Read Online The Story of Freginald by Walter R. Brooks - Free Book Online Page B

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    Boom—Mr. Boom—Mr. Boomschmidt’s come.
    Louder and nearer came the singing and then there was a shaking in the wall of foliage, a whole row of trees bowed forward to the watchers, and three huge gray heads appeared! The elephants! They came on slowly, steadily, tramping down and brushing aside trees and bushes as if they were made of paper, opening a road for the others. On the middle elephant, an old giant named Hannibal, with tusks four feet long, sat Mr. Boomschmidt, his hat on the back of his head, his mouth open in a wide O as he bawled the words of the song. The little houses on the backs of the other elephants were crowded with monkeys. Then to the left of the three a smaller head appeared, and Freginald saw that it was Louise.
    The elephants headed straight for the house. And now the rest of the circus came into sight. As they followed through the breach in the wall, they spread out. To the left of the elephants was Jerry, the rhinoceros, then a small company of lions, tigers, and leopards, then a detachment of cavalry under Mr. Blodgett. To the right were two alligators, then Oscar the ostrich, then the buffalo, Uncle Bill, and the rest of the men, armed with poles. Behind the elephants marched the band.
    â€œI’ll bet Eustace is there,” said Leo. “Small as he is, there’s one animal that wouldn’t miss a fight. Gosh, Fredg, I wish we could get into it.”
    â€œThere’s a loose board in the floor just back of us,” said Freginald. “Maybe we could get it up.” He turned away from the window, but a sudden wild bellowing and a thunder of hoofs brought him back. From the barn where they had been concealed a big company of the shaggy cattle with the old bull at their head were charging down upon the attackers. They struck the line at the right, where it was held by Oscar and the alligators. The alligators didn’t mind; they crouched close to the ground and let the charge go over them, lifting their heads to snap at the enemy as they passed. Uncle Bill had locked horns with one tough old cow and was pushing her back toward the house. But Oscar and the men had been thrown back into the woods.
    The elephants wheeled to the left to protect the broken line, but Mr. Boomschmidt waved to the rhinoceros. “Break in the front door,” he shouted. Jerry backed off to the edge of the woods to get a good start, pawed the ground twice, then drove like a black battering-ram straight at the house. Both sides stopped fighting a moment to watch. And the old bull laughed deep in his throat. For he knew that behind that door was a barricade of grain-bags and heavy furniture that even a rhinoceros could not break through.
    Now, Jerry was no brighter than most rhinoceroses, which amounts to saying that he wasn’t bright at all. For one thing, his eyes were weak, so that he couldn’t see exactly where the door was, and for another, he always closed them when he charged so that he wouldn’t get dust in them. So he missed one of the pillars and a bad headache by a quarter of an inch and hit the side of the house a good three feet to the left of the door, where there was no barricade. And with a terrible crash he went right through.
    And there were two smaller crashes inside as he went through the partitions from the parlor into the dining-room and from the dining-room into the kitchen, and then another terrible crash, and there he was galloping off into the woods on the other side. He had gone right through the house.
    In the meantime Leo and Freginald, working with tooth and claw, had ripped up several boards in the attic floor. Below, between the beams, was the lath and plaster of the ceiling underneath.
    â€œWe’ll have to dive through,” said Freginald. “If we try to break it away so we can crawl through, the guards will hear us and they’ve got awful sharp horns.”
    â€œRight,” said Leo. “Are you ready? Let’s