Freddy and Simon the Dictator (11 page)

Freddy tried to persuade Mr. Camphor to get out of the woods. “At least, if you want to duck the committee, come stay at the farm. Or in Centerboro,” he said.

But Mr. Camphor said he was going to stay with the Indians for a while. “They know how to protect themselves from wolves,” he said. “And as far as danger goes, from what you tell me, there'll be more danger at the farm than in the Indian village. You'd better stay here with me, Freddy. This business may be dangerous for animals, but I can't believe it will be for humans.”

Freddy thought he ought to get back to the farm, but he finally agreed to camp out two days, at Jones's Bay, where they had camped a couple of summers earlier. The Indians agreed to camp with them, and to accompany Mr. Camphor back to the village.

Horace was a bumblebee; he was attached to the A.B.I. and was one of Mr. Pomeroy's ablest investigators. At five the next morning, Horace started out in a beeline—which is what nearly all bees travel in of course—for Mr. Camphor's house. Arrived there, he went buzzing around the house, investigating the open bedroom windows. He heard a variety of snores from the various committee members, but he found neither Freddy nor Bannister nor Mr. Camphor in any of the beds.

A less experienced operative might at this point have given up. But Horace had seen a family of swallows perched on the electric-light wire, waiting for some breakfast to fly by, and he went and questioned them. He felt safe in doing this, for very few swallows will try to eat a bumblebee; which is not only a pretty large mouthful, but also has a businesslike sting. He learned about the camping party, and at once set out—in a beeline again—across the lake.

Freddy and Bannister were sleeping on their backs in the little tent, with their feet sticking out into the early morning sunlight. They appeared to be having a snoring contest. Horace, who in his investigation of the Camphor house, had been much impressed by the volume of sound produced by Senator Blunder, was particularly envious of Freddy's snore, which was rather musical. There were none of the gasps and whistles and sudden ferocious snorts which the committee had been producing, but a sort of deep buzzing, rather like a giant bumblebee practicing the first bars of
America
.

Horace listened admiringly for a time, but he had a message to deliver, so he lit on Freddy's nose and tickled the inside of his nostril with his left front foot until the pig woke up with a tremendous sneeze. Bannister gave a start and muttered something in his sleep, but didn't awake.

“Listen, Freddy,” Horace said, “Jinx told me to tell you that Garble and Simon are coming up into these woods tomorrow to have a talk with the chiefs of the rebels. There's Lobo, the head of the wolf pack, and an old horse named Chester who is chief of the cows and horses who have escaped from farms. We don't know just where they are to meet, but I'm to stay with you and try to find out.”

“What does Jinx want me to do?” Freddy asked. “Go to the meeting and get chewed up by wolves?”

“I guess that's up to you. He said you'd know what to do.”

“Yeah, sure. When they can't think of anything, they say: ‘Let Freddy do it.' But they don't ever say what.”

“Well, of course, if you don't know where the meeting is, you can't do anything. But it's up at the western end of the lake somewhere. You wait here. I'll be back this afternoon.” And he buzzed off.

“The worst of it is, he really will find out where it is,” Freddy thought. And of course he did. Around two o'clock he was back. “It was a cinch, Freddy,” he said. “The woods are full of animals, and they were all moving one way. I picked up a little here and a little there, and the meeting is at a cave under a cliff—I can take you right there. He'll be there at nine o'clock—with Simon, the Leader, they call him. Some call him the Dictator. Garble is the Prime Minister. Sort of the power behind the throne, I gather.”

Freddy thought for a minute. “He'll come in a car,” he said. “Up the road that goes north past the west end of the lake. What's the nearest point on the road to the cave?”

“There's a little beach where the road swings closest to the lake,” said Horace. “A couple of hundred yards in from the beach is the cliff. He'll park by the beach.”

“Fine,” said the pig. “I'll need you later, Horace, but right now I wish you'd go back to the farm and—you know that wasp, Jacob? Bring him back with you, and all his family and friends. Tell him I need him badly. Make it as strong as you want to—matter of life and death.”

Horace returned with the wasps before noon. “You got me just in time, Freddy,” Jacob said. “We were just starting off to the convention of the A.O.F.I.W., the Ancient Order of Free and Independent Wasps. It's in Elmira this year. We always have a lot of fun, but to tell you the truth I won't be sorry to miss it. We used to leave the kids at home, but now they're bigger we have to take 'em, and it's just too much, Freddy, I'm telling you. If you need help, I figure we'd better stay home and help you. What's the pitch?”

Freddy told them his plan, which he had already talked over with Mr. Camphor and Bannister, and then with the Indians, who had agreed to help—indeed, had refused to be left out.

Right after lunch, Freddy and Bannister carried their canoe up and hid it in the bushes, then hid the paddles at some distance. This was good woods practice: anyone finding the canoe, if they really needed to use it, could cut a young spruce and make paddles from it; otherwise, they wouldn't take the trouble. Then they packed up and, led by the Indians, started for the Indian village. Jacob and his family—there were about thirty of them—rode on Freddy's coonskin hat. They yelled and laughed and sang songs all the way; it was pretty trying for Freddy, who never knew when some young smart aleck of a wasp might not slide down onto his nose and sting him, just out of sheer high spirits.

They had supper at the village, and then all piled into two old cars and jounced west for several miles over a wood road that presently turned south, acquired a black top, and ran down past the west end of the lake. After half a mile, they saw on their left a beach of fine yellow sand. At the south end of the beach, they drove the cars off the road and hid them. Then they sat quietly and waited.

Freddy did not plan to go up to the cave. It was too dangerous, for he was sure to be discovered. However, the Indians, who knew the cave, told him that it consisted of several rooms, from the largest of which a sort of natural chimney went up to an opening on the hillside above. Two of the best trackers volunteered to go up to that opening and listen to the meeting. They were sure they could hear nearly everything that was said.

After they had left, the others settled down to wait. The light gradually drained out of the sky, and as it grew darker, they were aware of movement all about them in the forest—unusual movement: the clumsy thump and smash of iron-shod hoofs, the swish of branches pushed aside by some large animal, the click of horns striking low-lying limbs. Several beavers came swimming down the lake, got out on the sand beach, and crossed the road into the woods. Two bears sauntered up the road, and after them came a long tan shape—it was getting dark now under the western wall of woods —but Freddy was sure it was a panther.

Gradually the sounds died away. Freddy was sure that by now the audience was all assembled in the cave. And then up the road came a car. It pulled off on to the beach and Mr. Garble got out with a loud-speaker box under his arm, and half a dozen rats hopped out after him, and followed him up into the woods.

It was nearly two hours later when Jacob, who had gone to the meeting with the two Indians, came back. “Meeting's breaking up,” he said. “Garble'll be along any minute.”

Freddy's first plan had been to hide in the back seat of the Garble car, and to rise up, and fall upon Mr. Garble when they were a safe distance down the road. But if the rats climbed into the back seat, he would certainly be discovered. So he had one of the Indian cars drive a couple of hundred yards up the road, and the other car the same distance down the road; then they turned around. And when Mr. Garble came out of the woods, carrying the loudspeaker, and got into his car, and started to drive home, both cars turned on their headlights and came slowly towards him up the middle of the road. And when Garble, cut off both front and rear, stopped and tooted his horn impatiently, Freddy stepped up to the side of the car.

“Kindly step out of the car, Mr. Garble,” he said.

But Mr. Garble didn't. He whipped out a pistol and presented it at Freddy's nose. “One side, pig,” he said. “And tell your friends to let me by.”

Simon sat up on the seat beside Mr. Garble, rubbing his forepaws together. “Well, upon my soul,” he said, “if it isn't my silly old comrade, Freddy. Somehow, I felt that we might have a reunion this summer. Truly, a festive occasion. Let us celebrate it with fireworks. Pull the trigger, Mr. Garble,” he said savagely.

“I really wouldn't, Mr. Garble, sir,” said Bannister, who had popped up at the other window with an even larger pistol which he pointed at the man.

Mr. Garble lowered his gun, but kept it pointed at the pig. “It seems to be a stand-off,” he said. “Suppose we just both put away our guns and go quietly home.”

“I've got a better idea,” Freddy said. “O.K., Jake.” And at that, the wasps rose in a swarm from his hat and went for Mr. Garble and Simon.

Simon was lucky. He and the other rats jumped from the car and scuttled off into the woods. But Mr. Garble couldn't get out quickly, because Freddy was holding the door. He yelped and shrieked, and finally ended up crouched on the floor with his coat over his head, before Freddy called the wasps off.

He had some trouble calling them off. “Have a heart, Freddy,” said Jacob. “This is more fun than twenty conventions. Darn it, I bet I bent my sting on his collarbone that time.”

But Freddy was firm. “I just want to kidnap him,” he said; “I don't want him sick in bed.” He knew that wasps are not cruel by nature; they just take pride in good workmanship. For a wasp, to sink his sting in a tender spot and make his victim yell, is the same as for a ballplayer to hit a homer. I don't suppose they ever think how it hurts.

So the wasps went back on Freddy's hat, and then Garble moved to one side and Freddy slid under the wheel and drove back to the Indian village, followed by the two carloads of Indians. They put Mr. Garble in a room in one of the cabins for the night, but they didn't lock the door or tie him up. They left six wasps on guard. They thought that would be enough to keep him safe. Then they took the loud-speaker and smashed it up with an ax.

CHAPTER

11

The day after the meeting in the cave the revolutionists began the raids. It was the time which historians of the revolt now call the Reign of Terror. Cars were stopped and overturned all over the county; farmers, starting out to do their morning chores, were driven back into the house; cows refused to come in at milking time; several barns were set fire to. In Centerboro, cats were insolent to their mistresses, horses went out of their way to insult people on the street, a car with a black dog at the wheel roared up Main Street and knocked over several pedestrians. A rabble of cows and horses galloped through the business section, overturning trash cans and smashing windows. Dr. Wintersip was chased up a telephone pole by a hitherto quite inoffensive little dog named Sweetie-Pie.

Warnings that this sort of thing would take place had been printed in both the
Bean Home News
and the Centerboro
Guardian
. Nobody paid much attention to them until the outrages began. But now people became alarmed. There was a mass meeting which passed resolutions demanding that the state police restore order. But there wasn't much the troopers could do. They arrested a horse for kicking in the door of a feed store, and a number of dogs for various offenses, but as these animals had no money for fines, and as there was no animal jail, they were just released with a warning.