The Story of Freginald Read Online Free PDF

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?”
    â€œOh, 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.
    â€œOh, gosh, Louise,” said Freginald. “I wish you wouldn’t be such a cry-baby.”
    â€œOh, 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.”
    â€œAw, 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?”
    The mouse said he could do fancy diving and he led them around to the watering-trough on the other side of the barn and did jackknifes and swan dives and standing-sitting-standing something-or-others until even Louise got interested and forgot to be afraid of him any more.
    â€œWhy, you’re awfully good,” she said.
    â€œSure I’m good,” said the mouse, sitting down on the edge of the trough and wiping the water off his whiskers. “But what does it get me around here? Look, wouldn’t your Mr. Boomschmidt give me a job?”
    â€œLet’s go see,” said Freginald.

    So they went down to the circus grounds. They had to wait awhile because Mr. Boomschmidt was taking his Sunday afternoon nap. He was asleep in a chair on the shady side of the wagons with a red and white checked handkerchief over his face. But by and by he woke up and then the mouse, whose name was Eustace, went through his dives again in a big tub and Mr. Boomschmidt was delighted and offered him a job on the spot.
    â€œYou’re too small to be any good in the big tent,” he said, “but we need some more side shows. We’ll bill you as ‘Eustace, the Diving Mouse.’ Ten cents admission. That ought to bring ’em, eh, Freginald? My, my, a diving mouse! Who’d ever have thought of that! Now, Freginald, you look after this boy until we get him fixed up with a place to sleep and so on. And, Louise, you go speak to your relatives about Eustace and tell ’em that he’s a good mouse and won’t bother ’em. Eh, Eustace? You won’t bother the elephants, I’m sure.”
    â€œOh, sure, sure; tell ’em not to worry,” said Eustace grandly.
    So Freginald let Eustace sleep in a corner of his wagon that night, and the next day the carpenter built a little house for him. It had a bedroom upstairs and a living-room downstairs and a little staircase so Eustace could go up and down. It was painted red and Eustace’s name was lettered on the front door. And the whole thing was fastened to the front of Freginald’s wagon.
    The little house was so much like a doll house that all the younger animals wanted to play with it. They were always peeking in the windows and opening the door to see how it looked inside and of course this made Eustace mad. He would come to the window and glare at them and shout: “Go away! Leave me alone! Good grief, can’t I have any privacy?” Then if they didn’t leave he would come out and go for them, and he was so violent when he was angry that they usually ran away. It was pretty funny to see him chasing a big, half-grown tiger all over the circus grounds.
    Eustace’s diving act