Freddy Goes to the North Pole. Walter R. Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ all around one stump, and the roots had been gnawed through, the horses would put a rope around it and pull it down to the end of the field. By morning there wasn’t a stump left and when Mr. Bean leaned out of his window just after sunrise to see what kind of day it was going to be, he noticed a big pile of stumps away down across the pond that hadn’t been there the night before. At first he didn’t know what had happened, but when he had got out his telescope and had a good look, he hurried into his clothes and hurried downstairs and “Hurry up my breakfast, Mrs. B.,” he called. “There’s queer goings-on on this farm, and I’ve got to find out about ’em.” But he didn’t take time for much breakfast. He ate only three eggs and four sausages and two stacks of buckwheat cakes and a cup of coffee and five slices of toast, and then he hurried to the lot beyond the pond. And when he saw that the stumps were all cleaned out and piled up neatly in a corner of the lot, he stared and stared. And then he said very slowly two or three times: “Peter grieve us!” And then he went back to the house and told Mrs. Bean.

      “All we’ve got to do now is plough that field and plant it next spring,” he said. “Bushels and bushels of potatoes just for a little work. I want to tell you, Mrs. B.,” he said, “that hereafter these animals can do what they please around here. I’ve farmed this place, man and boy, for fifty-two years, but those animals are better farmers than I am.”

      Mrs. Bean looked at him in surprise. “I never thought I’d live to see the day, Mr. B., when you’d admit that any human being, let alone an animal, knew more about farming than you did. And, whatever you say, I’ll never believe it. But I think the least thing we can do, Mr. B., is to give the animals a party.”

CHAPTER III

      THE EXPLORERS SET OUT

      Now there isn’t room to tell about the party the Beans gave, nor how they invited all the animals and people for miles around, nor of the eating and drinking and dancing and merrymaking, nor of how the barns and pens and coops were illuminated with coloured lights, and fireworks were set off, and everybody had a perfectly grand time and didn’t get home until after midnight. A little while after, the ninety-four tourist animals started off for Florida. They divided into four parties, and Freddy and Jinx and Robert and Hank were each put in charge of one party. The trip was a complete success in every way. When they came back in the spring, Hank’s party brought back a wagon load of coconuts, which Mr. Bean sold to his neighbours for ten cents apiece, and Freddy’s party brought back a lot of very handsome picture postcards of all the places they had visited, which Mrs. Bean was much pleased with and tacked up on the wall in the sitting-room. The others didn’t bring anything, but two young alligators, named Armando and Juanita, came back with Robert. He had rescued them from a man who had caught them in the Everglades and was taking them to be sold into captivity. They were very grateful to Robert and cried so bitterly when they heard he was going back home and wasn’t going to take them along that he decided to let them come. They followed him about everywhere. “Just like dogs,” said Mrs. Wiggins, and shook with laughter at the thought of a faithful pet like Robert having faithful pets of his own.

      All that spring Barnyard Tours, Inc., was very busy. The roads were so full of travelling animals that automobile traffic was seriously interfered with and the Rome and Utica and Syracuse automobile clubs complained to the Mayor of Centerboro, and the Mayor of Centerboro called up Mr. Bean on the telephone and said that something would have to be done. Mr. Bean promised to do something, but before he could decide what to do, Freddy saw an editorial complaining about it in the Centerboro paper, and he told the other animals. So they were more careful after that and took back roads or went cross-country whenever possible.

      The work on the farm was done as if by magic. Whatever Mr. Bean said he was going to do got done before he had time to do it. If he said in the evening: “Tomorrow I’m going to plough the lower pasture,” in the morning when he went out to plough it, the work would all be done. Even most of Mrs. Bean’s work was done for her by the animals. At first when she came into the kitchen and found a dozen squirrels busily sweeping the floor with their tails, she shooed them out quickly. But after she found out that they were helping her, she let them alone. She would sit comfortably in her rocking-chair and doze while dozens of little animals ran all over the house, picking up and dusting and sweeping. Now and then she would smile and lean down and pat a mouse on the head who was hurrying out with a mouthful of threads he had picked off the floor, and now and then one of the squirrels or rabbits or cats would jump up in her lap to have his head scratched. Of course the animals couldn’t cook and sew and make beds, but they were a great help and they kept the house as neat as a pin.

      But Freddy and Jinx and the other members of the firm were growing restless. They had no regular work to do on the farm any more, for with so many animals paying for trips with work, there were more workers than work to be done. And after they had personally conducted tour after tour over the same ground, they began to get tired of it.

      “Personally,” said Freddy, “I’m fed up. I’m sick to death of that Scenic Centerboro tour, of explaining over and over again to groups of silly animals about the Public Library and the Presbyterian Church and the fine view from the hill behind the Trumbull place. And the foolish questions they ask! And the complaints!”

      “You said a snoutful, pig,” said Jinx, who was inclined to be a little vulgar in his speech, but was otherwise a very estimable animal. “And the smaller they are, the more complaints they have. A cow or a horse, now, will take things good-naturedly and won’t expect too much. But there were a couple of beetles on that last trip—my word, but they were unpleasant people! I carried ’em all the way on my back, and first they couldn’t see, and then the dust got in their noses, and then when it began to rain and there wasn’t any more dust, they complained about that and tried to crawl into my ears to get out of the wet. Can you beat that?”

      “We don’t have to beat it,” said Freddy seriously. Freddy had become very serious during the past year, and rather dignified. Once he had been a carefree, light-hearted young pig, always playing jokes or writing poetry or inventing new games, but the cares of business had weighed him down, and nowadays he almost never even smiled. Which was too bad, since a pig’s face is built for smiling, and Freddy never looked so handsome as when he was squealing with laughter. “You see,” he went on, “I’ve been figuring up and we’ve got enough work coming to us for the trips we’ve been taking animals on so that we could all go away for two years if we wanted to, and all the farm work would be done while we were away. We don’t have to have any more trips for two years. Now I’ve got a plan. What do you say we go find the north pole?”

      Jinx didn’t want to let on that he had never heard of the north pole, so he just said:

      “Fine! That’s a great idea, Freddy. How do we get there?”

      So Freddy explained that the north pole was at the top of the world—that if you went straight north, you’d reach it, and that if you kept right on going in the same direction after you had passed the pole, you’d be going south again. Jinx didn’t understand this very well; in fact, he didn’t really believe it at all; but he was so tired of the life he had been leading for the past few months that he didn’t care much what he did as long as it was something different. And so he was very enthusiastic about it and went with Freddy down to the study, where they got out maps and spent the whole afternoon laying out routes and deciding whom they would ask to go with them.

      For this wasn’t a trip that just any animal could go on. “We want only hard seasoned travellers,” said Freddy, “animals who can put up with danger and hardship, who are willing to be cold and uncomfortable and hungry and weary for days on end. This won’t be like going to Florida. But who wants to go to Florida?—a soft trip like that! This will be a real adventure. And if we make it, think of the honour of being the first animals to visit the north pole! Why, I bet we get our pictures in the New York papers!”

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