The Story of Freginald (11 page)

After that Mr. Boomschmidt went up on the porch of the house and fastened an American flag to one of the pillars and said: “In the name of the President and the Congress of the United States of America in solemn conclave assembled I hereby declare the Confederacy dissolved and abolished in the names of the parties aforesaid and hereinbefore mentioned and by virtue of the authority invested in me as director and sole owner of Boomschmidt's Colossal and Unparalleled Circus do proclaim this house and properties adjoining as henceforth part and parcel of the state or nation heretofore designated as the United States of America and the inhabitants thereof as citizens of the aforesaid United States of America henceforward without let, hindrance, or stay wheresoever, howsoever, and whensoever constituted.”

Then the band played
The Star Spangled Banner
and the robbers filed past and saluted the flag. And when this was done, Mr. Boomschmidt rewarded the courage of Jerry and the resourcefulness of Eustace by presenting each of them with one of his red checkered handkerchiefs. He sneezed again when he was making the presentation to Eustace and nearly blew the mouse off the porch, but otherwise the ceremony was very. impressive.

The bull was pretty pleased with the whole thing and especially with the flag. “I suppose Colonel Yancey would have a fit if he saw that flag over the door,” he said, “but he's been gone over seventy years, so I reckon he won't ever see it. And it's a mighty pretty one. But there's one thing bothers me, Mr. Boomschmidt. I admit getting a living by robbing isn't all it's cracked up to be, and I for one will be glad to give it up. But what can we do? Don't you want to take us along with you, sir?”

Well, of course, Mr. Boomschmidt couldn't do that. But he said he'd talk to the mayor of the next town up the road and tell him the state of affairs. And probably the mayor could find homes for all of them.

“Well, that's all right,” said the bull dubiously, “but you know the farmers around here are afraid of us. We've been a pretty tough lot.”

So Mr. Boomschmidt thought a minute or two, and then suddenly he said: “I've got it. I've got just the idea. Oh,
oh;
what an idea! I've always wanted to have a little farm of my own—place where I could come between trips, where the animals could rest up, and so on. Suppose I leave a couple of my men here to run the place with you? Eh? How would that be? Leo! Where's Leo? Hannibal, what do you think?”

“You could have your mother come down here and live,” said Hannibal. “She told me last time I saw her she was awful tired of Schenectady.”

“No movies, though,” said Mr. Boomschmidt.

“There's a movie house at Yare's Corners, three miles over the mountain,” said the bull. “We'd take her over any time she wants to go. Oh, that sounds fine! I hope you'll do it.”

“I will!” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “Goodness, why didn't I think of it before? Why didn't I think of it before, Hannibal?”

“You'll have to repair the house,” said the elephant.

Mr. Boomschmidt pushed his hat back and scratched his head. “Yes, yes, I suppose Jerry sort of stirred the house up. Well, go get the carpenters, Hannibal. And, Oscar, you run down and tell 'em to bring up the wagons. We'll have to camp here for a few days. Good gracious, what a splendid idea I had!”

CHAPTER 10

It was quite a job to get the plantation in running order again. But the whole circus pitched in, and in two weeks you wouldn't have known the place. They repaired the house and gave it a thorough cleaning and painted it inside and out, and they scrubbed and polished all the furniture and hung curtains at the windows and put a brass plate at the door with “Boomschmidt” on it in Gothic letters. They opened up the driveway that went out to the road and edged it with cobblestones painted white, and they put up a mailbox and painted “Mrs. Sarah Boomschmidt” on it, so that Mr. Boomschmidt's mother could get the picture postcards he sent her from every place he stopped. And then they repaired the barn and painted that and built stalls in it for the cows and horses, and they built a modern pigpen for the pigs and a henhouse for the chickens.

While the men were doing all this, the elephants cleared a lot of the land that had got overgrown by woods in the past seventy years. They pushed the trees over or pulled them up by the roots and then they pulled the branches off and stacked them up back of the house where they could be cut into firewood later. The rest of the animals pulled up weeds and dug holes to plant things in and helped the men by holding things and going for things and watching things—which is nine tenths of all work. And when everything was ready Mr. Boomschmidt sent for his mother.

Mrs. Boomschmidt arrived on May 5th. She traveled by plane from Schenectady and the whole circus went over to Yare's Corners to meet her and marched her back to the farm with the band playing and the colors flying. And that evening they had a big housewarming.

Mrs. Boomschmidt looked a good deal like her son. She was small and round and apple-cheeked and the first thing she did when she got in her new house was to sit down in a rocking-chair in the front window and cry because she was so happy to have such a nice home. And the second thing she did was to go out in the kitchen and bake eighteen perfectly enormous cakes for the housewarming that night. And the third thing she did, while the cakes were in the oven, was to go out and shake hands with the bull and all the other ex-robbers and say that she hoped they'd all be very happy together. And the fourth thing she did was to go back and sit down in the rocking-chair and cry a little more. You can see why all the animals liked her.

The next morning the circus broke camp and one by one the red and gold wagons went creaking out of the driveway and up the road. With them went three of the robbers. For Freginald had found that there was quite a lot of talent on the plantation. A number of the animals were gifted. And among them were three who were very good indeed—a young rooster who could stand on his head, and a dog who could imitate birds, and a cow who could yodel. This cow, whose name was Edna, had a really magnificent voice which even when she just hummed could be heard for a mile or two, and Mr. Boomschmidt said that she really ought to be in grand opera. “Why, I don't believe,” he said, “that anybody has ever written an opera with a part for a cow in it.” But he billed her as Madame Bovina, the famous prima donna, and when she came out and did her yodeling song, accompanied on the steam calliope, the effect was immense.

Leo and Freginald weren't at all discouraged by their adventure, and they continued to scout along the back roads as the circus traveled north. Every now and then they would hear of an animal who had learned to do something pretty special and they would go call on him and if he was really good they would send him down to see Mr. Boomschmidt. It was fine tramping along together in the warm spring rain and the cool spring sunshine, wondering what they would find over the brow of the next hill or round the next turn of the road. Sometimes they would lean on a fence and pass the time of day with a farmer and his horses at their plowing, and sometimes they would catch a ride for a few miles in an automobile, paying their fare with a song. Sometimes the people they met didn't know about Mr. Boomschmidt and his animals, and it isn't surprising that such people usually abandoned their automobiles in the middle of the road and climbed trees. For what would you do if you met a lion and a bear walking along together on a lonely country road? When this happened, the two animals would stroll calmly along as if nothing had happened, and pretty soon the scared farmer would sneak back into his car and drive off at top speed.

Once a boy climbed out of his car and shot at them with a rifle. The bullet kicked up a puff of dust between them, and before it had settled they had dived into the woods. The boy followed them, sneaking along quietly from tree to tree, but they were a good deal better at that than he was, and a good deal quicker, and they circled around and got into the back of his car and hid under a rug. By and by the boy came back, and when he had slid in behind the wheel, Leo rose up and put his paws over the boy's eyes and said: “Guess who this is?”

“Well,” said the boy, “your voice sounds sort of like Uncle Caspar's, but he cuts his fingernails short. The only person around here that has sharp fingernails is Ella Simpson. She's everlastingly at her filing and manicuring. She could fake the voice, too. Well, if I guess right will you give me a kiss?”

“Sure,” said Leo.

“Well, I guess Ella,” said the boy. And then he turned around. He made a noise like a cat falling out of a fourth-story window and ducked and tried to crawl under the wheel.

But Leo pulled him back and said: “Hey, how about that kiss?”

“Aw, he's scared enough, Leo,” said Freginald. “Get up, boy. We won't hurt you.”

So the boy sat up, shivering, and Leo gave him a good talking to and he promised never to shoot at any lions again. And they let him go.

Another day they were passing a pond and they heard a little weak voice calling: “Help! Help!” They pushed through the bushes and there on the bank was a small green snake tied in a knot. When he saw them he began to cry. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he sobbed, “I'm so glad you've come! I just thought nobody'd ever hear me.”

“Well, well,” said Leo, “don't bawl. We'll straighten you out. Here, Fredg, catch his tail and pull it through there. That's it. How on earth did you ever get tied up like that?”

“I was chasing a frog. He jumped over me and then he crawled under me and then he jumped over me again and I followed him, and the first thing I knew, I was like this. And I couldn't get back again. Oh, thank you, you kind, good animals. How can I ever repay your kindness?”

“Do you suppose you could do it again?” Freginald asked.

“Oh dear, I don't
want
to. I can't untie myself afterwards, and you don't
know
how unpleasant it feels.”

“That's an idea, Fredg,” said Leo. “That would be some act, wouldn't it? Do it again, snake; we'll untie you.”

The snake began to cry a little, but Leo said: “Come, stop sniveling. We've promised to untie you.” So he tied himself in a knot. It was a little difficult for him because he was trying to stop crying at the same time, and that gave him the hiccups, and every time he hiccuped he straightened out. But at last he did it.

So they untied him again and took him back to the circus. He became quite famous. He used to tie himself in a knot around the snake-charmer's neck and was known far and wide as the live necktie. But he was always very nervous and timid, and he never got over his fear that they would forget to untie him after he had done his act, so that often he would burst out crying in the middle of it. And at last he decided to leave the circus. He retired and now lives in a swamp up near Buffalo.

After a while as the news got around the country that Mr. Boomschmidt was on the look-out for animals who could do parlor tricks, a great many animals came to see him of their own accord. This was rather a nuisance because only about one in ten could do anything really clever. The rest just thought they could. So finally Mr. Boomschmidt decided to have an amateur hour at the end of every afternoon performance, in which these animals were allowed to get up and show what they could do. And if the audience liked the act they would applaud, and if they didn't like it they would boo and hiss, and Hannibal would come out and put his long trunk around the animal's neck and lead him away. Usually the animals were satisfied that this was fair and accepted the audience's decision. But sometimes they got up and wanted to argue. One time a pig who could do arithmetic on the blackboard came all the way from Boston. A Rotary Club up there had paid his fare down. But when he got up on the stage all he could do was make little marks on the blackboard with the chalk; he couldn't even make figures. The audience booed and he got mad and started calling them names, and, big as Hannibal was, he had quite a time getting him out. And when the pig got back to Boston he complained that he hadn't been treated fair and the Rotary Club got their lawyer to complain to the Interstate Commerce Commission and it caused Mr. Boomschmidt quite a lot of trouble. Until at last an investigator whom the Commission had sent to Boston discovered that the Rotary Club had sent the wrong pig. Then the case was dropped, for the right pig—the one who could do arithmetic—very sensibly refused to leave Boston when they wanted to send him.