Free Freddy and the Perilous Adventure by Walter R. Brooks Page B

up and held out the two hundred dollars.
    Mr. Golcher counted it slowly. “But this only makes up for the ascension I couldn’t make,” he said. “It don’t pay for the balloon.”
    â€œPig’ll bring it back, likely,” said Mr. Bean. “If not, meet me in a week’s time at Judge Whipple’s, in Centerboro. We’ll let the judge decide what I owe you.” And he said good day and went into the house.
    After Mr. Golcher had gone, Freddy went back to the cow barn. He was pretty pleased to find that Mr. Bean really believed in him, even though appearances were so much against him. He realized that, in spite of his gruffness and apparent indifference, the farmer was a real friend—much more of a friend than some of the animals who were always protesting their friendship. “I’ll get that balloon back if it’s the last thing I ever do,” he said firmly.
    But even if he got the balloon back, Mr. Bean was still out two hundred dollars, and how could he do anything about that? It was true, he had about seven dollars in the First Animal Bank, of which he was President, but it had taken him two years to get that together. “If it takes two years to get seven dollars,” he said to Mrs. Wiggins, “how long would it take to get two hundred?”
    â€œSeven hundred years,” said Mrs. Wiggins.
    Freddy didn’t think that was right, and he tried to do it in his head. But the cows were trying to do it in their heads too, and they kept saying: “Seven goes into twenty … put down four and carry three … that’s thirty-five plus eight,” and things like that, until it is no wonder that he got a different answer every time. But as the lowest answer he got was thirty-seven years, he decided that there was no use going on with it.
    But the cows went right on. Mrs. Wogus said she made it ninety-eight, and Mrs. Wurzburger thought it was only seventeen, but Mrs. Wiggins stuck to seven hundred. “It’s only common sense,” she said. “If you get seven dollars in two years, then in seven hundred you get two hundred.”
    â€œIt sounds right when you say it,” said Freddy, “but I’m sure there’s a mistake somewhere. But anyway, if it only takes seventeen years, it’s too long. So I’ll have to think of something else.”
    He sat down against the wall and tipped the silk hat over his eyes, and the cows looked at one another, and Mrs. Wiggins winked and said: “Come on, girls, if there’s going to be some thinking done, it’s no place for us.” And they tiptoed quietly out.
    And sure enough, in about five minutes Freddy really did think of something. It is true that in another minute he would have been sound asleep. But that is often the time, just on the edge of sleep, when people do think of the best things. The trouble is that they are seldom strong-minded enough to jump up and put their ideas into action at once. And so they drop off to sleep and the ideas are lost.
    Freddy wasn’t specially strong-minded, and perhaps he would have gone to sleep anyway, but just as he got the idea, his head nodded and his hat fell off, and that woke him. He jumped up and started to dash out of the door, just as Jinx, who had heard that Freddy was hiding in the cowbarn, started to dash in. And they met in the doorway and Freddy’s hat was knocked off again.
    As they started to pick themselves up, they both said crossly: “Hey, why don’t you look where—” And then they stopped and said: “Oh, it’s you.”
    â€œSorry, old pig,” said Jinx, and he picked up the hat and brushed it off and handed it to his friend. “Boy, that’s a stylish outfit. Looks like you were invited to the White House to lunch. Where’d you steal it?”
    â€œSorry, old pig,” said Jinx …
    â€œI didn’t steal it,” said Freddy coldly. “I borrowed