Freddy and the Perilous Adventure Read Free

often, and like everything else in his study, which was in the front part of the pigpen, it was pretty dusty. When he turned the leaves the dust went up his nose and made him sneeze, and then he would lose his place and have to turn back and try to find it, and that would make him sneeze again, and then when he found the place his eyes would be watering so he couldn’t read what it said. So he didn’t get much information. But he kept at it, and by four in the afternoon he did know a little more than when he started. He knew that nobody could tell where a balloon would come down.
    So he put the encyclopedia away and blew his nose and went over to see Charles, the rooster.
    Charles was sitting on a fence post in front of the henhouse. “Hello, Freddy,” he said rather distantly.
    â€œHello, Charles,” said the pig. “I suppose you’ve heard about this balloon ascension tomorrow?”
    â€œWho hasn’t?” said the rooster. “Anybody’d think nobody’d ever gone up in a balloon before, to hear ’em talk.”
    â€œOh, sure,” said Freddy. “It doesn’t amount to anything. Only thing I’m worried about is this speech I’ve got to make. I’m no good as a speaker. Now if they only had you to make one of your good rousing patriotic orations—that would be something.”
    â€œOh, you’ll make a good speech all right,” said Charles. “Of course, you haven’t had the practice I’ve had, and maybe you aren’t as eloquent as I am, but you’ll do all right.”
    Now what Charles said was perfectly true. When Freddy made a speech he said what he had to say and sat down. But when Charles made one, he said everything he had to say in six different ways, each more high-sounding, and with bigger words, than the last one. On days when Charles was to give an oration, animals came from miles around to shout and applaud and wonder how he could go on and on in such beautiful language without saying anything of importance at all. For a funny thing about Charles’ speeches was that though they were so stirring at the time, when you got home and thought them over you couldn’t remember what they were about.
    â€œWell, I don’t know,” said Freddy. “I’d hate to disappoint Mr. Golcher, and yet I’m afraid I’ll make a poor job of it. I’d like the balloon ride all right; it’ll be wonderful. But the important thing is to have the occasion a success, and with me as the principal speaker … Well, I tell you, Charles; much as I hate to pass up this wonderful experience, I’ve decided that you are the one who really ought to make the speech and go up. I’ve made up my mind for once to be unselfish about something, and to step aside and let you have the honor.”
    â€œH’m, very generous,” said Charles, without much conviction. “But it doesn’t seem to me that it would be fair. You were the one that thought up this thing, and arranged it—Of course,” he said, “I could make the speech, and then you and the ducks—”
    â€œThat wouldn’t do,” said Freddy. “Whoever speaks has to go up. And another thing: you’re a more suitable person, because it was a rooster, along with a duck and a sheep, that was the first living creature ever to fly. So the honor should be a rooster’s, not a pig’s. No pig ever flew.”
    But Charles said no. “I wouldn’t feel right about it, Freddy,” he said. He looked very noble and self-sacrificing for a minute, then he winked at Freddy, and edging closer along the rail fence he said in a low voice: “No, Freddy, my boy; I guess you’re stuck with it.”
    â€œI guess I am,” said Freddy to himself as he walked back home. “Oh, why am I such a fearless character?”
    Two other volunteers for the ascension presented themselves, however. Unfortunately, as