Read Online Freddy the Pied Piper by Walter R. Brooks - Free Book Online

don’t keep on telling me what he isn’t.”
    â€œHe’ll cost you a hundred dollars,” said Mrs. Guffin.
    â€œAll right, all right,” Freddy said. “Show him to me.”
    So Mrs. Guffin took him into the shop. As he went in he bent down as if to pat Jinx, and whispered to him to stay outside to give warning if anybody came. “Now keep back,” Mrs. Guffin said. “He’s pretty fierce.” And she opened the door into what seemed to be her diningroom. There was a big table, and a sideboard and chairs, and under the table on a blanket lay Leo. There was a brass collar around his neck, into which was padlocked a heavy chain.
    Freddy sniffed. “Hmf! Pretty poor specimen. Where’d you get him?”
    â€œDo you want him or don’t you?” she said.
    Freddy was thinking hard. If he had a hundred dollars … but he only had seventy-some cents. Yet if he said he didn’t want to buy, he would have no excuse for coming back again. He hadn’t planned his rescue very well.
    He said: “I suppose you have a cage for him? I can’t take him home like this.”
    â€œYou’ll have to provide your own cage,” said Mrs. Guffin. “If you haven’t got one, you can call up Johnson’s hardware store. They may have a lion cage in stock; they have most everything.” And she pointed to the telephone, which stood on a little table on the other side of the diningroom.
    Freddy looked at Leo’s chain. He saw that it was just about long enough to reach the little table. He wondered if Mrs. Guffin realized that.
    â€œI never use the telephone,” he said.
    â€œYou never what ?” She stared at him. “You mean you—you don’t know how? I never heard of such a thing!”
    â€œI came here to buy a lion,” said Freddy, “not to discuss my personal habits. If you’ll kindly call the hardware store—”
    Mrs. Guffin shrugged and went over to the phone. As soon as her back was turned Freddy winked at Leo, pointed at her, and made grabbing motions. Leo nodded, and when she had seated herself before the instrument he got up. He came out from under the table so quietly that not a link of the chain rattled. And then as Mrs. Guffin put the receiver to her ear, one huge paw came down on her right shoulder, and another huge paw came down on her left shoulder, and right at the back of her neck there was a deep rumbling growl.
    Mrs. Guffin had nerve, all right. For a minute she didn’t move, then she shuddered a little, and very slowly put the receiver back on the hook. She said quietly: “This won’t get you any where.”
    She said quietly, “This won’t get you anywhere. ”
    Freddy said: “Where’s the key to your pad lock, Leo?”
    â€œIn the pocket of her apron. But she’s right, Freddy. There’s no use my leaving here.”
    Freddy got the key and unfastened the collar. “Nonsense!” he said. “We’ll lock her up and beat it. How can she stop us?”
    â€œIn an hour, half the population of Tallmanville will be out after us with guns,” said Leo. “With this snow on the ground we can’t hide our tracks. I could have got away any time in the last two months, but what was the use? I never should have tried to come north in the wintertime in the first place. As soon as I got into snow the hunters began to find my tracks, and they’d have caught me, too, if I hadn’t happened to dodge in here just before Christmas.”
    Mrs. Guffin, with Leo’s paws on her shoulders, had sat perfectly still—which seems like the sensible thing under the circumstances. But now she said: “If you really want this lion, Mrs. Vandertwiggen, you can have him for five dollars.”
    Freddy laughed. “He isn’t yours to sell,” he said. “He belongs to my friend, Mr. Boomschmidt.”
    â€œNever heard of him!” Mrs.