Freddy Goes to Florida (3 page)

Overhead a flock of swallows darted and turned on swift wings. “Good-bye!” they twittered. “We'll see you in a week or two. We start south in about ten days ourselves.”

Charles stood on the gate-post and watched the little procession march off down the road. Smaller and smaller it grew, and then it went over a hill, and the white road was empty again. But long after it had gone Charles sat on. And his tail feathers drooped, and his head dropped down on his chest, and a great tear splashed on the gatepost. But luckily no one saw him cry, for the animals had all gone back to their daily tasks.

At least that was what he thought. But Henrietta saw him from the window of the hen house.

IV

And so the animals started out into the wide world. Although it was late in the fall and the branches were bare, the sun was bright and the air was fresh and warm. For some time they walked along together in silence, for they were a little sad at the thought of the comfortable home and the good friends they had left behind. But the smiling valley through which the road ran was too pleasant to be sad in for very long, and pretty soon Freddy, who was very clever, began to sing a song he had just made up. And this is the song he sang:

Oh, the sailor may sing of his tall, swift ships
.

Of sailing the deep blue sea
,

But the long, white road where adventures wait

Is the better life for me
.

On the open road, when the sun goes down
,

Your home is wherever you are
.

The sky is your roof and the earth is your bed

And you hang your hat on a star
.

You wash your face in the clear, cold dew
,

And you say good-night to the moon
,

And the wind in the tree-tops sings you to sleep

With a drowsy boughs-y tune
.

Then it's hey! for the joy of a roving life
,

From Florida up to Nome
,

For since I've no home in any one spot
,

Wherever I am is home
.

There were a good many other verses—too many to put down, for Freddy made them up as he went along, and there was a chorus to each verse that went like this:

Oh, the winding road is long, is long
,

But never too long for me
.

And we'll cheer each mile with a song, a song
,

A song as we ramble along, along
,

So fearless and gay and free
.

And pretty soon, as their spirits rose, and they thought of the adventures that lay ahead of them and the merry life they would lead, they all began to sing. They roared out the chorus with a will, and even the mice sang in their little, squeaky voices. The mice had got tired walking by this time, because their legs were so short, and so Mrs. Wiggins had invited them up on her back, which was so broad that there was no danger of their falling off, and they could sit there and enjoy the scenery and watch everything go by, just as you do from the window of a train.

All the morning they went steadily on. Every now and then they would have to go to one side of the road to let an automobile or a farm wagon pass them, and every time that happened the people would stare and stare. “Why, just look at those animals!” they would exclaim. “Did you ever see anything like that in your life?” And after they had gone by, the people would stop their automobiles or their horses and stare after them until they were out of sight.

About noon they climbed a steep hill, and from the top they could see ahead of them a broad valley, very much like the one through which they had come. And beyond the valley were more hills.

“This is all strange country to me now,” said Hank, the old, white horse. “I've driven as far as this with Mr. Bean, but I've never been down into that valley. We'd better have a look at the map.”

“There's a stream crossing the road half-way down the hill,” said Robert, the dog. “Let's go down there.”

So they went down and camped beside the stream, and the larger animals went in wading and splashed each other and laughed and shouted, and the two white ducks, Alice and Emma, swam about looking like two white powder-puffs, because that is what they like to do best. But Jinx, the cat, stayed on the bank and studied the map that the robin had drawn for him, to see if they were going in the right direction.

Then, when the animals were tired of splashing about in the stream, they came up on the bank and rested, and Jinx showed them the map. “We have to go across that valley and those hills, and then across another valley, and more hills, and then we come to a river,” he said. “And we follow the river until we come to a village, and there we shall find a bridge.”

“
We have to go across that valley and those hills
.”

“But will the people in the village let us cross the bridge?” asked Eek.

It was funny to see him and the three other mice sitting peaceably beside the cat, but Jinx had promised not to chase them, and they were not afraid. Cats very seldom make promises, but when they do, they always keep them. Their word is as good as their bond.

“I have heard Mrs. Bean say to Mr. Bean,” Jinx answered, “never to cross a bridge until you come to it. So we'd better not worry about this one. And now don't you think we'd better be getting on?”

So they got up and started down the hill. Halfway down they had their first adventure.

They heard an automobile behind them and turned out to let it go by. It came along, rattling and bumping, for it was not a very good automobile, and as it passed them, a man with a big, black moustache leaned out and stared in surprise.

“Hey, sonny,” he said to the boy who was driving, “wait a minute. Look at them animals. By gum, I never see anything like that before!”

The boy, who had a very dirty face, stopped the automobile, and they both stared back at the animals.

“There's nobody with 'em,” said the boy. “Who do you suppose they belong to?”

“Dunno,” said the man, and began to get out. “But we'll just drive 'em down to my place, I guess. If they do belong to somebody, we'll get a reward for 'em, and if they don't, we'll keep 'em ourselves. The cow looks like a good milker. Can't say much for the horse, though. Homely brute!”

Hank gave a loud snort at this, for while he was not a vain horse, he had a proper pride in a neat appearance, and he thought the man's remark insulting. Which indeed it was.

“That's a nice pig,” said the boy. “We haven't had roast pig in a long time, pa.”

“Nor roast duck,” said the man, and he licked his black moustache and looked greedily at Alice and Emma. “I'll get a rope and tie the cow, and you take some stones and drive the dog away.” He reached into the car for his rope.

This was too much for the animals, who had been undecided what to do.

“I don't care for these people
at all
,” said Mrs. Wiggins emphatically. “Robert, you and Jinx chase that dirty-faced boy away before he can pick up any stones. Don't hurt him; just give him a good scare. I'll attend to the man.” And lowering her horns she galloped straight at him.

Now, cows are almost always good-natured and peaceful animals, and the man was very much surprised. He tried to dodge behind the car, but she scooped him up in her horns and tossed him high in the air. And as he went up, Mrs. Wiggins put her forehead to the back of the automobile and pushed it ahead so that it would be under him when he came down. Which he presently did, with a thump, on the automobile top. He bounced once or twice like a rubber ball; then, frightened but unhurt, peered over the edge of the top at Mrs. Wiggins, who was walking around the car and shaking her horns and mooing in a terribly frightening way. She was really laughing, but the man didn't know that.

Meanwhile the dog and cat had chased the boy away across a field. And he was even more badly frightened than the man; for after they stopped chasing him, he kept on running, and after he was out of sight, they could still hear his terrified yells.

“There! I guess we settled
them!
” said Mrs. Wiggins. And she sat down in the road and bellowed with laughter until the tears ran down her cheeks, and the man with the black moustache shivered with fear. Mrs. Wiggins was very fond of a joke.

Pretty soon the animals started on again, and when they had gone half a mile or so, they looked back and saw the man climb slowly down and get into the automobile. But he did not come after them: he turned round and went back up the hill, and went home another way.

Mrs. Wiggins was a character. That means that when she did anything, she always did it in a little different way than anyone else would have done. And she did a good many things that nobody else would ever have thought of. There were two spiders, Mr. and Mrs. Webb, that lived up in the roof of the cow barn. Of course they had heard everything that had gone on the night the animals had had their meeting, and the next morning Mrs. Webb slid down a long thread and landed on Mrs. Wiggins's nose. At first Mrs. Wiggins shook her head and asked the spider to get off; she tickled. But Mrs. Webb crept up close to the cow's ear and said: “I want your advice about something.”

This flattered Mrs. Wiggins, because very few people ever ask a cow's advice about anything. So she said she would listen. Now spiders have very little voices, and even animals, who hear better than people, have to be very close to them to understand what they say. So Mrs. Webb crept still closer to Mrs. Wiggins's ear, and said: “Mrs. Wiggins, me and Webb have been talking it over, and we'd like to go on this trip with all you animals. It's cold here in the winter, and there are very few flies, and we have to sleep most of the time. Do you suppose it could be managed?”

Mrs. Wiggins thought and thought, and finally she said: “I'd be glad to do you and Mr. Webb a good turn, because you keep the cow barn clear of flies in the summer. As far as your coming along goes, that isn't bothering me, for you can ride on my back. But I've been wondering how you could catch enough flies to keep you alive.”

“That's just the difficulty,” said the spider. “We'd be travelling all day, and even if we spun a web at night, when we camped, the flies wouldn't get caught in it till next morning, and then we'd be gone.”

Mrs. Wiggins thought some more, and then she said: “I've got it! Suppose you spin a web between my horns! Then you'll have it with you all day, and you can catch plenty of flies.” And Mrs. Webb was so delighted that she danced about on all her eight legs, and tickled Mrs. Wiggins's ear terribly, and then she ran up her thread as fast as she could and told her husband. And so they went along on the trip to Florida.

This was just the kind of thing Mrs. Wiggins was always doing.

The animals went on down the hill and across the second valley. They met a few people, in automobiles or on foot, but the people only stared and did not try to stop them. Then about four o'clock Alice and Emma, who had got tired and were riding on Hank's back, began quacking excitedly.

“There's something funny coming down the road after us in a cloud of dust!” they said.

“Automobile, probably,” said Hank.

“It's too small for an automobile,” said Alice.

“Then it's a man,” said Mrs. Wiggins.

“It's too small for a man, and it comes too fast,” said Emma.

Then they all stopped and looked, and away back on the road they saw a tiny cloud of dust coming along at a great rate, and they could not imagine what it could be. And then the wind blew the dust aside for a moment and they all set up a cheer. For they saw that it was Charles, the rooster, and Henrietta, his wife. And if you don't believe that a hen can run fast, you should have seen them coming down that road.

In a very few minutes they had caught up with their friends, and then there was a great shouting and laughing and asking of questions, but they were both so out of breath that they could not speak for quite ten minutes.

Henrietta spoke first. “Good gracious, what a day I've had!” she exclaimed, fanning herself with her wing. “Yes, we decided to come. Charles felt so bad this morning when you all started out. So I got my sisters to take his place in the mornings. There are eight of them, you see. That makes one for each day in the week, and one over, to look after the children, or help out if one of the others is sick.”

“But can your sisters crow?” asked Freddy.

“Crow?” said Henrietta. “Of course they can crow! Any hen can crow if she wants to, better than any rooster that ever was hatched.”

“Why don't they ever do it then?” asked Jinx.

“Good gracious, what a silly question, cat! The roosters would never get up at all in the morning if the hens started to crow. They'd loaf round and sleep all day. They do little enough as it is. But at least they're out of the hen house early in the morning so their wives can get some work done. H'm! Crow indeed! I guess not!”