Freddy the Pilot

by Walter R. Brooks

  Mr. Newsome sailed into the air.

  “That was fun, chief,” Leo said. “But it didn’t get us anywhere.”

  “It got Brother Newsome somewhere,” said his employer. “And he’s still going. I figure about fifteen feet to the yard, the speed he’s making.”

  “I heard him tell about those drastic measures,” said Leo. “I wish you’d let him tell what they are.”

  “He wouldn’t tell us,” Mr. Boomschmidt said. “Condiment’s up to something all right, but he won’t want us to be ready for whatever it is. I think we’ll have Hannibal and the other elephants go on all night guard duty. He’s pretty likely to hire some thugs to cut the tent ropes or something like that.”

  “I don’t think Freddy has accomplished much,” said the lion.

  “Oh, now, I wouldn’t say that, Leo. He’s found where that plane is kept. As soon as those spies of his report, we can probably complain to the state police and have the pilot arrested. With luck we might get enough on Condiment to put him in jail. But at any rate Freddy has scared Condiment away from Centerboro.”

  “I’d like to know what Condiment thinks about that leopard business. He can’t really believe that Lorna the Leopard Woman walked right out of his story.”

  “He probably thinks that there really is a leopard woman, and that that writer, Gizling, wrote the stories about her,” Mr. Boomschmidt said. “Freddy’s idea isn’t bad, you know. He’s trying to scare Condiment into marrying Lorna, just as Condiment is trying to scare Rose into marrying him. I mean, the one that loses out will be the one that gets the scaredest. Oh dear, it’s not the unmanageable animals that give us trouble, it’s the unmanageable people.”

  “You can say ‘unmanageable’ all right now, chief,” Leo remarked.

  Mr. Boomschmidt winked at him. “Just be-between you and me, Leo, when I want to I can even say ‘Theophilus Thistle, the thistle sifter,’ and all the rest of it.”

  Now that the mysterious plane had been located, it was no longer necessary to have performances, and the circus animals had another vacation. Freddy stayed at home and spent most of his time working with the Benjamin Bean Self-filling Piggy Bank. It was really too clumsy a contraption for one animal to lug around, since he would have had to walk along, holding it up and looking in the eyepiece at the same time. The way they worked it, two animals carried it, and they hired one of the mice to sit on top and look in the eyepiece.

  They found several dollars’ worth of coins and a great collection of odds and ends of metal of all kinds. They found an old sword with the blade nearly rusted away, and a queer gold ring, which Georgie insisted was a magic ring. He spent hours rubbing it, but no genie ever appeared. Finally he gave it to Mrs. Bean. She wore it for quite a long time.

  Freddy wanted to work some of the other farm gardens, and even those in Centerboro. He said they could make a deal with the owners—give them half of what they found. But Uncle Ben said better wait, he didn’t want people to know about it yet. “Mobs,” he said. “Worse than World Series.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Freddy. “Everybody in the country would be crowded into the front yard, trying to buy one.” So he warned all the animals not to talk about it.

  But word about it got out anyway. One day Lyman, the muskrat, dropped in. He had as usual half a dozen damp comics under his arm. “Where’s Sniffy?” he asked.

  Mrs. Wiggins said he was away on a visit.

  Lyman looked around curiously. “What’s this thing for finding hidden treasure I hear so much talk about?” he asked.

  “What sort of nonsense have you been listening to?” said Mrs. Wiggins.

  But Lyman just grinned at her. “I thought I’d like to borrow it for a while,” he said. “I know where there’s a lot of gold coins buried.”

  “You’d better go dig ’em up then,” the cow said.

  “I can’t dig up a whole—” Lyman stopped short. “I don’t know exactly where they are,” he said.

  “Well, even if we had such a machine,” the cow began—

  “Every animal within twenty miles knows you’ve got it,” Lyman said. “They know Uncle Ben invented it, and they know you’ve been using it in the garden. I’ll give you half of what I find.”

  Mrs. Wiggins shook her head. “You’d better go see Uncle Ben.”

  So Lyman went up into the loft where Uncle Ben was working. Pretty soon he came out again, and he was mad. “All right!” he said angrily as he came down the stairs. “All right! You keep your old piggy bank. You won’t keep it long, I can tell you!”

  “Now, now,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “What did he say, Lyman?”

  “Said he wasn’t manufacturing them yet. Said when he was, I would be free to buy one just like everybody else. Said until then, they weren’t on the market.”

  “Well, you can’t very well buy ’em until they’re made,” said the cow.

  “He’s got one. And all I wanted to do was to borrow it for a day,” said Lyman. “But O.K., if he wants to be mean, I can be mean too.” He grinned at Mrs. Wiggins. “Just let him wait and see!”

  Mrs. Wiggins laughed her comfortable laugh. “Why Lyman, you look quite villainous! I bet you’re thinking up something pretty awful to do! Maybe put a thumb tack in Uncle Ben’s chair.”

  Lyman didn’t answer. He hurried off. He was in such a rush that he forgot his comics, which Mrs. Wiggins picked up and carried into the cow barn with her.

  Later in the day there were such shouts of laughter coming out of the cow barn that Freddy went in to investigate. When Mrs. Wiggins laughed, you could hear her for a couple of miles on a clear day. But when she and her two sisters got to laughing, shingles began to fly off the barn roof. It was some time before they could stop enough to tell Freddy what it was all about, and they wouldn’t have stopped even then if Mr. Bean hadn’t become alarmed for the roof. He came hurrying in. “Consarn it!” he shouted. “You tryin’ to wreck my farm? I like a good joke as well as the next one but I don’t laugh so hard over ’em I destroy property.”

  After they’d quieted down and Mr. Bean had gone, they told Freddy they were laughing at Lyman’s comics.

  Freddy said: “Why, I’ve seen some that were sort of funny, but not as funny as that.”

  “Oh, it isn’t the funny ones we’re laughing at,” Mrs. Wurzburger said. “The funny ones make us cry. It’s the awful ones that are really funny—the ones that are supposed to scare you. This about The Demon Woman of Grisly Gulch. She’s got horns and a tail. My gracious, Sister Wogus, maybe you’re The Demon Woman!” And she began to laugh and put a hoof over her mouth.

  “You’d better take that stuff up into the woods,” Freddy said. “Mr. Bean will be mad if you get to laughing again.”

  So the three cows took the comics up into the woods. They were hollering and laughing over them up there all the rest of the day. Three squirrels were injured by being shaken out of trees when the cows found a specially horrid comic.

  CHAPTER

  12

  It was next morning that General Grimm and his staff came back. Freddy saw the big plane circling down towards the pasture when he came out after breakfast. He ran down to the workshop to warn Uncle Ben.

  Uncle Ben grinned. He pulled a handful of quarters out of his pocket. “Get up there and scatter these over the ground around your plane. Hurry up before they land. I’ll bring the bombsight.”

  When the officers climbed out of their plane and walked over to where Freddy was taking the canvas cover off his engine, Uncle Ben was walking slowly up and down beside him, squinting in the eyepiece of the Self-filling Piggy Bank and stooping every now and then to pick something off the ground.

  “Mr. Bean!” General Grimm snapped.

  Uncle Ben looked up and smiled. “Morning, General.” Then he went back to the Piggy Bank.

  General Grimm pointed to Freddy’s plane. “No preparation!” he shouted. “Army’s time wasted! Outrageous!”

  Colonel Tablet said: “The General
feels that since you were notified that we wished another test of the bombsight, you should be ready for us. I see neither bombs nor bombsight.”

  Uncle Ben stopped an picked up a quarter which he held out to the Colonel. But General Grimm seized his arm. “What’s this?” he demanded. “Bribing my officers?”

  “Found it,” said Uncle Ben. “With bombsight. Walk along, look in eyepiece, flicker-flicker, money on ground.” He illustrated, picked up another quarter then held out the bombsight to the General. “Try it.”

  The General crooked a finger. “Tablet!” he said, and Col. Tablet took the Piggy Bank and began walking along, peering in the eyepiece. He stopped, leaned down, and picked up a coin. The other officers followed along, watching closely. When he picked up the second quarter, General Grimm held out his hand. “I’ll take those,” he said.

  “Sorry, sir,” said the Colonel, and slid the coins in his pocket.

  “Tablet!” roared the General, but Col. Drosky said: “Let me try it, sir. I’ll split with you, fifty-fifty.”

  “Split, nothing!” said General Grimm. “Work it myself.” And he tried to take the Piggy Bank from the Colonel.

  They were both trying to pull it away from each other when General Grumby laid a hand on General Grimm’s shoulder. “Better let me try it, Grimm,” he said. “Machine looks dangerous to me—may be a bomb. We can’t risk our most capable general’s life for twenty-five cents.”

  “Well,” said General Grimm doubtfully, but he gave up. General Grumby started off with the Piggy Bank.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Col. Queeck, who had been exchanging a few whispered words with one of the other officers. “I don’t think any general should risk his life in such a dangerous test. Even colonels, if I may say so, sir, are too valuable. But Major Jampers here has offered to try out this machine. Would you let him have it, sir?”

  “If you please, sir,” said the Major, stepping forward, “I’m really very happy to take the risk for you. And you know, sir, I’m really not a very good major; no loss at all to the army if I get blown up.”

  “With all respect, sir,” said Colonel Drosky, stepping up and saluting General Grimm, “I believe I would be even less loss than Jampers. You told me two days ago that I was a disgrace to the service—remember?” He made a grab at the Piggy Bank.

  Four of them now had their hands on the Piggy Bank and were pulling at it. Colonel Drosky jabbed Major Jampers in the ribs with his elbow, and Colonel Queeck and Colonel Drosky started trying to shove each other away, and General Grumby tried to kick Colonel Tablet, and then General Grimm, who had been standing back, took a short run into the middle of the struggling group. And the Benjamin Bean Self-filling Piggy Bank fell to the ground with a smash.

  The scuffle stopped, and the officers fell back and watched Uncle Ben as he picked up the Piggy Bank and examined it.

  “Busted,” he said after a minute, and started back towards the barnyard.

  But they ran after him and surrounded him. “Want to order one,” said General Grimm.

  “Me too.” “And me.” “I’ll take two.” They all talked at once. “How soon can we get them? How much will they be?”

  “Six weeks,” said Uncle Ben. “Thousand dollars.”

  They all stopped talking. There was silence for a minute, then Colonel Tablet said: “There are eight of us here, counting Captain Gilpin and Lieutenant Flapp over there in the plane. If we all chip in and buy one—form a club—”

  “I think generals ought to chip in more than the lower ranks,” said Major Jampers.

  “Right!” said Colonel Queeck. “Generals, three hundred. Other ranks, h’m—six goes into four hundred—”

  “But majors—” Jampers began.

  Freddy had been so interested that he hadn’t noticed a large figure which was toiling up the slope from the barnyard. But as the man climbed clumsily over the lower wall, Freddy saw him and ran to meet him. Only something very important would make Mr. Ollie Groper take so much exercise.

  Groper leaned panting against the wall and mopped his face. “Hope this here peregrination … have no deleterious effect … my accustomed salubrity,” he gasped. “Shall endeavor … achieve brevity.” He paused, then said hastily, and in a different tone: “You know a muskrat named Lyman?” Having said which he looked embarrassed, no doubt at having used so many ordinary words.

  “Sure,” said Freddy. “Friend of Sniffy Wilson’s. Lives down on the flats.”

  Mr. Groper was getting his breath back. “Would it astonish and perplex you to learn that this Lyman and that there eminent jurist, Mr. Montague Newsome, are involved in some nefarious intrigue?”

  “Lyman?” said Freddy. “Oh, I can’t believe-”

  “Allow me to conclude my narration,” said Mr. Groper. It took some time, but at the end of it Freddy was in possession of some curious facts. Lyman had come into the hotel and asked for Mr. Newsome. Mr. Groper had naturally been somewhat surprised to have a muskrat come up to the desk and ask for a guest, but he had given Lyman Mr. Newsome’s room number. Lyman had gone up in the elevator, and after about an hour he and the lawyer had come down. Mr. Newsome had made two long distance telephone calls, and then he and Lyman had got in his car and driven off.

  Mr. Groper had naturally been somewhat surprised.

  But the important thing was what Mr. Groper had overheard. It had been hot in the telephone booth in the lobby, and by the end of his second call Mr. Newsome was perspiring heavily and hardly able to breathe. So he had opened the door, and Mr. Groper had heard him say: “No, don’t fly to the field. It’s only four miles to West Nineveh, and there’s a field there. I’ll meet you there with the car. That way you won’t attract too much attention.” There was silence for a minute or so, and then he said: “According to the information I have, it does work on silver, gold and copper. And it will be easy to get.” Then he hung up. “You think it was Condiment he was talking to?” Freddy asked.

  “Consideration of all the circumstances confirms that conclusion,” Mr. Groper agreed.

  “I think so too,” said the pig. “And they’re after the Piggy Bank, as well as Mademoiselle Rose. But I don’t see …” He thought a minute. “Condiment is going to fly from Philadelphia up to West Ninevah, and Newsome will pick him up there and drive to their secret airfield. They’ll come down here and try to steal the Piggy Bank. But if I know Condiment, he’ll send someone else to do that job—he won’t come himself. That means that when whoever he sends starts for the farm, Condiment will probably be alone at the airfield. I guess that’s my chance.” He glanced around at the army officers who were still pressing in a tight group around Uncle Ben, shouting and waving their arms as they wrangled about how much each should pay towards the Piggy Bank. “Guess I’ll have to fly to Centerboro first. I’d take you, only I expect you’ve got your car.”

  “Aerial locomotion,” said Mr. Groper, “ain’t among my desiderata. I got a predilection for terrene ambulation. So while in the vicinity, guess I’ll indulge in a colloquy with the estimable Beans.”

  Freddy thanked him as they walked down towards the house. At the back porch they parted, and Freddy went in to see Mrs. Wiggins. First he drew her a map of the secret airfield. It looked like this:

  “I’m leaving you this just in case,” he said. “I can’t tell you my plans, because I haven’t really got any yet. I’m just going scouting. But if you don’t hear from me in three or four days, maybe you’d better send—let me see, J. J. Pomeroy’s a pretty slow flyer, even for a robin, but he’s dependable. Yes, send him up to look around.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  When Sniffy and his merry men, and the Horrible Ten—who were really the Horrible Fifteen—floated down on to the secret air strip, they hurriedly folded up their umbrellas and made for the woods on the south side of the field, for the searchlight at the farmhouse was poking sharp fingers through the foliage, feeling for intruders. Once under cover they held a whispered council of war, and t
hen, having hidden the umbrellas in a hollow tree, lay down and went to sleep.

  In the morning Sniffy and No. 18 posted their men around the barn and the farmhouse, and along the old road. Every two hours they made the rounds. Aroma and Sniffy, Jr., dug a hole under the foundation on the west side of the house behind some bushes. They found that there was no cellar, and they managed to get in under the floor of the room which the occupants used as a living room.

  There were two men in the house: the plane’s pilot, Jackson, and a mechanic named Felix. Much of their talk was technical stuff about the plane, and the skunks didn’t understand it. They quarreled a good deal. Felix did the cooking, and Jackson didn’t think much of it. They quarreled much more bitterly over the games of slap jack that they spent most of their time playing. Jackson had a terrible temper, and slap jack isn’t a game for people who can’t control themselves. When a jack was played, and they both tried to slap it at once, they would of course slap each other. Some of the games just ended up in seeing who could slap the hardest.

  Rabbit No. 23, who was an ex-Head Horrible, managed to hop up on the windowsill one evening. He reported that the room was comfortably furnished, although not as elegantly as Mrs. Bean’s parlor, since there was no photograph album on the center table and no picture of Washington Crossing the Delaware on the wall. But there was a rack containing several guns beside the door. No. 23 felt that they should get into the house somehow and either steal the guns or do something to render them useless. But before their plans were made, Jackson came back from West Nineveh, where he went twice a week to telephone, with word that “the boss” was coming next day. The boss, the animals were sure, could be no one but Mr. Condiment.