|OF all his feathered friends and neighbors there was none whom Peter
Rabbit enjoyed watching more than he did Sooty the Chimney Swift. There
were two very good reasons why Peter enjoyed watching Sooty. In the
first place Sooty always appeared to be having the very best of good
times, and you know it is always a pleasure to watch any one having a
good time. Ol' Mistah Buzzard, sailing and sailing high in the sky with
only an occasional movement of his great wings, always seemed to be
enjoying himself, and so did Skimmer the Swallow, skimming just above
the tall grass of the Green Meadows or wheeling gracefully high in the
air. But neither these two nor any other bird ever seemed to Peter to be
getting so much real fun out of flying as Sooty the Swift. Just to hear
him shout as he raced with swiftly beating wings and then glided in a
short half circle was enough to make you want to fly yourself, thought
Peter.
The second reason why Peter enjoyed watching Sooty was that he was very
much a bird of mystery, in spite of the fact that Peter saw him every
day through the long summer. You know, we all enjoy anything that is
mysterious. To Peter there was no end of mystery about Sooty the Swift.
He was not like other birds. In the first place he hardly looked like
a bird at all. His tail was so short that it was hardly worth calling a
tail. His neck was so short that his head seemed a part of his body. And
then in all the time he had known him, Peter never had seen Sooty still
for a single instant. Ol' Mistah Buzzard would come down from high up in
the blue, blue sky and sit for hours on a dead tree in the Green Forest
or walk about on the ground. Skimmer the Swallow would sit on the
branch of a tree, or on the very top of Farmer Brown's barn, and twitter
sociably. But Sooty the Swift was always in the air. At least, he always
was whenever Peter saw him.
Sometimes Peter used to wonder if Sooty slept in the air as Ducks sleep
on the water. Of course, he didn't really think that he did, but never
seeing him anywhere but in the air, he was ready to believe almost
anything. Then one evening just at dusk, Peter happened to be over in
the Old Orchard close by Farmer Brown's house, and he saw something
that puzzled him more than ever. He saw Sooty the Swift right above
the chimney on Farmer Brown's house. It seemed to Peter as if something
happened to Sooty. He beat his wings in a queer way, but instead of
flying on, he dropped right straight down, down, down, and disappeared.
He had fallen down that chimney! Peter waited a long time, but Sooty
didn't appear again, and finally Peter went home with the feeling that
he never again would see Sooty.
But he did see him again. He saw him the very next day, flying and
shouting and seemingly having just as good a time as ever. It was then
that Peter's curiosity would no longer be denied. He headed straight for
the Smiling Pool to consult Grandfather Frog.
“He'll know all about Sooty if anybody does,” thought Peter and hurried
as fast as he could, lipperty-lipperty-lip. Grandfather Frog was in
his usual place on his big green lily-pad. One glance told Peter that
Grandfather Frog was in the best of humor, so he wasted no time.
“Grandfather Frog,” cried Peter before he was fairly on the bank of the
Smiling Pool, “I saw something queer last night, and you are the only
one I know of who can tell me what it meant, because you are the only
one I know who knows all about everything.”
Grandfather Frog smiled. It was a great, big, broad smile. It pleased
him to have Peter say that he knew everything. “Chug-a-rum! Not
everything, Peter! I don't know everything. Nobody does,” said he. “But
if I happen to know what you want, to know, I'll be glad to tell you.
Now what is it that is on your mind?”
Peter at once plunged into his story. He told Grandfather Frog how much
he enjoyed watching Sooty fly and how little he knew about Sooty. He
wound up by telling how he had seen Sooty fall down that chimney and how
surprised he had been to see Sooty about the next day as well and happy
as ever. He called Sooty a Swallow, for that is what Peter thought that
Sooty was. He always had thought so.
When Peter had finished, Grandfather Frog chuckled. It was a long, deep
chuckle that seemed to come clear from his toes. When he had enjoyed his
chuckle to his heart's content, he looked up at Peter and blinked his
great goggly eyes.
“What would you say, Peter, if I should tell you that Sooty isn't a
member of the Swallow family at all?” he asked.
“I'd believe you,” replied Peter promptly, “but I never again would dare
guess what family anybody belonged to from his looks.”
“Well, Sooty isn't a Swallow at all,” said Grandfather Frog slowly. “He
is a Swift, which is another family altogether. Furthermore, he didn't
fall down that chimney. No, Sir, he didn't fall down that chimney. He
flew down, and he did it because he lives there. Now listen, and I'll
tell you a story.” Peter needed no second invitation. A story from
Grandfather Frog is always one of Peter's greatest treats, as you know.
“Chug-a-rum!” began Grandfather Frog, as he always does. “When Old
Mother Nature first peopled the Great World, she made each bird a little
different from every other bird, and each animal a little different from
every other animal. Then she turned them loose to make their way the
best they could, and let them alone to test them and see how
each would make the best of his advantages. Mr. Swift, the
great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of Sooty, felt at first as if Old
Mother Nature had forgotten to give him any advantages at all. He was
homely. There wasn't so much as a single bright feather in his whole
coat. He had a tail which might as well have been no tail at all, so far
as he could see. He had tiny feet on which he couldn't walk at all, and
with which it was all he could do to hang on to a twig when he wanted to
rest. But when it came to wings, he wasn't long in discovering that in
these he was blessed beyond most of his neighbors. Those wings certainly
were made for speed. They were long and narrow, and they drove him
through the air faster than his neighbors with broader wings could fly
and with a great deal less effort. He could fly all day without getting
tired, and he never was so happy as when darting about high in the air.
“Of course, it didn't take him long to find out that he could catch all
kinds of flying insects, and so he had no trouble in filling his stomach
while flying, for his mouth was very wide. 'It must be,' thought he,
'that Old Mother Nature expects me to live in the air. I wish I could
sleep while I am flying, but I can't. I never feel comfortable sitting
on a twig.'
“One day he discovered that he could do something that no other bird
could do. By using his wings in a certain way he could drop right
straight down without really falling. He practised this a great deal
just for fun. Then one day as he was flying over a rocky place, he saw
right under him a great hole that went straight down into the ground.
It interested him. He wondered what it was like inside. The more he
wondered, the more he wanted to find out. So one day, after many trials,
he dropped straight down into the hole by means of that new way of
flying he had discovered.
“He didn't go very far down, because it was so dark in there, and he was
beginning to get a wee bit frightened. On his way up he brushed against
the side of the rocky wall and without knowing why, he put out both feet
and clung to it, folding his wings for a minute's rest. Then he found
that by pressing his funny little tail, which ended in sharp spines,
against the wall, he rested more comfortably than ever he had before in
all his short life. He could cling to a rough wall very much easier than
he could sit on a perch. After that he spent his nights in that hole and
was happy.
“A long time later he was far from home when night was coming on, and he
knew that he wouldn't be able to get there before dark. Looking down as
he flew, he saw the hollow trunk of a great tree which had been broken
off by the wind. Why not sleep in that? He circled over it two or three
times and then dropped straight down inside. He liked it. He liked it
better than he did the hole in the rocks. After that he made his home in
a hollow tree.
“In course of time old King Eagle led the birds to a new part of the
Great World which Old Mother Nature had been preparing for them to spend
the summer in. Mr. Swift went with the others. But when he got there,
he could find no hole in the ground and no hollow tree. But he found
something else. He found the queer homes of men and on top of each a
straight, tall thing quite like a hollow tree, only all black inside and
made of what seemed like stone. Having no other place to go, he tried
one of them. The next day he searched for a hollow tree but could find
none, and so returned to that chimney, for that is what it was. So it
was every day. After a little he began to like the chimney. It was easy
to get in and out of. No one ever bothered him there. It was easy to
cling to the wall of it. At last he decided to build a nest there. And
from that day to this, the Swifts have lived in the chimneys on the
houses of men. When you thought you saw Sooty fall, he was simply going
home to spend the night,” concluded Grandfather Frog.
“Thank you,” replied Peter with a long sigh. “It's a funny world, isn't
it, Grandfather Frog? The idea of living in a chimney! The very idea!”