Freddy Rides Again by Walter R. Brooks

Author:Walter R. Brooks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Overlook Press

“O gimme my boots and gimme my saddle.”

Yip, yip, yippee! O my! O my!

O saddle up the pinto and saddle up the grey, For I ain’t goin’ to stay here—no, I ain’t goin’

to stay

Where the skies are dreary and the folks ain’t

gay.

O my!

Yip, yip!

O my!

I’m goin’ back home now: I’m going back home,

Where I never use a toothbrush, never use a

comb.

Yip, yip, yippee! O my! O my!

Goin’ back to the prairie, for the only sound

that’ll

Make me happy again is the rattlesnake’s rattle

As he sidewinds along, a-chasin’ of the cattle.

O my!

Yip, yip!

O my!

The Horribles, who had come up to listen, were much affected and some of them broke right down and cried. Freddy realized that this was a great compliment to his singing, and so he put as much sadness into his voice as he could. He put so much in that he began to feel the tears coming to his own eyes, and a lump get into his throat, and then all at once a big sob cut the song short and he had to stop.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This song—it always makes me want to cry. I’m sure I don’t know why it should. I don’t know why I should get so sad longing to get back to somewhere I’ve never been. Funny how you can cry about wanting something that you don’t want at all.”

No. Eleven said: “It was your voice—it was so sorrowful it made us all cry.”

“Yeah,” said Freddy, “and then I saw you crying and that made me even sadder. My goodness, it’s a good thing I stopped—we’d have all ended up crying ourselves into fits. I better sing something lively.”

He took up the guitar again, but before he could begin, Bill, with Jinx on his back, came galloping into the clearing. The cat leaped from the saddle and bounded up the sagging porch steps. “Bad news, Freddy,” he said. “Last night that Margarine rode over and told Mr. Bean that if any of us animals were found on his land, we’d be shot, and then he and the boys, they went up to the pig pen and searched it. Guess maybe they thought you were hiding there. Anyway they threw things around quite a lot. Mr. Bean couldn’t stop ’em. Margarine had a deputy’s badge or star or something.”

“Oh, golly!” said Freddy. “I hope they didn’t lose any of my papers. My poems—all my poems; I’ve been selecting the best ones to be published in a book. The Poetical Works of Frederick Bean, Esq. I must go down there right away.”

“You can’t, you dope,” said Jinx. “Margarine’s watching the place day and night. And he’s advertised for a detective. Look here.” And he handed Freddy an advertisement clipped from the Centerboro Guardian.

WANTED—Man for light detective work. Able to ride horse. Good pay. Must provide own disguises. Phone Margarine, Centerboro 884.

“Well, he hasn’t got his detective yet, if that was just in this morning’s paper. Hey, Cy!” he shouted. And as the pony came up,

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