The Story of Freginald Read Online Free PDF Page B

was a great success and so he stayed a regular part of the circus. But he was pretty cranky and even Mr. Boomschmidt admitted he was a pretty hard mouse to handle. But that was because he had lived all alone by himself for so long. He couldn’t get used to having a lot of other animals around. About the only ones he could get on with were Louise and Freginald. He liked them and he was grateful to them for having got him his job, and they liked him. When he was quarrelsome they didn’t laugh and they didn’t argue—they went away and let him alone. And in a little while he’d come around and apologize for having been so cantankerous.
    Freginald began to like Louise better now, too. She had thanked him for coming to her rescue when Eustace had cornered her in the barn, and she was really trying to grow up a little and stop being such a crybaby. She was still rather stuck up because she had been taught by her mother that elephants are smarter than other animals, and, while this is true, she didn’t realize that it was enough just to be smarter and that she didn’t have to go around proving it to everybody. But she wasn’t stuck up any more with Freginald, and she was fun to do things with as long as nothing happened to make her cry, and she was very good at games. So they became good friends.

CHAPTER 4
    Slowly the days got shorter, and the nights got longer and colder, and then the summer was gone and it was fall. And now the circus would stay for only one or two performances in a town. Then they would pack up and that night the wagons would go creaking down the road southward, up hill and down dale, through sleeping villages and past lonely farms. And the farmers would look out of their windows and see the long procession of lanterns swinging at the wagon axles and would say: “There goes old Boomschmidt, south for the winter. It’s fall at last.” And they would put an extra quilt on the bed and shiver a little as they crawled back under it.
    Freginald liked these long night rides. The countryside was so wide and mysterious under the stars, and the woods through which they passed were so deep and black and yet friendly, too. Sometimes he would get out and walk along beside Mr. Huber, the old white horse who drew his wagon, and they would wonder about the new smells that came to them on the crisp night air. Mr. Huber had been over this road many times and he knew it, as he said, like the inside of his feed-bag. He wasn’t much of a talker, but now and then he would sniff the air and say: “H’m, Jonas Penderby’s startin’ his furnace early this year”; or: “Guess old Mrs. Whiffen has been bakin’ today. I smell apple pie. ”
    Sometimes, too, Freginald would get up on the seat and ride beside the driver, Bill Wonks, and then Eustace would come up and ride beside them and Bill would tell them stories. Bill was an old-timer too, and in his day had been one of the funniest clowns Mr. Boomschmidt had ever had, though you would never guess it. For he was a sad droopy man and all of his stories ended badly. The hero always fell off a bridge or got run over by a steam roller or something equally discouraging. Even when he told one of the old stories like Cinderella he always managed to twist it so it ended badly. And if he couldn’t think of anything else when he came to the end, instead of saying: “And so they were married and lived happily ever after,” he would say: “And so they were married and lived happily for longer than you would expect.”

    Freginald asked Bill once why he was so gloomy.
    â€œWell, I’ll tell you,” said Bill. “When I was a young feller I used to be as happy as a Dutchman all day long. But there ain’t anybody can be a clown and stay happy. Why not, says you? Well, I’ll tell you why not. Because there ain’t anybody can tell the same jokes over twice a day, week after week, year