BBF – Weedly

Back to the Bean Farm: Rereading the Freddy Books

Freddy’s Cousin Weedly

by Kevin W. Parker

WARNING: These articles are written with the assumption that the reader has already read the story in question. Don’t read this article if you want any surprises to be preserved for you.

If Miss Manners had written a Freddy book, this would be it. The emphasis in the primary plot, that of Aunt Effie and Uncle Snedeker and their endeavors to obtain the Bean’s teapot, is on etiquette, or more broadly, on treating your fellow human beings (or animals) properly. And, as Eric Shanower pointed out in his excellent article on this book (see “Politeness and Parody” in Bean Home Newsletter, Vol. 7, #3), even the subplot, with Weedly learning how to behave himself, takes up this issue.The chase is afoot when the animals, with the Beans in Europe, find that the Snedekers have moved into the farmhouse. Freddy gets the sheriff to look in on the situation, to find that Effie is Mr. Bean’s aunt and that she is after the Bean’s teapot. Most of the rest of the story is a polite battle between Effie and the animals for possession of this object. Meanwhile, the other plot involves, as the title indicates, Freddys cousin Weedly, a very shy young pig who nevertheless comes under the wing of Jinx. Jinx comes up with the subterfuge of getting the other animals to pretend they’re frightened of Weedly in order to bolster his confidence. Jinx even paints a frightening moustache and eyebrows on Weedly, whereupon he really does start to scare people. However, Jinx’s scheme works a little too well, and Weedly starts to go out of his way to frighten people, mostly by jumping out and shouting ÒBoo!Ó at them. He goes too far when he does this to Alice and Emma, and Freddy ends up goading him into visiting Old Whibley, the misanthropic owl who lives in the woods. Whibley ends up teaching him a lesson by sticking him up in a tree for a few hours. Jinx and Freddy conclude this escapade by rescuing a chastened Weedly, who behaves quite well thereafter. (Incidentally, Nancy Wright and Alice Tracy turned this little morality tale into a puppet show, which was performed to hearty approbation at a convention. If you ask the right person nicely enough, you might be able to get a copy.) The battle of politeness culminates     in Effie’s tea party for the animals, a scene at which the imagination boggles but which is carried off very well. Freddy, in an attempt to keep the Snedekers at the farm long enough for the Beans to return, writes a play and invites the Snedekers to attend the performance. Politeness, of course, requires them to do so. The play itself is surreal, to say the least. Set in the court of Queen Elizabeth at a time “somewhere between 1620 and 1940,” it features the expected characters but also Freddy as Sherlock Holmes, Jinx as a G-man (FBI agent), and Hank as Captain Kidd. (This play was also put on as a puppet show at the 2000 convention, and again there are copies available from certain sources, though I’m not sure any more what those sources are.) Following the play, the Snedekers sneak out just before the Beans are supposed to return. Freddy’s subterfuge of lying in the road as an injured little old lady fails, but Weedly manages to sneak aboard the car, liberate the luggage, and return with the teapot. A final confrontation looms between the Beans and the Snedekers, but as it turns out Aunt Effie has learned a lesson as well, and decides that friendship is more important than a teapot, as she offers it back to the Beans.  However, the Beans acquired a new teapot in Paris and so are happy to let Aunt Effie take the one she covets. So it’s a happy ending for all concerned. As always, a quick plot summary leaves out all the fun stuff that Brooks throws in, from Weedly panicking and waking up the entire farm when Quick accidently drops a peanut on his nose to Aunt Effie bashing the sheriff with a broom, thinking he’s a neighborhood prankster. It’s a much milder book than many of the others. After all, the conflict is over the possession of a teapot, not military domination as in Wiggins for President or in keeping Freddy from being sent to Montana to be made into sausage as in a number of the later books. That makes it less of a gripping read, even more so due to the interjection of Freddy’s play, but then the thematic unity (as Eric points out) makes it come across as a more carefully crafted story than most. All in all, I suppose it’s a matter of taste. If you like Sherlock Holmes, read Freddy the Detective. If you like Zane Grey, read Freddy the Cowboy. And if you like Jane Austen, read Freddy’s Cousin Weedly.

Link to Friends of Freddy Book Club Meeting