without being stung. Listen, there they go now.” And indeed the station wagon had started up, and was now driving away.
“I don’t see how anybody can rescue me,” said Freddy. “Not with Mr. Garble around with a gun. And don’t let them tell Mr. Bean, if he hasn’t missed me yet. I don’t think he ought to be mixed up in it. Oh dear, today’s Friday and I ought to be setting type with Mr. Dimsey. I’m afraid the Bean Home News won’t come out tomorrow. Look, Jacob, get hold of Rabbit No. 23, and have him bring me some paper and a pencil. He can get through all right without being seen. The bigger animals might get caught. And then you come back too, with some of your family, just in case Mr. Garble tries to come down here again.”
Jacob had been polishing his sting on the edge of the crate. Now he put it away and nodded his head. “O. K., Freddy,�
�� he said. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get you out of here if we have to stick old Garble so full of stings he looks like a porcupine.” Then he took off, circled the cellar once, and shot out through the window.
Freddy knew that it wouldn’t take Jacob more than fifteen minutes to reach the farm, but he was sure that it would take the rabbit a couple of hours to cover the same distance. No. 23 had held the record for the County Inter-farm Crosscountry Run for Quadrupeds for three years in succession, but he would have to keep off the main roads and detour around Centerboro, and Freddy was surprised when, less than an hour later, the rabbit appeared at the window.
“Old Whibley brought me,” he said, in answer to Freddy’s question. “He thought he could get me here quicker. And he did, all right. Boy, can he fly!”
“Boy, can he fly!”
Freddy thought it was pretty nice of the owl, and said so.
“You can save your thanks,” said Old Whibley, hopping up to the window. “Move aside, pig, and let me in. This light hurts my eyes.” He squeezed between the bars and perched on the chair, in the darkest corner of the cellar. “Didn’t do it for you. Don’t like stupid people. Never did.”
“Well, I suppose it was stupid of me to get caught,” said Freddy, “but—”
“You can leave out the ‘but,’” interrupted the owl. “It’s always a waste of time explaining to people that you’re not as big a fool as they think you are.”
“Look,” said Freddy crossly. “If you just came here to bawl me out, why don’t you go back again? I can get along without that kind of help.”
The owl gave a hooting laugh. “That’s better!” he said. “Quit making excuses and get to work. You know what’s happened? Jacob’s been checking up on Garble. They’re coming after you tonight, with head nets and gloves and high boots, so the wasps can’t sting them. In the meantime the chauffeur’s patrolling the entrance to this farm with a gun. Any animal that comes across to rescue you will be driven off. That’s why no one told Mr. Bean you were locked up. They were afraid he might try to rescue you and get shot.”
Freddy and the Bean Home News Page 11