Freddy Goes to the North Pole (3 page)

“H'm,” said the horse. “Well, I ain't ever got much information out of any rooster before—nor any information, for the matter of that, except maybe about what a smart feller he was, but maybe you're different. Anyway, I come a long way, and I don't want to go back empty-hoofed, so to speak. Ye see, I'm just a plain farm worker—have been all my life. I've worked hard. Now I'm gettin' old and I can't work like I used to, but while I still got some of my faculties, I'd like to see a little of the world. That's reasonable, ain't it?”

“Very commendable,” said Charles.

“And so here I am. Now what kind of trips have you got?”

“Well, from what you say, I suppose you want a long trip, and the only long trip we're planning just now is one to Florida this winter. Our president is going to take this party himself. He's a seasoned traveller and has had a great deal of experience in conducting tours, and he knows everything there is to know about Florida. Of course it is a long trip and therefore rather more expensive than some of the—”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about,” interrupted the horse. “I'm poor. I haven't got anything to pay for the trip with.”

“Oh, surely we can arrange that,” said Charles. “Our charges are not excessive. A small bag of oats, or a bale of hay—”

“The farmer where I live is poor, too,” the horse replied. “And as I don't do as much work as I used to, I don't get any more oats and hay than just barely enough to get along on. I can't save any of it. But I thought maybe I could work it out. I'd be willing to come over either before or after the trip and do, say, ten good days' work. I'm still strong and hearty. I wouldn't skimp ye on my part of the bargain.”

“Dear me,” said Charles, “that's very awkward—very awkward indeed. No, I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid that wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all. Our rules are very strict, and our terms are strictly cash in advance.”

“Ah,” said the horse thoughtfully. “Well, I guess that finishes it, then. I thought maybe we could strike a bargain. But if that's the case—”

“I'm sorry,” said Charles firmly. “But we have to be business-like, or where would we be? There's nothing personal in it, you understand—”

“Oh sure, I understand,” said the horse impatiently. “Hop down now, I've got a long way to travel before night. Good day to ye. That's what I get for talking to a rooster, anyway.” And he clumped off down the road.

Charles resumed his perch on the fence. “Stupid animal!” he said to himself. “Who ever heard of such a thing! Just like all of 'em: trying to get something for nothing. Oh, this being in business is not so easy. It takes lots of cleverness and tact and ability. It's a lucky day for the company when they got me to interview these animals. Why, suppose Freddy had been out here. For all his cleverness, he's not such a fine business man. Just between you and me, Charles, you handled that horse pretty well.”

The longer Charles thought about it, the more pleased with himself he became, and finally he got so puffed up with pride that he went in and waked Freddy up and told him about it. But, to his amazement, Freddy was not at all pleased.

“What!” he exclaimed, “he offered to work his way on the trip, and you sent him away? Why, you ninny, that's the best idea I've heard since the company started. Why, you miserable fowl you, you oaf, you—you
umph!
”

“Umph” is a word that pigs use only when they are thoroughly disgusted with people. If a pig calls you an umph, you have a right to get mad about it—unless, of course, you happen to be one. Charles ruffled up the feathers in his neck and started to get mad, but before he could think of anything sarcastic to say, Freddy pushed him aside, crawled through the fence, and trotted off up the road in the direction the horse had taken.

Jinx hadn't waked up, and Charles tiptoed out of the shed, and walked dejectedly back to his home in the hen-coop. “That's gratitude for you!” he muttered. “Work and slave for these animals day in and day out, and what thanks do I get? Get called an umph. An umph—me! Well, I'm through, that's all. They can get somebody else to interview the tourists. We'll see how many they get when I'm not round.”

But the next morning when Mrs. Wiggins told him that there was to be a meeting of the company at ten o'clock, his curiosity was too much for him, and he got to the office before anybody but Freddy had come. Freddy was again looking over the map of the arctic regions. Charles, whose feelings were still hurt, would have gone out, but Freddy said:

“Don't go, Charles. I'm sorry I was rude to you yesterday. Please forgive me, will you?”

Of course there was nothing for Charles to do but to accept the apology, which he did, very handsomely. “Certainly, Freddy,” he said. “Pray don't mention it again.” He was going on to say more, because no matter how long he had talked, he could always find more to say on any subject, and he had hardly said anything yet, but the other animals began to arrive, and pretty soon Freddy called the meeting to order.

“Ladies and gentlemen, friends and fellow stockholders,” he said, “I have the great pleasure to announce to you that at the end of the first three months of business, your company finds itself in a very strong position. Although no very long trips have been organized, twenty-eight short trips have been successfully completed without loss or damage to any client, with the exception of one spider, who lost three legs on the third Fly-catching Expedition in a fight with a wasp, and one mouse who had indigestion as a result of eating too much cheese at the cheese-factory on Scenic Tour No. 3 for Mice. Both of these unfortunates, I am happy to say, have stated of their own free will that the company is not to blame. In addition to such profits of the business as have already been divided up, there is in the treasury a substantial surplus of nuts, grain, and various kinds of food, as well as of odds and ends which we have accepted in payment, and which we shall undoubtedly find use for later.”

There were loud cheers at this very favourable report, and then Freddy went on:

“But the principal reason for calling this meeting is that something happened which showed me a new way in which the company can benefit both us and our friend and owner, Mr. Bean.”

“Three cheers for Mr. Bean,” called Hank, the old white horse, and the animals cheered lustily, for Mr. Bean was well liked. Even Mr. and Mrs. Webb, the spiders, who had come to the meeting on Mrs. Wiggins's back, cheered heartily, but of course nobody heard them.

Then Freddy told them about the horse. “He wants to take a long trip, but he hasn't anything to pay for it with, so he has offered to give two weeks' work. Do you see what that means, animals? That means that Hank, here, can take two weeks' vacation whenever he wants to. Now, suppose for every animal, bird, and insect here we can get a substitute in this way. Two weeks' vacation for us all. And there is no need to limit it to two weeks. Up to today there has been one great difficulty in getting up tours. Most animals haven't anything to pay with. But there are hundreds who will be willing to work their way. I see no reason why Mr. Bean should not have twice as many animals at work on the farm as he has now. And at the same time I see no reason why any of us should ever have to work again.”

At this there was a perfectly tremendous burst of cheering, and then all the animals came up and shook hands with Freddy and congratulated him on having such a fine idea. Mrs. Wiggins was so enthusiastic that she slapped him on the back, and as she was a large cow and Freddy was a rather small pig, she knocked him clean through the side of the shed. He took two boards out with him as he went and this weakened the shed so that the roof fell right down on top of the meeting. But nobody was hurt, and all the animals scrambled out except Mrs. Wiggins who was so ashamed of what she had done that she just stayed right there until they got worried about her and pulled her out. And then when she saw Freddy's black eye, and the awful damage she had done to the office of the company, she broke down and cried and wanted to go home, and it was quite a long time before Freddy could comfort her and persuade her that nobody thought it was her fault.

The animals went to work on the new scheme right away. It was really quite a good scheme. You see, on a farm every bird and animal gets food and lodging from the farmer. In return he is supposed to do certain work. A horse's duty is to draw ploughs and wagons and buggies; and a dog's duty is to bark at strangers and do tricks and keep an eye on the children and look intelligent when his master talks to him; and a cat's duty is to chase mice, and purr when he's petted and sleep in ladies' laps and sit on the fence nights and sing. Some animals don't have any special duties. A pig's duty is just to be a pig, which isn't very hard if you have a good appetite.

Most of the work is done in the summer, and that is why it was so easy for the animals to get off and go to Florida as they had the previous winter. But now, if they could get substitutes, it would be easy for them to get off at any time of the year. So they went round and saw all the animals on the near-by farms and told them about the new scheme. And they found cows and horses and sheep and pigs and goats and cats and dogs—ninety-four animals in all, not counting birds and insects and wild animals like chipmunks and skunks and rabbits—who each agreed to do two weeks' work the following summer if they could be taken on the Florida trip. For the next two months Barnyard Tours, Inc., was a pretty busy company. Hundreds of animals who had never before been able to afford even the short sightseeing trips came to the farm and offered one or two hours' work if they could take a one- or two-day tour. Freddy and Jinx and Robert and Charles and Hank and even Mrs. Wiggins were almost never home. They were off every day personally conducting groups of animal tourists. The mice—Eek and Quik and Eeny and Cousin Augustus—took so many parties of rats and mice and chipmunks to the cheese-factory that they began to get very fat, and they had to have all the mouse holes in the barn enlarged so they could get through them. Of course they got the tourists to do all the heavy gnawing.

Mr. Bean was delighted with the way the work on the farm was getting done. The day he ploughed the twenty-acre field, thirty-five horses came and helped him, and it didn't take more than half an hour. Then one day he started to paint the barn. He painted one side of it before supper, and he was going to paint the rest the next day. But that night Freddy got a lot of squirrels down from the woods, and they finished the job before morning. They dipped their tails in the paint and used them as brushes, and then, when they were through, they cleaned them off with turpentine. There wasn't enough turpentine, and three of the squirrels had to go round with white tails all the following winter, till the paint wore off.

One evening Jinx heard Mr. Bean say to his wife: “Mrs. B., if the stumps were cleared out of that lot down back of the pond and it was planted with potatoes next year, we'd make a lot of money.”

“You've often said, Mr. B.,” replied his wife, “that there was money to be made out of that lot. Many and many's the time I've heard you say it. But it would take an awful lot of work.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Bean, “And I'm not as young as I was. Not by a whole lot, I ain't. And I've come to the time of life when I want to sit back and not work so hard. We've got plenty to get along on. What's the use making more money when we ain't got any children to leave it to? I guess we'll leave them stumps alone.” And he leaned back and puffed hard on his pipe, and the smoke trickled out of his bushy whiskers so that he looked like a haystack about to burst into flames.

And Mrs. Bean sighed and said: “This is a nice farm. But it's lonesome for just us two. I do wish we had some children to leave it to.”

But Jinx jumped up and ran out into the barn and called a meeting, and the next night nearly two hundred animals gathered down in the lot beyond the pond and set to work to clean out the stumps. They went at it with paws and claws and snouts—dogs and pigs and woodchucks and squirrels and rabbits and even mice—and the dirt simply flew out of the holes. Then when they had dug all around one stump, and the roots had been gnawed through, the horses would put a rope around it and pull it down to the end of the field. By morning there wasn't a stump left and when Mr. Bean leaned out of his window just after sunrise to see what kind of day it was going to be, he noticed a big pile of stumps away down across the pond that hadn't been there the night before. At first he didn't know what had happened, but when he had got out his telescope and had a good look, he hurried into his clothes and hurried downstairs and “Hurry up my breakfast, Mrs. B.,” he called. “There's queer goings-on on this farm, and I've got to find out about 'em.” But he didn't take time for much breakfast. He ate only three eggs and four sausages and two stacks of buckwheat cakes and a cup of coffee and five slices of toast, and then he hurried to the lot beyond the pond. And when he saw that the stumps were all cleaned out and piled up neatly in a corner of the lot, he stared and stared. And then he said very slowly two or three times: “Peter grieve us!” And then he went back to the house and told Mrs. Bean.

“All we've got to do now is plough that field and plant it next spring,” he said. “Bushels and bushels of potatoes just for a little work. I want to tell you, Mrs. B.,” he said, “that hereafter these animals can do what they please around here. I've farmed this place, man and boy, for fifty-two years, but those animals are better farmers than I am.”

Mrs. Bean looked at him in surprise. “I never thought I'd live to see the day, Mr. B., when you'd admit that any human being, let alone an animal, knew more about farming than you did. And, whatever you say, I'll never believe it. But I think the least thing we can do, Mr. B., is to give the animals a party.”