Forest friends

Front matter

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Contents

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I Mrs. Elephant’s Moonlight Dance . . i

II Old Lady Wildcat’s Feast 7

II Old Lady Wildcat’s Feast

S ister 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 ‘Xook 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

OLD LADY WILDCAT’S FEAST 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! Hal 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.

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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 :

OLD LADY WILDCAT’S FEAST

“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!”

Ill

A lso, 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.

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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.

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 i8 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 thiner 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. Moonl’ 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 VERY little squirrel, who was but a month old, was looking out across an

1 jL 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

MR. MOCKING-BIRD 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 railfence 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 shoulderblades.

“Mr. Mocking-bird,” he began, “is a great artist. That’s why he can say what he thinks and do

MR. MOCKING-BIRD 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

MR. MOCKING-BIRD up, tie me up, and she fell off the branch with fright. One redbird, and the tanagcr, 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 of! 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.

^‘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

‘‘‘Listen, Listen, Listen,’ Said the Mocking-im rd”

I 'age ’S f

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MR. 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 doorstep. 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.

An3rway, he had learned what he wanted to know, and that is the best of learning.

V

I T 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 30 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.