Authors: Walter R. Brooks

Freddy the Pied Piper (21 page)

BOOK: Freddy the Pied Piper

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“Me?” said Phil. “A buzzard can only be a good example to another buzzard, and as there ain't any otherâ”

“Oh, my goodness,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “let me do the talking, will you? See here; I have a lot of trouble getting my animals to take this oil. I can't imagine why, can you, Leo? Eh, can you imagine why?âOh, Leo isn't here. Well, I'll answer myself then. No, I can't. Oh dear, now where was I?âOh yes; oil. Well, you see, when one of 'em objects, then I can get you and give you some and show 'em how good you are about taking it, and then they'll take it without any fuss. We won't tell 'em you really like it. You can make facesâor maybe you don't need to; your face â¦ h'm. But you do like it, don't you?”

“Try me,” said Phil.

So Mr. Boomschmidt gave him some more, and Phil smacked his beak again.

That was how Phil joined the circus.

So the show went on north, stopping at the larger towns to give performances, and at last they reached Centerboro. It has often been said that Mr. Boomschmidt gave the finest performance of his career there. But this has been written about so many times that I will not repeat here what everybody already knows. For those who wish to refresh their memory of this great event, however, I recommend the account published in Freddy's newspaper, the Bean Home News, of that date. It is complete, well considered, andâI thinkânot too fulsome.

Mr. and Mrs. Bean were in a box right down close to the ring, and all the farm animals were with them. They clapped and cheered with the rest. But the act that really made the whole audience whistle and stamp until the big tent bulged out like a paper bag that you blow up, was the one that Freddy put on. He rounded up the mice who had been living in the barn he had rented, and he had them hide all around the edges of the tent and among the seats. Then a bugle blew, and Mr. Boomschmidt announced that the famous Pied Piper of Centerboro had been engaged at great expense to put on his unique and stupendous mouse-charming act. Then Freddy marched out in his Pied Piper suit, blowing the first seven notes of Yankee Doodle on his fife, and out from all sides the mice came scampering, and they lined up behind Freddy, and he marched them three times around the ring and then out to the dressing rooms.

It was a great success. Of course several ladies fainted away and had to be carried out and revived with smelling salts, but as Bill Wonks said, “A circus act ain't really a success unless a few people get so scared they keel over.”

Indeed so great a success was it that Freddy stayed with the show nearly all summer, and gave his performance in most of the big towns of the eastern seaboard. For as long as he wasn't a real partner, and really didn't have to stay with the show, he didn't mind. You see, he had accomplished what he had set out to do. Just as he had managed to get his path cleared of snow without having to do any shoveling himself, just so he had managed to raise the money and get it into Mr. Boomschmidt's hands, without having to become a partner.

But one funny thing happened along in August. They had swung around through the southern part of New York State, and stopped to give a show in Tallmanville. Freddy and Leo didn't join the parade through the town before the show. But they took their regular part in the performance, because they didn't think that Mrs. Guffin cared for entertainments. Leo said she never went to anything.

But she came. She came along with the people who looked at the menagerie before the performance, and when she saw Leo she recognized him. She was pretty mad. She made quite a fuss in front of the cage. She told all the people around her what had happened in the spring, and of course her account of it wasn't much like the truth, and some of the people got mad too and advised her to call a policeman. But she said no, she was going to do better than that. She was going to wait till Leo was doing his balancing act in the ring, and then she was going to get right up in her seat and denounce him, and Mr. Boomschmidt, who had probably stolen him from her. And then she would call the police.

Leo sent for Freddy.

“I don't know what she can prove,” said the pig. “But I suppose she can make it unpleasant for us.”

“Well,” said Leo, “no use worrying the chief with it. He can't do anything. We'll just have to go on with the show.”

“Nothing else to do,” said Freddy. “I never thought she'd come around.”

Freddy's act came just before Leo's, and when he marched in, sure enough, there was Mrs. Guffin right down in front, and looking mad enough to chew carpets. Luckily she didn't see beneath the Piper's suit to the pig underneath.

And then when he started to blow Yankee Doodleâwhich by this time he had learned, all but the last halfâthe funny thing happened. For the ferocious Mrs. Guffin was afraid of just one thing on earth: she was afraid of mice. And when they came tumbling out from under the seats she gave a loud yell and fell over in a dead faint. It took four strong men to carry her out of the tent, and by the time she had come to enough to be mad again, the show was over.

“Well, curl my eyelashes!” said Leo. “I wish we'd known she was scared of mice when we were here before. We'd have had a lot easier time with her.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” said Freddy. “But it wouldn't be as much fun to look back on. You know, if we knew everything beforehand, things wouldn't be much fun, would they?”

That was really one of the smartest things Freddy ever said.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9220-6

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