The Story of Freginald by Walter R. Brooks Page B

mailbox and painted “Mrs. Sarah Boomschmidt” on it, so that Mr. Boomschmidt’s mother could get the picture postcards he sent her from every place he stopped. And then they repaired the barn and painted that and built stalls in it for the cows and horses, and they built a modern pigpen for the pigs and a henhouse for the chickens.
    While the men were doing all this, the elephants cleared a lot of the land that had got overgrown by woods in the past seventy years. They pushed the trees over or pulled them up by the roots and then they pulled the branches off and stacked them up back of the house where they could be cut into firewood later. The rest of the animals pulled up weeds and dug holes to plant things in and helped the men by holding things and going for things and watching things—which is nine tenths of all work. And when everything was ready Mr. Boomschmidt sent for his mother.
    Mrs. Boomschmidt arrived on May 5th. She traveled by plane from Schenectady and the whole circus went over to Yare’s Corners to meet her and marched her back to the farm with the band playing and the colors flying. And that evening they had a big housewarming.
    Mrs. Boomschmidt looked a good deal like her son. She was small and round and apple-cheeked and the first thing she did when she got in her new house was to sit down in a rocking-chair in the front window and cry because she was so happy to have such a nice home. And the second thing she did was to go out in the kitchen and bake eighteen perfectly enormous cakes for the housewarming that night. And the third thing she did, while the cakes were in the oven, was to go out and shake hands with the bull and all the other ex-robbers and say that she hoped they’d all be very happy together. And the fourth thing she did was to go back and sit down in the rocking-chair and cry a little more. You can see why all the animals liked her.
    The next morning the circus broke camp and one by one the red and gold wagons went creaking out of the driveway and up the road. With them went three of the robbers. For Freginald had found that there was quite a lot of talent on the plantation. A number of the animals were gifted. And among them were three who were very good indeed—a young rooster who could stand on his head, and a dog who could imitate birds, and a cow who could yodel. This cow, whose name was Edna, had a really magnificent voice which even when she just hummed could be heard for a mile or two, and Mr. Boomschmidt said that she really ought to be in grand opera. “Why, I don’t believe,” he said, “that anybody has ever written an opera with a part for a cow in it.” But he billed her as Madame Bovina, the famous prima donna, and when she came out and did her yodeling song, accompanied on the steam calliope, the effect was immense.

    Leo and Freginald weren’t at all discouraged by their adventure, and they continued to scout along the back roads as the circus traveled north. Every now and then they would hear of an animal who had learned to do something pretty special and they would go call on him and if he was really good they would send him down to see Mr. Boomschmidt. It was fine tramping along together in the warm spring rain and the cool spring sunshine, wondering what they would find over the brow of the next hill or round the next turn of the road. Sometimes they would lean on a fence and pass the time of day with a farmer and his horses at their plowing, and sometimes they would catch a ride for a few miles in an automobile, paying their fare with a song. Sometimes the people they met didn’t know about Mr. Boomschmidt and his animals, and it isn’t surprising that such people usually abandoned their automobiles in the middle of the road and climbed trees. For what would you do if you met a lion and a bear walking along together on a lonely country road? When this happened, the two animals would stroll calmly along as if