Transcribed from the 1897 T. Nelson and Sons edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofed by Rab Hughes, Carrie A. Fellman and
Susan A. Wheeler.
[Picture: Book cover]
QUEER
LITTLE FOLKS
_By_
_HARRIET BEECHER STOWE_
* * * * *
* * * * *
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
* * * * *
* * * * *
London:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1897
* * * * *
Contents.
Hen that Hatched Ducks 11
The Nutcrackers of Nutcracker Lodge 29
The History of Tip-Top 43
Miss Katy-Did and Miss Cricket 61
Mother Magpie’s Mischief 70
The Squirrels that live in a House 80
Hum, the Son of Buz 93
Our Country Neighbours 106
The Diverting History of Little Whiskey 117
List of Illustrations.
The Brood Hatched 19
Feeding the Fame Robin 59
Erecting the Hen-House 15
The Hen that Hatched Ducks 25
Enemies in Waiting 39
The Nest in the Apple-Tree 47
Tip-Top in bad Company 57
Venturous Squirrels 89
_HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS_.
A STORY.
ONCE there was a nice young hen that we will call Mrs. Feathertop. She
was a hen of most excellent family, being a direct descendant of the
Bolton Grays, and as pretty a young fowl as you could wish to see of a
summer’s day. She was, moreover, as fortunately situated in life as it
was possible for a hen to be. She was bought by young Master Fred Little
John, with four or five family connections of hers, and a lively young
cock, who was held to be as brisk a scratcher and as capable a head of a
family as any half-dozen sensible hens could desire.
I can’t say that at first Mrs. Feathertop was a very sensible hen. She
was very pretty and lively, to be sure, and a great favourite with Master
Bolton Gray Cock, on account of her bright eyes, her finely shaded
feathers, and certain saucy dashing ways that she had which seemed
greatly to take his fancy. But old Mrs. Scratchard, living in the
neighbouring yard, assured all the neighbourhood that Gray Cock was a
fool for thinking so much of that flighty young thing; _that_ she had not
the smallest notion how to get on in life, and thought of nothing in the
world but her own pretty feathers. “Wait till she comes to have
chickens,” said Mrs. Scratchard; “then you will see. I have brought up
ten broods myself—as likely and respectable chickens as ever were a
blessing to society—and I think I ought to know a good hatcher and
brooder when I see her; and I know _that_ fine piece of trumpery, with
her white feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family life.
_She_ scratch for chickens! Bless me, she never did anything in all her
days but run round and eat the worms which somebody else scratched up for
her.”
When Master Bolton Gray heard this he crowed very loudly, like a cock of
spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious, because she
had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn-out old
feather-duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was filled
with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty. So young Mrs.
Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy neighbour, as she
sunned herself under the bushes on fine June afternoons.
Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have these hens by his
mamma on the condition that he would build their house himself, and take
all the care of it; and to do Master Fred justice, he executed the job in
a small way quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered with
a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little hen-house with
two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for his family to roost
on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes with hay in them for
nests, and he bought three or four little smooth white china eggs to put
in them, so that, when his hens _did_ lay, he might carry off their eggs
without their being missed. This hen-house stood in a little grove that
sloped down to a wide river, just where there was a little cove which
reached almost to the hen-house.
[Picture: Erecting the Hen-House]
This situation inspired one of Master Fred’s boy advisers with a new
scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise. “Hallo! I say, Fred,”
said Tom Seymour, “you ought to raise ducks; you’ve got a capital place
for ducks there.”
“Yes; but I’ve bought _hens_, you see,” said Freddy; “so it’s no use
trying.”
“No use! Of course there is. Just as if your hens couldn’t hatch ducks’
eggs. Now you just wait till one of your hens wants to sit, and you put
ducks’ eggs under her, and you’ll have a family of ducks in a twinkling.
You can buy ducks’ eggs a plenty of old Sam under the hill. He always
has hens hatch his ducks.”
So Freddy thought it would be a good experiment, and informed his mother
the next morning that he intended to furnish the ducks for the next
Christmas dinner and when she wondered how he was to come by them, he
said mysteriously, “Oh, I will show you how,” but did not further explain
himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour and made a trade with old
Sam, and gave him a middle-aged jack-knife for eight of his ducks’ eggs.
Sam, by-the-by, was a woolly-headed old negro man, who lived by the pond
hard by, and who had long cast envying eyes on Fred’s jack-knife, because
it was of extra fine steel, having been a Christmas present the year
before. But Fred knew very well there were any number more of
jack-knives where that came from, and that, in order to get a new one, he
must dispose of the old; so he made the purchase and came home rejoicing.
Now about this time Mrs. Feathertop, having laid her eggs daily with
great credit to herself, notwithstanding Mrs. Scratchard’s predictions,
began to find herself suddenly attacked with nervous symptoms. She lost
her gay spirits, grew dumpish and morose, stuck up her feathers in a
bristling way, and pecked at her neighbours if they did so much as look
at her. Master Gray Cock was greatly concerned, and went to old Dr.
Peppercorn, who looked solemn, and recommended an infusion of
angle-worms, and said he would look in on the patient twice a day till
she was better.
“Gracious me, Gray Cock!” said old Goody Kertarkut, who had been lolling
at the corner as he passed, “ain’t you a fool?—cocks always are fools.
Don’t you know what’s the matter with your wife? She wants to sit,
that’s all; and you just let her sit. A fiddlestick for Dr. Peppercorn!
Why, any good old hen that has brought up a family knows more than a
doctor about such things. You just go home and tell her to sit if she
wants to, and behave herself.”
When Gray Cock came home, he found that Master Freddy had been before
him, and had established Mrs. Feathertop upon eight nice eggs, where she
was sitting in gloomy grandeur. He tried to make a little affable
conversation with her, and to relate his interview with the doctor and
Goody Kertarkut; but she was morose and sullen, and only pecked at him
now and then in a very sharp, unpleasant way. So after a few more
efforts to make himself agreeable he left her, and went out promenading
with the captivating Mrs. Red Comb, a charming young Spanish widow, who
had just been imported into the neighbouring yard.
“Bless my soul,” said he, “you’ve no idea how cross my wife is.”
“O you horrid creature!” said Mrs. Red Comb. “How little you feel for
the weaknesses of us poor hens!”
“On my word, ma’am,” said Gray Cock, “you do me injustice. But when a
hen gives way to temper, ma’am, and no longer meets her husband with a
smile—when she even pecks at him whom she is bound to honour and obey—”
“Horrid monster! talking of obedience! I should say, sir, you came
straight from Turkey.” And Mrs. Red Comb tossed her head with a most
bewitching air, and pretended to run away; and old Mrs. Scratchard looked
out of her coop and called to Goody Kertarkut,—
“Look how Mr. Gray Cock is flirting with that widow. I always knew she
was a baggage.”
“And his poor wife left at home alone,” said Goody Kertarkut. “It’s the
way with ’em all!”
“Yes, yes,” said Dame Scratchard, “she’ll know what real life is now, and
she won’t go about holding her head so high, and looking down on her
practical neighbours that have raised families.”
“Poor thing! what’ll she do with a family?” said Goody Kertarkut.
“Well, what business have such young flirts to get married?” said Dame
Scratchard. “I don’t expect she’ll raise a single chick; and there’s
Gray Cock flirting about, fine as ever. Folks didn’t do so when I was
young. I’m sure my husband knew what treatment a sitting hen ought to
have,—poor old Long Spur! he never minded a peck or so and then. I must
say these modern fowls ain’t what fowls used to be.”
Meanwhile the sun rose and set, and Master Fred was almost the only
friend and associate of poor little Mrs. Feathertop, whom he fed daily
with meal and water, and only interrupted her sad reflections by pulling
her up occasionally to see how the eggs were coming on.
At last “Peep, peep, peep,” began to be heard in the nest, and one little
downy head after another poked forth from under the feathers, surveying
the world with round, bright, winking eyes; and gradually the brood were
hatched, and Mrs. Feathertop arose, a proud and happy mother, with all
the bustling, scratching, care-taking instincts of family-life warm
within her breast. She clucked and scratched, and cuddled the little
downy bits of things as handily and discreetly as a seven-year-old hen
could have done, exciting thereby the wonder of the community.
[Picture: The Brood Hatched]
Master Gray Cock came home in high spirits, and complimented her; told
her she was looking charmingly once more, and said, “Very well, very
nice,” as he surveyed the young brood. So that Mrs. Feathertop began to
feel the world going well with her, when suddenly in came Dame Scratchard
and Goody Kertarkut to make a morning call.
“Let’s see the chicks,” said Dame Scratchard.
“Goodness me,” said Goody Kertarkut, “what a likeness to their dear
papa!”
“Well, but bless me, what’s the matter with their bills?” said Dame
Scratchard. “Why, my dear, these chicks are deformed! I’m sorry for
you, my dear; but it’s all the result of your inexperience. You ought to
have eaten pebble-stones with your meal when you were sitting. Don’t you
see, Dame Kertarkut, what bills they have? That’ll increase, and they’ll
be frightful!”
“What shall I do?” said Mrs. Feathertop, now greatly alarmed.
“Nothing, as I know of,” said Dame Scratchard, “since you didn’t come to
me before you sat. I could have told you all about it. Maybe it won’t
kill ’em, but they’ll always be deformed.”
And so the gossips departed, leaving a sting under the pin-feathers of
the poor little hen mamma, who began to see that her darlings had curious
little spoon-bills, different from her own, and to worry and fret about
it.
“My dear,” she said to her spouse, “do get Dr. Peppercorn to come in and
look at their bills, and see if anything can be done.”
Dr. Peppercorn came in, and put on a monstrous pair of spectacles, and
said, “Hum! ha! extraordinary case; very singular.”
“Did you ever see anything like it, doctor?” said both parents in a
breath.
“I’ve read of such cases. It’s a calcareous enlargement of the vascular
bony tissue, threatening ossification,” said the doctor.
“Oh, dreadful! Can it be possible?” shrieked both parents. “Can
anything be done?”
“Well, I should recommend a daily lotion made of mosquitoes’ horns and
bicarbonate of frogs’ toes, together with a powder, to be taken morning
and night, of muriate of fleas. One thing you must be careful about:
they must never wet their feet, nor drink any water.”
“Dear me, doctor, I don’t know what I _shall_ do, for they seem to have a
particular fancy for getting into water.”
“Yes, a morbid tendency often found in these cases of bony tumification
of the vascular tissue of the mouth; but you must resist it, ma’am, as
their life depends upon it.” And with that Dr. Peppercorn glared
gloomily on the young ducks, who were stealthily poking the objectionable
little spoon-bills out from under their mother’s feathers.
After this poor Mrs. Feathertop led a weary life of it; for the young fry
were as healthy and enterprising a brood of young ducks as ever carried
saucepans on the end of their noses, and they most utterly set themselves
against the doctor’s prescriptions, murmured at the muriate of fleas and
the bicarbonate of frogs’ toes, and took every opportunity to waddle
their little ways down to the mud and water which was in their near
vicinity. So their bills grew larger and larger, as did the rest of
their bodies, and family government grew weaker and weaker.
“You’ll wear me out, children, you certainly will,” said poor Mrs.
Feathertop.
“You’ll go to destruction, do ye hear?” said Master Gray Cock.
“Did you ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?” said
Dame Scratchard. “I knew what would come of _her_ family—all deformed,
and with a dreadful sort of madness which makes them love to shovel mud
with those shocking spoon-bills of theirs.”
“It’s a kind of idiocy,” said Goody Kertarkut. “Poor things! they can’t
be kept from the water, nor made to take powders, and so they get worse
and worse.”
“I understand it’s affecting their feet so that they can’t walk, and a
dreadful sort of net is growing between their toes. What a shocking
visitation!”
“She brought it on herself,” said Dame Scratchard. “Why didn’t she come
to me before she sat? She was always an upstart, self-conceited thing;
but I’m sure I pity her.”
Meanwhile the young ducks throve apace. Their necks grew glossy, like
changeable green and gold satin, and though they would not take the
doctor’s medicine, and would waddle in the mud and water—for which they
always felt themselves to be very naughty ducks—yet they grew quite
vigorous and hearty. At last one day the whole little tribe waddled off
down to the bank of the river. It was a beautiful day, and the river was
dancing and dimpling and winking as the little breezes shook the trees
that hung over it.
“Well,” said the biggest of the little ducks, “in spite of Dr.
Peppercorn, I can’t help longing for the water. I don’t believe it is
going to hurt me; at any rate, here goes,” and in he plumped, and in went
every duck after him, and they threw out their great brown feet as
cleverly as if they had taken swimming lessons all their lives, and
sailed off on the river, away, away among the ferns, under the pink
azaleas, through reeds and rushes, and arrow-heads and pickerel-weed, the
happiest ducks that ever were born; and soon they were quite out of
sight.
“Well, Mrs. Feathertop, this is a dispensation!” said Mrs. Scratchard.
“Your children are all drowned at last, just as I knew they’d be. The
old music-teacher, Master Bullfrog, that lives down in Water-Dock Lane,
saw ’em all plump madly into the water together this morning. That’s
what comes of not knowing how to bring up a family!”
Mrs. Feathertop gave only one shriek and fainted dead away, and was
carried home on a cabbage-leaf; and Mr. Gray Cock was sent for, where he
was waiting on Mrs. Red Comb through the squash-vines.
“It’s a serious time in your family, sir,” said Goody Kertarkut, “and you
ought to be at home supporting your wife. Send for Dr. Peppercorn
without delay.”
Now as the case was a very dreadful one, Dr. Peppercorn called a council
from the barn-yard of the squire, two miles off, and a brisk young Dr.
Partlett appeared, in a fine suit of brown and gold, with tail-feathers
like meteors. A fine young fellow he was, lately from Paris, with all
the modern scientific improvements fresh in his head.
When he had listened to the whole story, he clapped his spur into the
ground, and leaning back laughed so loudly that all the cocks in the
neighbourhood crowed.
Mrs. Feathertop rose up out of her swoon, and Mr. Gray Cock was greatly
enraged.
“What do you mean, sir, by such behaviour in the house of mourning?”
“My dear sir, pardon me; but there is no occasion for mourning. My dear
madam, let me congratulate you. There is no harm done. The simple
matter is, dear madam, you have been under a hallucination all along.
The neighbourhood and my learned friend the doctor have all made a
mistake in thinking that these children of yours were hens at all. They
are ducks, ma’am, evidently ducks, and very finely-formed ducks I
daresay.”
[Picture: The Hen that Hatched Ducks]
At this moment a quack was heard, and at a distance the whole tribe were
seen coming waddling home, their feathers gleaming in green and gold, and
they themselves in high good spirits.
“Such a splendid day as we have had!” they all cried in a breath. “And
we know now how to get our own living; we can take care of ourselves in
future, so you need have no further trouble with us.”
“Madam,” said the doctor, making a bow with an air which displayed his
tail-feathers to advantage, “let me congratulate you on the charming
family you have raised. A finer brood of young, healthy ducks I never
saw. Give me your claw, my dear friend,” he said, addressing the eldest
son. “In our barn-yard no family is more respected than that of the
ducks.”
And so Madam Feathertop came off glorious at last. And when after this
the ducks used to go swimming up and down the river like so many nabobs
among the admiring hens, Dr. Peppercorn used to look after them and say,
“Ah, I had the care of their infancy!” and Mr. Gray Cock and his wife
used to say, “It was our system of education did that!”
_THE NUTCRACKERS OF NUTCRACKER LODGE_.
MR. and Mrs. Nutcracker were as respectable a pair of squirrels as ever
wore gray brushes over their backs. They were animals of a settled and
serious turn of mind, not disposed to run after vanities and novelties,
but filling their station in life with prudence and sobriety. Nutcracker
Lodge was a hole in a sturdy old chestnut overhanging a shady dell, and
was held to be as respectably kept an establishment as there was in the
whole forest. Even Miss Jenny Wren, the greatest gossip of the
neighbourhood, never found anything to criticise in its arrangements; and
old Parson Too-whit, a venerable owl who inhabited a branch somewhat more
exalted, as became his profession, was in the habit of saving himself
much trouble in his parochial exhortations by telling his parishioners in
short to “look at the Nutcrackers” if they wanted to see what it was to
live a virtuous life. Everything had gone on prosperously with them, and
they had reared many successive families of young Nutcrackers, who went
forth to assume their places in the forest of life, and to reflect credit
on their bringing up,—so that naturally enough they began to have a very
easy way of considering themselves models of wisdom.
But at last it came along, in the course of events, that they had a son
named Featherhead, who was destined to bring them a great deal of
anxiety. Nobody knows what the reason is, but the fact was, that Master
Featherhead was as different from all the former children of this worthy
couple as if he had been dropped out of the moon into their nest, instead
of coming into it in the general way. Young Featherhead was a squirrel
of good parts and a lively disposition, but he was sulky and contrary and
unreasonable, and always finding matter of complaint in everything his
respectable papa and mamma did. Instead of assisting in the cares of a
family,—picking up nuts and learning other lessons proper to a young
squirrel,—he seemed to settle himself from his earliest years into a sort
of lofty contempt for the Nutcrackers, for Nutcracker Lodge, and for all
the good old ways and institutions of the domestic hole, which he
declared to be stupid and unreasonable, and entirely behind the times.
To be sure, he was always on hand at meal-times, and played a very lively
tooth on the nuts which his mother had collected, always selecting the
very best for himself; but he seasoned his nibbling with so much
grumbling and discontent, and so many severe remarks, as to give the
impression that he considered himself a peculiarly ill-used squirrel in
having to “eat their old grub,” as he very unceremoniously called it.
Papa Nutcracker, on these occasions, was often fiercely indignant, and
poor little Mamma Nutcracker would shed tears, and beg her darling to be
a little more reasonable; but the young gentleman seemed always to
consider himself as the injured party.
Now nobody could tell why or wherefore Master Featherhead looked upon
himself as injured or aggrieved, since he was living in a good hole, with
plenty to eat, and without the least care or labour of his own; but he
seemed rather to value himself upon being gloomy and dissatisfied. While
his parents and brothers and sisters were cheerfully racing up and down
the branches, busy in their domestic toils, and laying up stores for the
winter, Featherhead sat gloomily apart, declaring himself weary of
existence, and feeling himself at liberty to quarrel with everybody and
everything about him. Nobody understood him, he said;—he was a squirrel
of a peculiar nature, and needed peculiar treatment, and nobody treated
him in a way that did not grate on the finer nerves of his feelings. He
had higher notions of existence than could be bounded by that old rotten
hole in a hollow tree; he had thoughts that soared far above the
miserable, petty details of every-day life, and he could not and would
not bring down these soaring aspirations to the contemptible toil of
laying up a few chestnuts or hickory-nuts for winter.
“Depend upon it, my dear,” said Mrs. Nutcracker solemnly, “that fellow
must be a genius.”
“Fiddlestick on his genius!” said old Mr. Nutcracker; “what does he
_do_?”
“Oh, nothing, of course; that’s one of the first marks of genius.
Geniuses, you know, never can come down to common life.”
“He eats enough for any two,” remarked old Nutcracker, “and he never
helps to gather nuts.”
“My dear, ask Parson Too-whit. He has conversed with him, and quite
agrees with me that he says very uncommon things for a squirrel of his
age; he has such fine feelings,—so much above those of the common crowd.”
“Fine feelings be hanged!” said old Nutcracker. “When a fellow eats all
the nuts that his mother gives him, and then grumbles at her, I don’t
believe much in his fine feelings. Why don’t he set himself about
something? I’m going to tell my fine young gentleman that, if he doesn’t
behave himself, I’ll tumble him out of the nest, neck and crop, and see
if hunger won’t do something towards bringing down his fine airs.”
But then Mrs. Nutcracker fell on her husband’s neck with both paws, and
wept, and besought him so piteously to have patience with her darling,
that old Nutcracker, who was himself a soft-hearted old squirrel, was
prevailed upon to put up with the airs and graces of his young scapegrace
a little longer; and secretly in his silly old heart he revolved the
question whether possibly it might not be that a great genius was
actually to come of his household.
The Nutcrackers belonged to the old-established race of the Grays, but
they were sociable, friendly people, and kept on the best of terms with
all branches of the Nutcracker family. The Chipmunks of Chipmunk Hollow
were a very lively, cheerful, sociable race, and on the very best of
terms with the Nutcracker Grays. Young Tip Chipmunk, the oldest son, was
in all respects a perfect contrast to Master Featherhead. He was always
lively and cheerful, and so very alert in providing for the family, that
old Mr. and Mrs. Chipmunk had very little care, but could sit sociably at
the door of their hole and chat with neighbours, quite sure that Tip
would bring everything out right for them, and have plenty laid up for
winter.
Now Featherhead took it upon him, for some reason or other, to look down
upon Tip Chipmunk, and on every occasion to disparage him in the social
circle, as a very common kind of squirrel, with whom it would be best not
to associate too freely.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Nutcracker one day, when he was expressing these
ideas, “it seems to me that you are too hard on poor Tip; he is a most
excellent son and brother, and I wish you would be civil to him.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that Tip is _good_ enough,” said Featherhead
carelessly; “but then he is so very common! he hasn’t an idea in his
skull above his nuts and his hole. He is good-natured enough, to be
sure,—these very ordinary people often are good-natured,—but he wants
manner; he has really no manner at all; and as to the deeper feelings,
Tip hasn’t the remotest idea of them. I mean always to be civil to Tip
when he comes in my way, but I think the less we see of that sort of
people the better; and I hope, mother, you won’t invite the Chipmunks at
Christmas,—these family dinners are such a bore!”
“But, my dear, your father thinks a great deal of the Chipmunks; and it
is an old family custom to have all the relatives here at Christmas.”
“And an awful bore it is! Why must people of refinement and elevation be
forever tied down because of some distant relationship? Now there are
our cousins the High-Flyers,—if we could get them, there would be some
sense in it. Young Whisk rather promised me for Christmas; but it’s
seldom now you can get a flying squirrel to show himself in our parts,
and if we are intimate with the Chipmunks it isn’t to be expected.”
“Confound him for a puppy!” said old Nutcracker, when his wife repeated
these sayings to him. “Featherhead is a fool. Common, forsooth! I wish
good, industrious, painstaking sons like Tip Chipmunk _were_ common. For
my part, I find these uncommon people the most tiresome. They are not
content with letting us carry the whole load, but they sit on it, and
scold at us while we carry them.”
But old Mr. Nutcracker, like many other good old gentlemen squirrels,
found that Christmas dinners and other things were apt to go as his wife
said, and his wife was apt to go as young Featherhead said; and so, when
Christmas came, the Chipmunks were not invited, for the first time in
many years. The Chipmunks, however, took all pleasantly, and accepted
poor old Mrs. Nutcracker’s awkward apologies with the best possible
grace; and young Tip looked in on Christmas morning with the compliments
of the season and a few beech-nuts, which he had secured as a great
dainty. The fact was, that Tip’s little striped fur coat was so filled
up and overflowing with cheerful good-will to all, that he never could be
made to understand that any of his relations could want to cut him; and
therefore Featherhead looked down on him with contempt, and said he had
no tact, and couldn’t see when he was not wanted.
It was wonderful to see how, by means of persisting in remarks like
these, young Featherhead at last got all his family to look up to him as
something uncommon. Though he added nothing to the family, and required
more to be done for him than all the others put together,—though he
showed not the smallest real perseverance or ability in anything
useful,—yet somehow all his brothers and sisters, and his poor foolish
old mother, got into a way of regarding him as something wonderful, and
delighting in his sharp sayings as if they had been the wisest things in
the world.
But at last old papa declared that it was time for Featherhead to settle
himself to some business in life, roundly declaring that he could not
always have him as a hanger-on in the paternal hole.
“What are you going to do, my boy?” said Tip Chipmunk to him one day.
“We are driving now a thriving trade in hickory-nuts, and if you would
like to join us—”
“Thank you,” said Featherhead; “but I confess I have no fancy for
anything so slow as the hickory trade; I never was made to grub and delve
in that way.”
The fact was that Featherhead had lately been forming alliances such as
no reputable squirrel should even think of. He had more than once been
seen going out evenings with the Rats of Rat Hollow,—a race whose
reputation for honesty was more than doubtful. The fact was, further,
that old Longtooth Rat, an old sharper and money-lender, had long had his
eye on Featherhead as just about silly enough for their
purposes,—engaging him in what he called a speculation, but which was
neither more nor less than downright stealing.
Near by the chestnut-tree where Nutcracker Lodge was situated was a large
barn filled with corn and grain, besides many bushels of hazel-nuts,
chestnuts, and walnuts. Now old Longtooth proposed to young Featherhead
that he should nibble a passage into this loft, and there establish
himself in the commission business, passing the nuts and corn to him as
he wanted them. Old Longtooth knew what he was about in the proposal,
for he had heard talk of a brisk Scotch terrier that was about to be
bought to keep the rats from the grain; but you may be sure he kept his
knowledge to himself, so that Featherhead was none the wiser for it.
“The nonsense of fellows like Tip Chipmunk!” said Featherhead to his
admiring brothers and sisters—“the perfectly stupid nonsense! There he
goes, delving and poking, picking up a nut here and a grain there, when
_I_ step into property at once.”
“But I hope, my son, you are careful to be honest in your dealings,” said
old Nutcracker, who was a very moral squirrel.
With that, young Featherhead threw his tail saucily over one shoulder,
winked knowingly at his brothers, and said, “Certainly, sir! If honesty
consists in getting what you can while it is going, I mean to be honest.”
Very soon Featherhead appeared to his admiring companions in the height
of prosperity. He had a splendid hole in the midst of a heap of
chestnuts, and he literally seemed to be rolling in wealth; he never came
home without showering lavish gifts on his mother and sisters; he wore
his tail over his back with a buckish air, and patronized Tip Chipmunk
with a gracious nod whenever he met him, and thought that the world was
going well with him.
But one luckless day, as Featherhead was lolling in his hole, up came two
boys with the friskiest, wiriest Scotch terrier you ever saw. His eyes
blazed like torches, and poor Featherhead’s heart died within him as he
heard the boys say, “Now we’ll see if we can’t catch the rascal that eats
our grain.”
[Picture: Enemies in waiting]
Featherhead tried to slink out at the hole he had gnawed to come in by,
but found it stopped.
“Oh, you are there, are you, mister?” said the boy. “Well, you don’t get
out; and now for a chase!”
And, sure enough, poor Featherhead ran distracted with terror up and
down, through the bundles of hay, between barrels, and over casks, but
with the barking terrier ever at his heels, and the boys running,
shouting, and cheering his pursuer on. He was glad at last to escape
through a crack, though he left half of his fine brush behind him; for
Master Wasp the terrier made a snap at it just as he was going, and
cleaned all the hair off of it, so that it was bare as a rat’s tail.
Poor Featherhead limped off, bruised and beaten and bedraggled, with the
boys and dog still after him; and they would have caught him, after all,
if Tip Chipmunk’s hole had not stood hospitably open to receive him. Tip
took him in, like a good-natured fellow as he was, and took the best of
care of him; but the glory of Featherhead’s tail had departed for ever.
He had sprained his left paw, and got a chronic rheumatism, and the
fright and fatigue which he had gone through had broken up his
constitution, so that he never again could be what he had been; but, Tip
gave him a situation as under-clerk in his establishment, and from that
time he was a sadder and a wiser squirrel than he ever had been before.
_THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP_.
UNDER the window of a certain pretty little cottage there grew a great
old apple-tree, which in the spring had thousands and thousands of lovely
pink blossoms on it, and in the autumn had about half as many bright red
apples as it had blossoms in the spring.
The nursery of this cottage was a little bower of a room, papered with
mossy-green paper, and curtained with white muslin; and here five little
children used to come, in their white nightgowns, to be dressed and have
their hair brushed and curled every morning.
First, there were Alice and Mary, bright-eyed, laughing little girls, of
seven and eight years; and then came stout little Jamie, and Charlie; and
finally little Puss, whose real name was Ellen, but who was called Puss,
and Pussy, and Birdie, and Toddlie, and any other pet name that came to
mind.
Now it used to happen, every morning, that the five little heads would be
peeping out of the window, together, into the flowery boughs of the
apple-tree; and the reason was this. A pair of robins had built a very
pretty, smooth-lined nest in a fork of the limb that came directly under
the window, and the building of this nest had been superintended, day by
day, by the five pairs of bright eyes of these five children. The robins
at first had been rather shy of this inspection; but as they got better
acquainted, they seemed to think no more of the little curly heads in the
window than of the pink blossoms about them, or the daisies and
buttercups at the foot of the tree.
All the little hands were forward to help; some threw out flossy bits of
cotton,—for which, we grieve to say, Charlie had cut a hole in the crib
quilt,—and some threw out bits of thread and yarn, and Allie ravelled out
a considerable piece from one of her garters, which she threw out as a
contribution; and they exulted in seeing the skill with which the little
builders wove everything in. “Little birds, little birds,” they would
say, “you shall be kept warm, for we have given you cotton out of our
crib quilt, and yarn out of our stockings.” Nay, so far did this
generosity proceed, that Charlie cut a flossy, golden curl from Toddlie’s
head and threw it out; and when the birds caught it up the whole flock
laughed to see Toddlie’s golden hair figuring in a bird’s-nest.
When the little thing was finished, it was so neat, and trim, and
workman-like, that the children all exulted over it, and called it “our
nest,” and the two robins they called “our birds.” But wonderful was the
joy when the little eyes, opening one morning, saw in the nest a
beautiful pale-green egg; and the joy grew from day to day, for every day
there came another egg, and so on till there were five little eggs; and
then the oldest girl, Alice, said, “There are five eggs: that makes one
for each of us, and each of us will have a little bird by-and-by;”—at
which all the children laughed and jumped for glee.
When the five little eggs were all laid, the mother-bird began to sit on
them; and at any time of day or night, when a little head peeped out of
the nursery window, might be seen a round, bright, patient pair of bird’s
eyes contentedly waiting for the young birds to come. It seemed a long
time for the children to wait; but every day they put some bread and cake
from their luncheon on the window-sill, so that the birds might have
something to eat; but still there she was, patiently sitting!
[Picture: The Nest in the Apple-Tree]
“How long, long, long she waits!” said Jamie impatiently. “I don’t
believe she’s ever going to hatch.”
“Oh, yes she is!” said grave little Alice. “Jamie, you don’t understand
about these things; it takes a long, long time to hatch eggs. Old Sam
says his hens sit three weeks;—only think, almost a month!”
Three weeks looked a long time to the five bright pairs of little
watching eyes; but Jamie said the eggs were so much smaller than hens’
eggs that it wouldn’t take so long to hatch them, he knew. Jamie always
thought he knew all about everything, and was so sure of it that he
rather took the lead among the children. But one morning, when they
pushed their five heads out of the window, the round, patient little
bird-eyes were gone, and there seemed to be nothing in the nest but a
bunch of something hairy.
Upon this they all cried out, “O mamma, _do_ come here! the bird is gone
and left her nest?” And when they cried out, they saw five wide little
red mouths open in the nest, and saw that the hairy bunch of stuff was
indeed the first of five little birds.
“They are dreadful-looking things,” said Mary; “I didn’t know that little
birds began by looking so badly.”
“They seem to be all mouth,” said Jamie.
“We must feed them,” said Charlie.—“Here, little birds, here’s some
gingerbread for you,” he said; and he threw a bit of his gingerbread,
which fortunately only hit the nest on the outside, and fell down among
the buttercups, where two crickets made a meal of it, and agreed that it
was as excellent gingerbread as if old Mother Cricket herself had made
it.
“Take care, Charlie,” said his mamma; “we do not know enough to feed
young birds. We must leave that to their papa and mamma, who probably
started out bright and early in the morning to get breakfast for them.”
Sure enough, while they were speaking, back came Mr. and Mrs. Robin,
whirring through the green shadows of the apple tree; and thereupon all
the five little red mouths flew open, and the birds put something into
each.
It was great amusement, after this, to watch the daily feeding of the
little birds, and to observe how, when not feeding them, the mother sat
brooding on the nest, warming them under her soft wings, while the
father-bird sat on the topmost bough of the apple-tree and sang to them.
In time they grew and grew, and, instead of a nest full of little red
mouths, there was a nest full of little, fat, speckled robins, with
round, bright, cunning eyes, just like their parents; and the children
began to talk together about their birds.
“I’m going to give my robin a name,” said Mary. “I call him Brown-Eyes.”
“And I call mine Tip-Top,” said Jamie, “because I know he’ll be a tip-top
bird.”
“And I call mine Singer,” said Alice.
“I ’all mine Toddy,” said little Toddlie, who would not be behindhand in
anything that was going on.
“Hurrah for Toddlie!” said Charlie; “hers is the best of all. For my
part, I call mine Speckle.”
So then the birds were all made separate characters by having each a
separate name given it.
Brown-Eyes, Tip-Top, Singer, Toddy, and Speckle made, as they grew
bigger, a very crowded nestful of birds.
Now the children had early been taught to say in a little hymn:—
“Birds in their little nests agree;
And ’tis a shameful sight
When children of one family
Fall out, and chide, and fight;”—
and they thought anything really written and printed in a hymn must be
true; therefore they were very much astonished to see, from day to day,
that _their_ little birds in their nest did _not_ agree.
Tip-Top was the biggest and strongest bird, and he was always shuffling
and crowding the others, and clamouring for the most food; and when Mrs.
Robin came in with a nice bit of anything, Tip-Top’s red mouth opened so
wide, and he was so noisy, that one would think the nest was all his.
His mother used to correct him for these gluttonous ways, and sometimes
made him wait till all the rest were helped before she gave him a
mouthful; but he generally revenged himself in her absence by crowding
the others and making the nest generally uncomfortable. Speckle,
however, was a bird of spirit, and he used to peck at Tip-Top; so they
would sometimes have a regular sparring-match across poor Brown-Eyes, who
was a meek, tender little fellow, and would sit winking and blinking in
fear while his big brothers quarrelled. As to Toddy and Singer, they
turned out to be sister birds, and showed quite a feminine talent for
chattering; they used to scold their badly behaving brothers in a way
that made the nest quite lively.
On the whole Mr. and Mrs. Robin did not find their family circle the
peaceable place the poet represents.
“I say,” said Tip-Top one day to them, “this old nest is a dull, mean,
crowded hole, and it’s quite time some of us were out of it. Just give
us lessons in flying, won’t you? and let us go.”
“My dear boy,” said Mother Robin, “we shall teach you to fly as soon as
your wings are strong enough.”
“You are a very little bird,” said his father, “and ought to be good and
obedient, and wait patiently till your wing-feathers grow; and then you
can soar away to some purpose.”
“Wait for my wing-feathers? Humbug!” Tip-Top would say, as he sat
balancing with his little short tail on the edge of the nest, and looking
down through the grass and clover-heads below, and up into the blue
clouds above. “Father and mother are slow old birds; they keep a fellow
back with their confounded notions. If they don’t hurry up, I’ll take
matters into my own claws, and be off some day before they know it. Look
at those swallows, skimming and diving through the blue air! That’s the
way I want to do.”
“But, dear brother, the way to learn to do that is to be good and
obedient while we are little, and wait till our parents think it best for
us to begin.”
“Shut up your preaching,” said Tip-Top; “what do you girls know of
flying?”
“About as much as you,” said Speckle. “However, I’m sure I don’t care
how soon you take yourself off, for you take up more room than all the
rest put together.”
“You mind yourself, Master Speckle, or you’ll get something you don’t
like,” said Tip-Top, still strutting in a very cavalier way on the edge
of the nest, and sticking up his little short tail quite valiantly.
“O my darlings,” said their mamma, now fluttering home, “cannot I ever
teach you to live in love?”
“It’s all Tip-Top’s fault,” screamed the other birds in a flutter.
“My fault? Of course, everything in this nest that goes wrong is laid to
me,” said Tip-Top; “and I’ll leave it to anybody, now, if I crowd
anybody. I’ve been sitting outside, on the very edge of the nest, and
there’s Speckle has got my place.”
“Who wants your place?” said Speckle. “I’m sure you can come in, if you
please.”
“My dear boy,” said the mother, “do go into the nest and be a good little
bird, and then you will be happy.”
“That’s always the talk,” said Tip-Top. “I’m too big for the nest, and I
want to see the world. It’s full of beautiful things, I know. Now
there’s the most lovely creature, with bright eyes, that comes under the
tree every day, and wants me to come down in the grass and play with
her.”
“My son, my son, beware!” said the frightened mother; “that
lovely-seeming creature is our dreadful enemy, the cat,—a horrid monster,
with teeth and claws.”
At this, all the little birds shuddered and cuddled deeper in the nest;
only Tip-Top in his heart disbelieved it. “I’m too old a bird,” said he
to himself, “to believe _that_ story; mother is chaffing me. But I’ll
show her that I can take care of myself.”
So the next morning, after the father and mother were gone, Tip-Top got
on the edge of the nest again, and looked over and saw lovely Miss Pussy
washing her face among the daisies under the tree, and her hair was sleek
and white as the daisies, and her eyes were yellow and beautiful to
behold, and she looked up to the tree bewitchingly, and said, “Little
birds, little birds, come down; Pussy wants to play with you.”
“Only look at her!” said Tip-Top; “her eyes are like gold.”
“No, don’t look,” said Singer and Speckle. “She will bewitch you, and
then eat you up.”
“I’d like to see her try to eat me up,” said Tip-Top, again balancing his
short tail over the nest. “Just as if she would. She’s just the nicest,
most innocent creature going, and only wants us to have fun. We never do
have any fun in this old nest!”
Then the yellow eyes below shot a bewildering light into Tip-Top’s eyes,
and a voice sounded sweet as silver: “Little birds, little birds, come
down; Pussy wants to play with you.”
“Her paws are as white as velvet,” said Tip-Top, “and so soft! I don’t
believe she has any claws.”
“Don’t go, brother, don’t!” screamed both sisters.
All we know about it is, that a moment after a direful scream was heard
from the nursery window. “O mamma, mamma, do come here! Tip-Top’s
fallen out of the nest, and the cat has got him!”
Away ran Pussy with foolish little Tip-Top in her mouth, and he squeaked
dolefully when he felt her sharp teeth. Wicked Miss Pussy had no mind to
eat him at once; she meant just as she said, to “play with him.” So she
ran off to a private place among the currant-bushes, while all the little
curly heads were scattered up and down looking for her.
Did you ever see a cat play with a bird or a mouse? She sets it down,
and seems to go off and leave it; but the moment it makes the first
movement to get away,—pounce! she springs on it, and shakes it in her
mouth; and so she teases and tantalizes it, till she gets ready to kill
and eat it. I can’t say why she does it, except that it is a cat’s
nature; and it is a very bad nature for foolish young robins to get
acquainted with.
“Oh, where is he? where is he? Do find my poor Tip-Top,” said Jamie,
crying as loud as he could scream. “I’ll kill that horrid cat,—I’ll kill
her!”
[Picture: Tip-Top in bad Company]
Mr. and Mrs. Robin, who had come home meantime, joined their plaintive
chirping to the general confusion; and Mrs. Robin’s bright eyes soon
discovered her poor little son, where Pussy was patting and rolling him
from one paw to the other under the currant-bushes; and settling on the
bush above, she called the little folks to the spot by her cries.
Jamie plunged under the bush, and caught the cat with luckless Tip-Top in
her mouth; and, with one or two good thumps, he obliged her to let him
go. Tip-Top was not dead, but in a sadly draggled and torn state. Some
of his feathers were torn out, and one of his wings was broken, and hung
down in a melancholy way.
“Oh, what _shall_ we do for him? He will die. Poor Tip-Top!” said the
children.
“Let’s put him back into the nest, children,” said mamma. “His mother
will know best what to do with him.”
So a ladder was got, and papa climbed up and put poor Tip-Top safely into
the nest. The cat had shaken all the nonsense well out of him; he was a
dreadfully humbled young robin.
The time came at last when all the other birds in the nest learned to
fly, and fluttered and flew about everywhere; but poor melancholy Tip-Top
was still confined to the nest with a broken wing. Finally, _as_ it
became evident that it would be long before he could fly, Jamie took him
out of the nest, and made a nice little cage for him, and used to feed
him every day, and he would hop about and seem tolerably contented; but
it was evident that he would be a lame-winged robin all his days.
[Picture: Feeding the lame Robin]
Jamie’s mother told him that Tip-Top’s history was an allegory.
“I don’t know what you mean, mamma,” said Jamie.
“When something in a bird’s life is like something in a boy’s life, or
when a story is similar in its meaning to reality, we call it an
allegory. Little boys, when they are about half grown up, sometimes do
just as Tip-Top did. They are in a great hurry to get away from home
into the great world; and then temptation comes, with bright eyes and
smooth velvet paws, and promises them fun; and they go to bad places;
they get to smoking, and then to drinking; and, finally, the bad habit
gets them in its teeth and claws, and plays with them as a cat does with
a mouse. They try to reform, just as your robin tried to get away from
the cat; but their bad habits pounce on them and drag them back. And so,
when the time comes that they want to begin life, they are miserable,
broken-down creatures, like your broken-winged robin.
“So, Jamie, remember, and don’t try to be a man before your time, and let
your parents judge for you while you are young; and never believe in any
soft white Pussy, with golden eyes, that comes and wants to tempt you to
come down and play with her. If a big boy offers to teach you to smoke a
cigar, that is Pussy. If a boy wants you to go into a billiard-saloon,
that is Pussy. If a boy wants you to learn to drink anything with spirit
in it, however sweetened and disguised, remember Pussy is there. And
Pussy’s claws are long, and Pussy’s teeth are strong; and if she gives
you one shake in your youth, you will be like a broken-winged robin all
your days.”
_MISS KATY-DID AND MISS CRICKET_.
MISS KATY-DID sat on the branch of a flowering azalea, in her best suit
of fine green and silver, with wings of point-lace from Mother Nature’s
finest web.