Freddy Goes to the North Pole Read Online Free PDF Page B

they’re starting out on another trip! Well, well, will wonders never cease?”
    â€œSo they are, Mrs. B.,” replied her husband. “Now I wonder where they’re off to this time. Consarn it, I wish we could talk animal talk; then we’d know. But hey, Hank!” he called. “Wait a minute! Whoa! Back up there!” And as Hank stopped obediently, Mr. Bean dashed into the house and presently returned with his second-best night-cap, a white one with a red tassel, which he tied to the top of the phaeton. “There,” he said, “now you’ve got a flag. Good-bye, animals! Have a good time, and remember there’s a good home and a warm welcome waiting for you when you get tired of the road.”
    â€œGood-bye!” called Mrs. Bean. “Be careful about automobiles and don’t sit in draughts or get under trees in thunder-storms or stay up too late nights or—” But the rest of her advice was drowned in the cheers of the animals who were staying behind, as the little procession marched out of the gate, with the standard of the house of Bean waving above them.
    But, for all the cheering and waving of paws and claws and hoofs and handkerchiefs, Ferdinand, perched on the dash-board, never even opened his eyes.

CHAPTER IV
    FERDINAND RETURNS
    Life on the farm went along quietly all that summer. As the fame of Barnyard Tours, Inc., increased, more and more animals kept coming to inquire about trips, and Charles, the rooster, was kept very busy in the office from early morning till late at night, answering questions and making up parties. After the first week nothing was heard of the explorers until fall, when the birds began to fly past on their way south for the winter. Then an occasional woodpecker or white-throat would swoop down into the big elm and deliver a message. The animals learned that everything was going well; that Freddy had had a bad cold, but was better; that Ferdinand had had a fight with a gang of thieving blue jays and had beaten them badly; that the expedition had high hopes of reaching the pole before Christmas, in which case they would be back home by midsummer.
    The winter came and passed without more news. In the spring two chickadees who had been living in the elm since October announced that they were starting for the north, and agreed, in return for the grain and bits of suet with which Charles had fed them all winter, to come back if they learned anything of the wanderers and give their report before going ahead with the house that they planned to build that spring in Labrador. But the chickadees did not come back. They might, of course, have been caught and eaten by hawks or cats. They might have decided that it was too far to come all the way back to the farm, just to tell the animals that their friends were well. But still they hadn’t come back, and the animals worried. Every day Charles sent one of his eight daughters, who were growing up now into long-legged noisy chickens, with manners that were the despair of Henrietta, their mother, to perch on the gatepost and watch the road for the first sign of the returning travellers. But July passed, August passed, and no one came.
    And then at last the animals decided that something must be done. It was Mrs. Wiggins who really got things going. “I just can’t sleep nights,” she complained, “for thinking of those dear friends away off up there in the cold and the snow, maybe without anything to eat, and my own dear sister, Mrs. Wogus, with them; and her little girl, Marietta, sobbing herself to sleep every night because she wants her mother back. We’ve got to do something, and we’re going to do something. Even if I have to go alone, I’m going to start out and find them. If anyone else wants to come along, he can, but I’m going anyway.”
    â€œA very laudable resolve, Mrs. Wiggins,” said Charles. “A very brave and noble resolution. I’ve