Freddy the Pied Piper (9 page)

It was while he was doing this that there was a loud knock at the front door.

“Darn that Leo!” said Jinx. “He's stirred up the whole neighborhood.” He went into the shop and came back to report that there were two women on the porch, and a third was trying to peer into the shop window.

Freddy went to the pantry door and spoke through the keyhole to Mrs. Guffin.

“You'd better keep pretty quiet, ma'am,” he said. “If you make any noise I'll unlock the door and sick this lion on you. And you know—well, he hasn't had much to eat lately.”

He turned back to see Leo, with a bath towel tied round his head, standing behind him. The lion said reproachfully: “That isn't a very nice thing to suggest, Freddy. You know I'm not that kind of a lion. Besides,” he added, “even an alligator would have to be pretty hungry before he'd tackle her.”

A voice outside called: “Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Guffin! Are you all right?”

Freddy had an idea. There was a blue bathrobe of Mrs. Guffin's lying across a chair, and he grabbed it up. “Quick, Leo! Up on your hind legs and get into this. Now if we had a handkerchief … a dishtowel will do; get one, Jinx.”

A minute later, Leo, wrapped in the bathrobe, with the dishtowel draped over one paw, which he held across the lower part of his face, opened the door a crack and peered out at his neighbors. “What's all the excitement?” he said in a hoarse whisper.

One of the women said: “Are you all right? We heard all that racket, and thought—”

“What racket?” Leo demanded.

“We thought it came from over here. Yells and shouts. Are you sure you're all right? You look queer.”

“Got a bad cold,” said Leo. “Mustn't stand here in the draught.”

“What's the matter with your voice?” asked another woman. And the third one said: “Have you sent for the doctor?” “You were all right this morning when you were sweeping the porch,” said the first.

“These things strike sudden,” whispered Leo. “One minute you're up—next minute you're down. Hurts me to talk; go away and leave me alone, will you?”

“Well, if that's the way you feel!” said the first woman indignantly, and the second one said: “We only wanted to help you.” “That's gratitude for you!” said the third. And they turned away.

“You were pretty rude to them, Leo,” Freddy said.

“They'd have been suspicious if I'd been polite,” said the lion. “She hasn't got any more manners than a—” He stopped abruptly.

“Oh, go on, say it,” said Freddy. “Than a pig—wasn't that what you started to say? I don't know why people always have to bring pigs into it when they want to say something mean about somebody. If somebody's stupid and obstinate, why don't they call him lion-headed? If somebody's rude, why don't they say he has no more manners than a cat? Why—”

“Look, Freddy,” Leo interrupted. “It's just one of those sayings; it doesn't mean anything. Like ‘fierce as a lion,' ‘bold as a lion.' I'm not any fiercer and bolder than you and Jinx. And ‘curious as a cat.' Jinx isn't any more—”

“Yes, I am too, more curious than you are,” Jinx said. “That's why I know more: I'm more curious, and so I find out more things. Those old sayings are all right. ‘Clever as a cat,' ‘cute as a cat,' ‘courageous as a—'”

“Conceited as a cat—that's a better one,” said Freddy. “Listen, we've got to decide what to do. Mrs. Church won't be back for us until day after tomorrow. We'll have to keep Mrs. Guffin locked up, but we can't make her sit on that chair in the pantry for two days. That's cruelty to humans. But if we let her stay in her bedroom, she'll go to the window and yell for help.”

They talked it over. They didn't want to be any meaner to her than they had to, and they at last decided that she would be locked in the pantry during the day. At night she could sleep in her own bed, but Leo would be locked in with her. Then if she tried to call the neighbors, the lion could stop her. “And don't you worry,” he said. “I'll sleep right under the window, and if she tries any funny business—” He crouched and lashed his tail, and began to creep towards Freddy with a ferocious grin.

Freddy backed away. “Hey, quit that!” he said. “I—I don't like it!”

The lion didn't move a muscle. He stared at Freddy with his fierce yellow eyes, and then suddenly he twitched his whiskers, and Freddy jumped convulsively backward and fell over a chair.

When he scrambled to his feet, Leo was sitting up and looking at him with a pleased smile. “My goodness,” Freddy said, “you looked awful, Leo! I've known you so long, I've sort of forgot you really are a lion.”

“That's all right,” said Leo. “I just wanted to show you that I'm not going to let Mrs. Guffin forget it. We won't have any trouble with her.”

“I guess she won't sleep much,” said Jinx.

“Oh, I won't bother her if she behaves herself. Just give a little growl now and then to remind her I'm there.” He stopped suddenly and they all raised their heads to listen. Somebody had knocked at the front door.

“You'll have to go, Leo,” Freddy said. “Here, get into your bathrobe again.”

Freddy and Jinx stayed in the diningroom. They heard the bell tinkle as Leo opened the door, and they listened. But Mrs. Guffin had heard the bell too, and suddenly she began to yell at the top of her lungs: “Help! Help! Police! I've been kidnaped!”

“We've got to put a stop to that!” Jinx said. He rushed at the door between the diningroom and the shop and slammed it, and Freddy put his mouth close to the keyhole of the pantry door. And when Mrs. Guffin stopped for breath, he called to her. “One more yell and I'll let this lion in at you.”

But she didn't mean to be silenced so easily. Freddy heard her draw in a deep breath for another yell. “Here, Leo!” he said. “Go in and get her! Chew her up!” He rattled the doorknob, then dropped down and put his nose to the crack under the door and made the sort of snorting, snuffling sounds that he supposed a lion might make if he was trying to get at somebody.

Mrs. Guffin didn't use her breath for another yell. Freddy heard her let it out in a sort of sigh. “All right, Leo,” he said quickly. “I guess she doesn't want to be eaten up after all.” Then he answered for Leo with a deep growl. There was a good deal more pig than lion in it, but I guess it fooled Mrs. Guffin for she didn't yell any more.

In a few minutes Leo came back. “Some man wanted to buy a canary,” he said. “I told him to stop by next week. I said I was too sick to keep the shop open today.”

“Well, but didn't he hear Mrs. Guffin?” Jinx asked.

“Sure. I told him it was a parrot.” Leo laughed. “He said he'd like to buy the parrot; he'd never heard one with such a deep voice. Maybe we could sell Mrs. Guffin to him.”

“I wish we could,” Freddy said. “She can do a lot of hollering in the next two days. I wonder …” He thought a minute, then he went and rummaged in Mrs. Guffin's desk and found pen and ink and a piece of cardboard and lettered a big sign: MEASLES, which he hung in the shop window. “That ought to keep people away,” he said.

It did keep them away too. During the rest of that day several people came up on the porch, but when they saw the sign they went away again without knocking. Fortunately there was plenty of food in the house, and at noon they let Mrs. Guffin out of the pantry long enough to get something to eat for herself. Leo sat close beside her while she ate. He didn't growl any, but now and then he would draw his lips back from his long sharp teeth in a sort of silent snarl as he watched her. She didn't seem to have much appetite.

When they had locked her up again they had their own lunch, and they fed the thirteen cats and the puppies and birds in the shop, and then Freddy walked back to the hotel. When he went in, the manager was talking to the clerk. He glanced up and frowned. “Ah, Mrs. Vandertwiggen, we've been looking for you.”

Freddy said, very haughty: “Well, my good man, here I am. State your business.”

The manager rubbed his hands together but he didn't bow. “Well, ma'am,” he said firmly, “it's about the cats. I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to leave. We can't allow you to fill your room with cats.”

“I don't know what you are talking about,” said Freddy. “I understood you had no objection to my having my cat with me. He should be in the room now, but he can hardly be said to fill it.”

“I am not referring to your cat,” said the manager, and he told Freddy what had happened. “It caused a great deal of disturbance, and a great deal of running around and yelling, and we don't like that here. This is a respectable hotel.”

Freddy said: “Nonsense! Did you see these cats?”

“No, ma'am. But—”

“Be quiet!” said Freddy sharply. “You didn't see them. Nobody saw them, except the chambermaid. Yet you came right upstairs when she screamed. Where did they go to then? Do you mean to tell me that they vanished into thin air?”

“They must have gone somewhere,” said the manager.

“If they ever existed,” said Freddy. “And you say when you went up there there were
no
cats in the room? Where is my cat, then? He is an extremely valuable animal, and if you have let him get out—if he's lost … Kindly come up to my room with me at once.”

So the manager went up, and of course Jinx wasn't there. “Well,” said Freddy, “this is serious for you—very serious indeed. I think I see what happened. You allowed my cat to get away, and to cover up your carelessness you invent this story of a roomful of cats. I shall call my lawyer at once.”

The manager began to look worried. “Well, ma'am,” he said, “perhaps I was a little hasty. I shall question the chambermaid again. I hadn't thought of it like that, but it seems possible that she may have done as you say. If so, she shall be discharged at once.”

But this wasn't what Freddy wanted at all. He became even more haughty than before. “I'm afraid,” he said, “that you can't pass off your own stupidity and carelessness on to an innocent person. However, I do not wish to be too hard on you. I will overlook the whole thing, provided you agree to say nothing to the chambermaid. My cat is not stupid, and he'll come back when he gets ready.”

So the manager agreed. When he was gone Freddy locked the door and dropped down into a chair and wiped his forehead on the corner of his shawl and said: “Whew!” And by and by when he felt calmer, he got pencil and paper out of his pocket. And he wrote a poem. This is it:

Men call the dog the friend of man

And praise him for his deep devotion
,

And yet the pig is capable

Of love as deep as any ocean.

“
Bold as a lion,” people say
,

“
Strong as a horse”—pigs too have strength

And in defense of justice, they

Will go to almost any length.

Yet who has ever heard it said

That pigs are brave, that pigs are bold
,

That pigs are handsome quadrupeds

With wills of iron and hearts of gold?

“
Fat as a pig” the saying goes;

“
Pig-headed,” “dirty as a pig”;

Each reference, in verse or prose
,

To pigs contains a dirty dig.

I demand justice for the pig!

No more shall he be stigmatized

By adjectives, both small and big
,

So vulgar and unauthorized.

O pigs, arise and prove your worth
,

Assert your honesty and charm;

Let kindly, clean and polished pigs

A bound on every ranch and farm.

Let “pig” no longer be a word

Applied with snorts and sniffs and jeers;

Let pigs be proud of being pigs

As peers are proud of being peers.

Justice! Justice for the pig!

Let every pig in every pen

Lift up his voice, assert his rights

As one of nature's noblemen.

Chapter 8

Freddy stayed at the hotel that night and went back in the morning to the pet shop and spent the day there. Mrs. Guffin didn't cause them any trouble. She looked tired and sort of depressed, which I guess was only natural for anyone who had spent the night in a room with a lion; and she said frankly that Freddy could have Leo for nothing if he'd only take him away; all she wanted was to be rid of them. But they kept her locked in the pantry just the same. The “Measles” sign kept any customers away from the shop, but Freddy thought it was queer that none of her friends called, if they knew she was sick.

Leo said: “She hasn't got any friends.”

“Not any at all?”

“Well, none that ever come to see her.”