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Title: Forest Friends
Author: Dixon, Royal
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Forest Friends" ***
FOREST FRIENDS
BY ROYAL DIXON
AUTHOR OF "THE HUMAN SIDE OF PLANTS"
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY
ROBERT SHEPARD McCOURT
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1916, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
TO
ANNE RHODES
FAITHFUL FRIEND, GOOD FELLOW, AND RARE SOUL
_NOTE_
_The author is especially indebted to Mr. Read
Hersey for valuable suggestions and criticism in
the preparation of this book._
CONTENTS
I MRS. ELEPHANT'S MOONLIGHT DANCE
II OLD LADY WILDCAT'S FEAST
III MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS
IV MR. MOCKING-BIRD AND HIS PRIZE SONG
V MR. RACCOON'S OYSTER SUPPER
VI MRS. GOOSE AND HER SWAMP COUSINS
VII MRS. FOX STEALS ONE EGG TOO MANY
VIII WHY MRS. FROG MUST LIVE IN THE SWAMPS
IX THE SCARE-MAN TREE
X MRS. FOX AND THE EIDER-DUCK EGGS
XI SUNNY GOURD AND LADY TRUMPET-VINE
XII THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF
XIII THE TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO
XIV PRINCE FLAMINGO'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
XV MOTHER FOX'S HOSPITAL
XVI WHY MRS. CROW IS BLACK
XVII MRS. MUSKRAT'S POOR RELATIONS
XVIII MR. WILD GOOSE AND MRS. GREBE
XIX BABY FOX AND MRS. BEAR
XX CHRISTMAS EVE
XXI MOTHER RABBIT'S ADVICE TO HER BABIES
XXII THE MICE AND BABY STORK
XXIII MRS. BOB-WHITE AND THE HUNTING DOG
XXIV MRS. POLAR BEAR'S ADVENTURE
ILLUSTRATIONS
"At her special request, Mr. Frog played for her, not too fast, on his
elegant flute"
"'Listen, listen, listen,' said the mocking-bird"
"While the gay old foxes were in the next room, Mrs. Rabbit slipped out"
"Off through the big woods the little foxes trotted gaily behind their
mother"
"His mother was in a great state of delight over him, of course, and
his stately father eyed him with approval"
"The birds met in a great meeting. Something had to be done"
"Fireflame gasped out his news in one breath"
"They grabbed the baby stork and dragged him down to the edge of the
roof"
FOREST FRIENDS
I
MRS. ELEPHANT'S MOONLIGHT DANCE
It was a beautiful evening in the forest, and under the moonlight
there was a great gathering of friends. Mr. and Mrs. Elephant, and
the Kangaroos, the Foxes, and the handsome Leopards, even sprightly
little Miss Lynx, and a number of the aristocratic jungle Deer were
seated, all in a great circle, around the pleasant pool which shone in
the moonlight, and displayed the loveliest of lilies afloat upon its
surface.
"Then, it is decided," said the venerable Mr. Tapir. "We are, my
friends, going to contest for a dancing prize. It is felt that such an
entertainment will relieve the rather tedious monotony of our evenings
in this lovely spot.
"One week from to-night there will be the finest party we have ever
given. No expense is to be spared. Music will be supplied by the
celebrated company of Baboons and Macaws; and the ladies will adjourn,
forthwith, as a committee on refreshments."
Mr. Tapir went on at great length, for all the animals loved to hear
him talk, and he loved to hear himself. He had been to London. He knew
how things ought to be done. So he said it all over several times, but
he always ended with, "and the ladies will adjourn forthwith," which
beautiful words struck the animals as the finest they had ever heard.
"What oratory! Such a flow of London speech!" they whispered. And
the lovely Miss Giraffe broke down and cried. Such is the power of
eloquence.
Great jealousies ensued, however, for Mrs. Kangaroo let it be known
straightway that the prize was hers for sure. No one could dance as she
could. She had only to straighten her waist, lift her chin, and give a
leap. It was her specialty.
"When it comes to grace and speed," Mrs. Leopard remarked, "there is
something in my motion which is utterly lacking to the rest of you."
Now, Mrs. Elephant kept quiet. She knew what they thought of her. She
was always referred to as "that good, solid, easy-going person" unless
her friends were spiteful, when they did not hesitate to call her
"that ungainly old cow of an elephant." She knew their ways and spite.
"But I shall get that prize," she grunted, as she trudged to her
handsome, roomy home under the chocolate trees. Nor did she feel less
determined in the cool bright morning, when, as a rule, the resolutions
of the night before grow pale. Immediately she put her housekeeping
into the hands of her sister-in-law, who was young and willing.
"I have much to do," she said.
Then she set out to find her friends, the bull-frogs. They would pipe
their tunes all day in the shade, and she would practise her steps.
It was hard at first, but soon she devised a wonderful dance. Up and
down and around she went all day, and most all night. But she kept her
doings a secret; and it was well she did, for all the animals would
only have laughed at her had they seen her flopping around on the edge
of the bull-frogs' pond.
The night of the dance came. The elegance of the costumes and the
abundance of the refreshments were a delight.
It was a little game of sly Mrs. Fox's to urge everybody to eat as much
as possible, and this she would do with the sweetest smile.
"Oh, do eat another bunch of bananas," she would say to Mrs. Elephant;
for she wanted everybody to overeat except herself. Then they could not
dance, she knew, and she would get the prize if she showed only her
wonderful walking steps.
But the animals guessed her scheme. They only thanked her, and stroked
their dresses or went off into corners to try their steps.
It was a brave show, and after a few had risen to the floor and danced
their steps, favor was plainly directed to the lithe and lovely Mrs.
Leopard.
"Just wait for Mrs. Kangaroo," was whispered from one to another.
"She's wonderful, you know."
Then Mrs. Kangaroo came forth. Yes, it was marvelous what she could
accomplish. First she strutted high and proud, then she bounded up
and down, and finally made a great leap; but it was a leap before
she looked, for what did she do but jump right into the lily pond,
_ker-splash_!
Great embarrassment seized the company, and the less polite, such as
the monkeys, simply yelled in derision.
"Mrs. Elephant! Mrs. Elephant!" was now the cry.
"Yes, yes, Mrs. Elephant!" came from all sides; for the animals,
already amused by Mrs. Kangaroo's unfortunate conclusion, were ready to
be boisterous. They could roar at Mrs. Elephant if they wanted to; she
was so thick-skinned, as they thought, that you could never hurt her
feelings anyway.
But Mrs. Elephant was very modest, and a trifle grand. Besides, she was
all polished and trimmed in a manner most affecting. All that afternoon
her sister-in-law had stood in the water with her, smoothing down her
dress and rubbing her head; and two simple palm leaves behind her ears,
with a little rope of moon-flowers garlanded over her placid forehead
gave her a regal aspect which the animals were surprised and delighted
to note.
"How thin she's grown! How do you suppose she did it?" they gasped.
Then Mrs. Elephant danced.
At her special request, Mr. Frog played for her, not too fast, on his
elegant flute. But scarcely had she taken her first two steps when the
orchestra struck up that grand old march, _Tigers Bold and Monkeys
Gay_, which, as you know, would set anybody a-marching even if they had
nowhere to go.
[Illustration: "AT HER SPECIAL REQUEST, MR. FROG PLAYED FOR HER, NOT
TOO FAST, ON HIS ELEGANT FLUTE"]
Waving her splendid arms to the sky, and making the most wonderful
bows, flapping her ears and curling and pointing her trunk, all to the
tune of the music, she was, as the eloquent Mrs. Tapir was moved to
say, "as majestic as the night."
At her signal, when she knew she had captivated the audience, the
music changed, and she came tripping toward them with open arms and
the pinkest, biggest smile the world has ever seen. She begged them
all to strike up the chorus; and suddenly, without knowing what they
were about (for such is the way with an audience, once the hard-worked
artist has enraptured his fellow-beings), they were all shouting the
stirring words:
I'm the jungle dandy, O,
You're the zebra's daughter,
Come an' kiss me, handy, O,
Nuts and orange water.
Of course she took the prize. And all she would say, or all, indeed,
that can be got out of her to this day, about it is:
"Practise, my dears, practise. No, I have never done it since, nor
would I think of trying. I only wished to feel in my old age that I had
accomplished something. The race, as wise men have said, is not to the
swift. Determination and careful, unremitting practise: that's what is
wanted."
II
OLD LADY WILDCAT'S FEAST
Sister Alligator and Miss Mud-Turtle had always been exceedingly good
friends, and always helped each other out of trouble. One day Miss
Mud-Turtle flopped over to Sister Alligator in great excitement.
"Look here, my friend, I'm going to have a picnic over on the other
side of your big pond, and I want you to help me!" she said.
"Well, I'm right here to do what I can for you. Just tell me of what
service I may be," replied Sister Alligator, as she lazily opened her
sleepy eyes.
"You are a wonderfully good neighbor," declared Miss Mud-Turtle, "and
I was just wondering if you would mind carrying all my young friends,
the swamp turtles, across the pond on your big back? It would take you
only a minute to swim us across, and if we tried to go around the pond,
I am afraid Old Lady Wildcat might catch us on the way. You know she is
always trying to get the best of us mud-turtles."
Sister Alligator's sleepy eyes opened wider.
"I have the very idea!" she exclaimed. "Just send Old Lady Wildcat an
invitation to come to the picnic. Then I'll swim out into the pond and
dive under and drown her, for all of you mud-turtles can swim."
Miss Mud-Turtle laughed so hard she had to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"Sister Alligator, your sleepy old head is not on your body for
nothing! You surely have some brains! That is the very idea for
disposing of Old Lady Wildcat! I'll make a carpet out of her soft hide
for my young friends to play on before the sun goes down."
So Miss Mud-Turtle sent an invitation to Old Lady Wildcat, all written
on a grape leaf in grand style. It told of the big dinner they were to
have, and where it was to be, and that Sister Alligator would carry
them all across the pond on her back.
When Old Lady Wildcat got the invitation she mewed to Mr. 'Possum, who
had brought it, that she would be there all right, but that they must
be very careful when they carried her over the pond, as her rheumatism
was bad.
Then, when Mr. 'Possum went to take her message to Miss Mud-Turtle, Old
Lady Wildcat laughed so loudly she had to hide her face with her paws
for fear Miss Mud-Turtle would hear her. She was just planning how to
get the best of Miss Mud-Turtle.
"Whenever I dine with low-down mud-turtles and alligators it is time
for me to lose this fine coat of mine. I suppose they forget who I am!
Ha! What would all my grandchildren think of their grandmother dining
with mud-turtles!"
Then she began laughing again, and her grandchildren, who were sleeping
away up in the branches of a big pine-tree, came down to see what had
tickled her so.
Old Lady Wildcat was holding her sides and dancing about in glee.
"Oh, children," she laughed, "we're going to have some fun! Old Miss
Mud-Turtle is trying to get your grandmother to dine with her across
the pond. Get yourselves ready for the big feast, and I'll start over
on Sister Alligator's back, while you all go on ahead and eat up the
dinner."
"Hooray!" cried the young wildcats. "We'll slip along behind to see how
you get started, and then we'll run around the pond and get the dinner
before Miss Mud-Turtle and Sister Alligator can come."
So Old Lady Wildcat loped down to the pond, and there were Miss
Mud-Turtle and Sister Alligator. All the little mud-turtles climbed on
the alligator raft.
"Be very careful, Mrs. Wildcat," Sister Alligator cautioned, "not to
wet your feet. You might take cold."
Old Lady Wildcat smiled pleasantly and jumped; and then away swam
Sister Alligator.
It was fine riding till they got to about the middle of the pond. Then
Sister Alligator stopped.
"I'm very sorry," she said politely, "but I have the cramps, _ooh!
ooh!_ I must drop to the bottom of the pond."
And down she dived.
But Old Lady Wildcat was too quick for her. She sprang up into the air
and caught a grapevine, climbed up on it, and finally got to land. Then
she ran through the woods to where her grandchildren were, and there
they had the greatest feast you ever saw.
Finally, just as Sister Alligator and Miss Mud-Turtle with all the
children came in sight, Old Lady Wildcat climbed up into a tree and
laughed and mewed at them.
And this is what she said:
"Never try to fool folks, Sister Alligator and Miss Mud-Turtle, by
plotting against them, for you'll find that you are only fooling
yourselves!"
III
MRS. FROG CHANGES HER DRESS
"Also, it is said that ages and ages ago Mrs. Frog and her family dwelt
at the bottom of the sea."
"In the ocean?" queried surprised little Kingfisher, who was listening
to all that Professor Crane could tell him.
"Yes, in the great salt water," replied Professor Crane, as he shifted
his position and stood on the other leg. "Far deeper it was, too, than
this pond."
For the learned Crane and little Kingfisher were spending a quiet hour
under the shade of the wild orange trees, on the shores of a narrow
lagoon. It was a hot, still day, and they were each of them resting
after a morning's exertion. Professor Crane was always a talker after
dinner, for he knew much and was sociable. He could discourse by the
hour if any one would listen; and if nobody was disposed to heed
him, he would meditate by himself. But just now he had an alert and
inquisitive companion, for if Kingfisher loved two things in the
world, one was to hear all the scandal, and the other was to pick
feathers out of the back of a crow as he flew.
But apparently Professor Crane had decided to tell no more, for he
rested his long bill on his breast, and let his eyes close to a narrow
slit. This made him look infinitely wiser than he really was; but like
a good many talkative persons he knew the value of waiting to be asked.
Kingfisher eyed his friend earnestly and opened his mouth several times
to speak, but shut it again. Finally, however, thinking that Professor
Crane had forgotten what he was saying, he piped out:
"How strange!"
And that stirred the venerable scholar to resume his narrative.
"Yes, strange indeed; yet nothing so wonderful after all. Nothing is
past belief if you have studied long enough, and I have had signal
advantages. It was, you may be pleased to know, a relative of mine, a
Doctor Stork, who had perched all his life on the chimney of a great
university in Belgium, who told me the truth about the frog. Of course,
that is nothing to you, as you are not versed in the universities. But
that's not your fault. At any rate, as I was saying, Mrs. Frog lived
in the sea and had a palace of coral and pearl. She was very much
larger than she is now, and was of a totally different color. She was
red as the reddest coral, and her legs were as yellow as gold. Very
striking, she was; and her voice was a deep contralto. But she was
never content with her home, and couldn't decide whether she wanted to
be in or out of the water. That's the way with all inferior characters.
Men, you observe, are given to such traits of indecision, never being
content where they are.
"Mrs. Frog, for all the pleasures of her coral hall, found it pleasant
to sit on the rocks and stare at the land. And the more she stared, the
more she wished to go ashore. But she was built for swimming, you know,
and, for the life of her, she couldn't get over the sands."
"How on earth did she learn?" put in Kingfisher.
"Necessity and, as I might say, emergency," Professor Crane replied.
"One day she let the waves carry her high and dry on the beach,
trusting to another wave to take her back. But the other wave never
came. She had come on the very last roller of the high tide. By and
by she saw two eyes glaring at her from under the grass. It was
probably a snake that was after her. Then, because she had to, she got
back to the water. That's the way, you know. What folks have to do
they generally accomplish, but until they're frightened into it they
generally stand still."
"True, true," Kingfisher agreed. "I was afraid to fly when I was a
baby. The last to leave the nest was myself, and finally my father
pushed me out. I flew, of course, and never knew how I learned."
"Same with Mrs. Frog," added Professor Crane. "She got there. But the
knowledge that she could hop if she wanted to was her undoing. She was
never at home when she was wanted, and if Mr. Bullfrog had not watched
the eggs in her place, there would have been no more frogs to talk
about. At last he grew as neglectful as she was, however, and all the
frogs caught the madness. That's when they took to tying their eggs up
in packages and leaving them to care for themselves."
"How careless!" Kingfisher thought, as he recalled the hours that his
wife spent sitting on hers, and what enemies would get them if he did
not perch on guard.
"But the frogs got all the dry land they wanted. The sea turned itself
into one great wave and spilled all over the mountains, you know. Yes,
that was the time the moon changed from a golden dish to a silver
platter. Some say it was from a pumpkin to a green cheese. But the
weight of authority, the preponderance of learning is on the side of
the silver platter."
"The preponderance of what?" interrupted Kingfisher. For although he
knew what Professor Crane meant, he felt it was a compliment to him to
ask for a repetition of these handsome words.
But Professor Crane went right on, which is the proper thing to do.
"And when the water went back where it belonged, it went farther than
ever before. Half of the earth was high and dry that formerly had been
under water. And Mrs. Frog was on that half."
"How terrible!" his listener exclaimed. "And how uncomfortable she must
have been!"
"I should say she was!" Professor Crane agreed. "It was hotter, too,
than fire. In fact she was destined to spend a long time regretting her
previous state, while she sweltered, high and dry.
"The desert, you know, is the home of competition."
Professor Crane waited for this observation to sink in, for he felt
that it was one of the best he had ever made.
"I mean that it is the worst place to live because everybody else wants
you to die. That's what competition is, my friend Kingfisher. And on
the sandy desert it is that way.
"There wasn't drinking water enough to go around, and the plants and
trees, because they could burrow down and find a few drops, had the
best of it. They stored it up, too, inside of themselves, and then, to
keep people from breaking in for a drink, they threw out every kind of
needle and thorn you can think of.
"But they grew beautiful flowers, and Mrs. Frog said that these
reminded her of corals. The cactus flowers were indeed her only
consolation, and she would sit under them all day. She didn't dare to
hop out on the sands, for the birds were sure to see her and eat her,
and so she took to running her tongue out and catching what she could
in that way."
"Very convenient, I'm sure," Kingfisher observed. "I wish I could do it
myself. It would save me much gadding about."
"Yes, my young friend, it would; but you'd never be patient enough.
And Mrs. Frog is just so much patience on a lily pad. It's her whole
life.
"She learned patience, you may be sure, on that desert, and her enemies
were so many that she feared for her life every time she ventured out
from under the cactus blossom. So she only went out at night and was,
even then, careful about getting into the moonshine.
"Poor thing; she nearly starved to death, and grew thinner and thinner
until her beautiful figure was gone. Then her skin shriveled into
creases, and she finally got the leathery look that she has to-day."
"And how did she change her color?" Kingfisher begged to know.
"I don't think I care to tell you," said Professor Crane, with a sudden
change in his voice.
This produced great surprise in little Mr. Kingfisher, for he never
knew the Professor to withhold anything. Usually he was only too
eager to load you with facts. So the small bird kept silence very
respectfully, not knowing just what to say.
"You are yourself very saucy, and full of your foolishness," the wise
Crane finally observed, "and you are not likely to believe what I tell
you. But you can make what you choose of it, and it may do you good to
know."
Professor Crane cleared his throat, and wagged his long bill up and
down several times, much as a truly bearded professor strokes his chin
in delivering the hardest part of his lecture. Then he coughed, for
that is effective, too, and changed from his left foot to his right.
"Well," he resumed, "she prayed to the Man in the Moon, as that was the
only thing that she knew to do, and begged him to give her a bog.
"'Just a bog, or a piece of a swamp, Mr. Moon,' she kept saying, 'even
a few inches of water will do,' and after she had done this to every
full moon for a year, and nothing had come of it, she changed her tune."
Kingfisher looked startled. He had personally the greatest respect
for the Moon. He had heard much evil about it, however, and was not a
little cautious of expressing his views on the subject.
"What did she beg of the Moon after that?" was all he could say.
"She had concluded that the Man in the Moon was unable to give her a
bog, even if he wanted to, so she decided to start out and find one.
That was the beginning of the end of her troubles. She begged Mr. Moon
to show her how to get there, when she came to the point of starting,
and she only added, 'Give me a green dress, Mr. Moon, Mr. Moon!' And
that's exactly what the Man in the Moon did for her. The frogs made
their journey in a body, on the darkest night of the year. But there
was just one Moonbeam and it was on duty for this one thing, to show
the frogs how to go."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Kingfisher. "Wonderful! But which night of the
year was it?" Mr. Kingfisher thought of several things he might do, if
he knew which night was the blackest.
"The darkest night of all, my dear friend, is the one when you change
the color of your life."
This silenced Mr. Kingfisher; and Professor Crane, perceiving that the
words had taken effect, concluded his story.
"That single Moonbeam Angel was very beautiful and powerful. For,
just as the frogs came at last to the valleys and found a deep swamp
where they could forever be happy, with water or land as they wanted,
Moonbeam touched them farewell, and their dresses turned to russet and
green."
There were no remarks to be made, for Professor Crane clapped his bill
together exactly as though he brought the book of history together
with a bang; and he ruffled his wings as if he were about to fly off.
So little Kingfisher, not knowing just how to thank the great bird,
said something about going home to supper.
"Just so, just so," clacked Professor Crane.
And the two birds flew up and away, Kingfisher to his nest in the
tree-top, and the learned Professor to his books and studies.
IV
MR. MOCKING-BIRD AND HIS PRIZE SONG
A very little squirrel, who was but a month old, was looking out across
an orchard from the top of a high tree. It was early morning and the
sun had just risen, so that everything was sparkling with dew, and the
air was cool and sweet to breathe.
He rubbed his fat cheeks with his paws and sat very straight on his
haunches, looking his best and trying to sing, for he wanted very much
to say something by way of letting the world know what he thought of
it. Feeling as he did, so exceedingly happy, he wished to join the
lovely sounds around him, for birds were singing everywhere, and even
the river at the foot of the orchard had a song.
So the little squirrel made all the noise he could, which is just what
the children do when they have all day to play and the sky is blue and
clear above the fields.
But just as he paused for breath he heard his words repeated from
another tree. Somebody was mocking him, word for word, and making a
very ridiculous thing of his happy little song. His tail bristled
with anger, and he ran higher in the tree to get a better view of
his neighbor. He would teach another squirrel to mock him! No living
creature could he see, but he heard a bluebird call, and then, as if to
insult him, came again his own exultant _chirp, chirp-chee, chee, chee,
chee_, and after it a perfect flood of laughter, just like the silly
notes of the little owl who sits up all night to laugh at the moon.
Indeed, the squirrel was more puzzled than angry now, and he rushed
home to his mother in the highest branches of the walnut-tree, and as
fast as he could chatter he told her all about it. She was a very busy
woman, Mrs. Squirrel, and she was too much engaged in her sweeping and
making of beds to stop and talk with her little son. Moreover, she did
not know exactly what to say; so she told him to find the wise old
woodchuck under the hill, who was lazy and good-natured and fond of
company, and to inquire of him just why the mocking-bird should repeat
everything that was said or sung.
So off to the foot of the orchard and the old rail-fence the little
squirrel scampered, and, as he expected, the good old woodchuck was
lounging by his door-step, blinking at the sunlight and munching clover.
"There's nothing here for you," the woodchuck muttered with his mouth
full. "You've come to the wrong house for breakfast."
"No, no," the squirrel hastened to say. "You do not know my errand.
I've come to ask you why the mocking-bird is so fond of mocking. Has he
no song of his own? And why should he laugh at me?"
Poor little squirrel was so full of anger, as he spoke his mind, that
he puffed and bristled mightily, and the fat woodchuck burst out
laughing.
"So he jeered at you, did he? Why, that's his business; but you
mustn't mind the things he says. He's really a very fine fellow, Mr.
Mocking-bird, and everybody loves him."
Then the woodchuck brushed the clover aside and came out a little
farther into the sun to warm his back, for he was very wise, and he
knew that the sun on the back was good for the shoulder-blades.
"Mr. Mocking-bird," he began, "is a great artist. That's why he can say
what he thinks and do what he wants to do. And once, in the long ago,
he taught all the songs in the world to the birds. You see it was this
way:
"The thrush and the robin and the catbird fell to disputing about their
songs. And all the noisy blackbirds and the little wrens, even the
crows with their ugly notes, entered the discussion, with results which
I can't describe. Oh, it lasted years and years, and every bird thought
he was the best singer in the world and tried to sing everything
he ever heard, whether it was his own song or not; and at last the
confusion was so terrible that if the robin flew North, everybody
thought he was a finch, and when he came back, he made a noise like a
wild goose."
"Impossible!" exclaimed the squirrel.
"Not at all. That's the way with singers the world over, until they are
sharply taught where they belong. Few people are content with their
own talents. My own family is the only modest and unassuming one that
I know of. We are content to dig and eat and sit in the sun. We have
never trained our voices or gone in for dancing. Very different from
your family, young Mr. Squirrel, which is frivolous and noisy. But you
must pardon that--it was a mere observation. As I was saying, the only
way to decide the business and restore order was to hold a meeting of
all the birds, with a few good judges of music on hand to decide the
question once for all.
"The adder, being deaf, was the chairman. Deafness, they say, is the
prime requirement in a critic, for it allows him time to think. And the
buzzard, also, was there to award the prizes. A peculiar choice, you
might say, but he has a horrid way of putting things and he wears a
cut-away coat.
"So the day came. The woods and the orchards were full of birds,
singing and calling and screaming and whistling. Everybody was too much
excited to think of eating, and every bush held a crowd of contestants.
It was orderly enough, however, when the contest began.
"The wood dove began the concert. Very soft and sweet. It always makes
me think of my giddy youth and my first wife to hear the wood dove.
She's really a little bit too sad.
"Then they came on, each one in turn. It was a fine cherry-tree where
they sang, and it was so full of blossoms that you could hardly see
the performers. Poor little Miss Wren was scared to death. She tried
to sing, but all she could say was, _Tie me up, tie me up_, and she
fell off the branch with fright. One redbird, and the tanager, and that
whole gay family of buntings--what a brilliant, showy lot! But they
were very clear and high and full of little scraps of tune in their
singing. More suited to the hedgerow, however, than the concert room.
"The best, to my thinking, was the thrush. You can hear him any evening
down there in the alder bushes. He's very retiring and elegant. They
say he sings of India and the lotus flowers. It's something sad and far
away that he just remembers. I'm not much of a hand at poetry myself,
and I personally have a great fondness for the crows. Good, sharp,
business men, the crows, and although they are not strictly musical,
they appeal to me. You see, we have a great deal in common, the crows
and myself, by way of looking after the young corn. We meet, as you
might say, in a business way.
"Well, the contest was long and lively. The bluebird and rice-birds,
and even the orioles performed in wonderful fashion; and at last,
when it was all over, the prize was never given at all. For right out
of the clear sky came the mocking-bird, who had kept himself out of
the contest until the end, and after he lighted on a branch of that
cherry-tree and began his song, there was simply nothing to be said. It
dawned on the whole lot of them that they had sung their notes wrong!
Yes, young Mr. Squirrel, fine and noisy as it all had been, not one of
these birds had sung the tune his father had taught him! Just by trying
to outsing each other all those years, their own sweet notes were
injured. And only the mocking-bird could remember every lovely song
as it should be done. Even the thrush had to admit as much. The adder
crawled off in disgust, and the buzzard grew positively insulting in
his remarks. He said he had been detained for nothing.
"'Listen, listen, listen,' said the mocking-bird, and straightway
he sang like the nonpareil, and then you would have thought him the
oriole. It was enough to break your heart, for it was just the lovely
old songs that the birds used to sing.
[Illustration: "'LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN,' SAID THE
MOCKING-BIRD"]
"And what do you suppose came of it all?" added the worthy woodchuck
after he had wiped a tear from his eyes, for thoughts of the old days
made him sad.
"What do you suppose the other birds agreed upon? They decided never
to raise the burning question again, and they begged the mocking-bird
to teach them their songs once more. That's why the robins fly South
in the fall of the year, along with the other songsters. They want
their children to hear the mocking-bird. Yes, Mr. Squirrel, I have that
on authority. There's nothing so fine for the singer as a good start
and a good teacher. And even the robin, who is full of conceit, has
admitted to me that he feels at times the need of a little correction.
He hates to go North without a few lessons from that wonderful teacher,
the mocking-bird."
With all this, little Mr. Squirrel was greatly entertained and was at
a loss how to thank Mr. Woodchuck; but he was spared the necessity of
it, for the good warm sun and the sound of his own voice had induced
Mr. Woodchuck into a pleasant sleep, and he was already snoring on his
door-step. Little Squirrel tiptoed away and ran home in glee. He felt
that he had learned all that there was to learn in the wide world.
Anyway, he had learned what he wanted to know, and that is the best of
learning.
V
MR. RACCOON'S OYSTER SUPPER
It was the loveliest of moonlight nights in the early autumn when word
was carried from house to house that Mrs. Raccoon would give an oyster
supper.
There was Mrs. Coon herself, the present Mr. Coon, and four little
Coons. At the upper farm lived several branches of the family--uncles
and aunts and their respective children. For the Coons, as a lot,
lived mainly on the farmsteads, or near to them; for, as Mrs. Ringtail
Coon, the oldest of them, always declared: "It is altogether wiser to
keep in touch with civilization." By which she meant it was wise to
live as near as possible to the orchards and the corn-fields, and the
good things which farmers keep planting every year, apparently for the
especial benefit of just such persons as Mr. Coon and Mr. Crow.
"And it is wonderful what a variety of good things you can find to
eat if you can run and climb trees and dig in the ground," Mr. Coon
would add, "especially if you live where they are very generous in the
gathering, and you can have the best of apples and pears and the sweet
corn to add to your table."
So it was altogether best to stick as close to the haunts of mankind
as possible, if you could do so without foregoing the pleasures of the
river and the woodland.
The great river, be it said, which was sluggish and muddy, contained
a thousand things which the Coons declared in rather snobbish fashion
were not to their taste. They wouldn't go fishing if they could. But
the fat mussels which lived in the mud-banks were exactly to Mr. and
Mrs. Coon's liking. And to open them is not difficult for a Coon who
has once learned the trick.
"That's what your wonderful, black fingernails are for," Mr. Coon
always told the children when he taught them to open oysters. "You need
only give the joint of the thing a sharp bite, and pull out that tough
bit of meat at the end, and then with your nails you can pry the shell
right open."
The ability to do this was a matter of pride to the Coons, for they
knew of no one else who could open oysters. Like many people who may
excel in a particular art, they fancied that they were the only adepts
in the world.
"But there's where they are mistaken," Mr. Fox would laugh, whenever he
heard of the Coons and their oyster suppers. For he knew of some one
else who could get the juicy meat out of those shells, although it was
not himself.
"I really pity their ignorance," he would say. "If they ever went
abroad in the daytime they'd see a thing or two, and maybe they'd learn
that there are wiser folks in the world than themselves."
This was an unfair thrust at the Coons, for their habit of sleeping
most of the day should not be laid against them. The world is wisely
divided into day workers and night workers anyway, and Mr. Coon, for
his part, always put down such criticism by asking what on earth would
happen if everybody rushed to his meals at the same identical moment.
And in this Mr. Coon revealed the gentility of his nature, for he was a
person of manners, and believed not only in a six o'clock dinner, but
kept his clothes in the neatest fashion and was constantly washing his
face between his two fore legs, brushing his hair and attending to his
ears after the accepted fashion of the cat. And the cat, as all the
world knows, is the cleanest of beasts.
"Your Fox is a shaggy creature," he would say. "Almost as unkempt as
the farm Dog, whom I despise."
So it is not to be wondered that Mrs. Coon, if she were going to have
an oyster supper, would have an elegant one.
Elegance in the matter of suppers is simply a question of due
preparation, and of this Mrs. Coon was thoroughly aware. Nothing would
please her husband more, she knew, than to have the party go off
without a hitch.
"We'll spend to-night getting ready," she planned. "I can't bear to see
people digging in the mud and eating at the same time. It is not nice.
Perhaps it is well enough on a merely family picnic to let everybody
shift for himself, and I know the children rather enjoy getting dirty.
I did when I was a little girl. But my ideal of the thing, done as it
should be, is to have a great lot of oysters already dug, and arranged
in an appetizing pile. It saves time, too, and makes the guests feel
better. I never liked these parties where you go digging for your own
victuals."
How could an elegant gentleman have a wife more in accord with his
desires than that? Immediately Mr. Coon embraced Mrs. Coon in a loving
clasp, for he felt that she was responding to his best and most refined
impulses.
For two nights, then, while the October moon rode serenely overhead,
Ringtail Coon and Mother Coon, with little Grayfur and Brownie, and
the two boys, Broadhead and Fuzzy Muzzle, went from their home in the
sweet-gum tree, through the wood to the farm road, under the fence to
the orchard, back of the orchard to the corn-field, and then downhill
to the steep clay banks of the river. At that point they let themselves
tumble over the edge, for there were only bushes to fall into, and Mr.
Coon did not approve of sliding down mud-banks.
"It's hard on the seat of your trousers," he said; "and Mother has all
the washing she can do."
And then they lost no time digging, but scampered here and there,
nosing out the great black shells, which they scratched and worried
out of the wet soil, sometimes venturing into the water to get a
particularly fat and enticing one.
"We'll store them here in a hole under this cornel bush," Ringtail
decided; "and if we cover them well, putting back all this driftwood
and rubbish on top, no one will guess what's been done."
And no one, indeed, but sly old Mr. Fox would ever have known what
had happened. The tempting collection of oysters, pecks of them, was
not, however, to remain unmolested. But as the Coons increased their
provisions, and worked mightily until the moon went down, they foresaw
no accident, and only entertained themselves with happy visions of the
remarks and exclamations which their cousins would be sure to make when
they beheld such stunning abundance.
"Dear me, Ringtail, there's only one thing that troubles me. I feel
that we ought to invite the 'Possums. You know how generous they were
in that matter of the persimmons. No one would ever have guessed that
there was such a tree in the whole State; and it was, after all, an
invitation that they gave us, even if you did threaten Mr. 'Possum in a
business way."
"I guess I did," laughed Ringtail as he put another handful of oysters
into the hole and stamped them down; "I told Wooly 'Possum not to be
hiding his assets that way or I'd bite his tail off. But go ahead and
invite them, if you want to. It'll show that we're not snobbish anyway.
And the 'Possums are as likely to appreciate all this as anybody.
You'll have to open their oysters for them, you know."
"Surely, my dear. I will do so gladly. A hostess never gets any of her
own party anyway. I don't expect to do anything but watch other people
eat. That's the way of receptions and such."
For Mrs. Coon had arrived at that stage of excitement in which a
hostess feels herself elevated and ennobled above humanity in general
by virtue of the toiling she has gone through in order to make the rest
of the world happy.
By this time they had to stop and take a bite themselves, for day was
beginning to break, and the children, at least, must have something
to eat. Then, having arranged the top of their secret store with the
greatest care, and very loath to leave it, they scrambled up the bank
and set out for home. Tired they were and a little cross, so that the
youngsters quarreled a good deal, and Mr. Coon, slightly worried, was
not so pleasant as when he set out.
"Oh, nothing," he replied to his wife's inquiry as to why he was so
glum. "Only I'm a bit anxious about those oysters. It's just possible
that somebody may find them."
"Oh, pshaw!" was all she would say. "Nobody's going near that spot. And
if anybody did and went and sat right down on top of them, he'd never
guess what was under all those sticks."
But somebody did exactly this. For the Coons were all fast asleep in
the sweet-gum tree, not even dreaming of their party, when Mr. Fox
edged along the river shore, greatly elated at discovering so many
little foot-prints in the mud. It was plain who had been there. And as
the dainty tracks centered under the cornel bush, it took no wits at
all, and only a little brisk pawing, to discover the secret.
Mr. Fox laughed as though he would give up. For that is a trait of
all foxy natures to go into fits of laughter when the possibility of
turning a mean trick presents itself.
"Well, of all things!" he finally gasped, as he held his sides. "How
mighty kind of them!" Then, licking his chops, and fairly choking with
humor, he set off just as fast as he could go. Up the shore and through
the woods he ran; and at a certain tree where a great sentinel crow sat
eying the farmers in a distant field, he barked out one short, sharp
message.
He had to say nothing more. Before he could get back to the spot where
the delicious supper was stored, the crows were coming, one and two at
a time, then three and four, and finally a small flock of them.
Mr. Fox got very little for his pains, for the crows were as quick as
lightning in their motions. Up in the air they flew with an oyster in
their beaks, and over the rocks and bowlders which jutted from the
shore they would pause but a second to drop their burden. Down it would
come, breaking to pieces as it fell on the rock, and then the crow
would come down almost as fast as the oyster, to tear out the meat and
swallow it. Mr. Fox played around the edges, as it were; for too many
crows had come, and they fought him off when he tried to snap up his
share.
"Oh, well, I don't care much for oysters anyway," he muttered, trying
to console himself. But he was in reality bitterly tantalized, and
he was truly in tears of disgust when the great black crowd of noisy
birds flew at him in a body and drove him off. They benefited by
his confidence, but they were utterly selfish, and he suddenly felt
wickedly put upon.
What he had done to the Coons never occurred to him.
Mr. Coon never recovered from the mortification of that evening.
The guests had assembled in a body; all of his brother's family and
their dependents, and the little 'Possums, who were so set up at the
invitation that they fairly beamed. Such toilets had been performed and
such preparation of pleasant remarks had gone on, that everybody was in
the finest of party feeling.
The walk through the corn-field, the ease and happy expectancy! Getting
down the mud-bank was not altogether a formal ceremony, for some slid,
and some just plunged headlong; but at the bottom everybody brushed his
clothes, and the little Coons and the little 'Possums danced in glee.
Then, lo and behold, there was no supper at all! The work that the
crows had done was apparent enough. But how they ever knew where to
find the banquet was an unsolved mystery to Mr. Coon.
Never again did Ringtail or his wife try to be fashionable. "Dig and
swallow," became the rule at all the oyster suppers; and even at this
one, after the disaster had bestowed its first stunning blow, the
guests and the company as a whole fell to digging as hard as they
could, and ate with might and main.
Mrs. Coon, having urged the 'Possums to come, had to open oysters
until her thumbs were sore; but she did it with a good grace, and after
everybody got to going, there was all the laughter and happiness the
heart could wish.
"Yes, it was a merry party, after all," Mr. Coon admitted several hours
later. He was curling up in his sweet-gum tree bedroom, ready for
another day's sleep. "But it was a free for all, a regular guzzling.
What's the use of trying to be nice when all the world's made up of
crows?"
But in this query, Mr. Ringtail Coon was only a bit petulant. The best
of it is that he does not know the ignorance of the world. For scarcely
anybody appreciates or even guesses the true elegance and the dainty
ways of Mr. and Mrs. Raccoon.
VI
MRS. GOOSE AND HER SWAMP COUSINS
It was a beautiful morning, very early, with the dew on the grass and
the mists lifting from the sea, when Mrs. Goose with her seven little
goslings walked through the farm gate, down the path to the road, and
then waddled under the fence into the pasture.
"You are well along now, my children," she was saying, "and your
travels should begin."
"And what are our travels?" the little geese piped as they stepped
along beside their stately parent.
"Your travels, my dears, are those excursions away from the cramping
and monotonous surroundings of the farmyard. That's what your travels
are. None of your family are given to staying always and forever at
home."
"Oh, no," the goslings all quacked in chorus. "We don't want to stay
around that farmyard all our days. That's what the chickens do, and
the guinea-hens. But where are we going now, Mother?"
For the beautiful Mrs. Goose was heading straight for the swamp at the
foot of the great pasture, and already she was taking them through the
tufted grass and the low bushes, through which they could not easily
descry her stately form. They were quite out of breath, and bore along
behind her, being very careful to keep exactly in her foot-prints.
"We are going to the great salt river, and the marshes," she called
back to them. "That is where your cousins live and we shall spend a
lovely day with them. But we must hurry through these bushes. I never
feel safe until I am well out of them."
She explained no more than this, for she was a bird well versed in the
bringing up of children, and she did not wish to frighten them. But,
truth to tell, this bushy part of the path to her favorite haunts was
always full of its terrors for her.
"It looks so very much like the spot where my first husband was
attacked by a fox," she confided to one of her friends. "He was never
seen again, of course, and although I was not long a widow, still I
have never been consoled for his taking off."
Naturally, then, she had for the rest of her days a distrust of bushy
paths, and it was with a great quack of relief that she emerged with
all her little ones on the banks of the deep, narrow stream which was a
part of the great marsh.
Off she swam on the water, paddling with a majestic ease, and down they
hopped and splashed and paddled beside her, the seven of them, highly
excited over the prospect of a day's adventure.
The stream was narrow and deep, much unlike the shallow duck-pond in
the farmyard, and it gave the goslings an exhilarating sensation to be
thus abroad on a real stream.
"How good it is," Mrs. Goose quacked, "to feel the clear, cool water,
and to know that you are not paddling across a mere mud-puddle!
"And there are no tin cans and other rubbish here," she went on.
"Very different, all this, from the rather common surroundings of the
duck-pond. You must realize that your family is a superior one, and
that while the ducks on the farm do very well for neighbors, they are
not the aristocrats that we are. And I am taking you purposely, my
children, to visit my most exclusive friends."
The old goose was indeed a haughty personage, as any one could tell by
the way she held her head. For she swam as a soldier marches, with
eyes to the front and a splendid air.
Soon they came to where the narrow inlet of the marsh widened into a
broad expanse of water banked by low, wide areas of reeds and rushes.
Many channels and enticing little bays made off into the depths of
shady and inviting spots where there were cedars and alders and dense,
tangled vines. There were delicious odors in the air, and this made the
goslings suddenly very hungry. They begged their mother to let them
run through the grasses to pluck the tender and inviting things which
their eyes caught sight of. But she shook her downy head and kept them
paddling along beside her, cautioning them very wisely:
"Never go browsing by yourself until you know the ways of the country.
Where there are others feeding it is safe for goslings. But to go into
those tall grasses, tempting as they are, is to walk right into danger.
You have never met Mr. Blacksnake, and I hope you never will until you
are too big to tempt him!"
Immediately, of course, they clamored for the details about this
dreadful creature, but their mother spared them any unhappy visions of
the sort.
"You must not dwell on such uncomfortable things," she would say. "All
you need think of when you are out with me are the bright sky and the
good green world. But here we are, almost at Mrs. Bittern's gate. And
there is Grandpa Bittern waiting for us at the door."
As she spoke, the goslings all craned their necks; but they were not
big enough to see over the top of things as their mother could, and
they were totally in doubt as to who the Bitterns were, or where they
lived.
Suddenly there was a great quacking and flapping of wings on the
part of their mother, and they found themselves touching bottom in a
beautiful shallow where the black earth and the mosses grew over the
very water. Here all was shaded and hidden by the overhanging bushes,
and great tree-trunks rose close at hand, with clinging vines and
innumerable strands of leaf and tendril swaying in the clear air.
Never had they dreamed of such a beautiful spot. But they were not to
realize how lovely it was all at once, for they were to get acquainted
with it only after the greetings of the visit were over.
Their cousin, Mrs. Bittern, who was so slim and brown, with black
trimmings to her wings, and a bit of gray lace at her bosom, and the
stately gentleman who stood guard by her nest, were quite enough to
overpower the little goslings. They couldn't remember their own names
and they stammered with embarrassment; and in the nest was a solitary
youngster, with a very long bill, and big, frightened eyes, whom they
were cautious in approaching. His only greeting was a vicious poking at
them with his little head, and they noted that his neck was very strong.
"Billy isn't used to children yet," Mrs. Bittern hastened to apologize.
"But he'll soon get used to them. Just hand him a bit of fish, Father,
and a few of those small crabs. Oh, a very small one, Father. You
nearly choked him to death with that big one you gave him at breakfast."
True enough, little Billy Bittern was in a better humor when something
more had gone down his throat; and while the two mothers fell into an
immediate discussion of the stupidity of fathers and uncles, the baby
Bittern and the little goslings were quacking and playing around the
nest in the noisiest fashion.
"So this, my dears, is a true country home," their mother said as she
turned to them. "This is the kind of thing that your father and I have
always wanted; a little place of our own in the swamp!"
"Oh, Mother dear, wouldn't it be lovely!" they all burst out, really
transported with joy at the thought of living forever where it was all
like this, so free and open and sweet.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the tall owner of the charming retreat. "That is
what you farm people always say when you get here. But you know very
well you'll be glad to get back to what you call the conveniences and
elegance of life."
By this he meant the cracked corn, and the snug quarters, and the rest
of the good things in the farmer's yard.
But Mrs. Goose pretended not to understand him at all, and was helping
Mrs. Bittern to put the nest to rights as they all prepared to go out
for a walk. For that is always the first thing to do when you visit
your country cousins.
Such precautions as the Bitterns took when they left the house! It was
cover the nest here and put a stick there, and finally, to effect a
complete disguise, they raked a lot of straw over the top. Why, you
never would have guessed it was a house at all!
Then through the grasses and the deep, black mud, and over innumerable
tufts of green, where there were great wild cabbages and tempting
bunches of mallow and flag, they went in happy procession. The goslings
nibbled and tasted and feasted, wherever their mother was sure it was
wise, and little Billy with his sharp beak poked incessantly in the mud
for the things he liked best in the way of tadpoles and beetles.
Almost all day they picnicked in this delightful place, and only
stopped in their leisurely stroll when they came to a grassy knoll
where the mother birds thought it well to let the children rest.
All the gossip of the year was gone over by their elders. Mrs. Bittern
told of her winter sojourn far to the South.
"We stayed much of the time with the Herons and the Spoonbills. Theirs
is such an attractive rookery, you know, and I delight in Southern
society. We came North with your first cousin, Mrs. Hudson Goose. A
noble family, your great Northern relatives, my dear Fluffy. But they
fly a little too fast for us Bitterns. We parted after a few days.
Longbill, you know, likes to take it easy when he travels."
But the children observed that Mrs. Bittern was moved to tears when
their mother alluded to her late half-brother and another relative,
uniting these names with a reference to Christmas dinner. But they did
not understand the connection, and it puzzled them when Cousin Bittern
answered:
"Never mind, dear Fluffy Goose, there's little danger for you. You know
you're getting tough. Let's see, you're twenty now, are you not?"
And they were still more surprised when their mother bridled at this
and said that surely Mrs. Bittern was mistaken. No, she was only
eighteen, and if her neck was spared it was not at all because she was
tough. It was because she possessed the ability to lay the most and
largest eggs, and to rear the finest families.
Mrs. Bittern was only too eager to agree with her companion. Not for
the world would she have her words taken amiss; so the little family
quarrel was passed over, and Mr. Bittern merely observed that the
ladies were getting a little tired, and he thought that they had all
better go home.
But if he had been very quiet, this dignified Mr. Bittern, he was, like
a good many modest people, none the less able to distinguish himself,
for after they reached the welcome door-yard, and Mrs. Goose and her
family were about to depart for home, he supplied the treat of the
whole day.
"Surely, Cousin Longbill," Mrs. Goose had remarked, "you are going
to boom for us before we go. I wouldn't have the babies miss it for
anything."
Whereat, to their dismay, Mr. Bittern began making the most frightful
sound they had ever heard. It was his great feat, that for which his
family was renowned, and it was not like anything ever known on sea or
land. To do it he filled himself so full of air that he was like to
burst. And he was very red in the face when he got through, like a good
many famous singers.
"Isn't it wonderful!" said his wife. "I never knew one to sing the
national anthem better."
For, to her simple soul, her husband's song was of course the one and
only song. It must consequently be very important.
Scarcely could Mrs. Goose praise her cousin enough, and the goslings
all begged him to do it again. But once was enough, he reminded them,
and they discreetly forbore from disagreeing with him.
By this time they must hurry to get home, and their farewells were
hasty. Like many return journeys, the way back was the shortest; and
before they knew it, the goslings were trailing through the bushes at
the foot of their own pasture. And somehow the little hill and the pair
of bars and the bit of road, even the farmyard strewn with straw and
pleasingly disordered, suddenly looked better to them than the lonely
home of the Bitterns far out in the great swamp.
"Ah, my dears," their mother said, as they waddled up to their home
under the burdocks and the currant bushes, "that's what a day away from
home does for you. It makes you glad for what you have."
And indeed they were happy to nestle under her ample wings, as the
stars came out and the house dog bayed at the moon. And they were very
happy to have heard their Cousin Bittern do his booming, and hoped, as
many people hope after a great performance, that they would never have
to hear it again!
VII
MRS. FOX STEALS ONE EGG TOO MANY
Once upon a time, long, long ago, Mrs. Rabbit lived down by the sea on
a great sand-hill. She was a very kind neighbor and disturbed no one.
She was poor, but she owned a great gray goose who laid wonderful big
eggs.
The goose had come to her in the strangest way, years and years ago.
For it happened one day that just as Mrs. Rabbit was locking up her
house to go and visit her cousins, she heard a sad voice in the bushes
cry, "Oh, Mrs. Rabbit, Mrs. Rabbit, please do help me in. I have broken
my wing and fallen here, and all the other geese that were flying with
me are gone. They left me where I fell."
At that Mrs. Rabbit gave up her intended visit, and took poor Downy
Goose into the house, sent for Dr. 'Possum, and did her best to comfort
her.
When Dr. 'Possum came, he took one look at the afflicted goose, shook
his head, and declared he could do nothing for her. Mrs. Rabbit
thereupon told the unfortunate wayfarer that she must live there
always.
"You must make your home with me," she said, "and we will make the best
of things. Even with your poor broken wing you can manage to get along,
for there is a fine swamp below the ridge of this hill and near it is
the best of green grass and shady bushes."
Poor Downy Goose was overcome with happiness. She could only dry her
streaming eyes with a plantain leaf, while she kept saying:
"You are so kind, so very kind, dear Mrs. Rabbit! I shall do my best
to lay an egg every day for you--omitting Sundays, of course, and the
Fourth of July."
At this Mrs. Rabbit threw her arms around poor Downy's neck and they
wept with joy. And from that day to this they have been the closest
friends.
Nor did the good gray goose fail in her promise. Indeed, she did her
best; and always by noon, while Mrs. Rabbit would be dusting and
sweeping, or getting the boiled grass ready for dinner, the lady goose
would sit in the door-yard mending socks or reading poetry, when
suddenly she would lay an egg, and then, calling to her dear friend to
bring the basket, they would put the egg away on the pantry shelf.
Then they would betake themselves for the rest of the day to the field
and the edge of the swamp where Mrs. Rabbit would nibble the tender
grass, and Downy Goose would wade in the soft, cool mud.
Now, it was soon known among all the neighbors that Mrs. Rabbit and
the strange goose were living together. Also it was soon told abroad
that the goose was paying her board in eggs--big eggs--that she paid
it every day, and that Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit were faring on the finest
food. They had scrambled eggs, and omelettes and pound cake at every
meal--and all this for merely taking in the poor, afflicted goose!
You would think that all who heard it would have been glad to know
how happy the rabbits were, and they ought to have pitied the poor
goose who could never fly again; but that is not the way of the world.
Instead of saying nice things, they said ugly ones, and behind Mrs.
Rabbit's back, the neighbors, Mrs. Fox in particular, expressed the
bitterest jealousy.
Mrs. Fox, indeed, grew so envious of these big goose eggs that at last
she could stand it no longer, and resolved upon a plan for stealing
them. She put all her wits to work, for, to get such big eggs and
carry them without breaking them open was a thing which only the
cleverest thief in the world could do. Nevertheless, every day for five
days, an egg disappeared from Mrs. Rabbit's pantry.
Mrs. Rabbit was greatly disturbed, but she never dreamed who was
stealing the eggs. Finally she decided to watch the nest all the time;
and to her surprise found that the thieves were her neighbors--Mr. and
Mrs. Fox.
How cleverly they managed! Mr. Fox lay on his back and held the big egg
while Mrs. Fox pulled him over the hill by means of a rope tied to his
tail. In this way they got the egg home.
But Mrs. Rabbit laughed as she thought of how poor Mr. Fox's back would
be skinned, and how she would get revenge.
Nor was it long before a way was opened for her to recover the lost
eggs, and to put Mrs. Fox to confusion. For who should come walking
in one morning but Mr. Bear, to say that invitations were out for a
wonderful feast of goose eggs at Mrs. Fox's home on the following
Saturday night. And he asked Mrs. Rabbit if she were going.
That was enough! Mrs. Rabbit determined to get back the eggs. But she
would have to be very clever to fool Mrs. Fox.
Mrs. Rabbit knew that Mrs. Fox would come for the last goose egg soon.
So she bored a hole in this egg at each end, and blew in at one end
till the contents all flew out at the other and the shell was empty.
Then she slipped inside, and Mr. Rabbit pasted small pieces of white
paper over the openings.
And here Mrs. Rabbit waited for the thieves to come, while Mr. Rabbit
hid behind a tree near by.
Soon they came, and after much effort the big egg was carried into Mrs.
Fox's home. Mrs. Rabbit chuckled to herself as she saw the other five
big eggs through a tiny peephole in the paper.
While the gay old foxes were in the next room, entertaining their
guests, Mrs. Rabbit broke the paper at one end and slipped out. Then
she called softly to her husband to bring the wheel-barrow; and they
piled in all the eggs and carried them away.
[Illustration: "WHILE THE GAY OLD FOXES WERE IN THE NEXT ROOM, MRS.
RABBIT SLIPPED OUT"]
Nor were they more pleased to recover their lost property than was the
obliging goose when she learned of all that had been going on.
"To think," she exclaimed, "that I have been laying eggs for those
dreadful foxes!"
And Mr. and Mrs. Fox wonder to this day who stole the goose eggs.
VIII
WHY MRS. FROG MUST LIVE IN THE SWAMPS
Long, long ago Mrs. Frog lived on the hillsides. She was a goddess
worshiped by all the fairies because she ruled the sunshine and the
rain, and she was a friend to them all, being generous and dutiful.
With her seventy daughters, she spent the days in spinning the most
beautiful cloth of gold for the fairies to wear, and the flax which she
spun was as yellow as the biggest and ripest pumpkin you ever saw.
All the years that she served the fairies by her industry, and was
dutiful in calling down the rains to refresh the earth, she was in
great favor with the world, and no one was so much beloved by all the
animals as Mrs. Frog.
But the seventy daughters who were so handsome, and who spun such miles
of yellow thread, grew restless, and kept begging their mother for a
holiday. She, too, owned to being a little weary, and would often
remark with a yawn that it wasn't the spinning, nor yet the weaving,
which tired her, but the lack of diversion.
"And think, dear Mother," they would say, "think of our lazy brothers,
who do nothing but admire their shapely legs all day, and spend the
whole night dancing and singing and eating suppers. It isn't fair!"
On speaking thus the daughters were very artful. For if there was one
thing which angered Mrs. Frog, it was the laziness of her sons. Years
and years ago she had given up trying to get them to do a single useful
thing. And it was no consolation to observe that they got along in the
world somehow, whether they did anything or not.
"Look at their awful stomachs," she would exclaim. "The lazy creatures,
always eating and singing. What a life!"
It was thus that the seventy daughters played upon her feelings of
disgust, urging her to adopt a change and give up spinning. Each one
spoke to her alone, seven times a week, when she would reply:
"Yes, my daughter, I am listening, and I don't know but what you are
quite right."
And then, when all the whole seventy spoke together, as they made a
point of doing when they knew she was tired out and had the headache,
she could only clasp her hands to her ears and flee to her bedroom.
At last the daughters won and Mrs. Frog began her holiday. She meant
to take but a single evening and a day, hoping to get back to work
there-after, rested and refreshed. But alas! once she began her career
of dancing, and feasting, and staying up till morning to sing and laugh
and watch the sun come up, the day never came that she was willing to
spin the yellow flax.
Forty of the lovely daughters danced themselves to death within a week,
but Mrs. Frog was so busy waltzing and marching and singing that in
each instance, as the sad news came to her that another daughter was
dead, she was too gay to care or even to ask, "Which one?"
Terrible disaster began to come upon the land. All the birds and plants
were dying for water. Clouds passed by, but Mrs. Frog was too lazy to
make the rain fall. If she wasn't dancing, she was sleeping, and so no
time remained for her duties.
One day the animals from the forest came to call on Mrs. Frog, to plead
for rain. The mother rabbits came from long distances to tell Mrs.
Frog how their babies were perishing for water and for tender bits of
green grass.
But Mrs. Frog had become hardened and told them to leave her alone.
"Please give us rain! Please give us rain!" the birds all pleaded; but
Mrs. Frog only frowned at having been awakened.
Then came all the bees and the butterflies from the hillsides, tired,
hot, and dusty.
"We are your neighbors and friends," they cried. "Do give us rain! The
flowers are all dead and we have no honey to eat!"
"Go away!" croaked Mrs. Frog. "I must sleep during the day, and I have
no time to worry with you! If you don't like the way I manage this
hillside, go to the swamp lands!"
Next came the fairies for their yellow dresses, which Mrs. Frog was to
have spun from the yellow flax. Mrs. Frog was fast asleep, but when
they called and called her she awoke. She rubbed her sleepy eyes and
awakened all the family to help her spin the flax; but the sun shone
down on the hot, dry earth so burningly that all her spinning-wheels
caught on fire and everything in her house was burned up.
"Oh, for a drop of water!" the birds and the animals were calling.
"Help us, Mrs. Frog! Do help us!"
But it was too late. Even Mrs. Frog's wand, with which she called forth
the rain from the clouds, was burned up. And Mrs. Frog was so terribly
hot and thirsty that she didn't know what to do.
As a last resort she started for the swamp lands, thirty of her
exhausted daughters trailing after her. They were all so tired they
could no longer walk, and finally, being faint and bent over to the
ground, they took to hopping.
Down, down, down, through the hills they hopped until at last they
reached the dark, damp swamp. The daughters had become as lazy as the
sons; and Mrs. Frog herself desired nothing in the world but a cool,
muddy bed at night, and a good log or a lily pad to sit on throughout
the livelong day.
But in her muddy bed she doesn't sleep; for all night long one may hear
her calling: "More rain! More rain! More rain!"
While Mr. Frog croaks: "Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!"
And all the little frogs: "Wade in! Wade in! Wade in!"
IX
THE SCARE-MAN TREE
There was a time when the world was mostly forest. There were plains,
to be sure, and rich valleys, but the trees were everywhere, so that
even the towns and farms were hidden by them; and there were no great
cities at all.
It was then that the animals lived in peace, and they were not driven
to hide themselves, nor to be always moving farther and farther away to
find new shelters.
But the days came when the forests were cut away. A little at a time,
and always along the edges of the woods, men began to hack and to chop
and to saw, until one by one the great trees came down. With them as
they crashed to the earth came the birds' nests; and where the trees
had stood, the mosses and the grass dried up and died, for the hot sun
poured in where once it had been shady and cool.
In the days when this began it distressed the animals; so that the poor
creatures at last resorted to a wonderful plan. To them the woods were
very dear, and never were they frightened at what they saw or heard;
although the depths of the forest were so full of terrors to foolish
men.
News was spread through the glens and across the mountains that
something was going to be done to save the woods. The birds and the
swift, scampering little weasels, and the soft-footed wildcat, who can
cover many miles and never be seen or heard, took the messages far
and away. Time was allowed; for the beaver and the mud-turtle were
necessary to the plan, and even at her best Mrs. Beaver is slow in her
motions. It was none other than crafty old Major Wolf who had conceived
the plan by which they would teach the wood-cutters a lesson.
"Such simple and foolish creatures they are!" he remarked. "We've only
to frighten them out of their wits, by some device or other, and if we
scare them enough they'll keep away from these woods forever!"
With that he snapped his terrible jaws and turned his great yellow eyes
on the company. Before him and around him were all the animals of the
forest. The deer, who could think of nothing to do but to run, the fox,
who knew every possible way of deceiving his enemies, the bear and the
panther and many of the small creatures, down to the sleek little mole,
were all talking at once.
The bear and the wildcat were very impatient. They were all for
fighting outright.
"You hug and I'll scratch," said the lynx to the bear.
"We can do up an army of choppers if we get the chance," added the
panther; but he was lost in the debate, for the wisest of all, the
great gray wolf, reminded them that if the men with their axes so much
as caught sight of the animals, they would go away only to come back
with their guns and to fill the forest with every conceivable trap.
Then he pointed to a great, dead tree which stood alone and on the brow
of the hill. The animals looked and tried to get his meaning. Some of
them yawned, such as the hedgehog, whose wits are slow; but the quick
Mrs. Fox jumped and cried, "That's it, that's it! We'll make that tree
into a giant to guard the path to our woods."
Then Major Wolf exclaimed that the sagacious fox had guessed his plan.
The wind and the frost had bent and broken the tree until it was like
nothing in the world so much as a giant. Its arms were there and its
shoulders; and its terrible body, as high as the church steeple, was
bent forward as if to fall on any one so rash as to come near it. But
it needed a great deal of what the heron called "touching up"; for
the heron is an artist, and goes every year, they say, to study the
sculptures of Egypt.
"It needs a mouth and two eyes, as any one can see for himself," the
lynx remarked; and the mole and the hedgehog suggested that the feet
might be improved. Here was the task for the beavers; for carving and
cabinet work is their specialty. And to chisel great holes for the eyes
and the mouth was exactly what the woodpeckers and the squirrels could
do.
The work was so briskly done, that it was indeed completed before the
admiring circle could gasp out its astonishment. While the chips and
the saw-dust were flying, Major Wolf was moved to observe in the most
pious tones:
"How marvelous that these poor little cousins of ours, these smaller,
gnawing creatures (if I may call them such without hurting their
feelings) should alone be able to serve the purposes of us more noble
beasts."
And he waved his paw to include the bear and the panther in the
nobility.
But the gentle Mrs. Deer knew what a terrible hypocrite Major Wolf
was. And she moved with her children to the other side of the meeting;
for she had watched his mouth water even as he spoke such wonderful
sentiments.
The squirrel was boring away at the great giant's limbs, carving and
cutting; and even the slow old turtle, with his powerful nippers, was
pruning the tangle of vines from the feet.
But the morning was close at hand. The wood creatures had barely enough
time to complete their work and scamper off. They crouched in the
bushes to await the effect of their scheme. And even though they knew
the giant was no giant at all, but just a great, dead tree, they were
awestruck at the result of their work.
As if to add to the strength of their purpose, the sun was rising in a
terrible glory of red, with the blackest of clouds all round.
It was terrible. The red light of the morning, through the gaping mouth
and awful eyes, the waving arms and the immensity of the giant were
frightful.
The wood-cutters came. But only one of them got as far as the tree.
With a howl of fear, he turned and fled, dropping his ax as he ran. He
told of the awful giant with eyes and mouth of fire, and the others
refused to come near.
The animals were greatly elated; but the wisest of them knew that some
day the foolish wood-cutters would find out the truth. And such was the
case; although it was a long, long time, and the great giant which the
animals made warded off their enemies for many a year.
X
MRS. FOX AND THE EIDER-DUCK EGGS
Once upon a time the animals who live away up North, in the cold Arctic
regions, came together for a feast in celebration of their blessings.
The bears, the wolves, the minks, the sables, even the big, spluttery
seals that swim in the icy water, were all on hand to make a great
noise, singing and shouting and devouring the things that they all
loved to eat.
All were there except Mrs. Fox, and why she was not invited no one
knew. Maybe Mr. Penguin, who wrote the invitations, was responsible for
the omission, but at any rate it is a fact that the fox family was left
out in the cold.
Of course, Mrs. Fox felt herself sorely slighted. She and her six
children came near enough, however, to learn that after the celebration
and the dance, which was to be held on the ice floor of the Bear
palace, there was to be a great supper in Mrs. Bear's kitchen. It was
to be a feast of the eggs of the eider-duck. A supper, needless to say,
that any bear or fox would travel night and day to enjoy.
On the night of the feast Mrs. Fox crept quietly up to the bears' house.
Mrs. Bear and all the ladies were in the bedroom, brushing down their
rich winter suits, and prinking away to look their best before going
down to meet the other guests. And, of all things, they were gossiping
about Mrs. Fox! Just because she wasn't there (as they thought), they
were speaking of her in the most slighting terms. It seemed as if they
were all talking at once; but Mrs. Fox, whose ear was close to the
chimney, could hear Mrs. Wolf's deep voice distinctly.
"That old coat of Mrs. Fox's is the shabbiest I have ever seen," she
was saying in her severest tone. "One would think that a woman of her
build, slinky and queer as it is, would put on white every winter. I
would wear white myself if I didn't think this handsome gray of mine an
elegant thing the year round."
They all agreed that Mrs. Wolf was indeed very elegant, and that Mrs.
Fox was very shabby. Little Miss Ermine, who, as all the world knows,
has the finest white coat in the world, piped up shrill and cross:
"Right you are, Mrs. Wolf. White's the thing in winter, but only for
those adapted to it. It scarcely becomes every one."
At this she made a great showing of her own dainty figure, cutting
several merry dance figures before the mirror.
Mrs. Fox had heard enough. She waited for the ladies to go downstairs
to the great room where all the gentlemen sat about. She knew what they
would do. There would be wonderful speeches by the biggest and oldest
bears, about the midnight sun and other blessings; the walrus would
make a long speech, too, mostly about seaweed and fish; and then, after
a dance or two, they would all come trooping out to the kitchen. Old
Uncle Penguin would make a very long prayer, and everybody would eat
until he could eat no more.
Mrs. Fox was very angry. She resolved that there should be no supper
for her mean, back-biting friends.
Cautiously she felt her way down the sides of the cliff which was the
outside of Mrs. Bear's great house. As she expected, the eider-duck
eggs were in a basket suspended from the pantry window. Quick as a
flash she ran back for her children, and in another minute they were
all beside her on the roof of Mrs. Bear's kitchen.
"Old Mrs. Sloth, who cooks for Mrs. Bear, is sound asleep by the fire.
Don't wake her up. And do just what I tell you to," whispered Mother
Fox.
The little foxes held their breath.
"Stand in a line! Now each one of you take hold of the next one's tail.
Each of you except little Fuzzypaw. He's the quickest and the lightest
and he is going to run up and down the ladder which the rest of you
will make, and bring me those eggs, one by one. Just grip each other's
tails as tight as you can, and don't make a sound!"
It was no sooner said than done. One after another the eggs were
brought up to the edge of the roof by the little fox, who ran up and
down the ladder as nimbly as a weasel. Mrs. Fox stowed the eggs away
carefully in a brand-new basket she had brought with her, and in a few
minutes the basket by Mrs. Bear's pantry window was quite empty.
Then off through the big woods the little foxes trotted gaily behind
their mother.
[Illustration: "OFF THROUGH THE BIG WOODS THE LITTLE FOXES TROTTED
GAILY BEHIND THEIR MOTHER"]
What happened when the supper party found that it had no supper, Mrs.
Fox never knew. For while Mrs. Bear and her guests were reduced to
confusion and disappointment, the foxes were at home roasting eggs by
the fire, and sitting up to all hours in the jolliest fashion.
The next year Mrs. Fox was invited. Old Mr. Wolf, who knew a thing or
two, thought it would be the wisest thing to ask her. So all the other
animals agreed; and Mrs. Fox never found society in the Arctic Circle
more cordial than after the season it ignored her and she stole the
eggs of the eider-duck from Mrs. Bear.
XI
SUNNY GOURD AND LADY TRUMPET-VINE
Very much out of the beaten track--in fact, only to be approached by an
old road that had long fallen into disuse--stood a neglected cabin, a
poor weather-beaten thing with sunken roof and decaying timbers.
Its door-yard had already begun to grow the young pine trees which come
up in great plumes of long, green needles; and the little garden plot,
which used to boast its vegetables, had become a mass of brambles and
nettles.
"How sad this all is," the poor little cabin used to sigh. "Although I
suppose it is better to be harboring rabbits and squirrels, and to have
my beams plastered up with nests, than to have no living thing enjoy
my shelter. Still, I wish spring when it comes would bring people to
unlock my door and children to fill these poor little rooms with their
laughter."
For the cabin could remember many children that had lived there, and
sometimes it seemed to him that he heard them again, playing in the
nearby woods, or running and calling down the road.
Sometimes he did hear such voices, for people often passed the cabin
on the way to a distant plantation, and children were as likely to be
among them as not.
But the squirrels and the rabbits had it pretty much their own way
with the deserted cabin, running in and out beneath the underpinning;
and the only noise around the place was that of Mrs. Yellowhammer when
she came pounding at the roof for what the decayed old shingles might
conceal.
"I declare, you poor old house!" the energetic bird would say. "It's
terrible how the worms are eating at your timbers and shingles."
Whereat she would fall to and nearly pound the life out of the poor old
cabin, in her determination to get all there was.
But Mrs. Yellowhammer and the rabbits that danced in the moonlight
were not the only visitors, for often in the summer time came the
humming-birds to visit the trumpet-vine which covered nearly all of one
end of the structure.
"I am the saving grace, the chief beauty of this establishment," the
Lady Trumpet would say. "And I know it."
"Of course you are," Mrs. Yellowhammer would reply. "And it was a great
mistake that you were ever planted here. A lady of your elegance, among
such weeds and common things, and at the very edge of nowhere!"
"Oh, I don't mind it much, although we have little company now. But
who's this coming this very minute?"
Sure enough, a man was passing. And he came through the old door-yard
straight up to the cabin steps and stood there a minute, and then was
gone. But not before he had thrown something over his shoulder which
lighted with a dry rattle, like that of corn, in at the base of the old
chimney.
"What a queer thing to do!" thought Lady Trumpet-Vine, thereby speaking
her own mind and that of the cabin as well.
"Not at all," suddenly spoke up Mr. Rabbit. "That man is throwing seed
over his left shoulder for his luck. I've seen it done before. And I'm
glad he doesn't want my left hind foot, or whatever it is that such
people like to carry in their pockets for good luck."
Immediately Mrs. Yellowhammer, who had been screaming to her friend,
Red-necked Woodpecker, to come and enjoy this mystery, flew down to
inspect the seeds which lay on the soil at the foot of the chimney. And
Mr. Rabbit scampered to get to the spot also.
They looked long and hard at the little brown things; then Mr. Rabbit
tried biting one of them.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Bitter as poison!"
"I never taste things I am in doubt about," Mrs. Yellowhammer declared;
"but I'm not a seed-eater anyway. What does Mr. Bob-White think they
are?"
For a dapper little partridge was on the scene now, turning his head
this way and that as he squinted at the mysterious seeds.
"Gourds!" he finally pronounced them. "Gourd seed. No good for eating.
Even a sparrow wouldn't touch them."
Then the birds flew off and Mr. Rabbit skipped rope with himself all
around the yard, for he wanted to restore his spirits; this curious
incident having for a second clouded his buoyant nature.
This happened in the very early spring, before even a leaf was showing
on Lady Trumpet-Vine, and before even a purple wood violet had shown
herself in the borders of the deserted garden. Rains came; long ones
that drenched the earth and gullied the roads. The eaves of the cabin
dripped and dripped night and day, and it was not long before great
puddles lay by the sunken door-step, and were soaking down into the
roots of everything.
"What a pity there's nothing but weeds and those low-down gourd seeds
to be benefited by all this!" sighed the Lady Trumpet. "I shall
probably flower generously this year. But what's the use?"
Then she would grow very sad as the rain increased and out of the dark
skies came the heavy south winds.
But when the sky cleared, the gourd seeds had sunk out of sight. That
was good luck for them. Deeper down they went and at last their first
little roots were feeling the rich soil that no plant had enjoyed in
many a year. Then two bright green leaves, laden with halves of the old
seed coverings, came up.
The glistening earth was trying to dry itself in the sunshine, and the
jolly Woodpecker was looking out of his window in the trunk of the old
cherry-tree.
"Well, I'm a crow!" he exclaimed, "or there are those gourd seeds up
and out of bed so soon!"
He was so delighted with this that he told his wife; and soon all the
other people around the poor neglected place were flying and running to
take a look.
The little fellows, very sturdy and determined, were holding their
leaves out exactly as if they were spreading their palms upward to
catch the sunlight in their hands.
Time went on and the seeds became vines. The old chimney, built of
sticks and mud, and very unsightly, was revived to new feelings.
"Not since my supper fires went out have I felt so much alive," it
moaned as though it would like to be really pleased.
"If only I could smoke again, I should feel completely contented."
Soon the chimney and the eaves were green with gourd vine. Summer was
underway, with its long hot mornings and its wonderful nights. Lady
Trumpet-Vine was covered with buds, and she was already telling of how
she would be visited by all the most beautiful creatures in the world.
"But nobody'll visit your flowers," she said to the gourd vine. "Nobody
wants to. You're a bitter, ugly, common vine. That's what you are."
"I have some very respectable relatives, just the same," sang out
Sunny Gourd, determined not to be utterly demeaned. "There's Mr.
Watermelon and Mr. Cucumber. They are very well esteemed, you know. I
think they are appreciated perhaps almost as much as you are."
"But not for their beauty, my dear," was the retort. "I am loved by all
the world for my magnificence. Birds and men know beauty when they see
it. Trust me in that."
Then, almost in anger, such was her queenly pride, Lady Trumpet burst
a few of her buds. The full open flowers were wonderful, and a perfume
exhaled from them which made her neighbor dizzy.
"It's no use," Sunny Gourd sighed. "I can't do that. My flowers are
merely little no-account white things. No perfume to speak of. But I
don't care, I've reached the roof anyway, and I can look up at the sky
and watch the birds in these trees, and have a good time to myself. And
I can look at you, too, Mrs. Trumpet."
The stately vine waved her tendrils and fanned herself gently. She
couldn't help seeing that this gourd person was at least polite.
But the hardest thing in the world to bear is the idea that you are of
no use to anybody. And it was this which hurt the robust gourd vine.
Not a bird came for honey, and yet they hovered in ecstasy over Lady
Trumpet. Humming-birds, as brilliant as flashing gems, came whirring
like rays from a diamond shot from the sky. They would plunge their
long beaks deep into the flowers to get the nectar, and then dart away,
only to return again for more. Other beautiful creatures came to the
deserted garden and sang madly with delight, simply trying to make
their melody as intoxicating as Lady Trumpet's perfume.
But they studiously avoided Sunny Gourd. His leaves, big and green and
very rough, and his sinewy stems, his modest flowers and the bitter
juice of them, were odious to everybody. Yet he was green as emerald,
and he had made a picture of his end of the cabin.
"But the birds, how I love them!" he kept saying to himself. "And they
will have none of me!"
At last, however, to his great consolation, there came a little green
bee to visit him.
"Well, well!" it buzzed. "Here you are! Just what I want!"
And the little visitor tried to hang in every flower. His visits lasted
all day.
"Yes, I'm only a low ground bee," he remarked, after Sunny Gourd had
confided in him. "Those aristocratic honey-bees don't recognize me at
all. But I don't care. And you mustn't care. The birds will be mightily
obliged to you yet."
And without a word more, he was off. Nor would this handsome little
fellow ever explain what he meant. He would only say: "You just wait!"
Nor were there many weeks of waiting. For the autumn came, and the
pinch of cold nights with it. Things began to shrivel, but the
wonderful fruit of the gourd vine turned from green to yellow; lovely
as gold. Sunny Gourd had produced a hundred dippers: some with handles
curled and long, some straight as rulers, and some that were short and
thick. They hung in yellow companies from the eaves trough, or they
clustered over the roof. The best of them grew against the chimney,
and yet all were as gourds should be, stout of shell and beautifully
rounded.
"Very strange!" Lady Trumpet remarked. "Almost impressive. But I'm glad
I don't have to do it. My seed pods are elegance itself, and yet they
do not obtrude themselves that way. I call it vulgar."
But others thought differently. People began to go that way just to
see the house that was covered with gourds, and in the last days,
as the sap was drying in the vines, Sunny Gourd found that he was
attracting much attention.
Yet he was not to guess just the thing that was to happen.
One day the man who had thrown the seeds for luck, returned. And he
took but one delighted look.
Soon there was much going on and the old cabin came back to life
again. And, just as the chimney hoped, it was smoking once more.
There were children running around the weedy garden, and voices and
laughter brought back the happiness so long gone. The blue-jays and
the yellowhammers greeted the newcomers with delight, and Lady Trumpet
could only wish that they had seen her in her July glory. But to Sunny
Gourd happened the best of it all; for the man cut many of the gourds
into bird houses and hung them to a pole which he planted by the door.
Then came the martins to build, losing no time at all. The beautiful
yellow gourds hung high and happy, their hollow shells sheltering a
dozen beautiful birds. And the best of the gourds, the one with the
longest handle, which had swung clear of the door lintel all summer
long, and had ripened to a magnificent color, was hung by the well. It
made a dipper fit for a king; that is, if the king were a very good man.
Sunny Gourd knew no words for his happiness. And it was joy, not the
cold of the winter nights, to which he at last succumbed.
"That's the way with this wonderful world," said Mr. Mocking-bird. "And
I thought he was beautiful all along."
"And think what he did for me," the cabin kept saying.
So that even the proud Lady Trumpet knew her place at last, and she
honestly hoped the dear Sunny Gourd would come back in the spring.
XII
THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF
Far away to the North, where the great rocky capes point out through
the sea toward the land where it is always snow and ice, there lived
two shepherds whose little huts were almost the only habitations in
many and many a mile of trackless forest. To be sure, they were within
traveling distance of a market town. For had there been no place for
trading the wonderful white wool which they sheared every spring from
their sheep, there would have been no object in their living in a place
so uncouth where year in and year out there were only the grandeurs of
earth and sky and the thunderous roar of the seas to keep them company.
But the shepherds and their families were not unhappy, and the chances
are that if you took them southward over sea and land to the great
cities they would only have longed to go back to their own cloudy
skies, to their wind-swept pastures, and the steep cliffs where the
sea-gulls nest. And it is certainly true that their little boys and
girls would never have been content to have stayed away very long from
the faithful dogs, who are the most important members in a shepherd
home. And it is of these dogs and what they did to the last of the
wolves that the shepherds were always telling. For the memory of a
brave act is slow to die; and when you add sagacity to bravery, putting
wits with strength, you have something which men love to relate.
One of the dogs was Dan, and that was a suitable name, for he was what
his master called "long-headed." The other was Denmark, for he was so
great and powerful and possessed of so wonderful a voice and appetite,
that both by power and dignity he resembled his people, the noble
Danes, and no name in the world could fit him better than that of his
native land.
Denmark had come to this far-away settlement when a ship from the
Danish ports had gone to pieces in a storm below the cliffs. And the
shepherds had taken him home. A dog that could swim ashore in such a
storm as that had been, when the waves turned to ice as they dashed
against the rocks, was a dog worth keeping.
But Denmark was not a shepherd dog. His shiny coat of black, his heavy
build, with a neck as powerful as a young bull's, and his great square
jaws made him at first sight a dog to be feared. But he was gentle and
wanted to play and sport like any puppy, as soon as he had recovered
from the shock of shipwreck and his icy hour in the water. But there
was no one to play with in the family of the fisherman who had first
rescued him from the water. And that worthy man, who was a brave and
silent sort, was gone from home so long at a time that he was not sorry
when the great Dane betook himself to another home.
Some children were passing the fisherman's hut one morning in early
spring, on their way to gather wild flowers which grew in the crevices
and little sheltered nooks of the headlands. They were laughing and
chasing one another and singing. That was all the great dog wanted to
hear, for he had lived a solemn and uneventful life during these weeks
that he had lain around the fisherman's place. And the fisherman had
not dreamed of entertaining his guest. He had not played tag in sixty
years and you may be sure he was not going to begin again for the sake
of a great overgrown dog.
Denmark introduced himself to the children in what he thought was
a playful way; but his voice was so terrible that the children were
at first terror-stricken. They had never seen any dogs except the
beautiful Scottish kind which the shepherds keep. They screamed and
ran in fear, taking up stones as if to throw them. But Denmark was not
discouraged. At first he kept his distance, but he followed; and, once
they were out on the green pastures that sloped and curved down to the
steep shore, he began his most enticing efforts to please.
The children forgot all about their wild flowers then, and they romped
and played for hours with the dog. Of course they took him home.
In this new home Denmark was a neighbor of Dan, the wise shepherd dog,
who came to be his lifelong friend; for the shepherds did not live very
far apart, and it was easy for the dogs to get together, as they always
did at odd times of night and very early in the morning, when they
would go far afield in a mad chase for rabbits or on the trail of a fox.
Every one had thought the two would fight when they met, but the
shepherd dog only stood off on his dignity a few seconds, and then he
spoke to the great Dane in the most courteous tones, which the Scotch
can always employ to such effect. He well knew that he was no match
for the gigantic stranger and he saw no necessity for making a fool of
himself; besides he really was more than glad to find such a companion.
The comradeship of these two lasted long and only came near to its
end when they cornered the great timber wolf in the sheep pen. This
was Dan's crowning achievement, and no one was more proud of him than
was the brave and courteous Denmark, who always gave to the shepherd
dog the full credit of having planned the whole thing. To rid the
countryside of this last wolf had been Dan's great desire. No one
but he was really sure of the wolf's existence. The time had passed
when the terrible packs of wolves descended on the sheep, and when
the belated traveler over the snowy roads was in peril of his life
from these stalking, famished enemies. But the shepherds were by no
means sure that the wolves were entirely gone, and when they sat by
the fireside telling stories of the dangers and hardships of the old
days, they would always end by admitting that not yet were the terrible
marauders hunted down.
Dan's back would bristle as he lay by the fire, and he would pound his
tail up and down on the hearth as if he entirely agreed. Could he have
spoken, he would have told them that often he had smelt the track of
something that was not a bear nor a fox. Then his blood would freeze in
his veins when the shepherds, talking in their slow way between sips
of ale, told how powerful and ferocious the wolf can be. They knew of
wolves that had snapped a dog's head nearly clean off the body with
just one flash of their terrible jaws. And they agreed that a wolf
could not be overpowered by any dog alone.
Dan always came to one conclusion in these recitals. If ever he could
find the wolf, and could employ his friend Denmark to help him, they
would show their masters that two dogs, at any rate, could get the best
of the timber wolf.
It came about at last that a long, heavy winter drove the wolf to
bolder and more risky operations among the sheepfolds. He ventured from
the dark, forest lairs closer and closer to the sheep pens and the
shepherd huts. The dogs knew this. But in the daytime the wolf was gone
far beyond the barriers of the steep cliffs of the mountains. And at
night the dogs could never venture far afield, for it was their duty to
stay close by the barns and the pens where the sheep were sheltered.
With the coming of spring, Dan's master had to spend many a night at
a pen some distance from the home. Down close to the shore he kept
another flock and in it were many little lambs that were sick. For in
the spring it is a common thing for the lambs that are winter-born to
be stricken with a sickness which only the best shepherds can cure.
Dan's master was up and about at all hours of the night, and poor Dan
was greatly concerned in his efforts to keep guard over two folds. But
if his dear master would take no sleep, Dan would take none. He was as
wakeful and anxious as though he owned the sick lambs himself.
It was well past midnight and the air was full of the wet odors which
denote the melting snows and the first coming of spring. As Dan was
trotting up the path from the lower fold, a whiff of that strange and
terrible odor which he knew to be the scent of the wolf, came to his
sensitive nostrils. He stood still. He snuffed the ground around him,
but he found no track. The wolf was near, but where?
Then a thought came to him. First, he must get Denmark. It would take
him but a few moments to run across to the neighboring farm, and now
was the time to put his plan into execution. He was much disturbed in
his mind, however, for he had never before left his master at night.
But the necessity was a pressing one.
Down the path and across the fields he ran, and came to Denmark's
home. The great dog was lying by the barn door, under a little shelter
which formed a kennel. He was wide awake and felt very much alert. He
confessed to Dan that he felt particularly nervous about something.
Yes, he was sure he could scent the wolf on the stagnant, heavy air.
Back they ran, their tails lowered, and their noses to the ground, for
this was no hour to play. Once they were in sight of the hut where the
shepherd and the little lambs were housed, Dan explained his plan.
"My master will presently go into that tiny room just beyond the pen
where the ewes and the sick lambs are. He will lie down, and unless
the lambs bleat again before morning, he will not wake up, for he is
dead tired. He knows that I am close and on guard, and so he does not
trouble himself about that shaky old door to the fold. The wolf could
nose it open and not half try. But the wolf won't come here unless he
thinks I am watching up at the big pen. So I shall go up there. You
climb the steep steps that lead to the loft over the straw beds where
the sick lambs are. Go softly, and wait. I will follow the wolf down
here if he comes. And if he gets inside the pen, you spring down on him
from the loft."
All this the canny shepherd dog had schemed and perfected as he was
running after his friend. It was too good to be true, he felt, that
here at last was the chance he had hoped for. And if he had ever
feared the wolf, he did not fear him now, but was only afraid that the
terrible creature would not appear.
Dan hid beneath his master's barn. From a corner in the heavy stone
underpinning he could look down the yard to the lower pen. Nothing
could approach that point without his seeing it, unless it came from
the rocky shore. He waited long and the silence was unbroken save for
the dripping of the water where the snow was melting on the barn roof
and little rills of it spattered from the eaves.
Suddenly, so suddenly that his heart stood still, he saw two great
yellow eyes staring out of the darkness. The wolf was in the yard and
not ten feet from where Dan lay! Then the gleaming eyes turned and a
great shadowy form hulked past. It was so huge that Dan trembled. It
made no noise and moved slowly and with great caution.
Dan straightened himself out, full length, and crawled low in the mud,
picking his foothold in such a way as to let no twig or pebble move
under his weight. Any smallest noise would be fatal. His heart beat so
fast that he could not breathe, but he stalked the terrible shadow step
by step.
Suddenly he realized that if the wolf should turn, there would be no
chance to escape. Perhaps the great jaws would kill him before he could
even cry out, and Denmark would never know about it until too late.
The wolf's half-defined form suddenly vanished. He had made a great,
silent spring into the center of the sheep pen. For such was the
surpassing cunning of the wolf that he was into the pen and had seized
one of the lambs all in a single leap.
There was a roar such as Dan had never heard. For Denmark had never
spoken in such voice before. Then came sounds that woke up every one on
the two farms and brought everybody running to the scene with lanterns
and guns.
Denmark had come down on the wolf's back, and had gripped his throat.
Dan rushed in and helped in pulling him down. But the damage to the
dogs was frightful, for the terrible fangs of the wolf, hampered as the
creature was, had ripped and torn his opponents. The three desperate
animals rolled and tossed and flung themselves in such a frantic battle
that the shepherd was many times thrown down in his attempts to get
near them. He was afraid that he would stab the dogs instead of the
wolf. But when the lights came, and the guns were pointed, there was no
need of either knives or shot. The two dogs lay bleeding on the floor
of the hut and the great timber wolf was twitching in death.
It was the greatest thing that the shepherds had ever heard of in their
lives. They told of it for years, and Dan and Denmark became known for
miles and were justly happy in their fame.
XIII
THE TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO
The wonderful adventures and the long, beneficent reign of Prince
Flamingo are matters which would be lost to the world were it not for
the venerable Mrs. Leatherback.
For Mrs. Leatherback is not only the oldest and the largest of the
great turtles, but she is by all odds the most distinguished, and is
gifted with the most accurate power of memory. And her adventures
in the five hundred years of her life have been many. She swims the
great Gulf from coast to coast, she knows the islands--every one of
them--she has been far up the rivers which pour their floods into the
tropic seas, and every bay and lagoon knows her presence. And there is
no one whose arrival is more eagerly welcomed by the little people of
the lagoons and the coral coves than she. For with her vast knowledge
goes a power of recital which charms her auditors; and if she chances
to spend a moonlight evening by some quiet swamp, or beneath a pleasant
sand dune where the breeze is good and the outlook charming, you may
be sure that the intelligent and conservative members of society, such
as the Cranes, the Terrapins, the Black Swans, and perhaps one of the
wise Foxes, will be gathered around the distinguished visitor.
And her stories, notably that of Prince Flamingo, have gone far inland,
even to the remote North; for the Heron is himself a great traveler,
and it is, indeed, as he has presented the story, rather than in the
words of Mrs. Leatherback, that it is generally related. Perhaps it has
gained something in its travels, for time and distance lend a charm,
and the coral islands are beautiful in perspective. To put it simply,
you remember what the wise old Mr. Rat said as he nibbled the Dutch
cheese: "The best things come from a long way off."
So it is from a remote past, and from the most lonely and most
beautiful of the tropic islands that the romance of the beautiful white
flamingo has traveled down to us.
There is a great lagoon or inlet of the sea which widens itself into
a vast marsh on the southernmost extremity of an island. Ships could
never enter its shallow waters, and it is protected on the land side
by miles of dense reeds and water growth. No place in the world could
be safer for the city of the flamingoes. And of all birds, the great,
pink flamingoes need a secret place to build their nests and rear their
young.
Their wonderful city was populous with thousands of their kind on the
beautiful morning when this particular little flamingo was born. For
never had a hunter penetrated to their home, and their natural enemies
were few.
Great flocks of flamingoes were wheeling in long, curving lines
overhead. And they were so pink against the early morning sky that you
would have thought them the reflection of the rosy dawn itself. And
almost as far across the lagoon as one could see, they were standing
by their nests feeding their babies, or preparing for flight to the
distant feeding grounds. You could see nothing but their tall, red
forms, thousands of curving necks, and wide, beautiful wings.
Everybody was talking, and the confusion would have been terrible
except for the fact that no one seemed to pay any attention to anybody
else, and each beautiful flamingo seemed to know exactly what he was
about. Hundreds of other babies were being hatched that morning, and
so little White Wing (as they called him at first) attracted no
attention. His mother was in a great state of delight over him, of
course, and his stately father eyed him with approval. But hundreds
of other parents were in the same state of mind over their young, and
congratulations had long gone out of fashion.
[Illustration: "HIS MOTHER WAS IN A GREAT STATE OF DELIGHT OVER
HIM, OF COURSE, AND HIS STATELY FATHER EYED HIM WITH APPROVAL"]
The beautiful young father had just arrived from the distant shore and
was the first to feed the pretty youngster. He curved his graceful neck
downward and when he kissed the baby, as you might say, it was to put
into his tiny mouth the wonderful juice of the shell fish which the
great bird had been eating. While he did this the mother preened her
feathers, and took a few stately steps to stretch her legs, for she had
been all night on the nest, and then she wheeled in a wonderful circle
over the lagoon, mounting higher and higher until at last she was in
line with many flamingoes who were heading with tilted wings against
the wind, on their way to the beaches and sand-bars.
The sun grew very hot and the wind died away. The waters of the lagoon
flashed in the burning light, and the heat was terrible. But over the
nests where the babies lay the tall birds threw their shadows, and
again and again little White Wing was turned over in his bed, and he
was given innumerable feedings. So at last, when the sun went down
and the air grew cool, he was surprisingly different from what he had
been in the morning. He was already larger, and his wings and his feet
were getting strength enough so that he could move, and he had found a
little voice of his own.
With successive days he grew apace, and at last he tumbled himself out
of the nest and began to walk. The nest was a mound of mud and sand,
for all the world like a basket of sticks and moss reposing on an
inverted flower-pot, and not so high but what White Wing could struggle
back into it when the heat of the day came and his watchful father took
his post by the side of the little home to throw the shadow of his
stately figure over it.
At first White Wing was just like the other little flamingoes, and with
them he began to play on the sandy floor of the flamingo city, and with
them he very soon learned to take short flights as his wings developed.
But just as a hundred or so of cousins began to shed their white down
and to grow very brown and fuzzy, he began to get whiter and whiter. In
a few weeks they were beginning to shed their brown clothes for the
beautiful pink feathers which are the proper thing for the flamingo.
Little White Wing was somewhat distressed when his playmates began to
jeer at him, and it was perplexing to note a lack of affection on the
part of his beautiful father and mother. For his elders were greatly
embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened in their family. And,
so far as the handsome father could learn by inquiry among the oldest
birds of Flamingotown, no one had ever heard of a white flamingo. But
when the neighbors cast aspersions, and hinted that there must be some
common blood in that family, then the father grew angry and the gentle
mother had all she could do to keep him from killing little White Wing.
Every night the little fellow would bury his head close to his
beautiful mother's ear, and say:
"Don't you think, perhaps, dear mother, that I'll be pink in the
morning?"
And she would tell him to hush and be quiet and go to sleep.
But when morning came he would be as white as ever, and his long sad
day would begin. No one would play with him and he was soon shifting
for himself. Somehow he picked up a living of tiny fish in the long
pools of tide-water that the waves left in the soggy lagoon, and when
all his playmates had gone to bed and it was safe to come among them,
he would step home, picking his way between the nests, and trying to
reach his own without calling attention to himself.
All this was hard, but it speedily grew worse. The King of the
flamingoes said that the white offspring must die.
"Begone, my child, begone!" the mother whispered to him, for she had
heard that little White Wing was to die. "Go away, as far as you can.
Sometime it will be all right. Remember that your mother loves you."
So that ended White Wing's childhood. Even before the first streak of
dawn, the beautiful young bird flew out and away. Across the lagoon,
miles and miles to the westward, over a wide stretch of sea he flew
until his wings could hardly bear him up. Then he sighted land, and he
strained every nerve to reach it. When at last he wheeled down to the
sands in the shade of a great mangrove tree, his first day's flight was
finished and he was a lonely, famished bird on a strange shore.
But a deep, sweet voice suddenly came to him. At first he could not
place it. Then he saw to his astonishment a huge turtle only a few
yards below him on the beach.
"Ah, ha!" she was saying in her most affectionate way. "So there you
are! I've heard of you. They drove you out, did they? Didn't want any
variety in the family. Well, well, Sonny, cheer up."
Then this large and hearty creature pawed her way heavily up the sands,
and continued her remarks:
"Funny creatures, you birds. Now look at me and consider the
difference. I don't care a clam what my children look like. I'm on my
way up to that sand dune this very blessed minute to lay about nine
pecks of eggs. And I hope they hatch and the young ones won't get eaten
up. But they can come out of that shell any color they please, for all
I care. We turtles don't worry. We just float along easy. That's the
way to live."
Then she gave a hearty laugh and settled down to digging a pit in the
white sands.
"S'pose you run along, Sonny, and pick up your supper. I rather like my
own company when I'm laying eggs. But just come back a little later and
I'll tell your fortune."
No one had ever called him Sonny before, and never had he dreamed that
such high good humor existed anywhere. The good old turtle and her
cheerful ways had suddenly made life worth living. And poor White Wing,
on coming to himself, realized that he was very hungry. He feasted,
indeed, ravenously on fiddler crabs, which he otherwise would have
despised, and the moon was high and he was heavy with sleep when Mrs.
Turtle, after hours of scratching and pawing, had patiently buried her
eggs, and was ready to talk. What she had to say was brief, but it cast
the life of White Wing in strange places, and it was on her words that
he made his great journey.
"You're bound to be somebody," she began. "Probably a king. But this
is no place for you around here. You must go where you are wanted. And
that is a long ways from this quiet spot. There's a great Emperor who
has a palace by the smoking mountains. He's been wishing for a white
flamingo all his life. If you can get there, why, your fortune is made.
If you fly with your feet to the sunrise until you come to the great
river mouth, and if you follow that river long enough, you'll see the
mountains with the fiery tops. That's the place. And you want to walk
right in as though you owned the kingdom. Don't be scared when you get
there. Just forget about those saucy cousins of yours back home and be
as grand as you know how."
Poor White Wing was almost dizzy at this unexpected vision of good
things. He did not reckon on what the journey meant. But the motherly
old turtle was particular to tell him of the many islands he must pass,
and the dangers that he would encounter. Then she bade him God-speed,
and began her toilsome way down the sands, for she was intent upon
reaching deep water again.
"I have a long way to go," she said; and added that sometime they would
be sure to meet again.
The second morning found White Wing far out at sea once more, straining
his eyes for the island where he was to get food and water, and
cherishing to himself but one idea--to reach the great Emperor who
wanted a white flamingo.
After many days and nights of lonely travel, he came to a mountain
solid green and black, with palms and forest trees; where there were no
white shores, but a heavy marshy line of wonderful vegetation. And from
the height at which he flew he could discern the muddy strip of river
water which stained the blue sapphire of the ocean. This, then, was the
river, and far up its course must be the mountains and the city of the
great Emperor.
He was right in his conjectures. For a black bird, with a yellow bill
as big as a cleaver, greeted him with familiar and jovial laughter, and
told him that he was indeed on the right path. This bird was a toucan
and he told many things of his family to White Wing, adding much good
advice. He was distressed that the beautiful stranger would not eat
bananas, and explained that he owed his good health to an exclusive
fruit diet.
"But then," he admitted with a noisy laugh, "somebody must eat the
fish, I'm sure. And I'm glad if you like them."
Also this happy-go-lucky toucan volunteered to guide White Wing on his
flight up the valley. But, like so many guides, he fell out before
he accomplished all that he had promised. For scarcely had the two
traveled a day's journey when they came upon a prodigious growth of
wild figs, and the greedy toucan would go no farther.
Those were hard hours for poor White Wing. The river valley was dark
and hot, and in the night he was perpetually wakened by the startling
sounds around him. Such noisy parrots he had never dreamed of, nor such
millions of burning insects that flashed and flashed their lanterns
till the heavy vines and palm leaves seemed afire with them. And the
screams of terror that rose from the dark depths of the forest when the
great cats or the powerful snakes seized their prey, chilled his blood.
But the days brought him at last to higher ground, and finally to a
wonderful plain where it all seemed but so many miles of lawn and clear
smooth waters. He took heart. Suddenly the mountains came in sight.
Yes, and one of them was sending out a thin stream of smoke into the
cloudless sky. Another day, possibly that very night, he would reach
the city of the Emperor.
Very wisely he waited for the dawn. He had seen the high walls, and the
housetops, and the glittering armaments of the palace as they glowed in
the sunset, and he had heard strange music, a sweet confusion of lovely
sounds. But from the cliffs above the river he watched and waited and
preened his beautiful white suit.
When morning came, just as the mountains were pink and the city was
cool and gray, a grand procession mounted a great rock above the
Emperor's palace. Trains of slaves and priests there were, the sounds
of drums, and a heavy, solemn chanting. The Emperor was to greet the
sun and they were all to worship the great light, for it was their
deity.
Then White Wing soared high above them all. His great white form was
suddenly thrown against the rising sun, and it was beautiful beyond
comparison. No living bird had ever seemed so lovely. He could see the
crowds of men and women and the ranks of priests start back in one
motion of surprise. Then he floated down, slowly and with great calm,
alighting on the stone altar where the Emperor was staring upward in
amaze.
From that hour, after the court had recovered from its surprise, White
Wing was almost an emperor himself. A park was made for him and slaves
were in attendance. The tenderest of tiny fish and juicy snails were
given him to eat, and he was a familiar of that barbaric household
whose slightest inclination was taken to be law, and whose smallest
preferences were translated into royal commands. He was ceremoniously
tethered with a golden chain and a clasp of blue jewels to his thin
leg, but even such a regal restraint was abandoned and the jewels and
the beaten gold and the turquoise were made into a neck chain which he
wore with great dignity.
Never could the Emperor enter into his councils and audiences without
the Prince of the Dawn, as he was called; and White Wing was a sage and
judicial counselor. He would stand for hours on one leg, his jewels
flashing upon his breast, his head turned at a knowing angle, as if in
the profoundest thought, a very embodiment of wisdom beside the throne.
In reality he was sound asleep, a condition wherein he set an immortal
example for ministers of state.
For years he dwelt in splendor and acquired great wisdom. And for the
little princes and princesses, who were many and lovely, he had great
affection.
But of his love for one princess in particular and of the jealousies
which grew up so that his life was plotted against and he was at
last to be undone, there is another story which the wonderful Mrs.
Leatherback is always slow to relate.
She has been known to depart and pursue her business in foreign lands,
returning at her leisure, before she will be induced to relate the rest
of the story of Prince Flamingo.
XIV
PRINCE FLAMINGO'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
In the gorgeous court of the Emperor, where White Wing had come into
such great good fortune, the one person whom everybody feared was
the splendid ruler himself. For rulers have been notable in history
for their fickle ways and shifting affections, and this emperor was
no exception to the rule. First it was one favorite who fell into
disfavor, and then another, and even the priests and the councilors,
who were the closest to him, were as unsafe as the meanest slave. For
while an underling could be made away with quickly and at a word, the
Emperor was no less willing to let his anger smolder through a long
and carefully plotted revenge in the case of some person who might be
next to him in rank. So there were mysterious things happening in the
great stone palace, and White Wing observed soon after he came there
that nobody seemed really to enjoy the wonderful splendors of the court
itself but, on the contrary, they seemed always anxious to be in the
parks or the city, or even out on the lonely plains around it, rather
than in the vast rooms of stone and silver.
Nevertheless, White Wing had nothing to fear from the stalwart and
imperious ruler, for the bird was truly his most treasured possession;
and if he were in an evil mood, the Emperor would often betake himself
to White Wing's splendid garden, and there he would toy with the
bird, asking him many questions, and seeming always content to find
his answer in the flamingo's sagacious looks, or a chance nod of the
creature's head.
There were the troops of lovely children, too, whose quarters were a
whole part of the palace itself, and these were a delight to White
Wing, for they were gentle with him and fed him all sorts of dainties
from their little brown hands.
Among these was a lovely little girl who grew to be a favorite of the
Emperor's and was deeply attached to White Wing.
One day, to the latter's great distress, he saw traces of tears on the
child's face as she came hurrying across the enclosed garden to the
sunken pool where White Wing was looking down into the water at the
gold fish. There happened to be no one in the great courtyard at that
moment but the child and the stately bird. She looked around first, to
be sure that what she was about to say would not be overheard.
"Oh, Prince of the Dawn, dear Prince," she began, "do you know what has
happened? I have run away from the others just to tell you. It's the
saddest thing in the world. The Emperor is sending all the children
away to the farthermost corner of the land to keep them in hiding. And
only the soldiers and the priests are to live here now. There is only
one hour left, for down below the great walls there are thousands of
bearers and mules laden with everything, and a whole army of escorts.
Maybe we shall never come back."
Then she threw herself at White Wing's feet and clutched the flowers on
the border of the fountain as she cried.
But this was only the beginning of the troubles in that great palace.
What the princess had told White Wing explained much that he had
observed, but what the child did not know, and what the Emperor feared
the most, was the plotting that went on against his own life and the
rivalries among his generals. The kingdom was being attacked to the
eastward. Up that same valley that White Wing had followed in his
flight, a terrible army was marching against the capital of this
realm. It was an army of men from the other side of the world. Such
conquerors they were as even the Emperor himself had never dreamed of.
But now excited slaves came rushing in and bore the child off. She had
scarcely time to say farewell, and poor White Wing heard her sobs as
they died away through the courtyards and arched corridors. Yes, his
palace was being deserted, and he could walk through empty rooms and
suddenly stilled hallways without meeting a soul. Everybody was in the
lower courtyard watching the departure of the household.
But just as White Wing, much depressed and filled with wonder, came to
a little doorway in a corner of the great upper hall, he heard voices.
They were the Emperor's councilors, he knew, but why they should be
there now when everybody was so busy elsewhere, he wondered. They were
not talking as usual, but whispering, and a great curtain had been
drawn across the doorway.
White Wing knew that the chamber was lighted by a window that opened
to a tiny courtyard of its own. To reach this court without passing
through the room was impossible to any one but such as White Wing. He
could mount the walls by a short flight from the garden, and descend
within the secret yard.
This he did, for he was bound to learn what the priests and councilors
were up to. The Emperor was not with them, and he felt sure that it was
something treacherous that they were doing.
He was just in time as he settled down on the stone copings outside
the great window. First he looked to make sure that his shadow was not
visible across the pavement. He was assured of his safety, and knew
that his arrival there had not been betrayed by so much as a ruffle of
his beautiful wings.
The voices were deciding the fate of the Emperor and of White Wing too.
The priests were to tell the Emperor that he must sacrifice the thing
that he loved the most and that he must do it with his own hand. And it
was to be arranged that as he knelt at the great altar of black stone
to kill the bird, an arrow should be sent from a secret place on the
walls, so that the Emperor with his back turned to the court should
perish then and there.
White Wing's blood ran cold. This, then, was why his great master had
always been fearful and morose, and often cruel. His own house was full
of men that hated him and were yet his own brothers. They were ready
now, just as the kingdom was rallying to save itself, to seize it all
into their own hands. They would be rid of him, and his mysterious bird
too, for they feared in a childish way that White Wing had been sent to
the Emperor by some divine agent, and they hated the innocent creature
because they were both fearful and jealous of him.
They were now deciding which one of them should let fly the arrow
which should kill the Emperor. White Wing could hear them rattling
the jeweled discs or dice with which he had often seen them playing.
Evidently the process of making the decision was a complicated one,
for he heard the little carved discs rattling in their box a number of
times. Then there was silence and a voice which he knew was that of the
Emperor's half-brother spoke in clear tones:
"I am glad that it has fallen on me!"
Suddenly the sound of drums and horns and a great deal of shouting
broke the silence. The Emperor had said farewell to his household,
and in great clamor the slaves and the favorites and the troops of
beautiful children were departing from the city. The Emperor's heralds
were calling his councilors to the great audience chamber. White Wing
heard the treacherous creatures scuttle from the little room in haste,
and he heard the dice which they had been using rattle to the floor as
they upset a table in their hurry to get out. Slowly and cautiously,
he looked into the room. It was deserted. Then he went in and looked
around him and picked up one of the little dice. It was a small, black
jewel, curiously engraven. He tucked it under his wing and stalked
quietly through the curtained doorway, and down the long corridor
with its shadowy arches until it brought him to the sunny courts that
bounded his own walled garden.
What he achieved by this simple act of sagacity is quickly told.
The Emperor, who had known nothing of the secret council, guessed
immediately that it had taken place when White Wing dropped the black
counter at his feet. They were alone in the garden, and it was late
in the evening. The bird little knew that this was not one of the
gaming dice at all, but the sacred dice used to settle life and death
decisions in the Emperor's secret debates with his court.
Puzzled as the Emperor was at first, he was not long in establishing
his conclusions. He had just been told by the priests that he must
sacrifice the white flamingo, and his half-brother had been alarmingly
affectionate, having even caressed his shoulder as he thanked the great
ruler for having placed him at the head of certain troops which were of
the greatest importance in the forthcoming battles.
Then the Emperor knew what to do. He said nothing but was exceedingly
watchful. Coming early in the morning to White Wing he bade the great
bird good-by.
"You must fly over to your own people, dear bird," he said. "My enemies
will eventually kill you if you do not go. And perhaps, when these
great invaders have taken my city, I shall be reduced to slavery. You
have been my greatest pleasure, and you have served here all that
you were intended to. You have saved my life, for the scheme to kill
me while I was to be offering you in sacrifice has all come out. I
drew confession from certain of the councilors when I had them in the
dungeons but an hour ago. Never would I have suspected them but for
your wonderful means of warning me."
Then, in the earliest dawn, before the blazing sun had blanched the
palace walls, White Wing soared slowly into the air, leaving the great
Emperor standing alone by the deserted altar. There were no cheering
crowds as there had been when he came to that terrible city, and in
their stead were camps and tents and all the sights of preparing war
upon the plains. But the Emperor's hands were upraised and his face was
very splendid as he gazed off into the heavens whither his wonderful
white flamingo was disappearing.
All that consoled the bird in the sorrow of leaving his master was the
thought of having saved the great man's life. But for that, he would
have died from misery, believing that he should have stayed there until
his own life was taken. He little knew that thousands of his own kind
were waiting for him. But such was the case, and he soon learned as
he flew toward the setting sun, retracing his journey, that he was
already the prince of birds. Whole flocks of beautiful parrots, and
great orioles, and tropic thrushes would greet him and fly in hosts
ahead of him. From the great city down through the wide valley and the
dark forests to the coast, he traveled with couriers to tell all the
birds of his coming. And as he passed, at last, out over the ocean to
find the island whence he had come, there were flocks and flocks of
flamingoes overtaking and surrounding him.
One strange thing he saw, and that was a fleet of ships with sails
greater than ever he had dreamed of. These were galleons of the
conquerors, come to destroy the city of barbaric splendors where White
Wing had been a courtier. But he did not know this, and only marveled
at the sight.
At last, when his escort had grown to such numbers that, flying as they
did in single file, the line of birds seemed to arch the sky from east
to west, he came to the coast which he knew to be his own. Then to the
selfsame stretch of coral beach, where the palms were leaning over the
dunes exactly as he had left them. With slackened speed and flying
lower and lower until he caught the scent of the old familiar earth,
he skimmed above the lagoon and was suddenly over his home! White Wing
flew straight to his mother.
The thousand relatives and as many new ones were there too, and with
the arrival of White Wing's friends, who had glided in, one after
another, the confusion of greetings in Flamingotown was deafening.
From then until his death, which was not to be for many, many years,
White Wing, whose adventures had become known until they were
household words, was the ruler of all flamingoes everywhere.
That he was beneficent, you may be sure. And for one thing, quite the
greatest thing in his life, he instituted a change in family life by
decreeing that all the gentlemen should take their turn in helping
the lady birds to hatch their eggs. It is from his reign that this
admirable custom dates, as Mrs. Leatherback will assure you.
As for that generous lady, she came to have her part in the history of
the times. For the great explorers who came to ravish the kingdom where
White Wing received such honors, happened to take Mrs. Leatherback
captive on one of the islands. They took her aboard ship and were all
for taking her back with them to the great court of Spain. But even
after they had branded her with the arms of the court of Castile and
Aragon, and had secured her to the deck of the galleon, she eluded
them and fell into the sea. Consequently she has lived these hundreds
of years a member, as she is pleased to think, of the greatest court
in Europe. She soon came in the round of her journeys to White Wing's
island and there she visited him a long time. So they could recount
their adventures; and he has never ceased to love her for the cheer
she gave him that first night of his lonely journey. For her part, she
is only too proud of her Prince Flamingo, as she calls him, thereby
disputing honors with the gentle mother bird, who has always been too
happy to talk much about her little White Wing.
So all the above is just as the Heron tells it. And he is the one
who knows Mrs. Leatherback the best, and he has had it from her many
times. Moreover, he always ends with the wish that in some way that old
turtle could have the last desire of her life fulfilled. Strange as it
may seem, she has never seen the wonderful device of the Spanish Arms
which was branded and carved upon her back. It gives her a wry neck to
attempt it and she has given up trying. So she always lives in hope of
finding a looking-glass some day at the bottom of the sea.
But meanwhile she contents herself with getting her friends to tell
her how it looks, and it is because the Heron is very particular to do
this, and do it well, thereby making the old lady feel comfortable,
that he can always get her to relate the story of Prince Flamingo.
XV
MOTHER FOX'S HOSPITAL
Virginia was a very little girl when she visited the home of the
animals under the garnet hill. She was the only person who had ever
been there, as the good Mrs. Fox assured her, and the only way, indeed,
that she can prove that she had actually been there at all is to ask
her pet cat, who accompanied her, whether it is all true or not. Always
the cat blinks his eyes with the most knowing air, and nods his head.
So that is proof enough.
Virginia was gathering blueberries and she had strayed farther and
farther away from the farm house until she suddenly found that she
could no longer see the top of the red chimney, nor the peak of the
barn. Never had her little feet carried her so far into the pastures as
this. To make it worse, she could not seem to find her way back. The
low birch trees and the sweet fern seemed taller, and the light beneath
them was not so warm and bright.
Virginia started to run, but she had taken only a few steps when she
tripped and fell. It almost seemed that the briary vine in the grass
had reached out and entangled her. But she was a brave little girl and
would sooner do anything than cry out. It was discouraging to have all
the berries in her pail spilled over the ground, but she set to work
picking them out of the moss and leaves, while she kept wishing that
somebody would come to help her.
Then she pricked her finger on a thorn. It was then, she knows, that
she began to hear lovely voices; for no sooner had she felt the sharp
scratch than she heard a sweet sighing song all around her.
Of all the wishes in her life the greatest was to know what the trees
and the birds were saying. Now she knew.
For on all sides the voices were as sweet as music. "What pretty blue
eyes she has!" and "How lovely her cheeks are!" and "Just see her
golden hair!" were remarks she caught between the sounds of silvery
laughter.
She jumped up, leaving her berries on the ground, and started again to
run. For she was suddenly afraid of these voices, even though they were
so sweet.
A familiar _Me-ew_ greeted her. It was her pet cat, Tiger, who then
began talking to her as plainly as though he had been to school and
could read and write.
"How fine this is!" he exclaimed. "To think you can hear at last!"
and he went on explaining that no one had ever understood what he was
saying before.
"How often," he purred, "have I followed you into the pasture, hoping
that you would prick your finger on the right sort of thorn, so that
at last we could talk things over! My, but won't all the world be glad
to know of this!" he added. "Why, it doesn't happen once in a thousand
years!"
With that the beautiful gray cat ran off into the woods, only to
return accompanied by troops and troops of beautiful little creatures:
the field mice, who didn't seem to object to the cat at all, and the
squirrels, even the shiny moles, and some very excited birds, who flew
round and round the little girl, calling her name, and telling her how
they loved her.
Why she should have followed the cat into the woods, Virginia did not
know, but he ran ahead and bade her follow, and she seemed only too
willing to do so. The trees spoke so pleasantly as she passed them that
it was impossible not to go on.
"How she does resemble her great-grandmother!" said one of the trees.
It was an aged oak who had known Virginia's family ever since it had
settled in those parts. She felt that she must stop and return the
greetings, for she was always carefully polite to old people.
"Why, it was my little brother," the tree continued, "who was ordained
to the ministry in your grandfather's church. Your grandfather did the
preaching, and my brother held the floor up. He also was cut by the
builders to carry the major load of the roof. You see I have known your
family a long while. I am the oldest white oak in this woodland."
But before he could say another word, a beautiful red fox jumped out of
the bushes and told the tree to stop talking.
"Don't weary that little girl with all your memories," Red Fox said.
"If you get started, you'll never stop. And she has an invitation to
Mother Fox's Hospital. She must come immediately."
All this was very strange. Virginia wished to talk to the good old oak
some more, but Red Fox gave her a knowing look and held out his hand
in such a cordial way, and so urgently, that she bade the venerable
tree good-afternoon and ran to catch up with her new friend, who was
already beckoning to her from some distance ahead. Bounding along the
path beside her came Tiger Kitty, whom Virginia was indeed glad to have
with her.
She was no longer on familiar ground. The woods were dense, and she
felt that she was running a long way from home.
But suddenly Red Fox stopped. They had come to what appeared a jagged
and moss-grown rock. It was the side of an old pit that had been dug
into the shoulder of the hill, and at any other time Virginia would
have remembered it as the old quarry where once she had been taken by
her brothers and sisters on a picnic. But now she saw that it concealed
in reality a doorway. Moss-grown and dark, the door was hardly
discoverable, but it opened easily enough when Red Fox applied his key.
And standing there to greet Virginia and Tiger Kitty was a wonderful
old fox, with spectacles and a frilled bonnet and the kindliest face in
the world.
"This is my mother," said Red Fox; "she's the matron."
"Yes," the good old soul admitted, "I am Mother Fox, and this
charitable home for the destitute of the field and forest is named
after me."
Virginia was embarrassed, but only for a minute, for sweet old Mother
Fox invited her into the parlor and then, after she had been offered
the most delicious of cakes, and the creamiest of milk, and had eaten a
refreshing supper, she was shown through the home.
Living there was every poor animal that Virginia had ever known. And
they were all in such supreme comfort and having such a good time that
she was sure she had never seen so many people so happy all at once,
never in her whole life.
"Our only discontented inmate is Mr. Wolf," said the matronly Mrs. Fox.
"Would you like to see him?"
She led the way down a long hall to where Mr. Wolf was seated in a
little room of his own, gnawing and snapping at his nurses, who were
none other than the hedgehog and the big snapping turtle.
"Two rather sharp people for nurses," Red Fox remarked, almost in
apology; "but you see it takes some one with a good deal of character
to handle him."
In a great room which was a dining-hall, with high tables for the big
animals, and low ones for the little folk, she saw the animals that
were privileged to be there eating the most tempting dishes. There was
lettuce salad for the rabbits, and corn-bread for the field mice, and
blackberry pudding for the whole partridge family, and persimmon jam
for the 'possums, and even lily roots creamed and on toast for the poor
old muskrats.
"All charity," said Red Fox. "All charity! Out in the world every one
of these poor animals was cruelly hurt, or starved. Of course, we're
hunted and stoned, and chased, and shot at. That's all men want--a
chance to kill us. Here's where we take care of our cripples and
paupers."
Virginia was wonderstruck and was about to ask a question, when a
lame but beautiful lady tapped Mother Fox's shoulder and asked her to
introduce the visitor.
"Oh, surely! Pardon me, Lady Orchid."
Lady Orchid put the sweetest, tenderest hand into Virginia's, and the
little girl looked into the loveliest flower face in the world.
"I'm Lady Arethusa," the wonderful creature breathed, as she curtsied
very low to the little girl. "You see I'm crippled. I was pulled up by
the roots in such a careless way. You did it yourself, if you remember,
only the other day."
The little girl wanted to cry, but the lovely orchid repented having
come too close to the truth, and quickly added:
"No; it was your brother, possibly. At any rate, I beg you never to
pull any of us out in that violent way again. I am sure we all love you
too much. We Arethusas have lived on your place a great many years. The
small white violets, by the way, that live by the door-step at your
home, tell me that they can't get close enough to you and your sweet
mother, they love you so. And there is a lovely begonia living here
whom your mother lost, despite her care. Some one neglected it, and it
died of thirst. Your mother was visiting at the time, I believe."
"Yes," said Mother Fox; "that is so often the case. Fathers and
brothers are very careless in such matters. They are not so tender as a
rule with their plant cousins under their roof."
Then, as they left the dining-room, where the animals were just
reaching the dessert, who should come flying up to Virginia but a
beautiful oriole. He too, it seems, knew the little girl.
"Yes, indeed, dear child," he sang out to her; "I have known you a long
time. I live in the elm-tree. And I want to thank you for those lovely
threads that you put out on the lawn for me when I was refurnishing my
house. I am here to call on some relatives, but I will sing to you by
your window in the morning."
Then Virginia remembered that a ball of beautiful worsted had been
missing from her mother's work-basket after it had been left on the
porch. This explained it all. She was astonished, but the gray cat
laughed out merrily:
"Yes, he stole it; but the dear bird thinks you left it there for him.
If you look out of the attic window when we get home you can see his
nest in the elm. It's mostly blue worsted."
"Why didn't you tell me before, if you knew it?" Virginia asked, really
grieved at Tiger Kitty's lack of confidence.
"Why," repeated the cat, and then he only smiled very broadly, "because
you were always deaf, my dear."
Presently, while they were walking down the corridor, the merriest
music burst on Virginia's ear. In a room all to themselves, the rabbits
were rehearsing for a minstrel show. They were dancing in the most
giddy fashion, and she could not help laughing aloud as she watched
them.
But as she laughed, something happened, and the cat, who had just
opened his mouth to say something, closed it with a sudden look of
disappointment.
"You see, she spilled the berries, and fell asleep while trying to pick
them up."
It was a familiar voice. Virginia turned around. Her mother and big
brother and little sister were kneeling beside her in the ferns. It was
evening and she could hear the cows calling to be let through the farm
gate.
"And I never said good-by to Mr. Red Fox!" she exclaimed. Then she
rubbed her eyes and smiled, for they were all kissing her, and big
brother was putting her on his shoulder.
Her strange experience she kept to herself for a long time. But she
talked it all over with Tiger Kitty, and he seemed to understand it,
every word. Most of all when she climbed the attic stairs and looked at
the bird's nest, it was of blue worsted, as plain as plain could be.
And she was sure then and for the rest of her life that the birds and
the flowers loved the old home with its trees and its gardens as much
as she did.
And she always thought of sweet Lady Orchid when she gathered wild
flowers.
XVI
WHY MRS. CROW IS BLACK
It was the dead of night. Old Mr. Fox left his cozy den and went to
call on his friend, the wise old Mrs. Owl. For many years it had been
his custom to do this, for he found her the most engaging company. Her
home was in a hollow tree and she was always obliging enough to put her
head out the window and inquire who was there, if any of her friends
knocked hard and long at the basement door. It was useless to call in
the daytime: she was always asleep while the sun shone, and in the
early evening she would be abroad hunting her supper. But after the
cocks crew at midnight, and people in their beds were turning over to
get their best sleep, Mrs. Owl would come flying through the woods and
across the river, and up the hill to her own great tree, having eaten
heartily of whatever she may have found. Then she was ready to sit on
her window ledge for a visit with her friends.
So it was very late, and the woods was still as death, when _patter,
patter_, through the underbrush came Mr. Fox to call on Mrs. Owl.
Arriving at the bridge across the river, he jumped nimbly to the
hand-rail and trotted on that narrow board as easily as a cat walks
over the fence. For he was sure some dog would pass that way, come
morning, but no dog would ever scent the wise fox who walks the rail.
"Always sniffing at the ground, these foolish dogs," thought Mr. Fox;
and he laughed to himself as he jumped down into the bushes and ran on
to the hill and the great cottonwood tree, whither Mrs. Owl herself had
just returned.
With a big stick he hit the tree a hard blow. Then he barked politely
and sat down to wait.
Way up in the top of the dead tree the window was open. Two great eyes
looked out.
"Who's there? Who's there?" came in the most dreadful tones.
"Only your friend, a brother thief," laughed Mr. Fox; for in the
company of Mrs. Owl he could afford this slanderous admission.
"Ha, ha!" screamed Mrs. Owl, who didn't mind being called a thief at
all. In fact, she laughed so hard and long that every living being
asleep in those woods awoke and shivered with a sudden terror. For
it was the laughter of Mrs. Owl, you know, that made the blacksnake's
blood run cold, and never has he been able to warm it up again, even by
lying all day in the sun.
She scratched her ear and leaned a little farther out. After
controlling her mirth, she grew very solemn and whispered down to Mr.
Fox that she had discovered but an hour ago a certain roost with the
most enticing hole in the roof.
"Easy and safe, you know," she giggled. "Two broilers and a fowl I've
had this very night." Then she laughed again, "Ha, ha! Hoo, hoo!"
But Mr. Fox knew she was lying. She was only trying to get him into
trouble.
"Thanks for the hint," he barked; "but it is easier to get in by the
roof than out by the roof, you know, unless one is gifted as you are
with wings, Mrs. Owl."
"True, true," she said, in her wisest tones.
"And I really came, dear Mrs. Owl, to ask a question of you. Can you
tell me why the crows are black?"
There was a long silence, for Mrs. Owl must have time to think. All
things were known to her, but she revealed her knowledge only with the
greatest deliberation.
First she looked all around, then she laughed again, this time so loud
and long that Mr. Fox thought she never would have done, and at last
she exclaimed:
"Why, Mr. Fox, the crows are black for just the same reason that you
ought to be black and I ought to be black too."
At this Mr. Fox was puzzled, but as Mrs. Owl seemed to think it such
a joke he joined in her laughter, and between them they made the most
distressing noise.
"You see," she said at last, while she held her sides and caught her
breath. "You see, the whole miserable lot of them, the crows, used to
be as bright and giddy as overgrown humming-birds. Red, white, and
blue, they were. They would have been the national bird, I'm told,
but the eagle always takes that honor by his overbearing ways. For my
part, such honors are doubtful. I'd rather stand for wisdom than for
politics. But, be that as it may, the crows were once the gayest of the
birds. It was their mad career of theft and murder which brought the
change."
At this they both screamed with laughter again, and it was a long time
before Mrs. Owl could resume her story.
"Complaints against the crows came from everywhere. The robins--bless
their souls--the larks, the pigeons, and every family you ever heard
of, were determined to do something to the crows for snatching their
young ones and stealing their eggs.
"Of course, you know, similar complaints have been lodged against me,"
she added; "but the point is, my family was never caught. Besides, the
crows get corn and such to eat, and the whole world felt that the crow
was stepping out of his class, you know, when he took to eating birds
and eggs and frogs. It was the greediness of an upstart family. That's
what it was."
The very thought of this aspect of the case made Mrs. Owl so indignant
that she screamed and hooted loud and long.
"It was all long, long ago," she said. "The birds met in a great
meeting. Something had to be done, and it was thought that war would
be declared and the crows would all be killed or driven to live on a
lonely island. But somebody, Mrs. Yellowhammer, I think it was, put
in a word in their favor. She was a tender-hearted fool and recalled
something decent the crows had done. She said that they had left her a
lot of acorns one cold winter, and she felt so much obliged to them.
The crows would have been done to death except for what she said. There
were two doves on the jury, too; and they're a weak and sentimental
lot, you know. At any rate, the sentence which the judge, a wonderful
old owl, pronounced, was to the effect that the crows must forever go
in black. They had to fly all the way to Egypt, where the little people
live, to get their clothes changed.
[Illustration: "THE BIRDS MET IN A GREAT MEETING. SOMETHING HAD TO
BE DONE"]
"Oh, it was hard for them. Poor Mrs. Crow could think of nothing to
say but _Caught! Caught! Caught!_ and that grew to be _Caw! Caw! Caw!_
after a while. Sometimes I feel a little sorry for her and her family;
but, as you know, they are very much down on me. I can't imagine why."
She winked a long green wink at Mr. Fox. For she knew, and he knew,
that Mrs. Owl had that very night eaten all the little crows she could
steal from their nests. And he knew that Mrs. Owl would never dare to
fly abroad in daylight for the crows. Then both of them made the woods
fairly shiver with their laughter.
But it was growing light, and Mrs. Owl and Mr. Fox both felt that a
night well spent deserved a long day of sleep, so they parted and Mr.
Fox went to his home, greatly pleased to know why the crows are
black, and why they must forever say, "Caught! Caught! Caught!"
XVII
MRS. MUSKRAT'S POOR RELATIONS
Mrs. Muskrat owned a beautiful home of her own on the edge of the
mill-pond. She had built the house years ago, and had kept it in the
best of repair. It was cleverly concealed at a point where tufts of
grass and overhanging bushes afforded protection, and at the same time
it was well out in the pond, quite inaccessible to Mrs. Muskrat's
enemies.
The roof rose like an inverted bowl over a circular wall of mud and
sticks; and so neatly were the straws and sticks matted over the top
that the house seemed at first glance to be but an accidental confusion
of dried leaves and old branches. This was as it should be, for Mrs.
Muskrat, like many persons of good taste, preferred to have a home of
interior elegance and ease to one with merely a showy exterior.
It was autumn and Mrs. Muskrat was congratulating herself upon her well
filled larder and the prospects of a comfortable winter.
"I am always glad," she would say to the neighbor that happened in,
"I am always glad that I moved down here from that upper pond when I
did. It was a poor place to live and one was in constant danger of
the water's being drawn off. Those farmers are so inconsiderate you
can never tell when they will take it into their heads to drain the
meadows, and then it is all up with us poor creatures."
She would then continue her narrative, after the manner of many people
who take interest in no affairs but their own, and would probably
burden her caller with the full account of how she had prevailed upon
her husband, the young Dr. Muskrat, to leave the shallows of the upper
home and set up for himself on the edges of the deep and permanent
mill-pond.
"And," she would always conclude, "a mill-pond is so very much more
aristocratic--not to mention a much better growth of provisions.
Personally, I love deep water, and the sound of the mill-wheel is dear
to my heart. No; I shall never go back to the upper pond."
Always the neighbors knew that Mrs. Muskrat, in alluding to the
elegance of the mill-pond society, was, in point of fact, repudiating
her poor relations, who had gone on living in the distant meadows.
For, like many people who move to the town and prosper, waxing fat and
successful, she was given to a feeling of pity that sounded a good deal
like contempt for the poor relatives back in the country.
Little did she realize what the winter was to bring forth as she swam
in and out of her front door, crossing to the opposite shores and back,
always bringing the tenderest roots and lily stalks for her winter
provisions. She was very content with the world, although she regretted
the departure of her best friend, Mrs. Thrush, whose nest was in the
alders almost over her very head, and she was sorry that the turtles
had found it necessary to retire into the deep mud for their winter's
sleep.
The sun was bright, however, and cheerful sounds came from the fields
where men were loading pumpkins into the farm wagon, and from the
orchards came the laughter of merry boys gathering apples. This drew
her attention to the old, neglected tree which grew on the bank of the
pond. Its fruit was bright, and there was much of it, but it hung high.
"If only there comes a good brisk wind to-night," she thought, "those
apples will blow to the ground; and I can think of nothing more to my
taste than a bit of fresh fruit."
Hardly had she indulged these pleasant thoughts of good eating, when
she was surprised to see a visitor approaching her house. It was none
other than the leanest and poorest of her cousins from the upper pond.
Something in his presence told her of trouble to come. And her first
question was not at all too polite.
"Why, what on earth are you down here for?" exclaimed Mrs. Muskrat.
"Haven't you anything to do at home? I should think you would be busy
putting in your own winter stores."
Before she could get any further, her lanky cousin interrupted her.
"Yes, yes; you would naturally think, Cousin Flattail, that we would
be as busy as you are. But we have no longer any home to store things
in, and we are at the edge of winter with starvation ahead of us.
Farmer Jones drew the pond off yesterday. Already the shores of our
poor meadow are drained of every drop. Our house is high and dry and we
shall freeze to death if we stay in it."
With that they both looked up, for in the quiet society of the
mill-pond a great confusion reigned.
All the poor relations were coming down from the upper
meadows! Cousins, uncles, aunts, and brothers-in-law. It was an
invasion--muskrats big and muskrats little.
Mrs. Muskrat gave one look and then bobbed down into the water and
rushed through her house to lock the back door, scuttling again to the
front to secure her main entrance by seating herself directly across it.
"There now!" she chattered angrily. "I'll watch any of you get into
this house!"
For in the confusion of things people are often more distracted than
need be, and Mrs. Muskrat was behaving very ugly and selfish because
she hadn't taken time to think. All her neighbors behaved in much the
same way at first; but when they saw the poor little baby cousins
and reflected upon what this misfortune meant to the children, their
hearts softened, and one by one the doors were opened, and the families
invited in different ways to make the best of it. They must all live
through the winter somehow.
But what they thought was going to be the season of the greatest
hardship turned out to be the most brilliant winter that the muskrats
had ever known, and the cousins all concluded that they never before
had really appreciated one another.
Most exceptional, indeed, was Mrs. Flattail Muskrat's good luck, for
she chose to live with her the cleverest of her nephews, the lively
little Skinny Muskrat, who proved to be a wonderful musician. Every
evening of the long winter they had delightful parties and dances in
the snug quarters of their homes. All about them would be solid ice,
and overhead, around the roofs, the driven, packed snow; but within,
where all was warm and snug, there was the greatest merriment.
Little Skinny Muskrat was in great demand. His aunt always went with
him out to supper or to spend the evening. And it was surprising how
much more she got out of her neighbors than ever she had enjoyed at
their tables before the adoption of this charming nephew.
It was the usual thing to say after supper: "And now won't Skinny give
us some music? He plays so beautifully on his toe-nails!"
So the obliging Skinny would blow through his nails and produce the
scratchiest and most exciting dance tunes in the world.
So eagerly was his society sought, that Mrs. Muskrat at last hit upon
the idea of inviting her neighbors in, but with the hint that they
bring their suppers with them. This was the crowning achievement of
her thrift, and she never ceased to congratulate herself upon having
thought of it. For her house was full of food from top to bottom,
and she became the most popular person in the happy group of Muskrat
society.
But winter melted very slowly into spring. And the provisions for
everybody were growing low. Day after day Muskratdom peeped out into
the cold world that was still black and gray. Not a sign of anything
green; not even a bluebird in the orchards. Little by little the
muskrats grew thinner and it was harder to be gay. At last, just as
they were wondering why they had ever eaten so merrily, and ever been
so prodigal with what they had, and several of the muskrat elders were
up-braiding them roundly in an effort to put the blame on some one,
what should they hear but a robin! And in a few days the cowslips began
to show the green tips of their leaves. Then at last the grass on the
edge of the pond showed sweet and green where it had lived all winter
under the heavy snows.
Their hard times were over! And in all the general rejoicing, nothing
gave them greater happiness than to think they had all weathered it
together.
Nor was Mrs. Muskrat sorry to hear of the immediate marriage of her
nephew Skinny with one of the prettiest little lady muskrats in the
mill-pond. She was thereby able to congratulate herself again. This
time as a matchmaker. And so long as Mrs. Muskrat could be thinking of
how clever, or how thrifty, she was, her happiness was complete.
But you may judge of her neighbors' surprise when she left her snug
house in the mill-pond and went back with Skinny and his wife, and many
of the relatives who moved to the meadows. Something told her that
the roots and the grasses and the tender bulbs would be engagingly
delicious when the waters came back on the meadows; and she was a wise
old muskrat, for those who went back lived a long summer on the fat
of the land. Here again she felt the wisdom of her course, and she
ventured to be truly hospitable by urging her adopted relatives to
return with her, upon the approach of winter, to the deep, warm pond.
That is why there is both a winter and a summer residence in the
highest society the world over. It is a sad lot for the muskrats who
have not both a pond and an upper meadow to enjoy suitably and in
season, as the good earth intends it to be enjoyed. But this last
remark is a bit of wisdom from the mouth of Mr. Owl, and we must credit
him with it.
XVIII
MR. WILD GOOSE AND MRS. GREBE
Far, far out on a great prairie there is a wide river which flows
lazily between its banks, apparently going nowhere at all, but in
reality bearing steadily toward the rising sun and the deep valley
where another river rolls mightily to the southward and the ocean.
The prairie is not level like a floor, but rises and falls in ridges
that are sometimes miles apart, and between these rolling heights of
the grassy land are unnumbered little lakes: bodies of sparkling water
hidden in the folds of the land.
It was over this vast stretch of plains that the great birds of the
Arctic were winging their way one early morning in the late summer, for
they had started to their winter quarters in good season.
"_Honk, honk!_" the leader of the birds kept calling; and as he
trumpeted, those in the rear would answer him, for even as they flew
they had much to talk of, and just now the whole flock of them were
discussing the subject of breakfast.
For they had been flying ever since the peep of dawn, and had come
through mists and the cold upper air, covering a hundred miles of their
journey before the sun really bathed the plains in light, and they
were looking for the spot which was familiar to them as a good one for
breakfast.
Lower and lower they flew as the leader kept signaling to them, until
at last the wedge-shaped formation in which they traveled came like a
pointed kite in long, sliding descents to within a few hundred feet of
the earth.
They could see, of course, all the lay of the land for many miles
around; but they were particular geese, a trifle fussy as you might
say, and by no means would any one of the many little lakes suit their
fancy. They were flying toward one spot out of all others which could
afford just what they wanted for a meal.
At last they apparently settled down to a definite direction for they
ceased to describe the slanting circles, and in one long slide through
the air, their wings stretched perfectly motionless, they coasted to
the ground.
The deep grasses almost hid them from view, but the little people who
lived there saw them, and it was with great surprise that their friends
turned from their feeding and pluming and bathing to exclaim over this
sudden arrival.
There were Mr. and Mrs. Wild Duck, and their beautiful brood of little
ones, and there were many of Mrs. Prairie Chicken's family, as well
as crowds and crowds of little Redbirds and many of the handsome
Kingfishers, all chattering at once over an ample breakfast table. For
there was a solid growth of wild celery around this lake, a bed of
plants so dense that it was for all the world like the heaviest moss.
And of all things beloved by the wild fowl, this juicy and spicy celery
is the favorite.
The leader of the newcomers looked about him. That was the first thing
for him to do, under all circumstances; for he was the oldest and the
wisest of the flock and as a watchman he was sagacious beyond all
others in his family. While his mate and all the others fell to tearing
at the tender shoots of celery, scarcely paying attention to anything
but their voracious appetites, he was standing with head erect and eyes
turning in all directions to be sure of no untoward sign. He could see
and even scent danger a long way off.
Apparently he was satisfied for the moment, for he fell to and nibbled
as the rest were doing, with his head almost buried in the rich tangle
of celery. And as he progressed in his feasting, he came closer and
closer to the edge of the lake, until suddenly he was just above a nest
that lay almost entirely hidden from view.
It was the home of little Mrs. Grebe, the very handsomest and the
shyest of the people dwelling here. She was right there by her nest
of sticks, which literally floated on the water, and her shining neck
of velvety feathers and her brown and silvery body were strikingly
beautiful in contrast to the deep green of the rushes and reeds.
"Why, my dear friend!" the noble Wild Goose exclaimed. "How you
surprised me! Though of course I knew you lived here. This is not the
first year we have visited this place, by any means, and yet, when we
flew North last spring and stopped here I do not remember seeing you."
"Oh, Mr. Goose," came in quick reply, "you can't imagine the
misfortunes that have overtaken me; and it was on their account that I
was not here in the early summer when you passed over."
With that Mrs. Grebe hung her dainty head, which was beautifully tufted
about the ears, giving her the look of wearing a jaunty cap.
"I am the Widow Grebe," was all she could say.
Mr. Goose dried his eyes by rubbing them on his snowy breast. For,
although he was a stern old gander, he had the most melting heart for
the sad plight of widows and orphans.
And the fatherless ones were immediately discovered to view, for Mrs.
Grebe moved ever so slightly and six tiny little Grebes twittered and
chirped at her feet.
The sight was very moving, and the doughty old warrior commanded
himself sufficiently to ask the particulars.
"Yes," the dainty little lady Grebe said. "We were a devoted pair, my
husband and I. You know the Grebes, how they are like to die of broken
heart if one or the other is killed. They're like the cooing dove, you
know, very devoted. But my dear, beautiful mate was shot before my
very eyes. Yes, the bullet was meant for me, because it is the mother
Grebe's beautiful breast feathers that they are after. But it was he
who was killed. We both dived, but when I came up from under the water
after going as far as I could, I looked in vain for him. Men in a
boat were reaching out for something, and it was my own mate they were
lifting up from the water. When they saw it was not the mother bird,
they threw his body back into the lake. After a while it sank and I
knew that it was all hopeless."
Mr. Goose knew not what to say. But before he could even begin to
express his feelings, the gentle Grebe added to her account of woes the
fact that her first brood of the season had all perished, too.
"These little fellows are but just hatched," she went on. "They will
never know their dear father; but what happened to the first brood
of the season is the worst. We were, as you know, far south of here.
Another lake where we go for the winter. No one knew that in that lake
dwelt the worst of snapping turtles. But such was the fact. In one
month our brood of dear little chicks was, every one of them, seized
while swimming and dragged under by the great turtles!"
Then, like so many people who have suffered as much, Mrs. Grebe began
to apologize for telling her woes.
"It is only because you are so very traveled and wise, Mr. Goose, that
I tell you all my afflictions. Nothing, of course, can amend the
loss of my dear mate. But how I am to protect my children from all my
enemies I cannot say. I am sorely troubled."
Mr. Goose all this time had only pretended to eat, for he was too much
interested and too deeply concerned to do aught but attend to Mrs.
Grebe's sad plight.
He thought for a long moment, and then said that he would give her two
pieces of advice, but that she must wait a few moments until he had
thought over his many observations and experiences.
"True," he said, "I have seen many ways of caring for children. And you
are without assistance. Now my nest is built in almost inaccessible
places, and Mrs. Goose has few enemies in the water to fear. Our chicks
are too large to be pulled under the water by turtles, and our nest is
too well defended by the sentry goose for us to fear the fox or the
wolf. But you, poor Mrs. Grebe, you are indeed sorely put to it. You
must do two things. First, I am sure, you must build farther out from
the shore; and, second, you must take your children with you on your
back when they first venture over the pond.
"And," he added slyly enough, "don't grieve too long. Perhaps you will
fall in love again."
Just then, however, he seemed to be suddenly mindful of his own family.
For a distant shot was heard in the air. Everybody stopped eating, and
listened, but nothing more was to be heard. The hunters were far off,
although their presence anywhere within hearing was full of alarm.
"Remember what I say," the splendid traveler called back, for he was
marshaling his flock.
Mrs. Grebe could scarcely comprehend what was going on, for it seemed
but a second before all the beautiful geese were in the air again,
flying low over the plain. They would elude the hunters. That she knew.
But she wished the wise captain of them all could have stayed just a
little longer to explain what he meant. How could she carry her young
ones with her? And how build on the water?
But it is long practise that works out in perfection; and Mrs. Grebe
was soon able to teach her babies to climb on her back and to perch
there with their beaks buried in her soft feathers, and their little
toes digging ahold of her. And she began pushing her nest farther
and farther out into the water until it seemed scarcely to have any
connection with the land at all. Alone, and fearing to leave her nest
unguarded, to this day she covers it with sticks and straw, and when
she turns the eggs over that she is hatching, she smears them with mud
until they are very hard indeed to find. For she is the most suspicious
of birds.
But if she was indebted to Mr. Wild Goose for his advice, he, on his
part, felt that he had only drawn on his learning as a great traveler.
Had he not seen the tropic swans with their young riding upon their
shoulders? And he knew what it was for. So he was only a generous and
observant bird when he made the suggestion.
Later that season, however, when a great prairie fire swept the region
and burned everything to the very edges of the lakes, Mrs. Grebe was
thankful indeed that she could carry her babies with her to the center
of the lake, and there ride in safety with them while the reeds and the
grasses blazed on the margin.
And of this she told Mr. Goose the year after, when he came back. He
had helped better than he knew. But of her second marriage she said
very little, and he did not embarrass her with questions.
Oh, yes, there is much that the great Wild Goose knows and he is not
too proud to draw upon his wisdom when it is a matter of helping even
such little stay-at-home people as Mrs. Grebe.
XIX
BABY FOX AND MRS. BEAR
There is a great river which comes rushing through the mountains, where
the cliffs are dark with trees, and the heavy snows are slow to melt,
even when spring has made the valleys green and warm. Here, on a cliff,
snug and warm beneath the roots of a great tree, lived Mrs. Bear and
her family of cubs. Three baby bears there were; and in their fine
black coats with dark brown edges they were very handsome.
For their playmate, however, there was a little stranger. Just a funny
little fox, whose fur was the color of a flame of fire. He was a rare
little fox, being of such a lovely color. Had the hunters in the valley
dreamed that he was living on the mountain above their very farms, they
would never have rested until they got him, for his skin would bring a
fortune in the world of men and money.
But of this the little fox knew nothing, for ever since the day that
good Mrs. Bear had found him, lost and weak and hungry, where he had
fallen down to sleep in the snow, he had led the happiest of lives
with the little baby bears. They could not run as fast as he could,
nor could they bark as prettily, but they were wonderful at turning
somersaults, and at playing leap-frog, and they were more than generous
to him. They gave him the best place at dinner, and when they all went
to sleep, they cuddled him up between them, while the big Mrs. Bear
slept with her nose to the door. Blow the wind as it might, they were
all as warm as toast.
But one fine day in early summer Mrs. Bear broke the news to her family
that the foxes, one and all, were looking for their child. One way or
another, the news had gone down from the mountain to the high pastures
and fields at the edge of the farms, and it was joy to the heart of the
fox mother, to learn that her beautiful Fireflame was alive.
Of course he must go back. And by an arrangement most agreeable to Mrs.
Bear, she was to venture with her adopted baby as far as the blackberry
patches and the great maple groves at the foot of the mountain. The
foxes would meet her, and with sweet little Fireflame safe in the bosom
of his family, all would be well.
Just as it was planned, the excursion was made; but all the way down
the mountain Mrs. Bear kept finding more and more berries to eat.
"Here I must stop on my way back," she would say.
"And here is another wonderful patch! Such blueberries I have never
seen in my whole life."
So it was late when at last she came to the clearing, and Fireflame
kissed the motherly Mrs. Bear good-by. And it was night before that
good lady could tear herself from the berry patches and trundle herself
home to her family.
Alas! She had lingered too long. Stray dogs from the farms had scented
her presence; and although she had followed a brook until she was well
on her way to the cliff, and her footsteps were hard to follow, they
had soon learned her whereabouts. Back to their masters they had gone,
and it was scarcely morning when the hunters set out. The dogs were
barking and their great tongues were lolling from their mouths. And the
men with their rifles, and the knives for skinning the bear when they
got her, were striding up the mountain, laughing and shouting as they
went. No sooner were they near the woods, however, than their laughter
ceased and the hounds grew deathly quiet; for that is the way of the
hunter. He must be quiet and quick, for he is the companion of death,
and that terrible creature walks abroad only with cruel men who have
learned his craft.
The foxes took in the situation at once. But none of them dared to
stir. To cross the path of those hunters was a terrible risk. They
shivered and shook in their deep burrows to hear the hounds.
"It's lucky for us that the wind blows up the mountain," was all they
could say.
"And what are they after?" cried poor little Fireflame. "Whom are they
hunting?"
But then the truth dawned on him. Old Grandpa Fox and good Mother Fox
were quiet, for they did not dare to tell Fireflame that it was dear
Mrs. Bear who was being trailed. Besides, they were ashamed; for it was
plain that something must be done, yet no one dared to move.
"She ought to have crossed and recrossed the river," said Grandpa Fox.
"That's the way to do it. But I mistrust she was engaged too long with
those tempting berries. She was not discreet."
"They'll get her and her young ones too!" wailed Mrs. Fox, who was
nearly beside herself. For it is a terrible thing to know what you
ought to do, but to be lacking in the courage to do it.
Little Fireflame could stand it no longer. In a bound he was out of
the burrow. The whole Fox family screamed after him to come back; but
he paid no heed. He was well up the pasture, and far into the woods
before their voices ceased to ring in his ears.
It was a test of his wits, and he was very young. No dog could overtake
him if he ran, and he had the start; but to catch up to the hunters and
pass them, and so reach Mrs. Bear in time, was a task that would try
the wits of the wisest fox.
Now a beautiful bird flew past, and although he never knew why he did
it, the brave little Fireflame followed that bird. Over the brook and
back again he went, always bearing upward to the crest of the mountain.
It was not the path by which he had come the day before, but higher he
went and higher, with the far, snowy peak in front of him.
The bird would vanish, but after Fireflame had gone as fast as his
beautiful legs would carry him and when he was so tired that he could
not see for the mist in his eyes, the silent wings would be beside him,
then in front; and Fireflame would bend to his race as though it were
just begun.
Soon he was on the narrow edge of the cliff. The sun lay full and
bright upon the foaming river far below, and Fireflame recognized the
spot. By a path that no one knew, he had come to the home of Mrs. Bear.
There she was, the three little bears with her, playing under the fir
tree.
He bounded in upon them, but not before the bird had brushed his cheek
with its wings and then flown away, straight as an arrow, into the sun.
Fireflame gasped out his news in one breath.
[Illustration: "FIREFLAME GASPED OUT HIS NEWS IN ONE BREATH"]
It was quick work that brought the Bear family to the edge of the
river. There Mrs. Bear and her cubs began their journey to the fields
of snow, and the caves that were safely beyond the reach of the
hunters. She could not thank Fireflame at all. She could only look at
him with tears of gratitude; while the three little bears, greatly
confused, were as solemn as though they had never played tag in their
lives.
"But you will visit us some day," the biggest baby bear said, clinging
to Fireflame's paw, "and we will all play together again."
The hunters climbed up to the deserted cliff; but they never caught the
trail of Mrs. Bear again. For the good river and the soft snows are
friendly to the hunted people, and whatever they know they take with
them to the great ocean, where it is of no use to any one.
Fireflame went home. He knew that he was safe, so he took his time.
But to the end of his days, he never knew what bird it was that showed
him the way in the dark and unfamiliar woods.
XX
CHRISTMAS EVE
Tabby Green was alone in the snowy street. The wind which blew with
gusts of the finest snow had nearly taken Tabby off her feet as she
crept around the corner, and she was so cold and tired that she could
hardly take another step. Just as she was preparing to make a final
jump for the shelter of a flight of steps, a great white dog came
trotting through the snow and, to her great alarm, they ran into each
other.
"I beg your pardon," said the dog, in the politest way.
"My fault, I'm sure," said Tabby Green, for she was such a well-bred
kitty that no dog, even if he had the finest manners in the world,
could be more courteous than she.
Then, "Why, bless me!" she exclaimed. "Can it be you, dear Bobby
Gordon? How glad I am to see you once again!"
And to show how pleased she was, poor Tabby rubbed her thin sides
against the good dog's legs.
Together they crouched under the arch of the high stone steps, where,
from a grating in the sidewalk, came a breath of good warm air. It
was close to somebody's furnace room, and only such poor wandering
creatures as the hungry cat and the dog who had known better days can
appreciate the air from a warm cellar.
They sat close together and Tabby tried to purr, but she was nearly
dead and purr she could not.
"There, there!" soothed Bobby Gordon, as he licked the snow from poor
kitty's back in the gentlest way. "I wouldn't purr. It's very kind of
you to try, but it's a bad thing to do in the open air. They say it
hurts the voice."
"And I have no voice left these days," admitted Tabby sadly. "Really,
if it were not for these warm cellar-ways and the few stray scraps of
food that one finds in such shocking places, I wouldn't be alive."
"But," said Bob, "you're just a poor tramp cat, and no one's bound to
kill you. I'm a dog without a collar, all alone and afraid to be seen.
I can't let any one come near for fear they'll tell the officers about
me. Once I had a collar--such a beauty, too! But it came off within a
week of my great misfortune. You know my master went away, and the
wicked people in the house were going to get rid of me. I knew it. I
wasn't wanted any more. I had to go."
Great tears stood in Bobby Gordon's eyes but he brushed them away with
his paw.
Tabby was overcome. In all her wanderings she had never met a case so
sad.
"Poor Mr. Gordon!" was all she could say. "My poor, hunted friend!"
Then she thought of her own fireside, the cozy home that she had known.
And simply to think of the saucers of cream, and the plates of dainty
pieces from her mistress' table, made Tabby Green's poor mouth water.
"Ah, me!" she sighed, and was pretty near to crying when a thought
flashed to her mind. "There's one more chance!" she suddenly exclaimed.
"You have a fine strong voice, and you can make folks hear. Now just
below this house, where that shoemaker's sign hangs out, is a little
girl, and a boy whom I know to be her brother. They stopped and spoke
to me but this very day. I felt that they were kind and understood my
case. But, although I followed to their door, they didn't see me. And,
call out as loudly as I could, my poor voice has grown so weak I know
they didn't hear me."
"It's little use," was all the weary dog could say. "I've barked at a
hundred doors."
Kitty waited and yielded to his discouragement. Of course it was no
use, she thought. They must simply wait and wait until the cold and
hunger did its work.
The wind howled, and the snow, which was piling higher and higher on
the steps, was drifting around them.
"We Scotchmen die hard," said Bob at last. "The Gordons are a brave
lot. I have to remember that."
"My mother purred away her life in song," cried Tabby Green. "She
was mindful of her kittens to the last. She said almost in her dying
breath: 'Remember, children! Never scratch, and always dry your tails
when you come in out of the rain.'"
Suddenly a voice came through the cold night air. It was a child's
voice, as sweet and clear as a bell.
"Kitty! Kitty! Come, Kitty, come!"
In an instant the poor, starved cat and the lame, hungry dog looked
out and leaped into the drifting snow.
A shaft of lamp-light lay wide across the street. The door at the
shoemaker's house was open. There stood a woman, and, with her, two
little children, all wrapped in shawls and blankets. Their little feet
were tucked in bed slippers and their eager faces peered into the night.
"It's no use, your calling," said the woman. "You were only dreaming.
Any cat out in this storm is a dead cat now."
"Oh, but I know I heard a kitty."
"And I heard it, too," cried the little boy.
"Yes, and you made me get you out of bed to stand here and catch your
death o' cold. I hope you are satisfied."
Scarcely had she spoken, and just as she was about to close the door,
Bobby Gordon and Tabby Green came bounding past her feet into the hall.
"'Twas naught but the Christmas angels brought them here!" the woman
said, when they had all seated themselves in the little parlor, which
was the poor shoemaker's shop and kitchen too.
The Christmas night was turning into morning. Tabby and Bobby Gordon
were sleeping by the stove, and in the bedroom, tucked deep and
warm under their blankets, were the two children who had called the
wanderers in.
Santa Claus was near, and thousands of lovely angels, drifting like
the snowflakes, whispered to him and beckoned as they flew over the
housetops.
"This way, this way," they kept singing. And Santa Claus came to the
shoemaker's chimney with such a pack of toys as he takes only to the
sweetest, kindest children in the world. For Santa Claus and all the
good, sweet spirits know the children who love to keep the kitty warm
and happy, and who would never let the poor, deserted dog go friendless.
"And tell me," whispered Santa Claus to Tabby Green, "tell me every
child that so much as said, 'Poor Kitty!' to you in your wanderings. I
shall take them what they want the most for Christmas."
So Tabby Green, as fast as she could think, and the dog with the fine
manners told all they knew of the children. And when they had finished,
Santa told them that before another year was out they must have news of
other good children, like the shoemaker's little boy and girl.
So there are many Tabby Greens and Bobby Gordons, forsaken and driven
and chased by the cruel people of the world. But sometimes a little
girl or boy stops to pet the straying animal, or even calls it home.
And you may be very sure that Santa Claus hears of it.
XXI
MOTHER RABBIT'S ADVICE TO HER BABIES
Mother Rabbit and her five babies lived among the sand-hills down by
the sea. Their cozy home was a small cave in the side of the hill,
and it had two separate entrances, one at each end. These assured her
escape in case a dog or a weasel should enter her home.
One evening, just as the moon was showing itself, big and round and
yellow, over the tops of the pine trees, Mother Rabbit led her children
out of their cozy home to the big out-of-doors, which they had only
begun to know. Their education must begin, she felt, for they were
nearly one month old and already able to jump and skip around as nimbly
as Mrs. Fox's young sons. She feared that, if left in ignorance longer,
they were likely to become overbold.
"It is, first of all, my dears, necessary to be cautious in life,"
she said. "You must follow me now very quietly to the edge of the
wheat-field, where we will sit down to talk. There are things you must
know."
So they bounded along behind their mother, so lightly that they made
not a sound on the driest leaves of the woodland, and when they came to
the edge of the field they took the first high jump of their lives, for
the mother selected a place between the bars of the fence and leaped
through it swift and clean.
"Do it that way," she said. "You must never run under anything in the
dark if you can jump over it."
Once within the pleasant field, where there was so much green wheat
that the little rabbits wondered how in the world all of it ever could
be eaten, Mrs. Rabbit seated her family around her and began by telling
the babies all about their noble father.
"Ah, my dears, your father was such a rabbit as one seldom sees. Such
stout legs, and short, too, just as they ought to be! Such a long,
graceful body--and what magnificent ears! They were like flowers, and
stood up in such a taking fashion! Could you but see him, dancing in
the moonlight, hitting his heels together in the air, and wagging
those wonderful ears at the stars, his tail as white and fluffy as a
full-blown rose, why, my children, you would burst with pride. I shall
never see his like again."
"But where is Daddy Rabbit now?" the babies cried in one voice, fearing
that their mother spoke with sadness. "He isn't dead, is he?"
"Dead? No, no, my dears," she replied. "He's traveling; you'll see him
yet, I'm sure. He has a way of coming back.
"But in case he doesn't return, you must know how brave he is, and what
he can do. For you must grow up to be as like him as you can.
"Any of the neighbors can tell you of his clever ways, and his bravery.
He rid this field of a dreadful dog, once, and the history of these
parts will always relate that exploit. It made him famous."
At this the little rabbits cocked their ears in wonder.
"You see," Mother Rabbit went on, "it was this way: Once he returned
to his burrow below the hill over there and discovered, by means of
his keen sense of smell, that a terrier dog was in the burrow. He
immediately called for a friend, and together they closed up the
entrance to the burrow and smothered the dog to death. That's what _I_
call bravery. And that's the kind of father you had. The world will
expect much of children of your parentage.
"Your father and I first met on the hillside one evening, and we liked
each other at once. Every evening after, we would meet out there to
play hide-and-seek in the grass and sand. Perhaps he will come to see
you some day, and I want you to be smart and handsome, so that he will
be proud of you.
"But I have said enough, dear Jacks, and now I must teach you some of
the wise things he knew. He learned at an early age that each rabbit
must procure his own food, and has many foes to shun. To do these
things one must have a sharp wit.
"Always sleep during the day while other animals are prowling about,
and come out only evenings when it is cool, to seek your food. Young
wheat, fresh onions, lettuce and cabbages make splendid food for
rabbits. Of course, it is rather dangerous to cultivate such expensive
tastes, for lettuce and onions usually grow only in gardens and people
are apt to set traps to catch you. So be careful never to go near a
trap, or bite at anything that looks as though man had placed it there
for you. It is said that your father prided himself on destroying
traps.
"Our family is blessed by being both watchful and swift. Just watch me
how I can run."
Mother Rabbit sprang to her feet, and over the field she sped like
lightning. The children stared in wonderment, and then shouted for glee
at their mother's rapidity. Finally Mrs. Rabbit returned as quickly as
she had departed.
"Now, that is the way you must learn to run. And the next most
necessary thing for you to acquire is the ability to stand on your hind
legs like this."
To their amusement, Mother Rabbit stood up like a walking dog or a bear.
"An enemy can be seen at a long distance from such a position," she
explained; "and it is well never to run until you have taken in the
situation. Many rabbits have lost their lives by failing to observe
that simple precaution. Once your Uncle Cotton heard a dog coming, and
turned to run in the opposite direction without having stood up to
survey the land. As a result, we found only his bones on the hillside
the next day. It is supposed that he ran right into the jaws of another
dog. Dogs are clever and often hunt together.
"But that's enough for the first lesson," she concluded. "Some evening
we'll come again and I'll teach you to dance, and we'll play till the
moon goes down in the West."
They jumped up, skimmed through the fence, and ran after their mother,
who had them home and tucked them in bed almost before they knew it.
XXII
THE MICE AND BABY STORK
"I find it very hard," said the learned watchdog, "to speak well of the
rats and the mice."
He was talking with his visitor, Professor Screech Owl, who perched on
the peak of the kitchen roof and was engaged with him in a pleasant
exchange of views and ideas. The moon was clear and everything was very
still. All the world seemed asleep but the owl and the dog, and they
were talking of many matters. For Professor Screech Owl was a knowing
bird and he had, moreover, the most learned relatives.
"Of course, you know more than I do," Collie Dog hastened to add.
Professor Screech Owl nodded.
"And you may have heard in your travels of something which credits the
mice with being other than thieves and rogues. But for my part, I am
skeptical of all the good I hear of them."
"There are mice, and there are mice," said the Professor. For this
is one of the best ways to open a subject and draw a distinction. "I
have rarely inquired into their morals, preferring to take them as I
find them. In the matter of one's living one must not be too squeamish.
Probably I have eaten moral mice and immoral mice, with indifference.
But I have heard that the mice in Belgium are the gentlest and sweetest
of creatures. Have you heard of the Belgium mice, Mr. Dog?"
This was the point to which Collie Dog had drawn his visitor with
intent. For no matter what subject you brought up, if you passed it
over to Professor Screech Owl and showed him the respect and patience
which is due to scholarly persons, he would refresh your mind with
wonderful facts and you would be vastly improved and informed when he
finished. So Collie Dog admitted that he was no book dog, and knew
precious little about anything. This was not so, for he knew a great
deal about sheep, the pasturing of cows, and the time for getting the
mail, and he knew that the buggy meant business, and the surrey meant
church, and he knew where his mistress kept the chocolate creams. Also
he knew why the cook left, but he never told. But he pretended that
blankness of mind which is a humility pleasing to superior students.
Screech Owl stared at the moon as though to recall what he could from
his vast store of learning.
"The dates have escaped me," he began, "but it is the nature of the
event, not the time which is important.
"Once long ago, as I was told by the great Arctic Owl, who is a sort of
cousin of mine, the mice in the city of Ghent entered into a sort of
league with the storks. Ghent, as you know, is in Belgium."
This was news to Collie Dog, but he wagged his tail as if to approve.
He was glad to know that Ghent was in Belgium, and he wished to seem
pleased.
"Don't wag your tail!" Screech Owl spat out at him. "I'm telling you
history; I'm not asking you to have a bone. That's no way to act when
I'm lecturing!"
Poor Collie Dog wished to laugh, but he only sat still and looked
humbly at the conceited little owl on the peak of the barn.
Professor Screech Owl suddenly grew quite himself again, apologized for
his agitation, and resumed:
"The storks are a noble lot, and have been renowned in Egypt and on
the Continent. They dwell on the chimney-pots, I'm told, or build on
the edges of steeples and such. Very proud they are, and given to the
practise of medicine. The cranes in the country make great pretense of
being cousins of the stork. But we all know the difference,--we who
have traveled. Ha! Ha!"
Screech Owl screamed a terrible laugh. Collie Dog, to be polite, joined
in; but he stopped short when Screech Owl's feathers began to ruffle up.
"In Ghent, long ago," the Professor went on, "the mice that lived in
the barn of the mayor's place were many. They overran it and lived
under the very eaves as well as in the cellars. And those nearest the
roof became great friends of the storks who dwelt on the gables and
chimneys.
"Now, so the story runs, the mayor's barn caught fire. The good lady
stork had but just left her nest. The storks, you know, go far out into
the country to get their food. I think it very foolish of them to live
in the cities. But Mrs. Stork took her chances, as all mothers do when
they leave their young ones for any length of time.
"Dr. Stork, the father of this particular family, was away on medical
matters, and so the baby was alone. You can imagine what Mrs. Stork
felt when she came flying toward the city and saw smoke pouring from
the roof of the mayor's barn."
Collie Dog scented the drift of the story, and grew suddenly impatient
for the slow Professor to reach the point.
"And was the baby stork burned to death?" he interrupted.
Professor Screech Owl only looked down and cleared his throat.
"The mice," he said, "are credited with singular humanity. They
scrambled all around and in and out of the nest, and at last they
grabbed the baby stork and dragged him down to the edge of the roof."
[Illustration: "THEY GRABBED THE BABY STORK AND DRAGGED HIM DOWN TO
THE EDGE OF THE ROOF"]
"And then?" exclaimed Collie Dog, now really excited. "What then? Did
he fall off and get killed after all?"
"The roofs of the houses in Ghent are not very high," came from
Professor Screech Owl, in the deepest of tones, "but they are very
steep. A plank was leaning against the wall and they slid him down on
that, so that he reached the ground in safety.
"Since then the storks give all the feathers they can spare to the
mice; and now these frisky creatures sleep on down. That is, the mice
in Belgium do."
Professor Screech Owl came to a sudden stop and watched Collie Dog.
Seeing his audience was profoundly impressed, he then went on:
"Those who were witnesses to this rescue say that Mrs. Stork's
excitement was terrible. She went to Egypt for a year to recover her
nerves--"
An unearthly screech pierced the night. The Professor and Collie Dog
jumped in surprise. Old Tom Cat, who had listened to all this as he sat
on the door-step in the dark, was trying to laugh. He was also making
remarks about owls and mice in general. But just then the master of the
house threw open the window and expressed _his_ views.
Collie Dog retired quickly to his kennel to think over this wonderful
chapter of history; and wise Professor Screech Owl flew silently from
the peak of the barn to his nest in the hickory woods.
XXIII
MRS. BOB-WHITE AND THE HUNTING DOG
At the very peep of day Collie Dog and Setter Pup started out on a
hunting trip of their own. Collie Dog called the place "my farm" and
he had told his friend of all the wonderful sights there were to be
seen on the place by a dog who could travel alone and do as he wanted.
It was his habit, he said, to be abroad very early; sometimes, indeed,
he would run over the fields and along the shore, or back into the
woodland, for miles and miles before breakfast.
"And what do you do that for?" Setter Pup asked. For this youngster
was just from the city, and he was not used to these country ways. "We
never get up until long after the man with the milk cans has gone by
the door, and the postman has come and gone," he yawned. "That's the
proper thing in town."
Collie Dog laughed in a courteous way.
"And we get up before the milk cans start for town," he said. "That
is, some of us do. But they'll take you out early enough when the
hunting begins. And you'll be pointing birds all day in the fields and
the swamps."
Setter Pup waved his tail proudly, for he meant to be a great hunter.
That was why they had him in the country now--to teach him all sorts of
things about guns and what to do when he smelt a covey of birds.
But Collie Dog was no hunter, being more of a scholar and a poet. His
master, at any rate, had read him a great deal of poetry. And much of
the poetry had been of a nature to discourage hunting; which was just
what the doggie's master liked to do. He was thoroughly in sympathy
with his pet, who couldn't endure a gun, either the sight or the sound
of it. But, much as the gentleman knew about the fields and the woods,
he would have known more could he have understood what Collie Dog
would have loved to tell him. For that gentle dog was on the best of
terms with every living creature for miles around. His early morning
expeditions were always but so many rounds of visits.
Consequently, the newcomer, this eager and noisy young setter, was to
make many new acquaintances on this daybreak excursion with Collie Dog.
Down the lane from the barn to the pasture they romped, the dew
drenching their flanks as they brushed the tall weeds and bushes.
Setter Pup, with his ears flapping in excitement, was plunging
heedlessly ahead when Collie Dog called him back.
"Go easy here! We are sure to hear something," Collie Dog whispered.
And suddenly, while they walked almost on tip-toe, there came from the
very edge of the field, a clear, ringing call:
"_Bob! Bob! Bob!_"
"Why, who can be down here in the hayfield at this time of the
morning?" Setter Pup asked in surprise.
"Just wait!" laughed Collie Dog, delighted.
"_Bob, Bob, Bob-White!_"
The voice was as clear as a boy's.
"That's my best friend out here," Collie Dog explained. "It's little
Mr. Partridge."
Then very quickly the beautiful, trim little Mr. Partridge hopped clear
of the tangled grass and stood gaily on the fence-rail. He was speckled
and shapely and his eyes were full of wonderful humor. But he caught
sight of the strange dog, and was gone in a second. Then, to Setter
Pup's great astonishment, there were many little voices, and wild
scuttlings in the very path ahead of him. And two beautiful partridges,
their wings apparently broken, were hobbling along almost before his
very nose. They were dying, as it seemed.
Setter Pup was all for seizing them. Two such crippled creatures were
easy prey. But his instincts were, after all, of another sort; for,
although he had never done it before, he stood stock still and pointed
his nose straight at the birds, his tail stretched out like a long
plume behind him.
Collie Dog shook with laughter.
"Well, that gun shooting master of yours would be proud of you if he
could see you now," he said. "You're pointing straight as a weather
vane. But we're not out hunting birds this morning. Come here, and I'll
show you something."
Setter Pup dropped his tail and stepped back. Then Collie Dog came
softly up to the little birds that were cowering in the path. They knew
him well enough. Even if he was a dog, he was a friend; and if there is
a creature who knows a friend and would be on terms of friendship with
the whole world it is Mr. Bob-White.
They were even pleased to meet young Setter Pup, when they found
out that he was staying at the farm. They could not believe that a
personal friend of their wonderful Collie Dog could be ill-disposed to
such as the partridge family.
And Mr. Bob-White talked about "our farm" exactly as though it were his
own. He said that he and his family could surely keep down the potato
bugs that year; and that if it could only be known what his intentions
were in this matter of eating up the pests that canker and destroy, he
was sure no one would want to kill him.
"You always say that, poor Mr. Bob-White, and how I pity you," the
gentle Collie Dog replied. For he was as quick to weep as to laugh,
being so refined a dog. "And it's a shame. My master reads to me all
about you. And we get very indignant when we think of how you are the
one thing that these farmers can depend upon to eat up more bugs than
anybody else could ever devour. You're so much better than poison and
all the rest of the truck they sprinkle around."
"Yes; the poison just washes off in the rain. My family, if only we
could be let alone, would do it all. Didn't you tell me that my cousin
down in Texas ate up all the boll weevils in a county full of cotton?"
"That's the truth," answered Collie Dog. "Master read it to me. But
you're safe enough on this farm anyway. You know that. My friend
Setter Pup is not going to hunt here at all."
"And I shall never hunt partridges--never!" declared Setter Pup, who
was sadly distressed. "I wish I had never been born"--he was crying
now--"if I have to hunt down such folks as Mr. Partridge." For poor
Setter Pup had found that he possessed a heart; and that discovery is
the most distressing one in the world.
"Oh, you'll get over that," Collie Dog comforted him. "You'll have to.
Your master will attend to you. But I'm sorry for you. And just look at
these baby partridges."
One by one, as Mrs. Partridge had clucked to them, in a little voice
like the ticking of a tiny clock, they had crept up to her. Ten little
chicks there were, of a light brown, and nothing but fluffy down and
beady eyes. One of them hopped right out from in front of Setter Pup,
where it had hidden under a leaf.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "There was that chicken, and I never saw
it at all!"
"No," Collie Dog replied; "you would never guess where they go to when
their mother gives the alarm. And then she runs off and tempts you to
kill her. She hobbles and cries and lies down to die right at your
feet. My own mother, who was a Scottish noblewoman, being an Argyle,
used to say that she never saw such a wonderfully devoted mother as
Mrs. Bob-White."
With a gay farewell to Mr. Partridge, the sprightly dog was off. And
Setter Pup went racing after him. For there was much to see, and the
sun was already clear and golden. The grass shone in waves of green,
and as the dew dried there came the loveliest odors of wild honeysuckle
and clover. It was a time to be gay, and Collie Dog did not want to
have his young friend depressed. There were some wonderful mud-holes to
visit, where they could get just as cool and as dirty as they pleased.
"And when the mud dries off," Collie Dog explained, as they plunged
through the bushes, "your coat will shine as though it had been
brushed."
It was a wonderful romp that they had in the mud-hole, deep in the
swampy meadow, under the blackberry vines. And when they came out,
disgracefully dirty, to dry themselves under a China-berry tree, they
were rolling over and over on the grass, when a funny little voice
called out from the branches overhead:
"Hello, Mr. Dog!"
Setter Pup jumped to his feet; but Collie Dog only looked up into the
tree.
"'Morning, friend 'Possum; and how's your family to-day?"
"Oh, they're doing fine. Twelve of them and all getting plump. We like
your turnip patch very much."
Then he laughed; a squeaky little laugh it was; and Collie Dog seemed
to enjoy the joke too, for he sat up with a smile.
"Come on down and let's see you die," he requested. "My friend has
never seen a 'possum play dead."
"No, indeed, Mr. Collie. I don't know your friend--and I don't think I
care to. He's a hunting dog. But I'll die right here on this branch, if
that will amuse you."
So Mr. 'Possum threw himself into a wonderful attitude and looked as
dead as dead could be. His head hung over the branch and his mouth
lolled open, and his little paws were all curled up.
"How queer!" Setter Pup exclaimed. "I suppose he's satisfied that
nobody but a buzzard would touch him now. What a dandy trick!"
"It fools 'em, all right," said Collie Dog, who always delighted in
this performance.
Then Mr. 'Possum winked a sly wink and slid like a big rat along the
branch to a hollow place in the tree.
"He's gone in. Probably his wife wanted him."
And then Collie Dog was off again, bounding and racing across the
field, with Setter Pup keeping beside him.
Miles they went, through the country. Young Setter Pup saw more than
he ever had guessed could be seen. There was Mr. Blacksnake, who raced
like mad over the leaves, making an astonishing noise. He carried his
head very high and went such a zigzag course that the dogs lost sight
of him.
"He's an ugly fellow, too, but he can't hurt you. He makes a funny
noise with his tail, rattling it on the leaves if you corner him. He
wants you to think he's a rattlesnake. But it's only a clever trick,"
said Collie Dog. "Sometimes on that sandy piece of road we've just
passed, we'll come across Mr. Hognose. He's a queer little snake. He
can scare you terribly by puffing and blowing, so that you would think
he was very dangerous. But he can't bite at all, nor hurt you as much
as a cat. He plays off at being dead too, just like Mr. 'Possum. But he
never crawls out till the sun is high. He likes the heat. I've met him
a great many times, but always when it was hot."
By this time it was a glorious morning, and as the two dogs trotted
down the wood road and along the river bank, the birds were calling
from every side.
"I like to come this way," Collie Dog went on. "There's a redbird, a
very aristocratic cardinal, who flies ahead of me every time. He's had
a whole story written about himself. Master's read it aloud to me. Does
your master read aloud to you?"
Setter Pup was somewhat embarrassed.
"We read about guns and cartridges and Canadian guides, and fishing
tackle," he admitted.
"H'm!" mused his companion. "Destructive, of course. Right in your
line. But not my style. We prefer the other kind, my master and I. But
not everybody can be a poet, of course."
Just then the cardinal-bird darted out of the honeysuckle and flew
ahead of them, and in an instant a brilliant bluebird followed him.
"They fly together just that way. Master says they must like each
other's color. Aren't they beautiful?"
And then, before they knew it, the birds were gone; and Setter Pup was
surprised to see that this river path had been the way home, for they
were almost at the farm door.
"If I could only go hunting with you instead of with those guides and
guns," Setter Pup began; for evidently there was something on his mind
and he wanted to talk.
But Collie Dog just wagged his tail. He understood. There was nothing
to be said, for a dog owes everything to his master, and there are many
kinds of masters. Besides, the door was open and there were voices
upstairs. Setter Pup's owner was calling across the hall to his host.
"He ought to make a fine pointer. His mother was a prize bird dog, you
know."
Poor Setter Pup looked wistfully at Collie Dog as they flopped down on
the floor.
And Collie was truly distressed. But, then, as he often asked himself:
"What could a poor dog do?"
XXIV
MRS. POLAR BEAR'S ADVENTURE
The long, dark winter was on the wane. Months of cold starlight and
terrific winds, with numberless storms of heavy snow, had gone by.
Little by little the streak of light on the horizon, the thin shadows
which it cast over the snowfields, and the gentler quality of the
air increased; so that every one who lived in this far Arctic region
stirred in his winter sleep and there was preparation for a short and
very busy summer.
Some of the animals had been abroad, indeed, throughout the whole dark
night of the polar winter; such of them for instance as the lovely
white fox and the great polar bear. For it was not their custom to
crawl away, as many did, into the deep snow-banks, there to sleep it
out; for they knew that even this season of blackness and appalling
cold had plenty of food for them, and they were always insatiably
hungry.
But Mr. Bear's wife was of a different turn of mind, and although she
knew that her husband would not provide for her quite as she would
like to be fed, she was willing to go deep into the snow and dig out
for herself a warm bed away beneath the surface. There she had stayed,
never so much as venturing to the opening after the real night had set
in.
And there her cubs were born. Two of them there were. The good Mrs.
Bear was so delighted with their beauty that she was impatient for the
warm days to come when she could take them out and show them to her
relatives and friends.
"Perhaps, too, their father will be back by the time summer comes," she
thought.
And then she was suddenly glad that he was not around just now; for
he was very quick-tempered, and if the babies annoyed him at all, he
would be pretty sure to cuff them. And one blow of Mr. Bear's paw would
finish the career of any baby bear in the world.
So the two little creatures, clad in the whitest of fur from head to
foot, their claws as black as ebony, and their wide eyes as yellow as
amber, lay snuggled against the great warm body of their mother for all
the weeks of the departing winter.
Suddenly, as they rolled over and looked upward through the snow
cavern, they saw for the first time what seemed to them a great big eye
staring down at them.
"That's only the hole in the roof," Mrs. Bear explained. "And pretty
soon you will see that it is all blue and beautiful above that
window--and then we will go out and away."
What that meant they did not know; for life so far as they had known it
consisted of meals and sleep and endless playtime on the icy floor of
their cavern. But they were to know more about it very soon. A white
wing flashed by one morning, and a land voice called down the depths of
their cave.
It was Mr. Burgomaster, the good-natured gull. He had come purposely
to call on Mrs. Bear, for he had two stirring pieces of information to
give her.
He perched by the edge of her skylight, and wasted no words in relating
the news.
"There's a whale being driven ashore; and the mists have hidden the
birds."
He was gone before Mrs. Bear could so much as thank him for coming; and
she was, indeed, deeply obliged. No one but good Mr. Burgomaster would
ever have taken such pains.
What he said sounded strange enough, but it meant everything to Mrs.
Bear. When a whale was disabled in the far depths of the sea, or had
been caught in the currents and gales in such a way that he must surely
drift to shore, he was as good as dead and devoured. For in shallow
water he would be helpless and once his enormous bulk was stranded on
the rocks or the jagged capes of ice he could only give himself up to
his enemies.
Mrs. Bear, however, would have been very cautious about venturing to
the scene of the banquet, if the great flocks of birds, which were sure
to be on hand, were not hidden from view as they hovered above it.
Clouds of excited gulls that came nearer and nearer to the shore were a
signal of what was about to happen. And the bears, the foxes, and the
wolves were not the only ones who knew it. Men, with their ferocious
packs of dogs, their long lassos of walrus hide, and their terrible
spears, knew well enough what the noisy birds were announcing.
But all would be well if the fogs hung low, and the gathering flocks of
sea-birds were thereby hidden.
Mrs. Bear explained the situation to her cubs.
"Of course, your mother would not have built her nursery here," she
ended, "if she thought those terrible creatures with the wolfish
dogs and the ropes were within miles and miles of the spot. But you
can never tell when they may turn up. They come with their dogs over
endless tracks of snow and ice to find us, and they travel fast. You
must lie as quietly as you can while I am gone. Amuse yourselves in
only the quietest way. Don't call out at all; and go to sleep again,
like good children."
With that Mrs. Bear rose to her hind feet and reached upward along the
snow walls of her house. Then, balancing herself on a ridge of the ice
which was for all the world like a side shelf, she made a ponderous
leap through the opening into broad daylight. For at last it was the
real day, and a glorious glimmer of sunlight behind the fogs showed
that summer was coming.
It was good to breathe the free air, and Mrs. Bear shook herself
violently to straighten out the creases of her heavy coat. She would
have liked to roar, loud and long, but she was trained by experience
never to speak in a fog.
"You can't tell who's hearing you," her own mother used to say.
So she only trundled her mighty bulk downward across the ice and
snow, to its very edge, where it suddenly broke off and formed an
embankment. Below this there was a narrow beach, or what appeared to
be one--a strip of confused and tumbled blocks of ice and jagged rocks.
There was a sudden whizzing of wings above her head, and the wailing
cries of a hundred little gulls and the many crowds of birds that were
hurrying to eat of whale fat. Mrs. Bear broke off in their direction;
and soon the sound of snarling voices, the yelps of the quarrelsome
foxes, and the vicious bark of the wolves met her ears. Yes, she
was none too early, for evidently the assemblage of animals, all as
famished as herself, were fighting over the repast.
They were not so polite to Mrs. Bear as they might have been, for
they begrudged her any share of the whale's body. But she paid little
attention to any one, and went to work lustily on her first meal of the
season.
After the first mouthfuls, however, she felt wonderfully good-humored;
for such is the effect of a meal, and it is pleasant to stop and talk a
bit when you know there is more to follow.
"I must thank you, Mr. Burgomaster," was her first remark. "You were
kind to call me in time. This is a good beginning to the summer."
The white-winged gull, largest of all the birds that were present, and
by far the best mannered, only begged Mrs. Bear to remember that they
had been friends for many years.
"And I propose to name my children," Mrs. Bear announced, as this
delicious dinner began to increase her fine spirits, "I propose to name
the babies after you and your wife: _Odin_ and _Olga_. That's what they
shall be."
Mr. Burgomaster was at a loss how to express his gratitude for this
compliment. But he needed to say little, for such a generous tribute is
not repaid in words.
Something he said later on, however, in which he quoted Dr. Penguin,
brought forth her assent on the subject of eating too much, for she
added, "True, true, it is not wise to overeat at your first meal of the
year. A relative of mine did that once, and was unable to climb over
the path to his door."
So, taking as goodly an amount of provender with her as she could
carry away, Mrs. Bear went home to feed her babies. They were far more
interested in this new and appetizing breakfast than in the names which
she gave them, you may be sure; and from then until the whale was used
up and only his bones were left to dry in the winds, Mrs. Bear was
continually carrying meals to her cave.
By this time the winter was gone, and the roof of the snowhouse fell
in. The melting drifts drenched every ledge and cranny of their home,
and it was time to be wandering.
"You must do exactly as I tell you," Mrs. Bear kept saying, "and you
must never stray from me a minute. For we are going to start on our
journey, and there will be a great many dangers to guard against."
When little Odin and Olga trotted along beside their mother, with the
whole world before them, and a keen appetite with them, they were as
alert and excited as any two bears in the world could be.
The great rolling, blue water, the ice that floated on its surface
and shone like white ivory in the sun, the patches of green grass on
the sides of the hills, and the rocks black with snow water, made a
dazzling scene.
Their long day began with a wonderful feat on the part of Mother Bear.
After they had swum to a low, wide ice floe, which was a little way
from shore, and Odin and Olga were just learning to use the hairy pads
of their feet in climbing the sides of the small iceberg, Mrs. Bear
gave a sudden plunge into the water, and disappeared from view. She
swam far out, her nose barely coming to the surface, and the rest of
her body entirely concealed. Then, rising to the surface, she brought
back with her a huge fish which she had stunned with a blow of her
mighty paw.
"It's all in the way you slide into the water," she said; and then, as
they ate greedily of this morsel, she told them of diving for sea-lions
and of capturing them by coming up from under the prey.
"You will swim under water great distances, as soon as you learn to
hunt," she said, "and you will learn to make no noise about it."
This was the truth, as not only the seals and the sea-lions, but plenty
of the great fish, could bear witness.
But, as events of the day were to turn, little Odin and Olga were near
to never growing up at all; for the very danger which their mother most
dreaded was speedily approaching. While they were playing first on the
ice cakes and then on the shore, and Mrs. Bear had about made up her
mind that they would stay that night at a point not far distant, where
she saw many sea-birds fluttering, and where, she reasoned, the fishing
and seal hunting might be good, the hunters with their trained dogs
were fast approaching the very spot.
For your Eskimos have their own way of reading the signs; and as many
birds had been flocking in this direction, the men had steadily pursued
the trail. Day after day they had traveled, and they felt sure that
they were coming upon at least a herd of seals or of walruses. And they
hoped, of course, to bag a great white bear.
But Odin's mother had assured herself that there was no danger, or it
would have been revealed during the time that the whale had attracted
such crowds of her brother animals. She did not perceive that her
enemies knew exactly how prone the well-fed bear is to linger near the
spot of her recent feedings.
"That is just the place to spend the night, out there," she said; "for
on those points that reach out into the sea, you can escape by land or
by water, as you have to. Remember that, too, children."
Little Olga stopped to rub her head at this. She was trying to remember
so many things! Mrs. Bear told her it was nothing, and that learning
things was the whole of life anyway.
When Mrs. Bear and her twins reached the icy point, there were the
friendly Penguins to meet them and to exclaim over the children. They
were having a fine visit when suddenly a dull roar far below them on
the shore made every one sit up and listen.
It came again and lasted longer. It was a new sound to the children,
but Mrs. Bear recognized it.
"That's an iceberg breaking up," she said at last. "Not a pleasing
sound, but one you'll soon get used to."
Night came and they curled up, all three, in a snug corner under the
ice shelves of the point. The wind was high and the sea was noisy, but
they were too well tucked away to care.
And they little dreamed of what was going on around them.
For scarcely had the sun gone down, when the Eskimos with their teams
of wolfish dogs were on the spot. Little by little they had crept to
the end of the point, and one by one they stationed themselves at
intervals to wait, like so many sentinels, for the morning.
Mrs. Bear would never reach the water alive; and escape back to the
mainland was impossible. There were enough dogs and men on hand to
cover the avenues of escape.
Before little Odin and Olga were awake sufficiently to see anything at
all, Mrs. Bear had faced her first ambushed enemies. From where the
cubs cowered in their corner, they saw their mother rear on her hind
legs and then drop with a terrible force, hitting the dogs right and
left as she landed among them. There were thunderous noises, and her
own mighty roars were almost drowned by the snarling of the dogs and
the shouting of the men, who were fast closing in. She was bleeding
already and several of the dogs were lying dead around her.
Mrs. Bear stood truly at bay. One man, more courageous than the rest,
came running up with his pointed spear, ready to take aim. A terrific
noise arrested him--a noise in which all else was nothing. The land
seemed to reel and topple; the great ice shelves came crashing down.
Men and dogs ran for their lives; and to save themselves they plunged
bodily into the sea. For the whole point of ice had broken from the
mainland and, like a ship that is rocking and righting itself, it was
sending up mighty waves and eddies on every side.
The motions were less gigantic after a while, and the new iceberg had
found itself. Already it was moving forward, and the wind was driving
it foot by foot into the outgoing tide.
Mrs. Bear knew precisely what to do. Twice in her life she had traveled
on ice floes, though never on so large a one as this.
"Here we are, and here we stay," she said. "By and by we'll come to
islands, or so close to shore that we can swim back to land. It will be
a long time before we are carried out beyond this gulf, and we're sure
to escape before then."
She was a little too cheerful, perhaps, for some of her own kin had
gone that way so far into the great southerly current that they were
never seen again. But Mrs. Bear was one of those happy beings who
always look for the best, not the worst; and she was too joyous over
this sudden deliverance to heed any new perplexity.
Long weeks afterward, when Mother Bear's wounds were healed, and
Odin and Olga had indeed learned how to live by diving and hunting
under water, they came to a narrow bay where the land was green on
both sides. The distance from their iceberg was but little; and they
plunged in, while Mr. Burgomaster circled over them excitedly. He was a
wonderful mariner, Mr. Burgomaster, and, being such a good friend, he
had flown back and forth over land and sea, following them on their
icy ship.
"You'll know where you are, Mrs. Bear, when this fog lifts," he said.
"You will find that you have come to a beautiful shore where there are
berries and all kinds of refreshing things that bears like. It was a
good day that the iceberg started you on your trip."
"All things, Mr. Burgomaster," said wonderful Mother Bear, as she
crawled out of the water and shook her shaggy fur, "all things happen
for the best!"
THE END
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Forest Friends" ***
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