Freddy the Pied Piper

“
There, you see?” he said. “Two cents
—
that's his price
.”

Freddy the Pied Piper

Walter R. Brooks

Illustrated by Kurt Wiese

The Overlook Press

New York

Chapter 1

It had been a hard winter. A foot of snow had fallen on the 3rd of December and another foot on the 10th, and then the mercury crawled down to ten below and stayed there until after Christmas. Then it warmed up just enough to snow some more. And the weather kept on like that for another six weeks. It was still that way on the morning of February 14
^th
, when Freddy, the pig, crawled out of his warm bed and went to his study window and looked out and said disgustedly: “Oh, my goodness sakes!”

The windowpanes were frosted up so that he could only see out of the upper quarter of them, and they were made of old-fashioned glass that was so crinkly and full of bubbles that what he did see through them was so twisted and warped that it was hard to tell what it really was. Of course Freddy rather liked this. He said it made the things he saw twice as interesting as they really were. If, for instance, his friend Charles, the rooster, went by, his neck might be drawn out long, so that he looked like an ostrich, or his head might be completely disconnected from his body and float along above him. Whereas seen through a clear pane of glass he was just Charles, and nothing to think about much.

But today nobody was going by, and there was nothing to be seen but dazzling snow which stretched from the window sill in an unbroken sheet up to meet the blue sky. And Freddy had said: “Oh, my goodness sakes!” partly because he was sick of the snow, but more particularly because today was St. Valentine's Day, and he had hoped the mailman would bring him some valentines. But the mailman hadn't been up the road past the Bean farm in over a week, and he certainly wouldn't try to buck those drifts in his old Ford today, even to bring Freddy a valentine.

So Freddy sighed and was just turning back to crawl under the quilts again when he saw something moving. It was long and low and grey, and it might have been a shed, only there wasn't any shed down by the gate, and anyway sheds don't move around. Even though the glass made everything he saw through it look queer, Freddy usually could guess what things were if he wanted to, but he couldn't guess what this thing was. He took a rag and wiped a pane, but the rag wasn't very clean and just blurred it more than ever. And then the thing moved on out of sight of his window. “Oh, shucks!” said Freddy and went back to bed.

He shut his eyes and took up his dream again where he left off. It was a nice dream. He was opening stacks of valentines, and each valentine had a dollar bill in it. It was rather like Christmas, only better because there were no names signed to the valentines and so there wouldn't be any thank-you letters to write. But he had only opened about fifteen when there came a tap-tap-tap, and it woke him and he opened his eyes and there outside the window was Charles, tapping on the pane.

Freddy got up and went to the window rather grumpily, and put it up and let the rooster in.

“Morning, Freddy,” said Charles. “There's a rhinoceros here to see you.”

“There's a what?” said Freddy. “Oh, cut the funny stuff, Charles.”

“Funny, nothing!” said Charles. “There's a rhinoceros. He wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Freddy. “I guess you aren't awake yet this morning. I guess you're still dreaming, and your dreams are just as impossible as mine are. I just dreamed that you gave me a dollar for Valentine's Day.”

“Look, Freddy,” said Charles; “I put myself to a good deal of inconvenience and discomfort to bring you this message. My feet are darn near frozen, and I fell through the crust three times between here and the barnyard. But if that's all the thanks I get … calling me a liar …”

Freddy said: “Hold on! Hold on! If you say it's a rhinoceros, OK—then it's a rhinoceros. But I still think … Well, the only rhinoceros I ever knew was the one that was in Mr. Boomschmidt's circus, and he's down in Virginia with Mr. Boomschmidt.”

“Sure—that's the one,” said Charles. “He's come all the way up here to see you. Came on foot every inch of the way, too, and he's got an awful cold.”

“I should think he would have,” said Freddy. “Coming up north in the winter time. What does he want?”

“Why don't you go down to the cow barn and find out? You're the one he asked for.”

It would have been a lot easier to stay in the warm pig pen and make guesses as to what the visitor wanted, than to go down in the cold and find out. But though rhinoceroses are pretty tough animals, they are not accustomed to a cold climate, and Freddy realized that this one would not have taken such a trip unless his errand was important. So he started for the cow barn.

Like all lazy people, Freddy was capable of doing long stretches of really hard work. He was lazy in streaks. He was lazy about things he wasn't interested in, but there were a lot of things he was very much interested in, and in his short life he had accomplished more than many children of the same age. But he often spent more time and energy in getting out of a job than it would have taken to do the job in the first place.

One of the things he didn't like was shoveling snow. Mr. Bean had kept the paths around the barnyard open all winter, but the path to the pig pen was Freddy's job. He could either keep that path shoveled out, and be free to come and go, and to see his friends, and get his three meals a day, or he could let it go and hibernate all winter like a woodchuck in his hole.

Well, of course he tried to have it both ways. In December, when the snow was a foot deep, he didn't bother to shovel because he could wade through it all right. When it got to be two feet in January he still didn't shovel it, because he could still flounder back and forth through it. But when it got to be three feet deep and over his head, he had to do something. So he took his shovel and he opened his door and looked at the snow piled against it higher than his head, and then he shut the door again and leaned the shovel in the corner, and sat down in his big chair and thought.

The result of his thinking was that he decided to drive a tunnel down to the barnyard. That would be no more work than shoveling, and a lot more fun. More practical, too. For it would be warmer in the tunnel than outdoors, and if it blew he would be out of the wind, and if it snowed he wouldn't get all wet and chilly. And it wasn't like shoveling: if he did it once he wouldn't have to do it again. So he opened the door and went to work.

Well, of course, before he had driven his tunnel three yards the whole thing caved in on him, and he almost smothered before he got back to the door again.

But even then he didn't start shoveling. Because he had an old pair of skis in his study, and he said: “It will certainly take me less time to learn to ski than to shovel out the path, and then I can go on top of the snow. That will be even more fun than a tunnel, because not only can I whiz down to the barnyard in about three seconds, but I can ski all over the farm, and even down to Centerboro to the movies if I want to.”

Well, the skis were better than the tunnel, but he didn't whiz down to the barnyard in any three seconds. The first time it took him two hours, and the second time he lost one ski, and a rescue party headed by Mrs. Wiggins, the cow, had to come out for him. But after that he got so that he could manage the skis pretty well. Though his friend Jinx, the cat, figured out that in the time he had lost and wasted he could have shoveled a path through the snow six feet deep and three miles long. Of course, I don't know if his figures were right. But Freddy didn't care anyway. He hadn't done any shoveling.

All winter it had been cold and the snow had packed hard and dry. But the night before the rhinoceros came it had warmed up and rained a little, and then it had frozen, so that there was a crust over the snow that was as slippery as glass. Freddy didn't realize this. He put on his skis and stepped out on the snow. And it was a good thing that the skis were pointed towards the barnyard or goodness knows where he would have ended up. For the minute the skis touched the icy crust, they started. Freddy gave a yell of surprise and pushed backwards with the ski poles to keep from falling, and then the whole farm seemed to come whizzing up towards him, and past him, and though it was a still day the wind whistled in his ears; and then before he knew what had happened the dark square of the cow barn door rushed at him and swallowed him, and there was a crash and a thump and he was sitting on a hard floor with a pain in his shoulder and a lot of comets and constellations whirling around his head. And when these cleared away he couldn't see anything.

Through the darkness came Mrs. Wiggins' voice. “Goodness, Freddy! Are you all right?”

“I'm blind!” said Freddy. “Oh dear, I'm blind! I can't see you or anything.”

“You've got your eyes shut,” said Mrs. Wiggins.

“Why—that's right!” Freddy opened his eyes. He was sitting on the floor, and the three cows were standing over him, watching him with anxious concern. “I'm all right,” he said. “That is—I guess I am. Wrenched my shoulder a little.” He got up and shook himself, and then he laughed. “Bet I did it in three seconds that time all right!” he said.

“There's somebody here to see you, Freddy,” Mrs. Wiggins said.

“Oh, yes, the rhinoceros,” said Freddy. “Where is he?”

“We put him over in the box stall in the stable,” said the cow. “He's got a bad cold, and we thought he'd be more comfortable there. Mr. Bean has been looking after him.”

So Freddy limped over to the stable. He found the rhinoceros lying in the corner on a pile of hay with a blanket around his shoulders. He looked pretty miserable, but rhinoceroses always look miserable, even when they're in the best of spirits.