The Story of Freginald (4 page)

“Louithe!” she sniffed. “That'th jutht what I'm crying about! I
hate
Louithe! I don't want to be
called
Louithe! I don't want the thame name with thith nathty bear! I—”

“That's right, sir,” put in the bear. “We don't like having the same name.” And he explained.

“Well,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “well, I'm sure I don't know what to say. Do you know what to say, Leo?”

“I should say,” said the lion, “that the names could be changed.”

“I don't
want
my name changed,” wailed the elephant. “I want my own name. But I don't want anybody elthe to have it.”

Mr. Boomschmidt shook his head. “Thith ith—” he began, then finding that he was lisping, stopped and tried again. “Thith ith tho—” He stopped again. “Oh!” he broke out. “You—Leo—
you
thay thomething! I've lithened to thith elephant—I can't
thpeak
without doing the thame thing!”

“Yeth, thir,” replied Leo; then realizing that he was lisping too, shut his mouth very tight and, opening his eyes very wide, looked off into the distance for a minute. Then speaking very slowly and sounding his s's very hard he said: “You—musst—ssend—thiss—elephant—away—while—you—decide—what—iss—to—be—done. If—you—don't—we'll—get—to—lissping—sso—we—can't—talk—at—all.”

Mr. Boomschmidt nodded; then when he had thought of a sentence without any s's in it, he patted the elephant on the back and said: “Run along and play. We'll call you back later. We'll arrange it.”

She trotted off, still sniffling gently, and Leo gave a deep sigh and said: “Glad that's over, chief. I'd have been tongue-tied in another minute. But about these names; this young fellow here-why can't we change his name?”

Mr. Boomschmidt looked doubtful. “My goodness, Leo,” he said, “his name is what's bringing people to the show. A bear named Louise. That's what they all come to see.”

“Quite right, boss,” said the lion. “But they'll come to see a bear who's a poet, even if his name isn't Louise. What's in a name, anyway?”

“My gracious, I don't know. What
is
in a name, Leo?”

“Nothing but a lot of letters, according to my way of thinking,” said Leo.

“Your way of thinking is a pretty good one, Leo. And there's nothing easier than to change a lot of letters. What would you like to be called, bear?”

“Why, I don't care. My mother wanted to call me Reginald and my father wanted me named Fred and when they wouldn't agree my great-grandfather named me Louise. I don't think he'd like it to be changed.”

“Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't mind,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “especially when you explain to him about the letters. We don't think he'd mind, do we, Leo?”

“Of course not,” said the lion. “Why couldn't we combine what your father wanted and what your mother wanted and call you Freginald? Then they'd both have the name they liked.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “that's fine, Leo. Excellent! What won't you think up next! Isn't that fine, Louise?—Or, I should say, Freginald?”

And so Louise became Freginald.

“And now,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “let's get at that poetry business.”

CHAPTER 3

Freginald—as we will call him now since he likes that name so much better—had a lot more to do after this. He not only had to make up poetry for the people who paid admission to see him, but he had to make up poetry for Mr. Boomschmidt to use on the signs over the tents, and in the handbills describing the show which were given away by hundreds in the towns where they stopped. In addition to this the other animals were always coming to him and asking to have poems written about them or for them. Even silly, proud Oscar, the ostrich, so far unbent as to ask for a verse to put on a greeting card to be sent to his old mother in far-off Africa.

Freginald didn't mind doing all this. It was fun making up poems; and then he liked Mr. Boomschmidt, and it was nice to know that he was helping to make Mr. Boomschmidt's show a success. And a success it certainly was nowadays. The big tent was crowded to the doors at both performances every day, and when at the end Freginald came hopping out like a rabbit and was introduced by Mr. Boomschmidt as the distinguished young poet, the people cheered and cheered. And a good many of them bought photographs of him that were on sale after the show for ten cents apiece. Later on, Mr. Boomschmidt had some of the best poems printed up in a little paper-covered book with Freginald's picture on the outside and these sold like hot cakes. People sent from as far away as Boston to get copies.

Mr. Boomschmidt had never made so much money before and he went around singing all day long. He didn't have a very good voice, but nobody minded, because he was so happy. Baldy, the eagle, always slept perched on the roof of Mr. Boomschmidt's wagon and Baldy said that even in his sleep Mr. Boomschmidt's snores sounded happy. But maybe Baldy was wrong, for, just judging by the sound, it would have been pretty hard to tell whether Mr. Boomschmidt was awake and singing or asleep and snoring.

But anyway there was no doubt that he was happy. His old mother lived up in Schenectady and now he was able to send her some extra money every week. For a number of years the circus business hadn't been very good, and although he had always been able to send her enough to live on, there wasn't enough for little extras like peppermint life-savers and going to the movies—both of which she was very fond of. But now he sent her enough so she could go to the movies every night if she wanted to.

Only there was one bad thing about sending money to old Mrs. Boomschmidt. She was very generous and when she did get a little extra money, instead of spending it on herself, she would go out and get some yarn and knit her son a fancy vest. She was indeed a beautiful fancy vest knitter. But Mr. Boomschmidt already had twenty-seven fancy vests that she had knitted for him put away in moth balls. And then, too, the old lady was like a good many mothers who can't seem to realize that their children are growing up. So she knitted all the vests for Mr. Boomschmidt the same size as she had when he was fifteen. And Mr. Boomschmidt couldn't possibly get into any of them.

One day he spoke to Freginald about it.

“My goodness, Freginald,” he said, “what am I going to do about this? Here am I, want to make my mother happy; there's my mother, wants to make me happy. I send her money she won't use on herself; she sends me vests I can't wear. Best intentions on both sides. Come, you're a smart bear. Think of something.”

“Couldn't you tell her you've got enough vests?” asked Freginald.

“Gracious, no,” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “Wouldn't do at all. She might start knitting me suits.”

“Well, couldn't you send the next one back and tell her it was too tight under the arms? Then she'd have to unravel it and knit it over again. And then you could send it back again and say it was too loose. You could keep on doing that.”

“Seems sort of mean to have her do all that work,” said Mr. Boomschmidt.

“She's going to do it anyway, sir,” said Freginald. “And she couldn't spend the money for more yarn for a new one until she got it right.”

“Why, my goodness! Why, upon my word!” exclaimed Mr. Boomschmidt, pushing his hat back. “I believe you've got it. Yes, sir, I'll go write her right away. Too tight under the arms, hey?” And he hurried off.

But though everybody in the circus was happy, one thing bothered Freginald. Louise wouldn't speak to him. She had been mad at him ever since he had made up the poem about her and then told her he didn't mean what he had said in it. He didn't like Louise especially, but he didn't like to have her mad at him, so he tried to be nice to her. But the more he tried, the crosser she got.

One day Freginald took his lunch and started out to explore an old grassy roadway that wound up into the hills back of the field where the circus was camped. It was a Sunday, very hot and still. Most of the other animals had wandered off to find cool places in which to take naps. And before he had gone half a mile, Freginald got so drowsy he could hardly hold his head up. So he lay down under a tree and dozed off.

He was awakened by angry voices talking not very far away. He sat up and slapped his nose hard with his paw to get the sleepiness out of his head, and then he sneaked up toward the barn from which the voices came. One of them was Louise's.

“I tell you I never touched your nasty old hay,” she was saying. “And you let me out of here or I'll tell Mr. Boomschmidt.”

“Kinda sassy, ain't you?” said the other voice. It was a very small voice, but it sounded pretty vindictive. “Well, how you going to tell him, hey? How you going to tell him if I won't let you out of the barn?”

Freginald was close enough now to see what was going on. The barn door was open and in the middle of the doorway stood a very small mouse. Now, elephants aren't afraid of tigers but they are afraid of mice. If you ask an elephant why, he will giggle and say that the mouse might run up his trunk and tickle him and make him sneeze. Of course no mouse would have the nerve to do any such thing, but the elephants aren't taking any chances. Merely to think of it will make many elephants sneeze for half an hour.

“Come, come; what's going on here?” said Freginald, making his voice as deep as possible. And he walked up to the mouse.

But the mouse stood his ground. “Don't you try to bully me!” he squeaked shrilly. And then as Freginald's paw darted out and pinned his tail to the ground, he struggled to get away, shouting angrily all the time. “You let me go, now! I wasn't doing anything to your old elephant. You animals think just because you belong to a circus you own the whole country. Don't you think anybody else has any rights around here?”

“Oh, shut up,” said Freginald good-naturedly. “Come on out, Louise. It's all right.”

Louise came out slowly, edging as far away from the mouse as she could. She was crying and the tears were rolling down her trunk.

“Oh, gosh, Louise,” said Freginald. “I wish you wouldn't be such a cry-baby.”

“Oh, ith that tho?” said Louise beginning to lisp. “Well, all I did wath to go in there to take a nap becauthe it wath cool.”

“Aw, gee,” said the mouse, beginning to feel a little ashamed of himself when he saw how frightened she was, “I couldn't hurt you if I wanted to. But you scared
me
first. I was asleep in the hay and you almost stepped on me. And it made me kind of mad. You circus animals think you're so smart because you can do tricks. Well, I can do tricks, too. And why should you be the only ones to travel around the country and perform for big audiences and have your pictures in store windows?”

Freginald had taken his paw off the mouse's tail and he said: “What tricks can you do?”