Freddy and the Perilous Adventure (3 page)

On the ride over from the farm the two spiders had climbed up on to the top of Freddy's head, where they had prudently anchored themselves to a few strands of web spun between his ears. But when Mr. Golcher had led Freddy and the ducks over and helped them into the basket which was swung from cords that formed a net over the bulging surface of the balloon above them, the spiders found a safer place in a crevice of the basket, where they would be out of the way and still see all that was going on.

“Now,” said Mr. Golcher, “you want to know what all these things are for. This here cord is attached to a valve that lets the gas out of the balloon. If you want to come down, you let a little gas out. If you're coming down too fast, you throw out some of these bags of sand, fastened along the side of the basket. If you're drifting along close to the ground and want to stop, you throw out this grapnel,” he said, picking up a thing that looked like a sort of four-pronged anchor, which was fastened to the end of a coil of rope.

“But we don't need to know about those things,” said Freddy. “I mean, you'll know better than we would what to do.”

“I would if I was with you,” said Mr. Golcher.

“You don't mean you're going to send us up
alone
?” said the pig.

“Why, sure. 'Twouldn't draw a crowd if I just took a pig up with me. Pig goes up alone—there, now you've got something.” He took a handbill out of his pocket. “That's the way we advertised it, see? ‘See the Flying Pig! Daring animal aeronaut braves dangers of the stratosphere! Hear the talking pig! Accomplished porker delivers patriotic address. Witness this breath-taking, super-stupendous phenomenon—the first and only quadrupedal orator and balloonist will make a balloon ascension at four P.M. sharp.' and so on and so on.”

“That's very nice,” said Freddy. “Only I've never—er, driven a balloon.”

“I'm sure you'll drive it very capably, Freddy,” said Alice calmly. She and her sister were sitting on the edge of the basket, watching the crowd.

“Oh, dear,” said Emma; “are you sure it's quite, quite safe, Mr. Golcher?”

“Be still, sister,” said Alice severely. “Of course it isn't safe. But it won't be any safer if you tremble all over. What would Uncle Wesley say if he could hear your bill chattering?”

“I'll try to stop it,” said Emma. “Oh, here's that nice sheriff.”

The sheriff, who had come over to the fair grounds with some of the prisoners, came up and wished Freddy a pleasant journey, and handed him a large paper bag. “Some of the candy the boys pulled yesterday,” he said. “They thought you might like something to chew on when you're chargin' around the sky.”

At a signal from Mr. Golcher the band began to play. “Soon's the band stops,” he shouted to Freddy, “we'll begin to cast off the ropes, and while we're doing it, you make your speech. Then we'll let her go.”

Freddy nodded mournfully, then almost absent-mindedly he opened the bag of candy and unwrapped several pieces and put them in his mouth. They were good. He started to chew them—that is, he closed his jaws down on them. But when he tried to open his jaws again, he couldn't. His upper and lower teeth were stuck as tight together as if they had been glued. And just then the band stopped playing.

The crowd gave a cheer and looked expectantly at Freddy, while the men began casting off the ropes that held the balloon to the ground.

“Your speech!” whispered Mr. Golcher. “Make it! You've only got three minutes.”

“Mmmmmmm!” said Freddy, rolling his eyes, and the muscles on the sides of his jaws stood out as he tried to pull them apart.

“Speech! Speech!” shouted the crowd, and Alice said: “Freddy, what on earth—?”

“Mmmmmmmmmm!” said Freddy, pointing to his mouth.

“I dunno what's the matter,” said Mr. Golcher angrily, “but by gormly, it's the last time I ever make a business deal with an animal!” He turned to the sheriff. “Look at him!
Your
friend, that's so brave—and he's so scared he can't talk!”

Freddy shook his head violently. “Mmmmmmmmmmm!” he said.

Some of the rougher elements in the crowd, who did not know Freddy very well, began to shout: “Boo! Boo!” while others, who had heard a good deal about his past exploits, shook their heads mournfully.

“Well, if you won't make a speech, I will!” exclaimed Alice. She flapped her wings. “Ladies and gentlemen—” But the crowd was making so much noise now, some attacking and some defending the pig's failure to speak, that no one heard her.

“Let her go, then!” shouted Mr. Golcher.

And with a rush the balloon shot up into the air.

Chapter 3

Freddy, leaning over the edge of the basket, saw the crowd drop away beneath him. There was no feeling of going up into the air; it was as if the earth was falling away from the balloon. One minute the fair grounds were spread out beneath them, and then they shrank rapidly, slid away sidewise, and below was only a sort of colored map, in which fields were no more than green and brown squares, and the barns and houses, red or white dots, with roads like pieces of string connecting them. It was rather exciting, but not frightening at all.

Up where they were in the sky, the wind was stronger than it had been on the ground, and it carried them along swiftly. Emma had got down inside the basket, but Alice still sat on the edge, hanging on to a rope with her bill. “Look, look! Here comes the Bean farm!” she exclaimed, and sure enough, over the horizon came rolling the familiar fields and woods, with the tiny white house and barns and stable and henhouse …“And that little speck you can hardly see is my home,” thought Freddy. “Oh, when will I enter it again?”

“Why, there's the duck pond, that little blue dot,” said Alice. “Sister, come up here; you're missing everything.”

“I'm all right here,” said Emma miserably.

“Oh, come up! What would Uncle Wesley say to such talk!”

“I'll hold on to you so you won't fall,” said Freddy, who had at last got the better of the candy and found his voice.

“Oh, dear—all right,” said Emma faintly. And then when they had got her up on the edge beside Alice: “Why, it—it's quite pleasant!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Dear me, not at all alarming! I suppose that moving speck out in the hayfield is Mr. Bean. What time do you think we'll get home, Freddy?”

“You may get home sooner than you expect to unless you stop talking and hang on to this rope,” said Alice.

“I think perhaps we ought to go down a little,” said Freddy. “We're pretty high up, and we don't want to be carried too far.” And he gave a short tug at the valve cord.

But nothing happened.

“That's funny,” he said. “Mr. Golcher said you didn't have to let much gas out if you wanted to come down.”

He gave two longer pulls, and then as the balloon still kept on at the same level, he called: “Hey, Webb! Come up here a minute.”

The spider came up over the edge of the basket and climbed up by Freddy's ear. “We've been riding on the bottom of this thing,” he said. “My word, what a view!”

Freddy explained what was the matter. “I wish you'd climb up this cord,” he said, “and see if that valve works.”

So Mr. Webb climbed up, and in a few minutes he climbed down again and reported that the valve cord had got tangled in some of the ropes so that the valve couldn't be opened. “Guess there's nothing you can do,” he said. “I'm not strong enough to fix it, and you're too heavy to climb up.”

“My goodness, do you see what that means?” said Freddy. “We can't get down.”

“She'll come down some time,” said the spider unconcernedly. “Anyway, you can always jump. No, no; I'm just fooling, Freddy. But what's the use of worrying?”

“But suppose she comes down in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?”

“We're being blown away from the Atlantic Ocean at about thirty miles an hour,” said Mr. Webb. “I'm hoping we'll be over Niagara Falls in the morning. Mother and I have always wanted to visit the Falls.” He walked down to the end of Freddy's snout and dropped from it to the edge of the basket.

“What's that you've got on your back?” asked the pig, for on the spider's shoulders—or at least the shoulders of his first pair of legs—was a little bunch of something grey that seemed to be fastened around him with strands of web.

“Parachute,” said the spider. “Mother spun a couple of them for us to take along. Kind of foolish, I thought. But you know how women are.”

“H'm,” said Freddy. “You and Mrs. Webb have parachutes, and Alice and Emma have wings, but what have I got?”

“My goodness, you've got one of the finest views below you a pig ever set eyes on. Why don't you enjoy it and stop worrying?” And the spider disappeared over the edge.

The view was indeed impressive. Directly below them now was a good-sized lake, set among rolling hills, wooded towards the tops, but laid out on the lower slopes and in the valleys in different colored shapes of cultivated land like a jigsaw puzzle. At the end of the lake was a tiny white village, and off in the distance, to the northwest, a big city sprawled under a smoky haze. Syracuse, Freddy thought.

He discovered suddenly that he was enjoying himself. He had only been scared because he had thought he ought to be scared, but after all he was having one of the most remarkable experiences of his long and colorful career. Of course, there was that speech he hadn't made; people were going to criticize him for that. But he could deliver a speech when he got back that would make them forget that unfortunate incident, or he wasn't Freddy.

The balloon drove on westward. They were over Syracuse now; they could see strings of cars moving through the streets like ants; and an airplane came up and circled them twice and then flew away. Alice and Emma waved their wings excitedly at the pilot, who waved back. Syracuse rolled off down over the eastern horizon. “Next stop, Rochester,” called Alice.

“And the next one is Buffalo,” said Freddy, and then he became thoughtful. For he had an idea that the next stop after that would be Lake Erie, and while it wasn't as big as the Atlantic Ocean, it wasn't a place he wanted to stop at on a balloon trip. He wished he had brought his geography along.

By and by the sun began to go down. The shadows of the hills grew longer and longer, and they flowed together and darkened the roads and the fields and the villages, and finally covered them with a dark blanket, although the balloon, high up in the air, was still in the bright sunlight. Little lights pricked out here and there on the earth, some of them moving along the roads, others stationary in windows. And then the sun slid down out of sight.

It got cool. Alice and Emma jumped down inside the basket.