Читать книгу Freddy and the Popinjay - Walter Rollin Brooks - Страница 4
Chapter 2
ОглавлениеBright and early the next morning Freddy set out for Centerboro. There were a number of things he would have to bring back with him—many more than he could manage just in his mouth, and so he wore an old coat of Mr. Bean’s into the pockets of which he could stuff his various purchases. He made this trip to Centerboro once a week, for as editor of the animal newspaper, The Bean Home News, he had to prepare a weekly summary of all the interesting things that had happened and take it in to the printer.
He usually included a poem or two in each issue, and he had intended to put in this week’s number the one about the waggable tail. But since talking to J. J. Pomeroy he had begun to feel that perhaps a waggable tail wasn’t so desirable after all. He decided to leave that poem out. He could write another on the way to town.
So he began making up a rhyme as he trotted along.
A lesson which we all must learn
Is this: without complaint
To be ourselves, and not to yearn
To be that which we ain’t.
“That’s pretty awful grammar,” Freddy said to himself, “but there won’t be time to fix it up. If I use it, I won’t sign my name.” He went on.
If cats had wings, and cows had claws
And pigs had shaggy pelts,
You’d never know your friends, because
They’d look like someone else.
“That may be true,” he said thoughtfully, “but it would be awfully interesting if they changed around. My goodness, the same old faces day after day—you do get tired of them.” But he went on with the poem.
Then be content with what you’ve got
And do not weep and wail,
For the leopard cannot change his spots
Nor the pig his curly tail.
Now this wasn’t a specially fine poem, but there was one good thing about it: the idea and the verses had come out even. Usually when Freddy started a poem, he began with an idea, something he wanted to say. Then he took his idea and fitted verses to it. It was a good deal like eating bread and jam and trying to make them come out even. Sometimes when he got through about the third verse, there would be part of the idea left over. Then he would start another verse. But maybe there wouldn’t be enough idea left for a whole verse. You can’t cut a verse in two, as you can a slice of bread, so Freddy would spread the idea over it very thin. Sometimes he would spread it so thin over the whole last half of the poem that you could hardly see it. It was very easy for Freddy to write verses, but not so easy to get good ideas. It was as if he had lots and lots of bread, but not very much jam. That is the trouble with a good many poets. They make very nice verses, but you can hardly taste the jam in them at all.
Freddy repeated this poem to himself, and as always, he thought that maybe there was enough idea left over to make some more. So he began:
For pigs are pigs, and dogs are dogs,
And never the twain shall meet ...
“Dear me,” he said, “that’s an awfully good line, but it seems to me I’ve heard it somewhere before. I guess I’d better change it.” And he was beginning again when something went Zzzzzip! across in front of his nose, and a little puff of dust shot up at the side of the road.
The sound was such as a wasp might have made, flying fast, but no wasp would knock up dust from the road. And then it came again, behind him—Zzip! with a sort of smack at the end of it, and Freddy felt a sharp sting in his left hip. A wasp would sting like that, but no wasp ever made a smack when he hit you. Freddy had given a loud yip when he felt the sting, and although his forelegs continued to trot along the road, his hind legs jumped into the air, so that he looked a little as if he had suddenly tried to stand on his head. When he had his hind legs under control again he stopped and called out: “Hey, you! Quit that!”
There was a cackle of laughter behind some bushes at the side of the road, and a freckled face appeared among the leaves. It was a boy’s face, and it wouldn’t have been bad looking if it hadn’t worn such an impudent expression.
“Hi, pig!” said the boy. “Gee, did you look funny! Go on, will you? I want to see you do that again.” And he stepped out into the road and aimed a slingshot at Freddy.
Freddy was mad anyway, and he was extra mad because he knew that he had looked pretty silly with his hind legs nearly jumping over his front ones. He wasn’t any coward, either. One time, several years ago, he had led a charge right up to the muzzle of the shotgun that was pointed at him from one of the windows of the Grimby house. Of course he had known that the gun wasn’t loaded, but still it was a brave thing to do. But to charge on a boy with a slingshot wasn’t brave, it was just foolhardy. So he choked down his anger and said: “What do you shoot in that thing, BB shot?”
The boy said disgustedly: “Naw. Pop won’t give me any money to buy BB shot. I just got stones.” Then he grinned. “Why? You think maybe a BB shot wouldn’t sting as much?”
Freddy knew this boy. He was Jimmy, the son of tight-fisted old Zenas Witherspoon who had the farm just over the hill from, and adjoining, the Bean farm. Jimmy had never in his life had a decent suit of clothes. He wore patched overalls and a ragged shirt, week in and week out, and usually went barefoot, even to school, so that all the other children made fun of him and wouldn’t have anything to do with him. It wasn’t his fault. Freddy remembered how Jerry, Mr. Witherspoon’s horse, had had to borrow money from the First Animal Bank to buy himself a new set of shoes, because Zenas was too tight to buy them for him. And Mrs. Witherspoon hadn’t been out of the house in years, because Zenas said he wasn’t going to have her traipsin’ around the country, wearing out good shoe leather. Folks said that she hadn’t written to her sister in Ohio in twenty years, because Zenas wouldn’t buy her a postcard.
The Bean animals had been sorry for Mrs. Witherspoon, and for Jerry, and for Eunice, the Witherspoon cow, and all their other animals. Though there wasn’t anything they could do about it. But they had begun to see that they would have to do something about Jimmy. For Jimmy was getting to be a nuisance. Having no friends, and no books to read, and no money to buy candy or go to the movies with, he just rambled over the fields and through the woods with his slingshot, shooting at everything that moved. And as the Bean animals moved around pretty freely, they got hit pretty frequently.
But of course Freddy knew he couldn’t do anything now, except get away as quickly as possible. He said: “I could bring you back some shot from Centerboro. If you’d promise not to shoot at me, or at any other animals and birds with it.”
“I’d promise not to shoot you,” said Jimmy, “but not anybody else. What’s the good of having BB shot if you can’t shoot at anything?”
“You could shoot at a mark,” Freddy said.
“Pooh, what fun is that?”
“You just shoot for the fun of hurting people,” Freddy said. “I never knew anybody like that before—that thought it was fun to hurt people.”
“I don’t either,” said Jimmy. “I like to see ’em jump. That didn’t hurt you much when I hit you.”
“It didn’t injure me permanently, if that’s what you mean,” Freddy said. “But you shoot at birds, and if that stone had hit a bird it would have killed it.”
“Oh, I don’t hardly ever hit a bird—they’re too small and quick. Anyway, what’s an old bird! I hit one this morning, though—Oh look, pig! Up in that tree, there’s a bird that’s been watching us. Want to see me bring him down?” And he pulled up the slingshot.
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” said Freddy. “I know that bird. He’s a phoebe, and he’s got a wife and three children in a nest in the eaves of the Bean house.”
“He’s a what?” Jimmy interrupted. But he lowered the slingshot.
“A phoebe. They’re one of the most useful birds there is.”
“What do you mean—useful?” Jimmy demanded. “Birds ain’t any use.”
“That shows how much you know,” said Freddy. “Most birds live on bugs. If it wasn’t for birds, the farmers’ gardens would be all eaten up by bugs. Phoebes and robins and catbirds and warblers and flickers and peewees—”
“Aw, you’re just making all those names up,” said Jimmy.
“There are—I don’t know—probably a hundred different kinds of birds around here. But I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about them. You just like to be ignorant. All you want to do is go around with your silly slingshot, shooting people to make them jump.”
“Is that so!” said Jimmy. “Well, I guess I know as much as you do!”
“You don’t know one bird from another,” said Freddy—“except maybe robins and sparrows. You’re out in the woods a lot, and I bet you don’t know one tree from another either.”
“I do so! I know maples and elms and—and oaks and—Well what’s that tree over there if you know so much?” Jimmy pointed at a slender tree with a dark striped trunk and large three-pointed leaves.
Freddy looked. He didn’t know what it was. But it would never do to say so. “Suppose you tell me,” he said. “You’re the one that’s trying to prove that he isn’t ignorant.”
“Yeah?” said Jimmy. “Well, do you know what it is?”
“That isn’t the point,” said Freddy.
“Oh yes it is,” Jimmy retorted. “If you don’t know and I don’t know, then you’re just as ignorant as I am.”
Freddy saw that he had got backed into a corner. Of course there were several ways he could get out. He could get dignified and say that there seemed no use in continuing the discussion. Or he could suddenly charge at Jimmy and knock him over, and then run. He would probably be out of range before Jimmy could get up and put another stone in his slingshot. But he decided that the best way out was to admit that Jimmy was right. The more honest you are in an argument, the better chance you have of winning.
So he laughed. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m just as ignorant about that tree as you are. But there’s one difference between us: I don’t want to stay ignorant. I’m going to find out what kind of tree it is. When I do, I’ll tell you.” And he started on his way.
“Yah!” Jimmy jeered. “I bet I find out before you do!” And then as Freddy didn’t answer, but just kept on going: “Give me a leave, pig? Dare me to shoot you again?”
Freddy didn’t turn around, but it took all his strength of mind to keep on walking slowly and not break into a gallop. His front legs were all right; they walked along in a quiet dignified way, but his hind legs, which were a fine mark for that terrible slingshot, kept trying to go faster, and he kept trying to stop them, so that every now and then he humped up in the middle when his hind legs got too close to his front ones, and then straightened out again when he persuaded the hind legs to drop back where they belonged.
But Jimmy didn’t shoot. And when he finally got to a turn in the road, Freddy looked back. The boy had disappeared. Freddy heaved a sigh, and all the rest of the way into Centerboro his hind legs behaved themselves, and trotted along patiently in the rear, keeping their proper distance as they had been trained to do.