“No. He’s an owl who lives up in the woods. You know what an owl is, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” said Weedly. “Is he very big?—Not that I’m afraid of him, no matter how big he is,” he added.
“He’s a bird,” said Freddy. “He lives in a big hollow maple that’s to the right of the path, about halfway through the woods. He’s not very big. But you take my advice and let him alone.”
Little Weedly looked at him suspiciously. “Now you’re trying to scare me, Cousin Frederick,” he said. “But it won’t work. I’m going right up to the woods now. My goodness, I’m not afraid of an old bird! Boy, won’t I make that owl jump!” And he ran out of the door.
Freddy looked after him for a minute. “I hope I haven’t done wrong,” he said. “Jinx will be mad as hops if Whibley really hurts him. But just the same, we can’t have this kind of thing going on.” And he went back to his desk.
He had been working for about half an hour, glancing up occasionally at the window with an expectant air, when at last he saw what he had been waiting for: the shadow of a spider walking up and down on the outside of the panes to attract his attention. He ran out quickly, and Mr. Webb hopped down onto his ear and said:
“It’s all right, Freddy. As soon as you’d gone, Mrs. Webb climbed right down from the picture frame and into the spout of the teapot. She certainly got a nice long ride! First, Aunt Effie carried it down and hid it in the coalbin; then she took it upstairs and put it in one of Mr. Bean’s rubber boots, and then she took it back down and hid it in Mrs. Bean’s old sunbonnet that hangs behind the kitchen door. Then she started to bake a big batch of cookies. Mrs. Webb was going to get out then, because she thought I’d be worried not finding her when I got home, but she thought maybe she’d better wait a while, and it was a good thing she did, for when the cookies were done Aunt Effie put the teapot in the cake tin and piled cookies all over it and shut down the lid.”
“My goodness,” said Freddy, “that wasn’t very nice for Mrs. Webb. How did she get out?”
“Well, she had quite a time. She said she pretty nearly smothered in that teapot with hot cookies piled all around it. She got out the spout and up through the cookies as fast as she could. But she had an awful time getting out of the cake tin. You know there are some small holes in the lid, but they’d be a tight squeeze even for an ant, and Mrs. Webb isn’t as slender as she was. But she made it somehow, and got back to the picture frame all right.”
“That’s fine, Webb,” said Freddy. “We certainly owe Mrs. Webb a vote of thanks. I hope she’s feeling all right after such an experience.”
“Yes,” said the spider, “she had a good night’s sleep. And she doesn’t want any thanks, you know. We’d do anything for the Beans.”
“Well,” said Freddy, “I guess I’d better go along up to the house and do my mind-reading stunt before Aunt Effie decides to hide the teapot somewhere else. Can I give you a lift?”
“No, I must get on down to the cowbarn.” said Mr. Webb. “But there’s one other thing you ought to know. Uncle Snedeker was trying last night to get Aunt Effie to tell him where she’d hidden the teapot. But she wouldn’t. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘you mean you don’t trust me?’ Aunt Effie said no, but he couldn’t keep a secret. ‘That pig’s clever,’ she said, ‘and when he comes in here to find the teapot I’m not going to have you keep staring at the place where it’s hidden. And you know,’ she said, ‘that’s what you’d do.’ Uncle Snedeker said: ‘Pooh! that pig can’t find it!’ ‘No,’ Aunt Effie said, ‘I know he can’t.’ And then after a minute she said: ‘But you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to give them a teaparty anyway. I know how it is,’ she said, ‘to like teaparties and never be able to go to any, and so I’m going to give the animals one.’
“Well, then Uncle Snedeker said he thought maybe it was a good idea. ‘Get the animals in a good humor,’ he said, ‘and maybe they’ll let us have the teapot.’ But Aunt Effie got quite cross at him. ‘That isn’t the idea at all,” she said. ‘I tell you, Snedeker,’ she said, ‘I didn’t think anybody could teach me much about manners and politeness, but that pig has. He’s taught me that you can be polite to people even when they’re your enemies.’ Uncle Snedeker said there wasn’t anything in her etiquette book about that, he’d bet. Aunt Effie said well, there ought to be. And then Uncle Snedeker gave a kind of grunt and went off to bed.”
“H’m,” said Freddy. “So she’ll give us the party anyway. You know, that’s kind of nice of her, Webb.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Webb, “I daresay. I’m not much for teaparties myself. But if a teaparty will keep her here a few days longer, I’m all for it. Well, so long, Freddy.”
So Freddy went over to the house and rapped on the kitchen door. After a minute Aunt Effie opened it. “Well, well; what do you want?” she demanded crossly, and then seeing who it was, her face changed and she smiled and said: “Oh, it’s you, my young friend. Come in.”
Uncle Snedeker was just coming up from the cellar with a scuttle of coal. “Eh, it’s the talking pig!” he said. “Going to tell us where the teapot is. Eh, well, you can try. But you only get one guess, you understand.”
“It isn’t a guess,” said Freddy. “I know where it is.”
“Well, you’re a smart pig if you do,” said Aunt Effie, and Uncle Snedeker said: “Pooh, he couldn’t guess it in a million years!”
“I told you how many fingers you were holding out yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Just a lucky guess,” said Uncle Snedeker. He set down the scuttle and put one hand behind him. “How many, now?” he said.
But Freddy didn’t see Mrs. Webb anywhere in the kitchen, so he said loftily: “Oh, I haven’t time for those little easy tricks now. I can tell you one thing, though. You don’t know where the teapot is.”
Uncle Snedeker looked surprised. “I don’t, and that’s a fact,” he said.
“But I do,” said Freddy. “It’s covered up with cookies, in the cake tin, in the pantry.”
“Well, my good gracious I” exclaimed Aunt Effie. “He’s right, Snedeker.” She went into the pantry and brought out the tin. “Though how he knew it, I can’t imagine.”
“Peekin’,” said Uncle Snedeker. “That’s what he was doing.”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Aunt Effie. “He wasn’t anywhere around, and neither were any of the other animals.”
“Even if I had been peeking,” said Freddy, “I couldn’t have seen you hide it in the coalbin, and then upstairs in Mr. Bean’s boot, and then down here in Mrs. Bean’s sunbonnet, before you put it in with the cookies.”
“How on earth did you find out all that?” demanded Aunt Effie, staring at him in amazement. “Why it’s—it’s magic!”
“Well, ma’am,” said Freddy, “I’d rather not tell you how I did it. Maybe I will some day. But I suppose we get our teaparty, don’t we?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Effie, “you do. Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll give you the best teaparty you ever had. —Snedeker, get away from those cookies!” she said, turning quickly to slap Uncle Snedeker’s wrist, which was just disappearing into the cake tin. “I’m keeping those for the party.”
Uncle Snedeker retreated, grumbling, and Freddy said: “You know there are quite a lot of us. If you want any help—”
But Aunt Effie shook her head. “When I give a party,” she said, “my guests are company. All they have to do is to come and have a good time.”
“Have a good time!” grumbled Uncle Snedeker from the other side of the room. “A mob of animals! There’ll be a lot of dishes broken, I bet. Eh, not that it matters much. They’re the Beans’ dishes.”
“Well, naturally,” said Aunt Effie, “we don’t expect animals to have as good manners as people.”
“Don’t you worry, ma’am,” said Freddy. “We’ll all have our company manners on.”
Chapter 11
Little Weedly trotted along up the bank of the brook towards the woods. “An old bird!”
he said to himself. “As if I couldn’t scare an old bird!” And he giggled.
Pretty soon he came to the duck pond. He thought he’d sneak up quietly behind a bush and if Alice and Emma were there, he could scare them again. And sure enough, there they were. But they were acting very queer. They were sitting on the bank, looking very sad, and first Alice would give a deep sigh and say: “Oh, deary, deary me!” and then Emma would give a deeper sigh and say: “Alas! Alackaday!” And then they would look at each other and sob.
Weedly watched them for a few minutes. Then he giggled. “My goodness!” he said. “When I scare ’em they certainly stay scared. I guess maybe I’d better not do it again.” Then he began to feel sorry for them, because they seemed so terribly unhappy, so he crept backward out of the bush and then came walking along again towards the pond until they caught sight of him.
“Is there something the matter?” he said. “Are you in trouble?”
The ducks stopped sighing and looked up at him.
“It’s that little pig that Jinx adopted,” said Alice to her sister. “No,” she said to Weedly, “we’re just practicing being sad for the play Freddy is going to give. We’re to have parts in it, you know. We’re ladies-in-waiting to the queen, and we have a secret sorrow.”
“My goodness, there isn’t anything very secret about it,” said Weedly. “I should think if it was a secret sorrow you’d try to hide it. I should think you’d have to act very happy.”
The ducks looked at each other. “Dear me,” said Emma, “we didn’t think of that, sister. I suppose we ought to act very gay. Like this.” She gave a little quacking laugh, and then quickly turned her head aside as if to wipe away a tear.
“That’s it, sister,” said Alice. “That’s it. A laugh that hides your breaking heart, and then to show that your heart really is breaking, under all your gaiety, you stop laughing and cry a little.”
“Oh, yes, I think that is much more artistic,” said Emma. Then suddenly she looked sharply at Weedly and said: “Why, you’re the little wretch that jumped out and said ‘Boo!’ at us! I remember now.”
“Well, yes,” said Weedly. “I did. I scared you good, didn’t I?” He tried to laugh, but the ducks were both looking at him now so ferociously that he thought he’d better not. “I—well I hope you aren’t mad,” he said, beginning to back away. “It was just in fun.”
“In fun, was it?” said Emma. “Well, it wasn’t fun for us, I can tell you. If our Uncle Wesley was here you wouldn’t dare do such a thing.”
“Just in fun indeed!” exclaimed Alice. “You’d better keep away from this pond in the future if you don’t want to get into trouble.” And both ducks, with wings spread and bills outstretched, came waddling towards him.
Weedly didn’t wait any longer. He turned and ran.
He didn’t run very far. After a minute he looked back, and the ducks were sitting on the bank again, practicing being sad, so he slowed down. He walked up along the brook, and then he took the path which went up into the woods. It was bright and sunny out in the meadow by the brook, and he could hear birds calling and dogs barking and a mowing machine whirring and the far-off whistle of a train, so that he knew that all around him the world was going on, full of happy, busy people. But in the woods it was dim and still. He walked along in a green twilight, and the sounds of the outside world were shut off from him by the tall silent tree trunks that, wherever he looked, seemed to close him in. There were sounds, but they were different—mysterious rustlings, and now and then the mournful whistle of a pewee, or the queer ringing notes of a wood thrush.
Lots of people like the mysteriousness of the woods, and so of course do lots of animals, even those that don’t live there. Jinx loved the woods, and he used often to wander around in them by himself, and sometimes he would spend a whole day hiding in them, not to catch anything specially, but just for the fun of hiding. But Little Weedly was a pig, and pigs don’t like to be alone much. So as he went along, he walked slower and slower. He didn’t exactly jump when he heard little noises because he wasn’t exactly scared, but he wasn’t exactly comfortable about things either. It was fun pouncing out on people, but suppose something pounced out on him? He wondered what an owl was like. A big, fierce-looking bird, probably. Well, he’d said he was going to scare Old Whibley, and he was going to do it. But maybe he’d better not scare him too much.
So as he got nearer the big maple where Freddy had told him Old Whibley lived, he left the path and began creeping along through the underbrush. He crept from tree to tree like an Indian, and pretty soon he saw the maple. It was big and tall, and maybe fifty feet up, where it divided into great thick limbs, there was a hole. Weedly was peeking out from behind another trunk at it when a voice said sleepily: “Ho hum.”
Weedly pulled his head back so quick that he bumped his nose on the tree trunk. When he had rubbed it till it stopped hurting he stuck it out again cautiously. A big bird was sitting on a branch a little above him. The bird had his eyes closed and seemed to be asleep, though he wasn’t sleeping, like most birds, with his head underneath his wing. Weedly ducked back behind the tree again. “My goodness,” he said to himself, “I wonder if that’s Old Whibley. He doesn’t look very ferocious. I wouldn’t be afraid to scare him.” And he was just getting ready to jump out and yell “Boo!” when the voice said: “Stop acting so silly and come out from behind that tree. I won’t hurt you.”
Weedly hesitated a minute and then he came out. “I—I thought you were asleep,” he said. “I’m not afraid of you,” he added quickly.
The bird opened one enormous yellow eye. “I’m not afraid of you either. That makes us even,” he said. “Well, what do you want? Advice?”
“I—well, no, I guess not,” said Weedly. “I was just wondering—are you Old Whibley?”
“That depends,” said the bird, closing his eye again. “Who sent you?”
“Nobody, I just came. By myself.”
“And you want to see Old Whibley?”
“Yes,” said Weedly. “That is—no, not exactly.”
The bird opened both big round eyes and stared at him. “Yes—no, yes—no. What kind of an answer is that? Either you do or you don’t. Can’t waste time with people that don’t know their own minds. Old Whibley isn’t home.” He closed his eyes.
“Oh,” said Weedly. He looked at the bird a minute and then he said: “Well, if you aren’t Old Whibley, maybe you can tell me where I can find him?”
“You here again?” said the bird crossly, opening his left eye. “Well, tell me what you want with him. Then maybe I’ll help you. Maybe I won’t, too.”
“I guess you don’t know who I am,” said Weedly, who was beginning to get cross. Silly old sleepyhead! Why couldn’t he give a plain answer? “I’m Little Weedly, and Uncle Jinx—”
“I know,” the bird interrupted. “He adopted you. Don’t give me your family history.”
“My family’s all right,” protested Weedly.
“I daresay,” said the bird. “I don’t want to hear about it, that’s all.”
“Oh, dear,” said Weedly, “you get me all mixed up. It isn’t anything important. I’ve just been having fun today scaring the animals on the farm, and Cousin Frederick said I couldn’t scare Old Whibley, so I thought—”
“You thought you’d scare him,” said the bird. “Not a bad idea. You jump out and say ‘Boo!’ I suppose. Some people enjoy that kind of thing. But how are you going to work it? Old Whibley in the treetops, you on the ground. He wouldn’t even hear you.”
“Oh,” said Weedly. “I didn’t think of that.”
“You wouldn’t,” said the other. “Still, if you could get up in his hole there, in that tree—eh? Then when he comes home, stick your nose out and say ‘Boo!’”
“Oh, if I only could!” said Weedly. “But I can’t climb a tree!”
“We can fix that,” and the bird gave a hooting cry, and immediately another bird of the same kind, only a little smaller, came f
loating down from somewhere high up in the treetops and lit on the branch beside him. “My niece, Vera,” he said to Weedly. “Vera, this is Weedly, who wants to scare Old Whibley. Wants us to take him up into Old Whibley’s nest so he can jump out and say ‘Boo!’ at him when he comes home. Very funny idea.”
“Very funny indeed,” said Vera. But neither of the birds laughed.
“I guess,” said Weedly doubtfully, “that I’d rather wait till some other day. I guess—” But he didn’t finish, for the two birds suddenly swooped upon him, seized him with their strong beaks and claws, and with powerful flapping wings bore him up to the hole high in the trunk of the giant maple.
… the birds suddenly swooped upon him.
“There you are,” said the first bird. “In you go. Hang on, there.” And they tumbled him into the deep cavity, which was filled with sticks and leaves.
“Oh, dear!” said Weedly. “Oh, dear!” For his left ear and his tail had been badly pinched in the strong beaks, and the claws had dug into his plump little sides like big fishhooks. “How will I ever get down?” he moaned.
The two birds sat outside and looked at him. “Don’t you worry,” said Vera. “We’ll carry you down after you’ve given Old Whibley a good scare.” And she laughed for the first time.
“But when do you expect him?” said Weedly anxiously.
“Can’t tell for sure,” said the first bird. “But he ought to be back in a week or two.” And both birds opened their eyes very wide at him, and then burst into hoots of laughter and flew off.
“A week or two!” said Weedly. And then he thought of that hooting laughter. “I’ve heard that sound before,” he said to himself. “And mother told me it was owls. Then if they’re owls—why,” he exclaimed, “I bet that was Old Whibley himself! Oh, dear!”
It wasn’t very smart of Little Weedly not to have thought of that before. But of course he had never seen an owl. And then, although he thought it was funny to play tricks on other animals, it had never occurred to him that they might think it funny to play tricks on him. He wasn’t very happy. Here he was in a hole in a tree fifty feet above the ground, and he didn’t believe that those owls had any intention of coming back and taking him down. Not for a long time, anyway. He stuck his head out and yelled as loud as he could for his Uncle Jinx. But in the thick woods his voice didn’t carry very far, and nobody heard him. And so, after he had yelled himself hoarse he did a very sensible thing. He curled up and went to sleep.
Freddy’s Cousin Weedly Page 9