Freddy the Politician (5 page)

“Oh, well,” he said, “we mustn't be too hard on Jinx. After all, there's always somebody here—”

“There's always
me
here,” said John Quincy. “Not that I mind the extra work, but it's the principle of the thing. Ten to three; those are our hours. And we're all supposed to be here.—Ah, here he is now,” he said, as Jinx poked his head in the door.

“Hi, gents,” said the cat breezily. “Boy, what a day! What a day I've had! Ah, spring, spring! I made a poem about it, Freddy.

Hooray for the spring! What a glorious feeling!

All the little lambs on the hillsides squealing!

Tighten up your braces! Tuck in your shirt!

All the little green things growing in the dirt!

I didn't really see any lambs, though. Spent most of the day chasing butterflies. Ah, what is more uplifting, my friends, than to sally forth in the glorious springtide and chase butterflies across the hills of Bean!”

“Indeed!” said John Quincy dryly. “And while you have been enjoying the spring, I have been slaving here in a stuffy office.”

“The more fool you,” said Jinx. “Anyway, you like to slave and stuff, doesn't he, Freddy?”

“Please leave me out of it,” said Freddy nervously, for John Quincy was beginning to tap nervously on the counter with his beak—a sure sign with woodpeckers that there is going to be a row.

“That is not the point,” said John Quincy, suddenly raising his voice. “As an officer of this bank, it is your plain duty to be here in banking hours. Suppose Mr. Bean comes in and wants to talk to the treasurer and I have to tell him the treasurer's out chasing butterflies! What kind of a bank is that? We've had quite enough of this, Jinx. As president of this bank and your superior officer—”

“As president of this bank and my superior officer,” interrupted Jinx, “you go soak your head in a rain barrel. You're right, we've had enough of it. I'm through. I started this bank to have some fun, not to be a woodpecker's slave. I quit, do you hear? I resign.” And with a swipe of his paw he knocked John Quincy off the counter, and leaped out of the door.

“I'm sorry, J. Q.,” said Freddy as the woodpecker picked himself up and smoothed down his feathers, “but you asked for it. That's no way to handle Jinx. He's a good fellow, but—”

“There's only one way to handle animals like him,” said John Quincy, “and that's with a firm hand.”

“I should say that Jinx was the one that used the firm hand,” remarked the pig. “However, we're out a treasurer. And we'll have to have one. Who do you suggest?”

They talked for a time about possible candidates for the office of treasurer, but they might as well have saved their breath, for, as they soon found out, none of the animals on the farm wanted the job. Most of them, the dogs and the cows and Hank, the old white horse, had their regular jobs on the farm, so that they could not possibly work at banking from ten to three, and the others were hardly fitted for such a responsible position. And indeed the only one who really wanted to be treasurer was Charles, the rooster. Charles was rather pompous and was much esteemed as a public speaker—by everyone, that is, but his wife, Henrietta—and would in some ways have made a good bank treasurer. But his judgment wasn't very good, and that is a grave fault in either a rooster or a treasurer. So Freddy and John Quincy both said no.

“We've got to do something, though,” said John Quincy. “We can't do business without a treasurer. Now I've been thinking it over, and if it's agreeable to you, I'll fly down to Washington over the week-end and have a talk with Father. I think perhaps I could persuade him to come up and take charge. He likes good food, Father does, and I will say that the bugs in New York State are the finest I've ever tasted.”

“Well,” said Freddy. “I must say I don't see why you and I can't run the bank. After all, there are days and days when nobody comes in at all.”

“And there are days when somebody like Mr. Bean comes in,” said John Quincy, “and what's he going to think if we say there isn't any treasurer? Is he going to put his money in a bank that isn't properly run?”

“I suppose not,” said Freddy. “And, my gracious, it would be awful if he decided that we couldn't run a bank properly. He'd think we couldn't run the farm, and then he wouldn't take that trip abroad. And Mrs. Bean has been counting on it so.”

“Don't you worry,” said John Quincy. “We can run the farm all right. We'll get at this election pretty soon and fix the whole thing up.”

“We?” said Freddy to himself as he bent over his ledger. “Somehow I don't like that ‘we' so much.”

V

Early Monday morning Freddy was awakened by a noise. It was so loud and so startling that he leaped out of bed and was half-way to the window before he had opened his eyes. He pulled aside the curtain and stared out, gasping with fright. But there was nothing there. Nothing, that is, but the big red barns and the little white house and the empty barnyard with the long early morning shadows across it. “Oh, my goodness!” he groaned.

And a voice said: “Good morning.”

Freddy swung around. In the doorway stood Charles. “Do I wake 'em up or do I wake 'em up?” said the rooster, and began drawing in his breath for another crow.

“No, no,” said Freddy. “Stop it! I asked you to wake me up, not to blow me out of bed. And, my goodness, what time is it?”

“Just after five.”

“Just after five! I asked you to wake me up early so I could get to the bank on time. But, good gracious, I don't want to get up in the middle of the night.”

“You asked me to wake you early and I did,” said Charles huffily. “Well, that's the thanks I get—doing things for people.” He turned away grumbling, but Freddy said:

“Oh, forget it, Charles. We've got different ideas about what's early, that's all. Come in. Come in, and I'll—I'll show you my bicycle.”

“Your what?” said Charles, forgetting his anger.

“Bicycle,” said Freddy. “It used to belong to Mr. Bean. My legs were too short to reach the pedals, but Uncle Ben fixed them for me.”

“How'd he do it? Stretch 'em?” asked Charles seriously.

“No, no,” said Freddy. “I mean he fixed the pedals.”

Uncle Ben was Mr. Bean's uncle, who had lived for a time at the farm. He was a fine mechanic, and it was he who had made the clockwork boy as a playmate for Adoniram.

Freddy went into his study and came out wheeling the bicycle. It was a real bicycle, all right, though pretty rusty, and the pedals had been moved higher up so that Freddy could reach them.

“I've never practiced riding it much,” Freddy said. “Except that time I went into the pond. That's when it got so rusty. And I don't know when I'll get a chance now, with the bank business and election coming on. But it's a fine machine.”

“Beautiful,” said Charles, walking around and admiring it with his head on one side. “Look, Freddy, you've got five hours now you don't know what to do with. I expect it's too early in the morning for you to write any poetry. Why don't you practice riding now?”

“That's an idea,” said the pig. He wheeled the bicycle out of the door. “Come on, Charles. Get up on the handlebars and I'll give you a ride.”

“No, thanks,” said the rooster. His judgment wasn't awfully good, but it was good enough to keep him off any bicycle that Freddy was riding.

“Well,” said Freddy, “here goes.” But he didn't seem very anxious to start. He stepped inside the frame and put one foot on the pedal and made a hop, but it was a very small hop, and the bicycle only moved forward about an inch. Then he stopped and looked up at the sky. “Wonder if it's going to rain,” he said. “I wouldn't want to be caught miles from home in a rainstorm.”

“There isn't a cloud in the sky,” said Charles. “Come on, Freddy, do your stuff. Vault into the saddle and away. Don't get on like a girl.”

Freddy bent over and spun the pedal. “I think these pedals need oiling,” he said. And he leaned the bicycle against the wall and went in and got an oilcan and oiled the pedal. Then he oiled the other pedal. Then he oiled the handlebars. Then he turned the bicycle upside down and gave it a thorough oiling all over. Then he got a rag and polished it all over.

“If you have nice things, you ought to take proper care of them, I always say,” he said. “I never start out unless I know my machine is in A-1, first-class condition. It pays in the end to take a little trouble about it. And while I'm at it, I'll just tighten things up a bit.” And he went back in and got a wrench and tightened all the nuts, and then he got the pump and blew some more air into the tires. “Many a trip has been spoiled because of the lack of just some little thing,” he said. “Just a drop of oil may make all the difference between success and failure. Suppose Lindbergh hadn't oiled his machine before he started across the ocean that time. Where'd he be now?”

“Yeah,” said Charles. “Suppose Lincoln hadn't oiled his horse before riding off to Gettysburg. Would he have won that battle?”

“Lincoln wasn't at the battle of Gettysburg,” said Freddy.

“He was so,” said Charles. “Hey, don't put any more oil on that thing. You aren't making a salad.”

“He was not,” said Freddy. “Come in and we'll look it up in the encyclopedia.”

So they went into his study to look it up. The study was not very tidy, and they couldn't find the L volume of the encyclopedia at all. “Oh, I remember,” said Freddy. “I lent it to Mrs. Bean because she wanted to look up a recipe for lamb stew. Mr. Bean doesn't like the kind she makes.”

They found the G volume finally, although they had to hunt for a long time, for Freddy had used it to prop up one corner of his bed. And then they looked up Gettysburg, and Freddy proved to Charles that Lincoln had not attended the battle.

By that time it was half past seven.

“While we're in here,” said Freddy, “I'd like to show you my stamp collection.”

“I'm afraid that would be taking too much of your time,” said Charles. “If you're going to practice riding your bicycle—”

“Oh, that's all right,” said Freddy. “Lots of time. See here.” He pulled out an old envelope from among some papers and shook out some stamps. There were only seventeen stamps, and eight of them were alike—just ordinary three-cent stamps tom from envelopes.

“Very interesting,” said Charles. “But not what you'd call a really large collection.”

“It is,” said Freddy, “and it isn't. I suppose a collector like Adoniram wouldn't think much of it. He has over three thousand different kinds. But just the same I'm willing to bet it's the largest private stamp collection owned solely and exclusively by a pig. I bet there isn't a pig in the world that has got a bigger one.”

“I bet there isn't a pig in the world that cares,” said Charles. “And what's more, I bet there isn't another pig in the world but you that could think up so many things to keep from riding a bicycle.”

“Why, what do you mean?” said Freddy indignantly. “Do you think I'm afraid to ride it?”

Charles didn't say anything. He just looked hard at Freddy with his left eye, and with his right eye he looked out of the window at the bicycle. And this was not as hard for him to do as you might think, for a rooster's eyes aren't set in the front of his head like yours, but are placed one on each side, so that it is no trouble at all for him to see what is going on in two places at once. Some people think that is why roosters, and hens too of course, seem to show such a lack of decision in a simple thing like crossing the road. They can't make up their minds which eye to rely on.

“Huh!” said Freddy. “I'll show you!” And he walked very boldly and resolutely out of the door and up to the bicycle, with an expression on his face like an early Christian martyr walking into the lions' den and glad to get it over.

He started to take hold of the handlebars and then he saw the oil-can. “Must take this in first,” he said. And then he said: “My goodness, that reminds me! I haven't oiled Bertram this week. Gosh, I must do that right away.”

Now, maybe you know about Bertram, and if you do, you can skip this paragraph. When Adoniram had first come to the farm, the animals thought it was too bad that he didn't have any other boy to play with. So they got Uncle Ben to make a wooden boy who ran by clockwork. His name was Bertram and he could do almost everything a real boy can except think. Of course there had to be an engineer to run him, and Ronald, the rooster who had come to the farm with Adoniram, was chosen because he was small. There was a door in Bertram's back for Ronald to get in by, and a little window in Bertram's chest for him to look out of, and inside there was a perch facing all the levers that controlled Bertram's arms and legs. There was even a microphone fixed up so that Ronald could talk for him. He was a good deal more complicated to run than an automobile, but Ronald got on to it very quickly, and Adoniram and Bertram (his clockwork twin) had many fine times together.