The Story of Freginald

The Story of Freginald

Walter R. Brooks

Illustrated by Kurt Wiese

The Overlook Press

New York

For

A. S. B.

THE STORY OF
FREGINALD

CHAPTER 1

There was once a bear named Louise. Most bears are named Ed or George or Bill or some regular name, but this bear's father and mother couldn't agree on a name for him.

His father wanted to call him Fred.

His mother said: “I don't like Fred. I want to call him Reginald.”

“Nonsense!” said his father. “Reginald indeed! What a name to give a child! His name is Fred.”

“Reginald!” said his mother.

“Fred!” said his father.

“Reginald!”

“Fred!”

“Look here,” said his grandmother, “why don't you call him George? It's a family name. George, Jr. That's the name for him.”

But they wouldn't agree to that. Indeed, they couldn't agree on any name that anyone suggested. So finally they went to see the head of the family, the little bear's great-grandfather, who lived all alone in a cave over the hill and was very wise. Sometimes he didn't say anything for several days at a time. And when he did speak, it was usually to ask a question. That's how wise he was.

They knocked on the door of the cave, and pretty soon the old bear came blinking out into the sunlight.

“Humph!” he grunted. “What's the matter now?”

“We can't agree on a name for this child,” said the mother bear, pushing the little bear forward. “We want you to help us.”

“Humph!” the old bear said again. “Should think you could do that much for yourselves. However, now you're here, I'll name her. Only, you understand, there's to be no changing afterwards. No coming back and asking for a different name.”

“No, grandfather,” said the mother bear. “Only it's not a her, it's a—”

“Do be quiet!” snapped the old bear. “How can I think of a name for her if you keep talking?”

“But, grandfather,” said the father bear, “we just wanted to tell you—”

“I don't want you to tell me
any
thing!” interrupted the head of the family crossly. “I'm not going to take all day at this. One more word and I'll have nothing further to do with it.”

The parents looked at each other and wrinkled up their noses, but they didn't dare say anything more. The old bear shut his eyes and didn't say anything for a long time. Then he opened his eyes very wide and: “Louise!” he said.

“But that's a girl's name,” protested the mother bear, “and he's a boy.”

“Can't help it now,” said the old bear. “That's his name. Should have told me before. Too late now.”

The parents looked at each other again and wrinkled up their noses tighter than ever, but they knew it was no use saying anything.

“Well, thank you anyway,” said the father bear. And they trudged off homeward. They weren't at all satisfied with the name, but they had agreed to give it to their son, so they had to do it. And so the little bear was named Louise.

Of course all of Louise's playmates made fun of him because he had a girl's name. When he wanted to play with them they chased him away. “We don't want to play with girls,” they said. So he would wander off disconsolately, down by the brook, or out into the open fields where bears seldom go; and sometimes he would play by himself, and sometimes he would play with the smaller animals—rabbits and squirrels and foxes and mice—that bears don't usually play with. From them he learned to do a lot of things that bears can't usually do—he could hop like a rabbit and swim like a muskrat and sneak along as quietly as a fox. But most of the time he played by himself.

That was the way he got to making up poetry. For to keep from being lonesome he would sing to himself—using any words that ran through his head. At first they were just words strung together and didn't make much sense. Sometimes he didn't even listen himself to the words he sang. But one day he was sitting on a big flat rock at the edge of the little river that ran through the woods. He was just sitting there, warm in the sun, and watching the water slide past, and singing to himself. And suddenly from above his head came a small sharp voice:

“Very pretty, Louise! Very pretty indeed! Didn't know you were a poet.”

He looked up and saw a kingfisher sitting on a branch above him. “Poet?” he said. “I'm not a poet.”

“Well, you made up that song you were singing, didn't you?” asked the bird.

Louise tried to remember what he had been singing, but he could only think of the last part of it:

Oh, the river hurries and runs and leaps,

And it never rests, and it never sleeps.

And it's very funny, is it not,

That it never gets out of breath, or hot?

“Why, that isn't a poem,” he said. “I was just talking to myself.”

“Well, you talk pretty good poetry to yourself, that's all I've got to say,” said the kingfisher as he swooped off to the other side of the river.

So after that Louise began paying more attention to the things he sang to himself, and he remembered them and sang them to his friends. Of course, Shakspere might not have thought them very good poetry, but they were pretty good for a little bear. And the animals in those parts sing some of those songs to this day.

Now, although the young bears made fun of Louise and wouldn't play with him, all the older bears in the neighborhood liked him. He ran errands for them and he was good-natured, and he wasn't always fidgeting to get away from them and go play. In return they taught him many useful and interesting things that most little bears don't learn until they are much older, and some never learn at all. Just the same, it made him feel badly that he had no playmates of his own kind, and he was sometimes very lonely. Here is one of the songs he made up when he was lonesome, and I think you will agree that it is a very sad song:

Oh, the rabbits play with the rabbits,

And the hares like to play with the hares,

And I'd like to play with my own people—

I'd like to play with the bears.

I like to play with the chipmunks,

But they're really a lot too small.

I ought to play with my own people

If I'm going to play at all.

But the bears think my name is funny,

And they jeer and point their claws

Whenever I try. If I ask them why,

They only say: “Oh, because—”

Then they giggle and grin and whisper,

And say: “Oh, go climb a tree!”

I'd like to play with the bears, but they

Don't want to play with me.

If my name was Eddie or Henry

Or Jimmie or Joe or James

Or even as silly a name as Willie,

They'd let me in on their games.

Why, suppose that George Washington's parents

Had picked a ridiculous name.

He couln't have got to be President,

Or won any honor or fame.

I don't really want to be President,

For riches I really don't care,

I can do without fame, but I
do
want a name

That will show I'm a regular bear.

One day Louise was walking along alone through the woods. He was alone, but he wasn't lonesome. He had watched the wind in the tops of some pine trees for quite a while, and he had tried to make up a poem about it, but just watching it and hearing it swish-swish made him so sleepy that he hadn't got any farther than “Oh, wind!” Which isn't after all much of a poem. So he went down to the river and tried to talk to the fish that were darting about in the shallows. But the fish were in a bad temper and pretended they couldn't hear what he said, and made him repeat everything three or four times, and then gave the wrong answers, which is very annoying, even to as good-natured a bear as Louise. So he left them and went back to the woods.