Freddy the Politician (15 page)

They talked for a while about the political situation, and then John's quick ears caught the sound of a horse's hoofs coming up the hill at a trot. They ran out as the hoofbeats broke into a gallop and came nearer and nearer until in through the gate dashed Hank, drawing behind him a buggy crammed to the dashboard with field mice, who were singing and shouting and yelling: “Faster! Faster!” at the top of their lungs.

“What's got into Hank?” said Freddy. “He hasn't run like that in ten years.”

The buggy circled the barnyard once and then stopped, and the mice piled out. There were about a hundred of them, and a wild crew they were. “Hurray for the F.A.R.!” they shouted. “When do we eat? Where's the place we're to live in?”

“Where's Jinx?” Freddy asked Hank.

“They pushed him out down the road about a mile,” Hank panted. “You'd ha' laughed yourself sick, Freddy. Bunch of mice gangin' up on a cat. They yelled to me to run away from him and let him walk home. Then Jinx got mad, and I was afraid he might hurt some of 'em, so I did run. Well, I dunno—maybe it seemed kinda funny to me, too. Anyway, I ran.—Here's Jinx now.”

The cat, very dusty and out of breath, loped in the gate. Then he stopped and stared at the field mice, his whiskers twitching angrily, and the mice quieted down at once, although they kept giggling and nudging one another.

“Smart, hey?” he said. “Well, you're too smart for us. Go on home, the lot of you. We don't want you. Maybe a three-mile walk will cool you off a little.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” put in Freddy. “We need these mice, Jinx. You can't send 'em back after you went all the way down to get 'em.”

“It was just a joke,” said one of the mice. “But if the cat can't take it, why, sure, we'll go home. He was pushing us around in the buggy and having a swell time, and then when we pushed back, he don't like it.”

“How about it, Jinx?” said Hank. “You really want to send 'em back and lose all these good votes?”

“Well,” said Jinx, “I don't like mice playing jokes on a cat. It—it isn't dignified. And you'd better not try it again,” he said, glaring fiercely at the mice, “or I may forget myself.

“All right, Freddy,” he added, turning away. “You show 'em their quarters. I want nothing more to do with them.” And he stalked off.

All that afternoon the new settlers came marching into the barnyard. Georgie and Robert collected fifty rabbits from neighboring farms and persuaded them, with a promise of free lettuce and protection from hawks and weasels, to set up housekeeping in the lower meadow. Ferdinand flew twenty miles north and interviewed a cousin of his who was chief of a large band of robber crows that lived in the high woods and flew out daily to plunder the neighboring farms. The chief, whose name was Lester, held out for a high price, but finally agreed, for ten sacks of corn, to bring the band down and settle in Mr. Bean's woods for a week, until after election. By night there were several hundred new citizens of the F.A.R., all of whom could be counted on to vote the straight Wiggins ticket. Mrs. Wiggins's election, Freddy felt, was assured.

XIII

Although feeling had run pretty high on both sides, it was on the whole a good-natured crowd that gathered in the barnyard on election day. The animals formed in a long line to enter the voting-place. Inside were Freddy, Jinx, and Mrs. Wiggins, representing the Farmers' Party, and the three woodpeckers, representing the Equality Party. Marcus, who called himself the Opportunity Party, for no very good reason, since he hadn't thought up any opportunity to offer, represented himself, and had Simon with him. The rabbit was rather subdued and nervous, but old Simon seemed in the best of spirits and kept grinning wickedly to himself.

The first animal to vote was one of the field mice, who had sat up all night in order to be at the head of the line.

“Name?” asked John Quincy.

“Winthrop,” said the mouse.

“Address?”

“Hayloft. Bean Farm.”

“Anybody here to answer for this animal?” asked John Quincy.

“I can,” said Freddy. “He lives here.”

“Very well,” said John Quincy, and handed the mouse three pieces of paper, one with a G, one with a W, and one with an M. “Go into the box stall,” John Quincy instructed him, “and drop the paper with the initial of the candidate you want to vote for into the feed-box in the corner. Then bring the other two papers out with you and drop them in this barrel.”

So the mouse went into the stall, and the next voter, an oriole named W. F. Jessup, stepped forward. He gave his address as Twin Maples, Upper Pasture, Bean Farm, and when X had vouched for him, he followed the mouse.

And so the voting went on. By noon eight hundred votes had been cast, and as they were beginning to run out of ballots, fresh sets of three had to be made up out of those discarded in the barrel. By two o'clock the last vote had been cast. It was the eleven hundred and sixty-first.

“Now,” said Grover, “we'll count 'em.”

They rolled the barrel of discarded ballots outside, so that they couldn't get mixed up with the others, and brought in the feed-box. The ballots were dumped out on the floor, and the animals began busily sorting them into piles.

After ten minutes or so, when Freddy had thirty-four W's and twenty-two G's in front of him, he looked up. “My goodness,” he said, “I just thought—” Then he stopped. “Good gracious!” he said to himself, and looked. Mrs. Wiggins and Jinx both had two piles in front of them, but the woodpeckers and Marcus and Simon each had three piles, all about equal in size.

Freddy went over and whispered to Jinx and Mrs. Wiggins, then he said: “Wait a minute.”

The others all looked up, and Simon snickered.

“I just want to see how we're getting on,” said Freddy. “Grover, how many have you got now? We'll want to send out a preliminary bulletin. All the voters are waiting out there in the barnyard.”

“I have twelve for Wiggins, twenty-six for Marcus, and nineteen for myself,” said Grover.

“You actually believe that twenty-six animals voted for Marcus?” asked Freddy.

“There are twenty-six M's,” said the woodpecker. “I gather from that that twenty-six animals voted for him.”

“But those aren't M's,” said Jinx, looking over Grover's shoulder. “They're W's.”

“Look like M's to me,” said Grover. “Come, let's get on with the count.”

“No,” said Mrs. Wiggins firmly. “We'll get this decided right now. I see what your plan was, Grover. in persuading Marcus here to run. You could take my W votes and read them upside down, and of course they are M's. Then a lot of the votes that ought to be counted for me would be counted for Marcus, and you'd have more votes than I would. Actually, probably the only vote cast for Marcus was the one he cast himself.”

“I voted for him, for one,” said Simon with his oily smile.

“I don't believe you,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “But suppose you did. There's two votes for him. Marcus, how many animals promised to vote for you?”

“Well, now—the rats did,” said Marcus, twisting his paws and rolling his eyes in embarrassment. “And there was—let me see—”

“You can't tell by asking Marcus,” interrupted Grover. “This was a secret vote, and, for all you know, hundreds of animals may want Marcus for president. I must say it looks like it, and although I am surprised, I cannot but accept the fact.”

“Yeah,” said Jinx, “
you
can accept it if you want to, but
I
won't.”

“You'll have to,” said Grover calmly. “The animals can vote for whoever they want to.”

“That's true,” said Freddy suddenly, “and, as a matter of fact, I heard a lot of talk about wanting Georgie for president. I do believe that all these G's I counted for Grover are really votes for Georgie. Three quarters of them, anyway.”

Mrs. Wiggins and Jinx nodded solemnly in agreement, and began dividing their G's into two piles. John Quincy and X both began shouting at once, but Grover raised a claw and silenced them.

“Very well,” he said. “Count them as you wish. But I shall have nothing further to do with the election. Come, boys.” And he and the two other woodpeckers left the barn.

“I guess he
won't
have anything further to do with the election,” said Jinx. “Not if we get an honest count, and not if it keeps on the way it's going. We're 'way ahead so far.”

But Simon, who had moved quietly toward a dark corner of the barn, said suddenly: “I protest! I protest against this high-handed action. It is dishonest and unfair, and I shall take the matter before the people of the republic; I shall—”

“You'll take it out of here before I tie a bow knot in your tail,” said Jinx, and made a leap for him. But the rat had vanished.

“By gum,” said Jinx, staring into the corner, “there's a rat-hole here. Now, when was that done? We had those all stopped up two years ago.”

“Simon and his gang have been around a lot lately,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “That's one of the first things we have to attend to after election.”

“See here, Mrs. Wiggins,” said Marcus, “I don't want you to think I had anything to do with this cheating. I just thought it would be fun to run for president, only of course I knew nobody'd vote for me. But then Simon came to see me, and—well, he made some threats. You know, rats can do a lot of harm to rabbits. So when I found out what they were up to, I didn't dare say anything. But I didn't vote for myself, even. I voted for you—honestly I did.”

“Well, well, Marcus,” said Mrs. Wiggins comfortably, “I wouldn't worry about that. We don't bear you any ill will. And don't worry about the rats, either. We'll take care of them.”

“I'll fix that Simon—you wait,” said Marcus, who was beginning to recover his quite unrabbitlike daredevil spirit.

A sudden burst of loud and prolonged cheering made them all look up.

“What's that?” they asked each other. “What's going on?”

And then Bertram's voice boomed out over the barnyard.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he roared, “your new president is—Grover!”

There was another frenzied cheer, and then the voice again. “But there has been trickery. The representatives of the Farmers' Party have deliberately cheated in counting the votes, in order to elect their candidate. Yes, my friends, I know that it is difficult to believe that Mrs. Wiggins would lend her name to such a dishonest and shady transaction. But the facts cannot lie, even if the representatives of the Farmers' Party can.”

“Great guns!” said Jinx. “Outside, everybody! We've got to stop this!” And they rushed out into the great crowd of birds and animals that thronged the barnyard.

“But have no fear,” Bertram went on. “Your new and duly elected president, Grover, has taken charge. If there is sedition, if there is rebellion, he will put it down with a firm claw.”

In the upper doorway of the barn, where Uncle Ben's workshop had been, Bertram was standing, with X and John Quincy perched on his shoulders.

“It's Grover,” said Freddy. “He's running Bertram. We've got to get him out of there. Come on.”

So Freddy and Jinx and the two dogs ran back into the barn, while Mrs. Wiggins, who couldn't have got up the stairs anyway, stayed in the barnyard to try to quiet the crowd. Her supporters rallied loyally around her, but she was unable to make herself heard by them, for even her loudest voice was not strong enough to overpower Bertram's bellow. In three minutes the two parties had lined up on either side of the barnyard, and it looked as if there was about to be a pitched battle. But Mrs. Wiggins stepped into the open space between them.

I doubt if Mrs. Wiggins ever appeared more truly heroic than at that moment. Ordinarily the most peace-loving of a peace-loving race, when she had pledged herself to a cause which she thought right she was capable of taking a firm stand even in the face of the most determined opposition. Few other cows, I am certain, would have cared to address that angry mob. Fortunately, she was able to address them and be heard, for Bertram was for the moment engaged with the four animals who had run upstairs to attack him.