Freddy Goes Camping
The Overlook Press
New York
Freddy’s first one flew up into a tree.
Chapter 1
The pigpen on the Bean farm stood a little above the barnyard. On the door was a small brass plate which said: Frederick Bean, Esq. Above the door was a sign:
Frederick & Wiggins
Detectives
Office hours: Wednesdays, 2-4 P.M.
To the left of the door was another sign:
Subscriptions taken here for
THE BEAN HOME NEWS
The animals’ own newspaper.
This was the outside of the pigpen. Inside, sitting in his broken-down old armchair before his desk, was Freddy. Freddy, the pig: editor, poet, banker, detective. Today being Thursday, he was Freddy the editor, and he was getting the material in shape for the next issue of the paper. He had almost enough now; there was just one blank space left to fill. A small poem would just fit it. So he leaned on his left elbow and put his left front trotter to his brow and thus became Freddy the poet, waiting for inspiration.
So he waited. Every now and then he would lick his pencil. He had licked it so often that there was a black line right around his mouth. But there still wasn’t a black mark on the blank leaf of his notebook where the poem was supposed to be. And there was a knock at the door.
“Rats!” said Freddy. Then he called impatiently: “Come in!”
The door flew open and a short red-faced man with rather loud clothes and a bristly mustache came in.
“Mr. Camphor!” Freddy exclaimed.
“Jimson to you, my boy, always,” said the man.
They shook hands and Freddy said: “Well, Mr.—er, Jimson, do sit down. It’s pretty nice of you to come see me. Of course if I’d known you were coming I’d have tidied up a little. Hate to have you see the place in such a mess.”
Mr. Camphor glanced around. Papers were piled on the desk and overflowed onto the floor. Freddy hadn’t had time to make his bed, or clear away his breakfast dishes, and the only other chair in the room was heaped nearly as high as the desk. “I’d have had to give you about three days’ notice, I guess,” Mr. Camphor said with a laugh, “and I wouldn’t want you to go to all that trouble on my account. Anyhow, I can’t stop. Got to get back to see what Aunt Minerva is up to.”
“I didn’t know you had an aunt,” Freddy said.
“Goodness, everybody has aunts. I’ve got two. I’ve made quite a study of aunts. There’s two kinds: there’s the regular kind, and then there’s the other kind. Mine are the other kind. You’ll see when you meet ’em.”
“Meet them?” said Freddy. “They’re here?”
“Oh, no. See here, Freddy.” Mr. Camphor sat down on the edge of the bed. “I need your help. I want you to …” He stopped. “No, better not tell you till you’ve seen them. See here. Can’t you bring your partner and come up for a few days? Look the ground over; see what can be done. Eh? You’ve been promising to pay me a visit for a year. How about it?”
“Why, I could,” said Freddy. “Sure, we’ll come. But what is it you want me to do?”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Camphor, getting up, “but there’s no time to tell you why. I want you to get rid of my aunts.”
“Good gracious!” said Freddy. “You mean …?”
“Oh, no—not kidnap them or push them in the lake or anything,” said Mr. Camphor with a laugh. “Get them to leave—that’s all. Ha, think it over. And I’ll expect you and Mrs. Wiggins tomorrow, eh?” He was gone before Freddy could ask another question.
Freddy hurried after him. At least he tried to, but the springs of his old chair were broken so that he was sitting almost on the floor, and he had to be specially careful because the ends of some of them stuck through the upholstery. If you moved too quickly, they jabbed you. By the time Freddy got outside, Mr. Camphor’s car was rolling out of the Bean gate.
Freddy realized that his guest had been pretty smart. “He’s told me just enough to make me want to know more,” he thought. “He knows that’s the way to get us up there.” But he would have been glad to go in any case. For he had been the caretaker last summer on Mr. Camphor’s big estate, and they had become fast friends.
Sitting on the roof of the pigpen was Mr. J. J. Pomeroy. Mr. Pomeroy was a robin, and he was the messenger who would fly Freddy’s manuscript down to the printing office in Centerboro, when Freddy had it ready. He was hopping up and down with impatience. “For goodness’ sake, Freddy,” he said, “hurry up! I want to get back home before dark. You know I don’t like night flying since I’ve been wearing glasses.” Mr. Pomeroy was nearsighted, and had had a lot of trouble until Freddy had taken him to an optician and had a little pair of spectacles made for him.
“Oh, do shut up,” said Freddy crossly. “If I could think of something I was interested in enough to write about, I’d be through in … What are you interested in, J.J.?” he asked, looking up at the robin.
Mr. Pomeroy lifted a claw and took off his glasses and polished them on his wing. “Why, let me see,” he said. “My wife and family, of course. After that—why, I guess I’d say, worms.”
“Worms,” said Freddy thoughtfully. “I’ve never written a poem about worms. Not much to say about them, as far as I can see.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said the robin. “Worms are one of the first subjects we robins teach our children about. Why worms, my dear sir, are the staff of life! Do you realize that there are more than two thousand edible varieties in the United States alone?”
“Ugh! That’s an awful thought,” said Freddy with a shudder. “An incredible thought—hey, wait a minute!” He ran in and brought out his notebook.
“Of course,” Mr. Pomeroy went on, “some kinds are better than others, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean ‘worse’ instead of ‘better’ don’t you?” Freddy looked up from what he was writing.
“Not at all. Better. Deliciouser. For my money one of those small, light green inch worms—what you call a measuring worm; you know the kind—he has some feet in front, and then for quite a long distance he’s just worm, and then at the back end there are some more feet. So when he walks, he stretches out and puts down his front feet, and then brings his back feet up close to them so that his body makes a kind of loop. Very handy to pick them up by. They’re really very tasty, Freddy. So crisp and tender! Let me find you one, and you just try it once, will you?”
“Not for a million dollars!” said Freddy. “It makes my stomach flutter just to think of it. Listen, J.J.; how’s this?”
But before he could start to read, Jinx, the cat, came running up. “Hi, pig; how’s the old inspiration this morning—hitting on all six?”
“Hi, pig; how’s the old inspiration this morning?”
“Go away,” said Freddy. “I’m busy.”
“What’s that black lipstick you’ve got on—some new fashion you’re starting?” Jinx asked. “Hey,” he said, “don’t throw anything! I just came over to tell you there’s a chipmunk here to see you. Got a message for you—he won’t tell us what it is. He’s over at the barn.”
“Well, I can’t come now,” said Freddy. “Tell him to wait. I’ll be over in a little while.”
“OK, I’ll tell him you’ll be over when you get your make-up on.” And Jinx sauntered off.
“Smart aleck!” Freddy growled. “Well now, listen, J.J.” And he read:
“To say that worms are edible
Will seem to you incredible.
For you to eat a measuring worm
Would take more courage and determination than to take a dive into a clump of poison ivy
Yet robins eat them every day;
They smack their beaks and shout Hooray!
They gobble them with joy and pride
And do not seem upset inside.”
“It doesn’t get anywhere,” said the robin.
“No,” said the pig; “that’s true. There’s no moral. Unless …” He wrote again for a minute. “How’s this?”
“The moral here is plain to see:
What pleases you does not please me;
What pleases me to you is hateful,
And for this fact we should be grate—”
“Look, Freddy,” Mr. Pomeroy interrupted. “You want me to be quite frank, don’t you?”
“Of course,” said Freddy. “Of course, my dear chap. An honest opinion is worth more than all the flattery in the world.”
“OK, then,” said Mr. Pomeroy. “I think it’s just plain dull. Everybody knows that if we all liked the same thing, there wouldn’t be enough to go round.”
Now when people say they want an honest opinion about something they’ve done, they probably mean it all right, but if it isn’t a favorable opinion, they’re apt to get mad.
“So what?” said Freddy crossly. “You’re so smart—suppose you write it.”
“Why not?” said Mr. Pomeroy. He thought a minute. Then he said:
“To say that worms are edible may seem to you incredible,
And yet I most emphatically assert
That hardly any dishes are more filling or deliciouser
Than angleworms pulled freshly from the dirt.”
“H’m,” said the pig. “Not bad, not bad at all for a first effort. I might sign your name to it. How would you go on from there?”
“Well, I’d go on to other kinds—plan a well-balanced meal, do you see? Beetles, flies, and then maybe go into caterpillars …”
“No,” Freddy said. “No. Our readers aren’t squeamish specially, but I doubt if they’d care for a description of a complete bug dinner. Tell you what I’ll do, J.J. I’ll print that verse, and take up the rest of the space with a little note: With the following deft and original verse, our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. J.J. Pomeroy, makes his debut as a full-fledged poet in this issue. Possessing a degree of technical skill unusual in a beginner—and so on and so on. How about it?”
Mr. Pomeroy was delighted and as soon as Freddy had written it out, he took the paper and flew off to Centerboro. Freddy was pleased, too. His own verses, he knew, weren’t much good. “My goodness,” people would say when they read them, “Freddy is slipping.” Of course the robin’s weren’t very good either. But nobody would criticize Freddy for them.
When Freddy got over to the barn the chipmunk had gone. “He’s kind of an impatient guy,” Jinx said. “Fidgeted around and got cranky when you didn’t show up. Said he couldn’t wait all day. But he left a message for you. I don’t know whether you’ll want to do anything about it or not.”
“I don’t either, unless you tell me what it is,” said Freddy.
“I am telling you. This chipmunk lives on Macy’s farm, down on the flats. Says he’s got some information about Simon and his gang.”
“Simon, eh?” said Freddy thoughtfully. Old Simon was the head of a large family of thieving rats who had given the Bean animals a good deal of trouble in the past. Freddy’s last fight with them had been when he had driven them out of Mr. Camphor’s attic the summer before. Since then he had heard nothing of them. He shook his head. “I’m not interested in Simon. As long as he’s not bothering me, I’m not going to bother him. Where’s he living—over at Macy’s?”
“Search me, chum,” said the cat. “I’m just telling you what the guy said. You going over to see him?” When Freddy said no, Jinx said: “OK, maybe I’ll gallop over there myself this afternoon. He said he wanted a dollar for his information, but I guess if I give him a touch of the old third degree he’ll sing without getting paid for it. Things are kind of dull around here; I wouldn’t mind a little rat hunting. So long, old kid.”
Chapter 2
Mrs. Wiggins, the cow, was Freddy’s partner in the detective business. Some people thought it was pretty funny for a cow to be a detective, but as a matter of fact they made a splendid team. Pigs are full of ideas, but cows are full of common sense, and when you get that combination to work on a problem it’s pretty near unbeatable.
They plodded along next morning up past the duck pond and through the woods, and then across a shallow valley and up a hill, from whose top they looked down on the wide lawns of Mr. Camphor’s fine estate, spread out, smooth and green, along the blue waters of the lake. They went down through the tall iron gates and up the drive to the front door.
Bannister, Mr. Camphor’s butler, answered their ring. He was a tall man in a black tail coat, and he held his head so high and stiff that he couldn’t see anything in front of him except his nose, which pointed right over their heads at the tops of the trees outside.
“Hello, Bannister,” Freddy said. “Is Mr. Camphor expecting us?”
“Who shall I say wishes to see him?” inquired the butler.
“Mrs. Wiggins and Mr. Frederick Bean.”
“Kindly step in, sir and madam,” said Bannister, standing aside. “In the drawing room, please. I will announce you.” And he wheeled stiffly and marched out.
“My land!” said Mrs. Wiggins crossly. “I should think we’d known Bannister long enough so he could at least say How de do.”
“He isn’t being snooty,” said Freddy. “He’s just being a good butler. He explained it to me once. A good butler has to be dignified and formal for everybody in the house. That’s what he’s hired for—to keep everything very high class and ceremonious. That’s the advantage of having a lot of money like Mr. Camphor: if you don’t want to bother about being dignified, you can hire somebody to be dignified for you.”
Just then Mr. Camphor came hurriedly into the room. “Freddy!” he exclaimed. “My dear fellow! And Mrs. Wiggins! I’m so glad you’ve come. And not just because I need your help either. I’ve missed you animals; began to think all my old friends had deserted me.”
“There’s no friend like an old friend,” put in Bannister.
Freddy grinned, remembering how Mr. Camphor and Bannister were always arguing about proverbs, and testing them out to see whether they were really true or not.
But Mr. Camphor frowned. “I think you’ve got that one wrong, Bannister. The one you’re thinking of is ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ and I fail to see where that applies to anyone in this company.”
“Certainly not, sir,” said Bannister, turning pink. “Forgive me, sir; I fancy I became a bit confused in the pleasure of seeing old friends.”
“That’s real nice of you, Bannister,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “and I know you mean it. But I don’t see how you can say you’ve seen us when you’re looking over our heads all the time.”
“The lady is right,” Mr. Camphor said. “Relax, Bannister. As you say, we’re among friends. Sit down, will you?”
“Thank you, sir,” said Bannister, and sat down stiffly on the edge of a small gilt chair.
“Well, Mr. Cam—that is, Jimson,” Freddy began, “we feel rather ashamed that we seem to have come only because you sent for us.”
“If you hadn’t come when I sent for you, you’d feel ashamed, wouldn’t you? And now you say you’re ashamed because you did come. I don’t see how you can have it both ways, you’d just be ashamed whatever you did. Well, well; business before pleasure. Come meet Aunt Elmira.”
“‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard,’” Bannister quoted.
“Eh?” said Mr. Camphor sharply. “Really, Bannister, I’d prefer you to keep your opinion of my character to yourself. Just because you’re up before I am every morning …”
“I beg pardon, sir,” said the butler. “I was not referring to you as a sluggard. That is a proverb.”
“Oh, yes. Quite so. But when I mentioned my aunt, I was referring to a female relative, not an insect. So that makes us even on referring.”
“Freddy had a pet ant once,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “His name was Jerry. He could read and write.”
“Very interesting,” said Mr. Camphor. “But unless we want to get hopelessly mixed up, let’s stick to the female relatives. I want you to meet them anyway, so you’ll understand why I need your help with them.”
Miss Elmira Camphor was an enormously fat old lady who sat wrapped in shawls in a large wheel chair out on the lawn. On her head she wore a little old-fashioned bonnet like those you see in the pictures of Queen Victoria, and as they came up she peered at them through steel-bowed spectacles with an expression of deep gloom on her broad face.
“Aunt Elmira,” said Mr. Camphor, “may I present my friends, Mrs. Wiggins and Mr. Frederick Bean, the celebrated poet?”
The animals bowed, and Miss Elmira didn’t say anything.
“Aunt Elmira and Aunt Minerva are spending the summer with me,” Mr. Camphor explained. “They’ve been coming up here for the summer for—let’s see, forty years, isn’t it, Aunt? Only they’ve always stayed over at Lakeside. You see over there on the far shore—that big building among the trees? That’s Lakeside. A summer hotel. But this year, Mrs. Filmore, who runs the place, couldn’t take them. Just when she was getting ready for the summer season everything went wrong: pipes burst, porches collapsed, the help left—you never heard such a hard luck story. From what I hear, Mrs. Filmore won’t even try to open the place this year. But that, you see, was my good fortune; my aunts have come to stay with me.” He didn’t look as if he felt very fortunate.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” put in Bannister.
“Eh?” said Mr. Camphor. He looked hard at Bannister. “Well, if you call …” he began, and then caught himself up. “Ha, to be sure, to be sure!” he said hastily. “A delightful summer for us all,” he added gloomily. “Eh, Aunt Elmira?”
Miss Elmira paid no attention to the question. She was looking at Freddy, and now her mouth opened very slowly—it was like a slow motion movie of someone speaking—and she said in a hoarse voice: “Recite!”
Freddy was puzzled. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I don’t believe I …”
“Poem!” said Miss Elmira.
“She’d like you to recite one of your poems,” Mr. Camphor explained. “Aunt Elmira is very fond of poetry.”
“She’d like you to recite one of your poems.”
Mrs. Wiggins always said that one of the nicest things about Freddy was that when he was asked to perform—to recite one of his poems or do card tricks—he didn’t wriggle and have to be coaxed. Jinx didn’t agree with her. He said: “Coaxed! You can’t mention anything to that pig that doesn’t remind him of some poem he’s just written, and then he holds you down and reads it to you. Just a big show-off.” But of course Jinx didn’t like poetry much.
“There’s a little thing on spring I wrote the other day,” Freddy said.
“Spring is in the air;
Birds are flying north;
And though trees are bare,
Now they’re putting forth
Leaves. The fields are green.
Sun is getting higher.
Monday Mr. Bean
Put out the furnace fire.
Birds are building nests;
In the swamp are peepers;
Men discard their vests;
Eggs are getting cheaper.
All the girls and boys—”
“Stop!” said Miss Elmira.
“I—I beg your pardon?” Freddy stammered.
“Gloomy poem,” she said.
“Gloomy!” he exclaimed. “Why it’s all about spring and birds singing and …”
“Aunt Elmira doesn’t mean that your poem is gloomy,” Mr. Camphor interrupted. “She wants you to recite a gloomy one. It’s the only kind she likes.”
“Oh,” said Freddy. “Well, I don’t believe I’ve ever written a gloomy one. I’m sorry, ma’am. Maybe if I get time this afternoon I could write you one.”
“My aunt will be very pleased,” said Mr. Camphor. “Well, if you’ll excuse us, Aunt …” He led his guests up to the terrace on the west side of the house. “I suppose you’re wondering,” he said, “why I’m so anxious for your help in getting my aunts to leave.”
“Well, yes,” said Freddy. “Of course we’ve only met Miss Elmira, but I shouldn’t think she’d be much bother.”
“She isn’t. But how’d you like to have her around all summer?”
“I guess she’d make me feel kind of depressed.”
“Depressed! Ha!—just plain squashed. All day long she sits in that chair. You think of something nice to do, and then you look out the window and see her. It’s as if a black cloud came over the sun. It’s as if you had a stomach ache that you’d forgotten about, and then it starts up again. Nothing seems like fun, and the more you look at her, the more you wonder why you don’t just go up and lock yourself in your room and set fire to the house.”
“It does take the joy out of life, having her around,” Freddy said. “Maybe you could get her to do something. What’s she interested in?”
“Sorrow,” said Mr. Camphor. “Misery. Grief, woe and tribulation.”
“Well, I feel sorry for her,” said Mrs. Wiggins. “She must have had a pretty hard life, to be so gloomy all the time.”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Camphor, “she’s had an easy one. Plenty of money, no troubles. Yet the more you try to cheer her up the gloomier she gets. Bannister and I have worn ourselves out trying to be pleasant, and telling jokes and so on.”
“And your other aunt,” said Freddy. “You said you wanted them both to leave. Is she gloomy too?”
“I’d rather you formed your own opinion,” Mr. Camphor said. “I don’t want you to think I’m just an old crab who can’t get along with his relatives. You tell me what you think after you’ve met her. In the meantime, have you—have you any ideas?” He looked hopefully from one to the other.
“Oh, yes,” said Freddy; “yes, lots of ’em. Dozens. It’s only just being sure to select the right one.” He spoke confidently, but although it was perfectly true that he had plenty of ideas, there wasn’t a single one that was any good. It wasn’t very practical, for instance, to get rid of Miss Elmira by having a giant bird, like the Roc in the Arabian Nights, fly away with her, or to tie her to a big rocket and shoot her off into space. So many of the schemes people think up for doing quite reasonable things are like that.
“Well,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “I should think the sensible thing to do would be to help that Mrs. Filmore get Lakeside open for business. Your aunts would go over there then, wouldn’t they?”
“My goodness,” said Freddy admiringly; “why couldn’t I have thought of that?”
Mrs. Wiggins laughed comfortably. “I guess you could, all right. But you’re awful smart, Freddy, and you always try to think of new ways to do things. You invent new things that I couldn’t think up in a month of Sundays. But if you want to get something done in a hurry, the quickest way is to work with what you’ve got, seems to me.”
“You’re right,” Mr. Camphor said; “only I don’t know what we can do. I’ve offered to help Mrs. Filmore with money. But she’s proud; she won’t take it, even though she’s just about broke. And anyway, she says, there’s more to it than that. The hotel is haunted. That’s why all her help left. They were scared out.”
“Haunted?” said Freddy. “Golly, I’ve always wanted to spend the night in a haunted house. Do you suppose there really are ghosts there?”
“Well, I don’t suppose so for one minute,” said the cow. “I don’t believe in ghosts. Just the same, you won’t catch me spending any nights there. I should be scairt to death.”
“I don’t see how you could be scared of something you don’t believe in,” said Mr. Camphor.
“I don’t believe in driving a car seventy miles an hour,” said Bannister, “but I’d be scared to do it.”
“Oh, shut up, Bannister,” said Mr. Camphor, “you’re trying to mix us up. Anyway, we’re not going out in the car. Unless,” he added, as a thought struck him, “we drive around and talk to Mrs. Filmore. Or wait a minute. It’s thirty miles around the lake, and only a mile across.” He looked doubtfully at Mrs. Wiggins. “I don’t suppose we could all go in the canoe?”
“We’ll all go in the lake if we try,” said the cow. “But anyway, I’m not going. That shore over there is the southern edge of the Adirondacks—nothing but woods for miles—and woods are no place for a cow. You can’t half see and you stumble over things and get twigs in your eye—and I’m not as young as I used to be. But if you two go, you ought to stay and investigate—not just talk to Mrs. Filmore. Because if you ask me, there’s something funny about this ghost business. You know, Mr. Camphor, we had some trouble with a ghost once before—that old Ignormus. But he wasn’t much of a ghost when you got to know him, and we nailed his hide to the barn door, didn’t we, Freddy?”
“Yes, I guess we ought to look into it,” said Freddy. “But my goodness, we’re detectives, not ghost busters. If we suspect somebody of something, our business is to shadow him and find out what he’s up to, and if he’s doing wrong, get the sheriff to put him in jail. But you can’t put a ghost in a jail. And how can you shadow him?”
“Set a thief to catch a thief,” said Bannister.
“Ha, you mean if you want to catch a ghost, you’d have to hire another ghost to follow him, Bannister?” said Mr. Camphor. “Not bad, not bad at all. Where can we find an unemployed ghost, Freddy? How about that Ig—Ig—”