Freddy and the Perilous Adventure (7 page)

“It's like—pulling in a big—fish,” panted Emma. “Only we're—pulling in the earth. I don't suppose—anybody ever caught—a bigger fish than that.”

“Maybe we could catch the moon next,” said Freddy. “We could hang it up in the barnyard, and then Mr. Bean wouldn't have to pay any more electric bills.”

“We'd better make sure of the earth first,” said Alice, “before we plan anything else.”

It was hard work and slow work, but at last the balloon was pulled down until the basket was anchored just above a thick limb that grew halfway up a big oak. Then Freddy threw out the rope ladder and climbed down it. The end of the ladder was a good six feet from the ground, but Freddy only hesitated long enough to say “Oh, dear!” and then dropped.

I know that they say it doesn't hurt fat people to fall as much as it does thin people, but it hurt Freddy all right. He bounced three times, and the first bounce made him yell, and the second bounce brought the tears to his eyes and the third bounce made him grunt. And then he lay still for a minute watching what looked like Roman candles going off in all directions. He looked around to see if his legs were all in place, and then he got slowly to his feet.

“Oh, Freddy, are you all right?” Emma called.

He looked up and saw the ducks peering anxiously over the edge of the basket.

“Sure, I'm all right,” he said bravely. “So long, and don't expect me back before tomorrow night.” And he limped off into the woods.

After he had gone a little way he felt better. He kept his shadow on his right and trudged steadily southward, for that was the direction in which the Bean farm lay. After a couple of hours he came out of the woods into the open fields. In front of him was a broad valley, dotted with farmhouses and laced with roads, and on the other side of the valley, perhaps four miles away, the woods began again. These, he knew, were the Big Woods, where he had once hunted the strange and terrible Ignormus, and beyond the Big Woods were Mr. Bean's woods, and then the farm. But how was he to get across this open valley without running the risk of being seen and captured by the police?

Back at home, in what Freddy called his library, which was really just a shed built on to the back of the pigpen, were dozens of disguises, all neatly hung on hangers, which he used in his detective work. In any one of these he felt sure he could walk straight down the road without the slightest danger of being recognized. But without a disguise he was just a stray pig, and if the police were really looking for him, any stray pig was bound to be stopped and questioned.

It was while he was hesitating at the edge of the woods that he saw the scarecrow. It stood in a field of young corn not far off. It was better dressed than most scarecrows, for it had on a long-tailed black coat and striped trousers, and on the head, which was a piece of white cloth tied around a bunch of hay, was a high silk hat. The whole thing was stuffed with hay, and held up by a stake, with a crossbar along which the arms were fastened. It was pretty well made, but whether it would really have scared crows much is another matter. Crows are not easy to fool.

Freddy looked all around but nobody was in sight, so he ran down quickly into the cornfield, and in two minutes the scarecrow was just two sticks and Freddy was a very dressy little man who looked as if he might just have come from a wedding. “I'm sorry to do this,” he said to the sticks, “when somebody has taken so much trouble to fix you up, but I'll bring everything back tomorrow.” He shook the straw out of the head, and tied the cloth around his neck like a stock, and then he drew on the white cotton gloves, gave the top of his hat a tap to settle it over his ears, picked up the crosspiece for a walking stick, and started down to the road. There was only one thing missing; the shoes. If he met and talked to anybody, he must remember to stand in the grass.

For a while everything went very nicely. The people he met stared a good deal, and in the one village he passed through, several little boys followed him, making remarks, for as a usual thing, people as fashionably dressed as he was ride in large shiny automobiles, and do not walk along country roads. But he strode along, twirling his stick, and tipping his hat politely to the ladies, and nobody bothered him.

Now Freddy had never worn a high silk hat before, and he was naturally anxious to know how he looked in it. But there weren't any plate glass windows in the village, and he couldn't go up to a house and rap on the door and say: “Please may I admire myself in one of your mirrors?” Yet people were so respectful to him that he thought he must look pretty nice. So a little way past the village he came to a pond, and he went over to it and crouched down at the edge and tried to see himself in the water.

Well, he bent over too quickly, and the hat fell into the pond. So he fished it out and dried it on the grass, and after the ripples had cleared from the water he tried again. He bent over very slowly, but each time, just before he could tip his head far enough over to see his reflection, the hat began to slip.

Then he tried holding it on. But the sleeves of the coat were much too long and too wide for him, so that although he could see the reflection of his face, the sleeves fell forward and hid the hat. And at last he gave it up.

A little farther on he came to a barn, and on the side of the barn was a big poster advertising a circus. It showed lions and tigers and bareback riders and clowns, and in big red letters across the top it said: BOOMSCHMIDT'S COLOSSAL AND UNPARALLELED CIRCUS, and in smaller blue letters at the bottom it said: South Pharisee, Week of July 6th.

“So
that's
the circus the dirty-faced boy was talking about!” said Freddy to himself. “Oh dear, why couldn't Mr. Boomschmidt have come through here later in the season? If I didn't have all this balloon business on my hands I could have gone to South Pharisee, wherever it is, and seen the show and had a good time with all my old friends. But I guess it's out of the question now.” He thought for a minute. “South Pharisee. Wasn't that the town Breckenridge mentioned, where he thought we might find Uncle Wesley? H'm, that should be looked into.”

Mr. Boomschmidt, the owner of the circus, was an old friend of Freddy's, as were many of the animals in his show. Indeed, Freddy had once done him a great service, and as Mr. Boomschmidt was not the man to forget a service, however small, the Bean animals were always sure, not only of free tickets to all performances, but of all the lemonade and popcorn they could hold, whenever the circus came anywhere near Centerboro, as it did about once a year. Freddy was mournfully looking at the poster and picking out the pictures of his friends: Freginald, the bear, and Leo, the lion, and all the others, when a car drew up on the road behind him and a voice said: “Morning, stranger.”

Freddy knew that voice. It belonged to his friend the sheriff. But Freddy did not turn round. For he knew that if there was a warrant out for his arrest, as the dirty-faced boy had said, the sheriff would have to do his duty and arrest him, no matter how good friends they were. So he only turned halfway around and saluted with his walking stick, and said in a deep voice: “Good morning, sir; good morning.”

But the sheriff didn't drive on. He got out and came and stood beside Freddy. He didn't look at the pig, but just stood staring at the poster and pulling at his wisp of grey beard. And after a minute he said: “Stranger in these parts, aren't you?”

“I am, sir, and my name is Jonas P. Whortleberry,” replied Freddy, making up the first name that came into his head.

“Dear me,” said the sheriff; “not one of the Albany Whortleberrys?”

“Distantly related, I believe,” said the pig. “My own home is in Orinoco Flats,” he added, making up another name.

“Fine, thriving community, I'm told,” said the sheriff.

“My goodness,” thought Freddy, “I wonder if there really is such a place?” But it was such fun making up names, that he could not resist the temptation to go on. “I am just returning from my daughter's wedding in Ishkosh Center,” he said. “My car broke down some distance back, and since, as the head of an important banking house, I get far too little exercise, I am walking on until my chauffeur effects the necessary repairs, when he will, I presume, overtake me.”

“May I ask your chauffeur's name?” inquired the sheriff.

“Herman Duntz,” said Freddy without hesitation.

“Ah, yes. Good sound stock, the Duntzes. My wife's third husband was a Duntz.”

This remark puzzled Freddy a good deal. In the first place, the sheriff wasn't married, and in the second place, if he had been, could he have been his wife's fourth husband? And in the third place, there weren't any Duntzes anyway.

“I think I must be getting on,” he said. “Good day to you, sir.”

But the sheriff continued to stare at the poster without looking at Freddy, and then he said thoughtfully: “Yes, yes. So must I. You haven't,” he said suddenly, “seen a pig anywhere up the road, have you? A handsome, decidedly intelligent looking pig?”

Freddy, remembering the difficulty he had had trying to see just such a pig in the pond, said truthfully that he had not.

“Ah,” said the sheriff. “Perhaps it is just as well. You see, I'm the sheriff, and while this pig is a good friend of mine, I'm looking for him, and if I see him—” He hesitated a minute. “—if I
see
him,” he repeated, “I'll have to arrest him. Stole a balloon, they say.”

“That—that's a funny thing to steal,” said Freddy uneasily.

“I can't figure it out,” said the sheriff. “This pig—he's as honest and open as the day. Well, sir, you're a man of the world; I'd like your opinion. This pig—” And he told Freddy the story of the balloon ascension. “He was to bring the balloon down in a mile or two,” he concluded, “but he didn't; he just disappeared—pig, balloon, ducks,—the whole kit an' bilin' of 'em vanished off the face of the earth. And this Golcher, he's pretty mad. Naturally. The balloon's his means of livelihood, and he was to get $200 for an ascension at Boomschmidt's circus day after tomorrow. But what I can't figure is what a pig, even a criminal pig, which this Freddy ain't—what he'd want with a balloon.”

“Very odd business,” said Freddy, in his deep banker's voice. “But I understand that these balloons are very tricky affairs. Isn't it within the bounds of possibility that something went wrong? That, let us say, the valve cord got stuck, so that this—Freddy, I think you said?—couldn't get down?”

“Hadn't thought of that,” said the sheriff. “Yes, it might be. Well, sir, it's a bad business. Now if
I
was that pig—” He broke off. “But I'm keepin' you, botherin' you with my affairs—”

“Not at all,” said Freddy. “Pray continue.”

“Well, if
I
was that pig, I'd stay with that balloon, somehow, until I could bring it back and deliver it to Golcher myself. That'll prove your—that is, the pig's good intentions. Once he's picked up by me, or the state police, it's jail for him, and he can explain until he's blue in the face—nobody'll believe him. Even if he don't get sent to prison, even if he gets off, people are always going to say: ‘That's the pig that stole the balloon; keep your hand on your pocketbook.' So my advice to him is—that is, my advice would be, if I could advise him, which of course I can't, being out to arrest him—well, anyway, he hadn't ought to try to go home. The police are watching the farm day and night.” He stopped abruptly and pulled out a silver watch as big as a saucer. “Must be gettin' on,” he said, and turned away.

Then he stopped and came back. “By the way,” he said, “if you got time, you ought to see this circus. Lions and tigers and fat ladies and performin' snakes and land knows what all. First right and four miles straight ahead to South Pharisee.” He looked thoughtfully at the poster. “I expect that's where I'd head for if I was that pig. He's a great hand at disguises, and if he was to get himself up in something—oh, like what you got on, for instance; plug hat and tail coat and so on, I expect he'd be as safe there as anywhere. Golcher may be there, but Golcher is pretty nearsighted. If the pig didn't go right up and kiss him, I guess Golcher wouldn't ever recognize him. Well, good morning to you, sir.”

Freddy looked after the sheriff's car as it bounced up the road. The sheriff hadn't looked at him once. “My, he's a nice man,” said Freddy.