Freddy Goes to the North Pole by Walter R. Brooks Read Free Book Online

he likes to make up poetry, but we said good-bye and I started flying home. I’d have been here long before this, for I was flying day and night, if I hadn’t run into a telegraph wire on the fourth night and broken my wing. It’s mending all right and I’ll be able to fly in another week, but meanwhile I’ve had to walk.
    â€œAnd now I’ve talked enough. I call for volunteers to rescue our friends and neighbours from captivity in the Far North. Who’ll go?”

CHAPTER V
    THE RESCUE PARTY
    Of course all the animals wanted to go, but Ferdinand wouldn’t stand for any nonsense, and he lined them up and very soon had picked five and dismissed the others. Those he had chosen grouped themselves round him, looking very important. There were Mrs. Wiggins, and Jack, the big black dog, and a wise old grey horse who lived over near Centerboro and had once been in a circus. He was Hank’s uncle, and everybody called him Uncle William. And there was a porcupine named Cecil, who lived back in the woods and was very slow and lazy and rather stupid, but Ferdinand thought he would be a good one to have along, since a porcupine can go anywhere and no other animal will molest him. And lastly there was a close friend of Ferdinand’s, a wicked-looking billy-goat (his name really was Bill), whom none of the animals liked because he was so malicious and bad-tempered. The only nice thing about him was that he was so fond of Ferdinand. They used to spend hours together down in the far pasture, their heads together, and the other animals, hearing the crow’s harsh laughter and the goat’s wicked giggle, used to wonder what mischief they were hatching. But, whatever it was, none of them ever found out.
    At Mrs. Wiggins’s request, Charles and Henrietta were allowed to join the party, although Ferdinand grumbled that he didn’t see what they wanted to take a lot of poultry along for. But when the four mice who had been on the first trip to Florida came boldly forward and said they were going too, he burst into harsh laughter. “Mice!” he exclaimed. “Who ever heard of mice on an arctic expedition? What good could you do, I’d like to know? Could you fight a walrus or lick a polar bear? Listen to this, Bill. Look what wants to join the rescue party. Why, you can’t hardly see ’em!”
    Now nothing makes a mouse madder than to be made fun of on account of his size, and when Eek and Quik and Eeny and Cousin Augustus heard the loud laughter of Bill and Ferdinand and the suppressed snickers of the other animals, they were wild with rage. “What could we do, eh?” shouted Eeny, and his voice was about as loud as the whistle on a peanut stand. “We’ll show you what! You big black imitation of a stuffed mantelpiece ornament! Come on, boys! “And with that he and Eek made a rush for the crow, while Quik and Cousin Augustus dashed at Bill and, swarming up his legs before he could shake them off, ran up along his back and began chewing at his ears. Ferdinand tried to hold off the mice by jabbing at them with his beak, but they managed to keep behind him and dash in and nip his ankles whenever they saw an opening, until he cawed with pain. Meanwhile Bill was shaking his head and dancing and bucking frantically to get rid of the other two mice, but they just dug their sharp little teeth in deeper and hung on.
    â€œStop!” yelled Ferdinand. “Oh—ouch! Stop it, I say! I take it all back; you’re worse’n lions and tigers. I’ll let you go if you’ll—ow yow! —if you’ll only quit! ”
    So Eek and Eeny quit and sat down on the door-sill and didn’t say anything at all, which was very sensible of them, because it is very silly, when you’ve won an argument, to keep on arguing. And the other two mice jumped off Bill’s back and sat down beside them, and then Ferdinand made a speech. It was rather a good