Freddy Goes to Florida

by Walter R. Brooks

  “Oh, none at all!” said Henrietta sarcastically. And the Grandfather of All the Alligators sank slowly out of sight.

  The alligators showed the animals a dry and easy path to the edge of the swamp, and they were very happy when they were on dry land once more. Charles had not come down within reach of the alligators, but had fluttered along in the tree-tops. Then the alligators said good-bye and wished them a pleasant journey.

  When the animals had gone on a little way, they looked back and saw the alligators sitting in a row and looking after them, and great tears were rolling from their eyes and dropping to the ground, and the sound of their sobbing could be heard for miles.

  “Why, I believe they really are sorry to have us go,” said Alice, the duck. “I suppose it is lonesome in that dreary swamp.”

  “Humph!” said Henrietta. “Of course they’re sorry! But they’re not crying because they like us. They’re crying because they’ll have to go to bed without their supper to-night.”

  XIII

  Now after the adventure with the alligators the animals rested for two days, and then they went on seeing the sights of Florida. They made a great many pleasant friends among the natives, and even Mr. and Mrs. Webb made the acquaintance of a number of very interesting and agreeable spiders, with whom they discussed fly-catching, and compared notes on weaving and other matters of interest.

  But at last one morning when they awoke, the sky was full of flocks of birds—bluebirds and blackbirds and red-wings and yellow-hammers and purple grackles—all flying steadily northward. And then they knew that spring had come and it was time for them to be starting back home.

  “Well, I for one shall be glad to get back,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “We’ve had a grand time travelling, but home’s a pretty good place. The snow is all gone by this time, I expect, and Mr. Bean is getting ready to plant his potatoes and corn and cabbages.”

  “And the old elm by the barn is all covered with buds,” said Charles.

  “And the ice is gone out of the duck pond,” said Alice and Emma.

  “And Mr. Bean will need me to help with the spring ploughing,” said Hank.

  “Come along, animals,” said Freddy. “Let’s start.” And so they said good-bye to Florida and started home.

  They had been travelling for about a week when they came one morning to a big field which was all heaped with tin cans and old shoes and ashes and rubbish of all kinds. There were prickly thistles growing in the field, and a goat was eating them.

  “Good-morning, goat,” said Freddy.

  “Good-morning, pig,” said the goat. “Have a thistle? They’re delicious.”

  “No, thanks,” said Freddy.

  “Have you ever eaten one?” asked the goat.

  “No,” said Freddy. “They never looked very good to me.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said the goat, “how tasty they are. Just take a nip of this big one here.”

  Freddy didn’t want to try the thistle, but he was always very polite and didn’t like to hurt the goat’s feelings, so he took a large bite.

  As soon as he had taken the bite, he wished he hadn’t. The prickles tickled his mouth horribly and stuck into his tongue, and he coughed and sneezed and squealed and grunted and ran round and round in circles, while the other animals laughed and the goat looked at him in surprise. And at last he got it out of his mouth.

  “I’m very sorry,” said the goat. “Perhaps there was something the matter with that one. Now here’s a nice one. Or perhaps you’d rather have a bit of old boot. There were two fine ones left here yesterday. I’ve eaten one, but——”

  “No, thank you,” said Freddy firmly. “Some people say a pig will eat anything, but really——One must draw the line somewhere, and I draw it at old boots.”

  “Well, well,” said the goat with a sigh, “there’s no accounting for tastes. I hoped that I might persuade you animals to settle down and live here with me. But of course if you don’t like thistles, or boots——”

  “We don’t,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Any of us.”

  “Then that settles it,” said the goat sorrowfully. “Because there’s really nothing else here. I like it. But it’s very lonesome. No one to talk to all day but the stupid cart-horses who bring the rubbish here to be dumped. And I do like good conversation.”

  He was so lonely that the animals spent the rest of the day with him and told him of their travels. Just as they were leaving, late in the afternoon, a farm wagon came along, piled high with rubbish. It belonged to a man who was moving into another house, and he had brought all the stuff that he didn’t want to keep. He was going to throw it on the dump heap. On the very top of the load was a funny old-fashioned carriage.

  The man threw the rubbish out of the wagon, carriage and all, and drove away.

  “Must be some boots in that lot,” said the goat, licking his lips, and began poking round in the heap.

  But Jinx and Freddy had walked over and were looking at the funny old-fashioned carriage. They talked together in undertones for a few minutes, and then Jinx said: “Hey, Hank! Come here. Do you suppose you could draw this carriage?”

  “Draw that?” said Hank indignantly. “I’ve drawn heavier wagons than that many’s the time.”

  “Oh, I know you can draw it,” said Jinx. “What I mean is—can you draw it the way it is, without any harness and straps and things?”

  “No,” said Hank. “I’d have to have a collar and traces and bridle and bit and surcingle and——”

  “Oh, we don’t know what any of those things are,” said Jinx, “and anyway we haven’t got them. But here’s an old piece of rope. Suppose we could tie that to the handles of the carriage and put it over your shoulders. Could you draw it then?”

  “Why, I won’t say I couldn’t,” said Hank. “But what do you want the carriage for anyway?”

  “If you can draw it,” said Jinx, “we can put the gold that we found in the ants’ house in it and take it back to Mr. Bean.”

  Hank thought this was a fine plan, so Freddy got the rope and Jinx tied it to the handles of the carriage. All cats are good at tying knots. The stupidest cat can tie forty knots in a ball of yarn in two minutes—and if you don’t believe it, ask your grandmother. So this was easy for Jinx. And then they looped the rope over Hank’s shoulders and he pulled the carriage up on to the road.

  The carriage had two seats and the top was like a square umbrella, with fringe around the edges. It was called a phaeton, and if you think that is a funny name, all I can say is that it was a very funny carriage. The animals laughed like anything when they saw Hank pulling it out of the dump heap, and Mrs. Wiggins laughed so hard that she had to lie down right in the middle of all the old tin cans.

  But when Freddy told them what they could use it for, and how they could carry the gold back to Mr. Bean in it, they were very much pleased. The two dogs gathered together a number of things that they thought Mr. Bean would like and put them in the carriage. There was an old straw hat and an old overcoat, and two pails, one half full of red paint and one half full of green paint. “He can use them to paint the house,” said Robert. And there was also a plaid shawl for Mrs. Bean. These were all things that people had thrown away on the dump heap, but the animals thought Mr. Bean could use them. And if he didn’t use them, he could throw them away and nobody’s feelings would be hurt.

  Then they said good-bye to the goat. He didn’t feel so bad about their going now, because he had a fresh wagon-load of rubbish to look over, and had already found a lot more old boots to chew on. Then all the small animals climbed into the phaeton and they started off. Robert and Emma and Jack sat on the front seat, and Freddy and Alice and Jinx and Henrietta sat on the back seat. The four mice played tag all over the carriage for a while, and then they curled up in the bottom and went to sleep. And Charles perched on top of the square umbrella.

  When they had gone a little way, they looked back and waved good-bye to the goat, and he waved back at them. They cou
ld see him chewing away contentedly, and the ends of two old shoe-strings were hanging out of his mouth.

  XIV

  Uphill and downhill the phaeton rolled along northward. Sometimes Mrs. Wiggins drew it and sometimes the two dogs drew it, but whenever they went through a town, or were where they were meeting a good many people, Hank drew it, because then the people didn’t stare so. Once, when they went through quite a large town, Hank wasn’t feeling very well, so Mrs. Wiggins put the rope over her shoulders and drew it for him. But the people all rushed to their doors and crowded round them and laughed so to see a cow harnessed to a carriage that Mrs. Wiggins got quite angry.

  “I’m not going to have anybody laughing himself into a fit on my account,” she said. And after that she would draw it only when they were on very lonely roads.

  They were all so anxious to get home again that they travelled faster than they had on the way down, and it was not many days before they saw in the distance the white house and the red barn where Hank and Mrs. Wiggins had been taken prisoner by the two men with guns. And there were the two men standing by the gate and talking.

  The animals stopped and looked at one another, and at first they didn’t know what to do. Some of them thought they ought to wait until after dark and then sneak by when the men were asleep, but the others were in a hurry, and as the men didn’t have their guns, they decided to disguise themselves and try to get past.

  So Jinx got out the two pails of paint they had put in the carriage, and with a stick he painted Hank with red stripes up and down, and Robert with green stripes lengthwise, and Mrs. Wiggins he dotted all over with large red and green polka dots. He wanted to put some stripes on her horns, too, but she wouldn’t let him on account of Mr. and Mrs. Webb.

  Mrs. Wiggins he dotted all over.

  Then Jack, the black dog, got up and sat on the front seat of the carriage, and he had on the straw hat and the overcoat, so that from a little way off he looked like a very small man. And Freddy sat on the back seat with the shawl over his head. Jinx painted circles around his eyes so that he looked as if he had spectacles on. His own mother wouldn’t have known him.

  All the small animals got into the carriage and hid under the seats. Mrs. Wiggins walked behind and Robert ran along underneath, and they went on toward where the men were. When the men caught sight of them, they opened their mouths wide and just stared. The big man had a pipe in his mouth and it fell out on to the road and broke, but he didn’t even notice it. He just went on staring. Neither of the men had ever seen such queer-looking animals before.

  “What is it?” said the big man at last, looking at Hank. “A zebra?”

  “Maybe it’s part of a travelling circus,” said the little man. “I never see a horse with red stripes before.”

  “Who’s the old lady in the back seat?” asked the big man. “She don’t live around here, does she?”

  “Never saw her before,” said the other. “Why don’t you ask the coachman?”

  But before the big man could get up his nerve to call out to Jack, who did indeed look like a coachman in his straw hat and overcoat, the carriage went past him and he caught sight of Mrs. Wiggins.

  “Great earth and seas!” he exclaimed, and both he and his friend jumped clean over the gate and crouched down behind it, shivering with fear.

  “It’s a leopard,” said the big man. “Look at the spots! A leopard with horns!”

  “Leopard nothing!” said the little man. “It’s a cow. Look at the shape of it!”

  “I never saw a cow all covered with red and green polka dots,” said the big man. “It’s a leopard.”

  “It’s a cow,” said his friend. “Maybe it’s got some queer kind of measles.”

  “If it had the measles as bad as that, it would be sick in bed,” said the other. “It’s a leopard.”

  “Maybe it’s got walking measles,” said the little man. “I’ve heard of that kind. But it certainly is a cow.”

  “It’s not!” shouted the big man. “It’s a leopard!”

  “It’s a cow,” repeated the little man angrily.

  “It’s a leopard!”

  “It’s a cow!”

  “A leopard!”

  “A cow!”

  The little man was so enraged that he suddenly slapped the big man hard on the cheek, and the last the animals saw of them, the big man was chasing his friend across a field. “A cow, eh?” he was roaring angrily. “Don’t you dare say that word again!” And they grew smaller and smaller and disappeared in the distance.

  As soon as the animals had gone three or four miles farther they stopped and all went in swimming in the river that ran beside the road, to see if they could get the paint off. But it wouldn’t come off, no matter how hard they scrubbed. Jinx sat on the bank and laughed and laughed.

  “You’ll laugh out of the other side of your mouth, young man, if I catch you,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “You knew it wouldn’t come off all the time.”

  “It’ll come off if you rub hard enough,” said Jinx.

  “Yes, and so will my skin,” snapped Mrs. Wiggins.

  “Anyway,” said Jinx, “you can’t catch me. Who’s afraid of an old cow? Who——” But Robert had sneaked out of the water and come up behind Jinx, and just then he grabbed him by the neck. “I can catch you, though,” he said. “Freddy, get the pail of red paint. We’ll just fix Jinx up so he’ll look as funny as the rest of us. Then we’ll have something to laugh at too.”

  So Freddy brought the pail of red paint, and Robert held Jinx over it and started to dip him down. He only intended to dip him in a little, so that he would have a bright red tail, but Jinx began to wriggle and twist so that Robert lost his hold, and splash! down went Jinx into the paint.

  He jumped out at once and ran around like a crazy thing, rolling on the ground and scraping against trees, but the paint stuck to his thick fur and he couldn’t get it off. For the paint wasn’t very deep in the pail and he hadn’t gone all the way in, so that the front part of him was black and the back part was red, and he was probably the funniest-looking cat that anybody ever saw.

  From this time on the animals attracted a great deal more attention on the road than they ever had before, and if the people had stared at them when they were just regular animals, they stared twice as much now that they were all striped and spotted with red and green.

  Some of the people were scared too. There was a tramp lying asleep one day by the road-side, and just as the animals were passing him, Alice sneezed. A duck doesn’t sneeze very loud, but tramps don’t sleep very soundly, and this tramp was wide awake in an instant. He stared at the animals, and then he looked up at the sky and down at the ground and back at the animals again, and then he pinched himself hard two or three times. And then, finding that he was really awake, he gave one more horrified look and with a dreadful yell turned and ran. He ran so fast his feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. They saw him go up one hill and disappear over the top, and then in a few minutes they saw him, very much smaller, going up another hill way beyond. And he was running just as fast as when he started. For all I know he may be running yet. I don’t know that I blame him.

  But the animals did not like to be stared at, and they did not like to scare people, so they did most of their travelling at night. They would sleep all day, and then along about sunset they would wake up and have a little something to eat and start out. They had some beautiful moonlight nights about this time, so that it was easier and pleasanter travelling by night than by day. The moon was like a great golden lantern hung in the sky to light them on their way, and now and then a watch-dog in some farm-house would wake up and bark sleepily as he heard them go by, laughing and singing and shouting to one another. They met very few animals or people on the road—only now and then a weasel or an owl, out hunting. And all the time they were getting nearer home.

  XV

  At last, late one night, they came down into the deep, dark pine woods where they had discovered the empty lo
g house, and where they had found the bag of gold. Although the moon was shining brightly, it was very gloomy in the woods, and they were walking slowly and not talking very much, because they were thinking how they were going to carry the gold back in the carriage, and how glad Mr. Bean would be when he saw it. They had almost reached the log house when Robert and Jack both stopped at exactly the same moment and began sniffing the air.

  “I smell tobacco,” said Jack. “Not very good tobacco.”

  “It comes from the direction of the house,” said Robert. “Somebody’s smoking.”

  “All honest people are abed by this time of night,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Whoever it is is up to no good. Hank, you and I had better stay here, and the other animals can sneak up to the house and see what those people are up to.”

  So Freddy and Robert and Jack and Jinx went very quietly up to the house. As soon as they got near it, they saw that there was a light in the window.

  “I don’t like this,” said Jinx. “I hope they haven’t found our gold.”

  “I wish the swallows were awake,” said Freddy. “We could ask them about it. But let’s look in the window.”

  So they sneaked up and looked in the window, and there were three men sitting round the table and smoking clay-pipes. They were very rough-looking men, and they wore caps pulled down over their eyes, and they all had revolvers and dark lanterns, so the animals knew at once that they were burglars. On the table was a big heap of everything you can imagine—gold watches and pocket-books and money and silver forks and spoons and ear-rings and bracelets and diamond rings. They were all the things that the burglars had stolen from the farmers who lived near the pine woods.

  The biggest of the three burglars was dividing the heap of things into three parts. “One for you, and one for you, and one for me. One for you, and one for you, and one for me.” But he wasn’t dividing them very fairly. For each time he said: “One for you,” he would pick up a small thing that wasn’t worth very much, like a small spoon or a ten-cent piece, and put it in front of one of his companions. But when he said: “One for me,” he would take out a gold watch or a ten-dollar bill or a jewelled bracelet all set with diamonds and put it in front of himself.