Freddy the Pied Piper (4 page)

“That's it exactly,” said Mr. Weezer. “If Mr. Boomschmidt has any good security to put up—”

“How about Jerry?” said Jinx, and Freddy said: “Oh, sure. Mr. Weezer, how much would you lend on a rhinoceros in good condition?”

“A rhinoceros? Why, we lend money on animals sometimes—cows and horses and pigs—excuse me, Freddy. But if Mr. Boomschmidt couldn't pay up, what would the bank do with a rhinoceros?”

“You could sell him.”

“Who to? Barclay,” he said to a small man in a green eyeshade who came in at that moment, “what are rhinoceroses quoted at today? Will you look it up, please?”

The man looked surprised. “Rhinoceroses, sir? Never seen any quotations on them. Pigs are firm today, sir. Chickens are off two cents, and lambs very weak. But rhinoceroses—not a very active market in them, I should say.” He paused a moment, then laid a sheaf of papers in front of Mr. Weezer. “I thought you ought to see these, sir,” he said. “Just brought them up from the vault.”

Mr. Weezer put on his glasses and examined the papers, the edges of which seemed to be badly chewed and tattered. “Tut, tut!” he said. “Worse and worse!” He held them out to Freddy. “Mice,” he said. “Chewing up half the important papers in our vault. I wish I knew how they get in. Of course it's an old vault, and there are cracks here and there. They ate up a whole package of five dollar bills two nights ago, and now here—here's two war bonds half eaten and Jacob Wensley's note—they've eaten the corner where the amount was written, and now we won't be able to collect. Don't know how much he borrowed now. I don't suppose you remember, Barclay?”

Mr. Barclay thought it was either a hundred and fifty or seven hundred, he couldn't remember which.

“There you are,” said Mr. Weezer. “Of course Jake has lost all his money and can't pay anyway, but it's the principle of the thing.” He looked at Jinx. “You wouldn't want a good mouse-catching job around here for a few weeks, would you?”

“I'm sorry,” Jinx said. “I don't catch mice any more—haven't in years. Why, some of my best friends are mice.”

“We've been trying to borrow a cat,” said Mr. Weezer, “but it's a big year for mice, and everybody that has a cat wants to keep it to protect his own property. Well, it's too bad; if you could have helped me out, I might have done something for Boomschmidt.”

“I might be able to help,” said the cat. “I know about mice. They don't tear papers up just to be mean. It's usually to make nests, unless they're terrible hungry, and then I guess they'd eat them. Why don't you strew a lot of old newspapers around in the vault?”

“You think they'd chew them up instead?”

“I've got an idea,” said Freddy. He drew up to Mr. Weezer's desk and took a sheet of paper and a pencil and began lettering a sign. It read:

ATTENTION MICE!!

These newspapers are provided by the management for your convenience. Use them freely, but please do not disturb any other papers. Free cheese will be distributed every Thursday as long as you comply with this request.

by H
ENRY
W
EEZER,
President.

Mr. Weezer read it, said: “Good!” and passed it to Mr. Barclay. “See that this is taken care of at once,” he said. “And while you're at it go out and buy a couple pounds of cheese.”

Mr. Barclay hesitated. “That'll look sort of funny on the quarterly statement,” he said. “Under ‘Expenses'—two pounds of cheese.”

“Nobody ever reads our quarterly statement anyway,” said Mr. Weezer. “But I'll explain it to the Board at our next meeting.” And then when Mr. Barclay had gone he thanked the two animals warmly. “You come and see me again in three or four days,” he said. “If this works, maybe I can figure out something that will help Mr. Boomschmidt more than lending him a few dollars on an old rhinoceros.”

From the bank, the two animals walked over to the jail. The prisoners were having a snowball fight in the jail yard. They were all bundled up warm except the sheriff, who was refereeing. He was dressed as he always was, winter and summer, in his shirtsleeves, with his silver star pinned on his vest. When he saw Freddy he left the game and went over and invited the animals into his office.

“Glad you came,” he said. “I was getting pretty chilly.” He shivered and broke a small icicle off the end of his moustache. “Pull chairs up to the stove and tell us the news.”

“I should think you'd be frozen,” said Freddy. “Why don't you wear a coat?”

“Well, I tell you,” said the sheriff. “Folks in this town expect their sheriff to be a pretty tough character. If they thought I was a sissy they wouldn't vote for me. But when they see me out there in the cold in my shirtsleeves, they say: ‘My land, our sheriff's a pretty tough customer! He's the kind of man we want.' And next election I get their votes. It's just politics.” He shivered. “It ain't much fun and it don't make sense, but you got to give folks what they expect.”

“Is that why you carry that pistol sticking out of your hip pocket?” Jinx asked.

The sheriff laughed. “I carried a pistol my first term in office,” he said. “Though it wasn't ever loaded. But it was pretty heavy, so I sawed off the butt and had it just sewed into the pocket so it sticks out. Now when I get me a new pair of pants, I have 'em made complete with a pistol butt in the hip pocket.”

“I know a way you could make people think you were even tougher,” said Freddy. And when the sheriff appeared interested, he said: “Well, you know if anybody owns a big fierce dog, they always think he's a pretty tough man. Well, suppose you had a pet rhinoceros?”

“
Well, suppose you had a pet rhinoceros?
”

“A pet rhinoceros, eh?” said the sheriff. “Why yes; yes, that would be—” He stopped suddenly. “Hey, what are you trying to put over on me?” He demanded. “You got a rhinoceros you're trying to get rid of or something?”

“We're not trying to put anything over,” Freddy protested. “Wait, I'll tell you.” And he told the sheriff about Jerry's visit, and Mr. Boomschmidt's trouble. “You see,” he said, “we want to get the circus started again, and we want to keep Jerry until we do. But we can't ask Mr. Bean to feed him all the rest of the winter. He eats an awful lot of hay, and the hay crop wasn't very good last summer; Mr. Bean has only got about enough in the barn to take care of his own animals. I know you've got a lot of hay in the barn back of the jail that the prisoners cut last July—”

“That hay belongs to the county,” said the sheriff. “I can't just use it to feed stray rhinoceroses. What would the taxpayers say?”

“I see,” said Freddy. “Well, you feed the prisoners out of county money. Suppose the rhinoceros was a prisoner. Suppose you arrested him and put him in jail. You'd have to feed him then.”

“What can I arrest him for?” the sheriff asked. “He ain't broke any laws. There ain't any law against being a rhinoceros. Though I don't know,” he added thoughtfully, “when you look at one of the critters you wonder sometimes why there isn't.”

“Couldn't you keep him as a sort of watchdog?” Jinx asked.

“Wait a minute,” said the sheriff. “I got an idea. I'd like to help you boys out if I can, and I just thought: I'm allowed a certain amount of money for recreation and entertainment for the prisoners. Suppose I took him as a pet for the boys, eh? Is he broke to harness? Some of 'em's been after me to get 'em a pony—maybe this would do.”

Freddy said: “He's not broken to harness. But he's goodnatured. He isn't very bright, though.”

“That would be all right,” the sheriff said. “Most of the prisoners ain't any too bright, either. He'd fit right in. I wouldn't want to bring in an animal that was brighter than the prisoners are; they might think I was trying to teach 'em something, and prisoners and school kids are a lot alike: there ain't anything that makes 'em madder than to think you're trying to teach 'em something.” He smiled at the two animals. “Well, that's settled. You bring Jerry down. I'll keep him for you for a while, anyway.”

Chapter 4

Next day Freddy took Jerry down to the jail. The rhinoceros was feeling much better, and before they went Freddy had him plow out a path to the pigpen. He just took Jerry out into the barnyard and pointed him up the slope towards the pigpen and said: “Go!” and Jerry put his head down and shut his eyes and went. He went through the deep snow like a baby tank, and it was lucky that Freddy hadn't pointed him directly at the pigpen, but a little to one side, for even if he'd had his eyes open, they were so weak that he probably wouldn't have seen it, and if he'd hit it he would have knocked it into smithereens. Indeed, he went on quite a distance beyond it before he heard Freddy yelling to him to stop. But now Freddy had his path open, and he hadn't shoveled it himself either.

Freddy and Jinx spent the rest of the day trying to find out if any of the birds in the neighborhood had heard or seen anything of Leo. For they were worried about the lion. He had started north the same time Jerry had, “and he must have got into trouble,” Freddy said, “or he'd have been here by this time.” But the birds hadn't heard anything—or rather, they had heard too much. For the sky is always full of gossip; everything that happens is seen and noted by some bird or other, and is passed on from beak to beak in the continual chatter of the birds, so that if a boy gets spanked in Texas it is known twenty-four hours later in Maine. But the trouble is that the story changes a good deal in the telling. Each bird adds a little as he passes it on, just as people do when they repeat a bit of gossip, so that after it has been repeated half a dozen times it isn't very much like what originally happened. And so Freddy and Jinx got a lot of interesting stories about strange animals that had been seen here and there, but none of them sounded much like Leo.

“The only thing to do,” said Freddy, “is to paint a picture of Leo and show it to the birds. You can do that, Jinx.”

“I can't paint from memory,” said the cat. “If you had Leo here, so he could pose for me—”

“Well, he isn't here,” said Freddy. “Look, I'll pose for you—as Leo.” He went up to the pigpen and found a wig of long yellow curls that he had used as one of his disguises when he was doing detective work, and a piece of rope with a frayed-out end. He put the wig on for a mane, and tied the rope on for a tail, and then he came down into Jinx's studio and stretched out in as lion like a pose as he could assume, with his head held proudly high and a very noble and snooty expression on his usually kindly face. “How's that?” he said.

“You don't look much like a lion,” said Jinx. “Golly, I don't know what you do look like!” Then he began to laugh. “Yes, I do, too. You look like a pig dressed up as a little girl. A nice little girl.” And he laughed harder than ever.

“Oh, shut up!” said Freddy crossly. “Little girls don't have long tails.”

“Lions don't have long snouts, either,” said Jinx. “Look, can't you sort of snarl?”

Freddy curled his lip up. It wasn't a very good snarl. It just made him look sort of half-witted, but the cat didn't want to make him mad, so he said: “OK,” and picked up his brush and went to work. He didn't want to laugh any more, but of course he had to keep looking at Freddy, and every time he looked at him his whiskers twitched and he sort of shook inside. Until at last Freddy said: “What's the matter—are you trying not to sneeze?”

Freddy curled his lip up.