Freddy Plays Football (8 page)

Mr. Gridley was evidently at a loss for an argument, and while he was searching for one, his eye fell again on Freddy. A puzzled look came over his face. “You—boy!” he said, and adjusting his glasses, he peered at the pig. “You're not in my school!”

“Well—no, sir,” said Freddy.

“Well then, what—” He stopped. “Great gracious!” he exclaimed. “You're not even a boy. You're a pig!”

Mr. Doty attempted to interpose again, asserting that the whole team at one famous college was composed entirely of pigs. But Mr. Gridley brushed him aside, ordering Freddy off the field.

There was nothing else to do. Freddy went, and Mr. Doty followed after a minute. “Want a ride home?” he said.

“Home?” said Freddy sarcastically, for it made him mad to have Mr. Doty refer to the Bean house as his home.

But Mr. Doty grinned. “Home is where the icebox is,” he said. “Jump in.”

They couldn't talk much on the way, but when they drove into the barnyard and the car had stopped, Mr. Doty said: “There's no rule against pigs playing, you know.”

“There's one against people who don't go to school playing, though,” Freddy said.

“There ain't any against pigs going to school,” said Mr. Doty. “You ever been? School ain't so bad.”

“I haven't got the time,” Freddy said. “Say, what's M.B.F.?”

Mr. Doty grinned. “Member of the Bean Family. That's right, ain't it? A brother-in-law is a member, ain't he?”

“If he is a brother-in-law,” said the pig.

“Meaning you don't think I am, hey? Well, well; try and prove it!” Mr. Doty got out of the car.

Thinking things over afterwards, Freddy was puzzled. Here was Mr. Doty, who was trying to get the Beans' money away from them, who had tried to run him down in his car. Undoubtedly a thoroughly bad character. And yet he was a lot of fun sometimes. “And he certainly tried to help me out with Mr. Gridley,” Freddy thought. “Oh dear, I wish people were all one thing or all the other. There's that Mr. Gridley, too. All the boys respect him because he's just and honest. But none of them like him, because he blusters and roars at them. And I bet they all like Doty.”

It was too much of a problem for Freddy. He went into his study and finished up his poem.

The mouth is located below

The nose, and is constructed so

That when it grins, it stretches wide

To touch the ears on either side.

This elasticity is handy

In eating pie, or hunks of candy.

Though hunks that stretch the mouth too tight

(By some considered impolite)

Require much earnest concentration
,

And interfere with conversation.

In fact, there are extremely few

Who can, with charm, both talk and chew.

It's best to keep the two things separate;

When dinner's served, just salt and pepper it
,

And for your conversation wait

Until there's nothing on your plate.

Chapter 7

That evening after supper Jinx came bounding up to the pig pen. “I've got some bad news, Freddy,” he said. “Mr. Bean was telling old Doty that he'd have his money for him in a couple of days. Mr. Weezer, down at the Centerboro Bank, is going to lend it to him. We've got to stop it somehow. Mr. Bean will never be able to pay that much money back, and he'll lose the farm.”

So they went right down to the cow barn to talk to Mrs. Wiggins. When she heard the news, she said: “Well, if this man is really Mrs. Bean's brother, it's awful hard on the Beans, but we've got no right to interfere. Because the money really belongs to him. I wish we knew.”

“I don't see what we could do,” said Jinx. “Unless we can prove he isn't her brother.”

“We'd have a
right
to do something. I guess 'twouldn't be so hard to figure out what.”

“I wonder if he's married,” said Freddy suddenly.

“I've stuck around the house a lot since he's been here, and I haven't heard him mention it. Of course he wouldn't, would he?”

“Well, as long as he hasn't—” And Freddy outlined an idea that had just struck him. But Jinx sniffed, and Mrs. Wiggins only said thoughtfully: “H'm.”

“Great enthusiasm!” said Freddy. “Look, all I want to do is find out if he's real or a fake. It won't prove anything, but if we know he's a fake, we can do something, as Mrs. Wiggins says. Well, I'm going to do it anyway.”

Among the many disguises Freddy used in his detective work, the best was that of an old woman—probably because the bonnet hid his long nose, and the skirt came down to cover his trotters. With it he wore spectacles and black cotton gloves. So next morning he got these things together and carried them down to the Centerboro Hotel, and went in to see Mr. Ollie Groper, the proprietor.

Mr. Groper was a large fat man who never used a short word if a long one would do. “This here,” he said as he shook hands, “is a most felicitous visitation. Proceed into my sanctum.” He led the way into his private office, sat down heavily, and nodded towards a second chair. “The assumption of a semi-recumbent or quasi-horizontal position will sort of facilitate the interchange of observations.”

Freddy said: “I need your help. I'd like to take a room in the name of Mrs. Aaron Doty. Here's her clothes, and I'm her.”

“Investigating the transgressions of some malefactor, I presume?” inquired the hotel keeper.

So Freddy told him about Mr. Doty.

“Well,” said Mr. Groper, “I guess you're cognizant of the fact that the entire resources of this here establishment—culinary, pecuniary, and—and dictionary, are at your service.” He started to heave himself up out of his chair, then paused. “I'd sort of like to see you attired in these here habiliments of femininity,” he said. So Freddy put them on.

Mr. Groper looked him over carefully. He began to smile and then to chuckle, and then to heave and rumble with laughter. The laughter seemed to be all inside him, and he shook until the chair gave several loud cracks. Then he got up.

“I have never,” he said—and stopped. “In all my life,” he said, and stopped again. Then he shook his head. “Words fail me,” he said, and led the way, still shaking and sputtering, up to a vacant room. Freddy thought it was one of the finest compliments to his power of disguising himself that anyone had ever paid him, and perhaps it was.

Up in his room, Freddy telephoned the Bean farm.

Freddy telephoned the Bean Farm.

When Mrs. Bean answered: “Good day to ye, ma'am,” he said. “This is Mrs. Aaron Doty. Would ye be kind enough to be after callin' me dear husband to the instrument?” He spoke in a terrible Irish brogue, which would have made any real Irishman curl up in knots, but which seemed the best way to disguise his voice.

“One moment,” said Mrs. Bean, and Freddy heard her say: “Aaron, there's a woman wants to speak to you. She says she's your wife.”

There was silence for a minute, then Mr. Doty's voice: “I'll not talk to her. See what she wants, Martha.”

“But if she's your wife, Aaron!” Mrs. Bean protested. Then she said: “You never told us you were married.”

“Well, well, reasons I had for that a plenty,” Mr. Doty said. “She's a terrible woman; I want nothing to do with her.”

Mrs. Bean hesitated a minute, then picked up the phone. “He says he doesn't want to talk to you,” she said.

“Ah, himself is a cruel hard man, so he is,” said Freddy sadly. “And him walkin' out and leavin' me five years ago come St. Patrick's Day without a penny in my purse nor yet the heel of a loaf in the cupboard, and not hide nor whisker of him have I seen from that day to this. But says I to meself: ‘It's Centerboro he was born in, and he had a sister there, and the sister he'll go back to, for there's truth in the old sayin' that the bad penny always turns up, and a bad penny he is surely.' Five long years I was savin' up the money for the fare, and 'twas hard come by, what with scrubbin' other folks' floors and polishin' other folks' windys, but save it I did, and I'm here. And him sittin' there cozy and warm in the fine house ye have, ma'am, I'm sure, with his feet in the oven and a pot of strong black tea at his elbow, and not a word to throw to a dog, much less to meself that's his lawful wedded wife.”

“Wait a minute,” said Mrs. Bean, and she left the phone. This time Freddy couldn't hear what was said, but presently she came back. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but he won't speak to you. Where are you?” And when Freddy told her, at the hotel, she said: “I don't understand this at all. If you're really Brother Aaron's wife—”

“And haven't I the fine engraved certificate to prove it?” said Freddy. “With both our names set to it, and a picture of two sweet little doves a sitting close together on a branch at the top, and well I remember how he used to say 'twas him and me. Och, I can hear him now! ‘Well, well, well, Bridget,' he says, ‘them doves we'll be, cooin' at each other all our lives long.' But sorra a coo I've had out of him these many years.”

Freddy was going good, but Mrs. Bean cut him short. “Yes, yes,” she said. “You stay there, ma'am. Mr. Bean and I will come down and see you this evening.” And she hung up.

Well Freddy had proved his point all right. If Mr. Doty was the real Mr. Doty, and not married he would have said so right out. If, on the other hand, he did have a wife, he would have talked to her, no matter how much he disliked her. But he had been afraid to come to the phone, although he had not denied that he had a wife. It was pretty plain that he was afraid of being confronted with the real Doty's wife, and denounced as an impostor.

Freddy had only put on the old woman disguise because he thought that Mr. Doty might come to see him. And that was exactly what Mr. Doty did. About an hour later Freddy heard the familiar roar and rattle of his car; it stopped with a loud bang; and presently there was a tap on the door and Mr. Doty came in.

Freddy had arranged himself carefully in a chair with his back to the window, his trotters in their black gloves folded in his lap, and his bonnet pulled well down. Against the glare of light he was sure that Mr. Doty could recognize him. Mr. Doty stood for a moment frowning down on him. “Well, well,” he said, “so you're my wife?”

“Wife, is it?” said Freddy. “Be off with you, good man. A wife I am, but not to any wee wizened article like yourself.”

“Well, you're nothing anybody would pin up, yourself, if it comes to that,” said Mr. Doty. “But you claim to be Mrs. Aaron Doty, and I'm Aaron Doty, so—”

“So if you're Aaron,” put in Freddy, “you've shrunk terrible. A fine big man my Aaron is, with the fine bushy whiskers on him, though a dirty scoundrel entirely. But I'm thinkin' you're likely a bit of a scoundrel yourself, mister, and so I'll be tellin' the Beans this evenin'.”

“Telling them what?”

“That you're no more Aaron Doty than I'm the Queen of Sheba.”

The mean look came into Mr. Doty's eyes for a minute, but then he sat down on the bed. “Well, well, that won't do you much good, will it?”

“It'll do this much good,” said Freddy, “that Mrs. Bean'll put you out of the spare room and me in it. For it's the kind heart she has, the good woman, and she'll not rest in her bed nights thinkin' of her brother's wife, trampin' the wet and wintry roads—”

“How do you know so much about the Beans' spare room?” Mr. Doty demanded sharply.

“Och, she'd not be lettin' you sleep in the stable, though that's where you belong, I'm thinkin'.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Doty, “this is getting us nowhere. See here, ma'am, you came here to find your husband. He ain't here, and sooner or later you'll go back again, empty-handed. How's if I told you you could go back with a thousand dollars in your purse?”