Freddy and Simon the Dictator Read Free Page A

much as anything that had been said, worried Freddy. If the farm animals were taking this creature, whoever he was, seriously, there was big trouble ahead.
    Freddy decided that he had learned all he needed to, and he thought he had better leave before the meeting broke up. He backed out of the bush where he had taken cover and sneaked off down through the woods.
    When he got to the pig pen, Freddy didn’t go straight to bed. He didn’t even take off the derby and the morning coat, but sat down in his big chair and put his feet up on the desk beside the old typewriter on which he composed his poems and prepared the copy for his weekly animal newspaper, the Bean Home News. He wanted to think.
    He was still thinking, to the accompaniment of good hearty snores, an hour later when Jinx tapped at the door, then pushed it open, and came in. Seeing his friend asleep, the cat grinned, tiptoed up close to him, and suddenly screeched: “Arise, pig! Cast off your chains! The revolution has dawned! The animals have taken over!”
    â€œ Arise, pig !”
    Freddy arose all right. He went right up out of the chair as if he were on springs, and before his eyes were open, grabbed a stick from the corner, dashed to the door, and throwing it open, assumed an attitude of defense. Then his eyes opened and he began to relax. “Dawn?” he muttered. “ ’Tisn’t dawn yet. Black as your hat out.”
    He stood there for a second or two, then turned and saw Jinx. “Darn you, cat,” he said crossly, “I wish you’d quit these silly jokes.” He picked up the derby, which had fallen to the floor, and brushed the dust off it tenderly. “I was just thinking—” he began.
    â€œBoy, I’ll say you were—thinking on all twelve cylinders,” said Jinx. “Could hear you all the way down from the woods.”
    â€œYeah,” Freddy said. “Very comical. But suppose you tell me what you saw.”
    â€œI didn’t see much,” said the cat seriously. “I know we’re supposed to see in the dark, and we can, better than most animals. But not in the pitch-black, the way it was there. Matter of fact, owls can see better in the dark than cats can.—Hey, how about that screech owl pal of yours, the one that swallowed the dictionary—Uncle Solomon? I bet he knows what’s going on.”
    â€œProbably Old Whibley does, too,” said Freddy. Whibley was a big owl who lived with his niece, Vera, in a tree not far from the Grimby house. “We’d better see him tomorrow.”
    â€œI didn’t see the speaker,” Jinx went on, “though I waited nearly an hour after they all left. Nobody came out of the cellar. There were some big animals in the audience, though. I saw a couple of horses, and at least one cow; and I gathered that there were some skunks there—I don’t know whether it was Sniffy Wilson and his family or not. Mostly, though, they were just small animals. Lots of rabbits.”
    â€œWell,” said Freddy, “my guess is that whoever’s behind all this doesn’t really hope to take over New York State for the animals, much less the whole country. Nobody would be so foolish as to propose that. But suppose he keeps up this talk about how cruel and mean Mr. Bean is—twisting things that happen like spanking the rabbits. First thing you know, he’ll have ’em believing that Mr. Bean is mean and cruel, and ought to have his farm taken away from him. And a bunch of animals could drive a farmer off. Remember how Mr. Anderson and the rats drove Mrs. Filmore away from her summer hotel?”
    â€œI wonder why he spoke of the rats,” said Jinx. “That didn’t go down very well.”
    Freddy said: “I don’t know. Thank goodness the rats are gone. There was only one, Eli, that didn’t get shipped off to Montana. Simon sent him on an errand and he didn’t get back till the