farm told me about it. It lies open and flat on the floor of a
grain-bin,--the very one you and I gnawed into last night,--and there is
a lovely piece of cheese in the middle of it. The Rat who told me about
it says that as soon as one touches the cheese, the trap springs shut on
him."
"Bah!" exclaimed the young Rat who had just eaten breakfast in the
Pig-pen. "Let it stay there! We don't have to touch it, although I do
mean to look at it some time. I believe in knowing about things."
"I wish you wouldn't look at it," said his cousin, who was very fond of
him.
"The Rat from the other farm says it is very dangerous to even look at
traps, especially if your stomach is empty."
"Then the Rat from the other farm might better keep away," said this
young fellow, as he put one paw up to see that his whiskers were all
right. "I don't think very much of him anyway. He thinks he knows
everything because he has travelled. I wish you would have nothing to do
with him. I dare say you were in the grain-bin with him when you saw the
trap."
"Yes," said she, "I was."
"Well," said he, "you both got away safely, and I shall too. I may not
be very clever, but I think I do know enough to keep out of a trap."
Then he turned into his hole and went to sleep. He had been running
around all night, and was very tired. He was cross, too. This was the
second time that his cousin had told him what the Rat from the other
farm had said, and he thought she liked him altogether too well.
When he awakened, it was night again and he was aroused by the stamping
of the Dappled Gray on the floor above his head. For a minute he could
hardly think where he was. Then it all came to him. He was in his own
cozy little hole under the barn, and it was night. He remembered
something about the Yellow Kitten. What was it? Oh yes, she had begun
hunting. Well, he was not afraid of her yet. But there was something
else--the trap! He wondered if his cousin were in that bin again. As
like as not her friend, the Rat from the other farm, was showing her the
trap now. He would go up there himself, and at once, too.
He ran up the wall, through an opening, and across the barn floor to the
grain-bin. It was a moonlight night and the barn was not very dark. The
cover of the bin was raised. Perhaps the farmer's man had forgotten to
close it. Perhaps there was so little grain left in it that the man
didn't care to. At any rate, he could now see the trap quite plainly.
There was nobody else in the bin, and he went close to it.
"I would not touch it for anything," said he, as he entered the bin,
"but it will not hurt me to look at it."
When he went nearer, he was very careful to see that his tail did not
even brush against the chain which held the trap down. "So that is the
terrible, dangerous trap?" said he. "It doesn't look particularly
dreadful. That is fine-smelling cheese though." He sniffed two or three
times. "I have tasted cheese only once in my whole life," said he, "and
I am almost starved now. I wouldn't mind a nibble at that." He looked at
it and thought about it until it seemed to him he could not go away and
leave that cheese there.
Then he thought, "If I am very careful to step over these shining steel
things and rest my feet only on the floor, it cannot spring the trap.
Then I will snatch the cheese and jump.... I am pretty sure I can do
it.... Why, yes, I know I can." So the Rat who had come just to look at
the trap, began to lift first one foot and then another over the shining
curved bars, and got all ready to catch up the cheese and run.
"Now!" he cried. "One, two, three!" He did snatch it and jump, but the
trap jumped, too, in its own trappy way, and the Rat who got the cheese
left the three tip rings of his tail to pay for it. "Ouch!" he cried.
"My tail! My tail! My beautiful, long, bony tail, all covered with
scales and short hair!" He did not care at all for the cheese now. He
did not want to see it, for he would rather have had the point on his
tail again than to eat a whole binful of cheese.
"How it will look!" said he. "So stumpy and blunt. And it has been so
very useful always. I could wind it around a stick to hold myself up
when my paws were full, and many a time I have rolled eggs across the
floor by curling it around them." Then he heard Rat voices and scampered
out and down to his own hole.
His cousin and the Rat from the other farm came into the bin. "Don't
look at the trap," he was saying, "but just eat your grain from the
farther corner."
"I won't," she answered, and she half closed her eyes to keep from
seeing it. He was beside her and they stumbled over the cheese, which
now lay on the floor away from the trap. "How does this happen?" said
he. "We will eat it first and then find out." By this advice he showed
that he was a Rat of excellent sense.
When they had eaten it, they began to look toward the trap. As there was
no longer any cheese in it to tempt them, they felt perfectly safe in
doing so. They found that it had been sprung, and there lay the last
three rings of some Rat's tail.
"How dreadful!" she exclaimed. "I hope that was not lost by any of our
friends."
"Hum-hum!" said the Rat from the other farm. "Now, whom have I seen
wearing that? I have certainly seen that tail before--it was your
cousin!"
"Poor fellow!" said she. "I must go to see him."
"Oh, don't go now," cried the Rat from the other farm. "I think he might
want to be alone for a while. Besides," he added coaxingly, "you haven't
tasted of the grain yet, and it is very good."
"W-well," answered she, "perhaps my cousin would just as soon not have
me come now." So she waited, and the Rat from the other farm told her
wonderful stories of his travels, and they had a very fine supper.
When her cousin began to run around again, he was a much sadder and
wiser Rat. Sometimes the younger Rats would ask him how he lost the tip
of his tail. "By not turning it toward a tempting danger," he would
answer, very solemnly. Then, after he had told them the story, he always
added, "The time to turn your tail toward a tempting danger is the
minute you see it, for if you wait and look and long for something you
ought not to take, there is sure to be trouble, and many a Rat has lost
more than the tip of his tail in just that way."
THE QUICK-TEMPERED TURKEY GOBBLER
There was only one Gobbler on the farm, and he was so used to having his
own way that he never tried to make the best of it when he couldn't, and
sometimes he became exceedingly cross. He was bigger than the Cocks, the
Hens, the Geese, and the Ducks, so when they were in his way and he
gobbled a gruff "Move along," they murmured "Oh, certainly," and
scampered away as fast as their legs would carry them. The Peacock was
larger than the Turkey Gobbler, it is true, but as long as he could sit
on a fence in the sunshine and have somebody admiring his train, he did
not care anything about the Gobbler, and they did not get in each
other's way.
There were seven Hen Turkeys, timid, sweet-tempered people, who were
fond of walking. They had never been known to answer back when the
Gobbler scolded them, although at times he was very unreasonable. This
was polite of them, but it made the Gobbler more careless than ever of
the way in which he spoke. The Black Spanish Hen said it made her
wattles tingle to hear him find fault with them. She wouldn't have stood
it--no, indeed!
When the Black Spanish Cock heard her say so, he shook his feathers and
smiled a queer little smile, and said, "I certainly know that she would
not." The other fowls looked at each other, and the Shanghai Cock winked
his round little eyes at the Dorking Hen, and she had to oil a feather
on the under side of her wing just then, so, of course, nobody saw her
laugh--if she did laugh.
The Black Spanish fowls were kind-hearted and honest, and had fine
manners, but they would not stand it to be spoken to hastily by any one
who was not very much bigger than they, and it was said that the Cock
had once--only once--but then, perhaps it would be just as well not to
tell what the other fowls had heard about their family quarrel, for,
after all, it did not come very straight, the Pigs having told the
Geese, and the Geese telling the Ducks, and the Ducks just mentioning it
to the Peacock, and the Peacock having spoken of it to the Dorking Hen.
It was now late in the fall, and all the Turkeys went walking together
again. One would think that, after being separated from the rest all
summer and part of the spring, the Gobbler would have been very polite
when he joined them, but no; he was more quick-tempered than ever. He
was not fond of young Turkeys, and their constant chattering annoyed
him. "Can't you find some way to keep those children quiet?" he would
say, and made such a fuss that the Hen Turkeys called them aside and
tried to amuse them for a while.
Hen Turkeys are most loving mothers, and in the early spring first one
and then another had stolen away to lay and hatch her eggs. If a Hen
Turkey wanted a chance to lay an egg at this season, she watched the
Gobbler and left the flock when his back was turned. As she came near
her nest, she would stop and look around to make sure he did not see
where it was. She knew that the Gobbler did not like to have her raise
young Turkeys, and that if he could find the nest, he would break every
egg in it. After she had laid her egg, she would wander back in a
careless way, quite as though she had only been to the watering-trough
for a drink.
Once the Hen Turkeys had talked about this when the Gobbler could not
hear. "It doesn't seem right not to tell him," the youngest had said.
"Well, my dear," said another, "it is the only way we can do, if we want
to save our eggs and raise our children. Gobblers always act in that
way."
"Are you sure?" said the young Hen Turkey.
"Sure!" was the answer. "You wouldn't be here to-day if your mother
hadn't done as we do."
So the youngest Hen Turkey had changed her mind and hidden her eggs like
the rest, for, in spite of aching legs and all that is hard in hatching
eggs, Hen Turkeys always want to raise broods in the springtime. When
one of them had laid as many eggs as she wanted to hatch, she began
sitting on them, and would not walk with the flock at all. One by one
the Hen Turkeys had done this until the Gobbler was left quite alone. He
did not like it at all, and wanted more than ever to find and break the
eggs. When the Turkey Chicks were hatched, their mothers kept them out
of the Gobbler's way, because, you know, he did not like small children
and it was better that they should not meet.
The Hen Turkeys were very sorry for him, and often wished that he might
watch with them the growth of their piping darlings, to see the tiny
feathers push their way through the down and broaden and lengthen until
there was no down to be seen--only feathers. It was too bad; yet that
was the way in all Turkey families, and the Gobblers couldn't help
disliking the children any more than the Hen Turkeys could help wanting
to sit in the springtime.
By another year the Gobbler would love the young Turkeys dearly. Even
now he did not try to strike them, as he might have done a while before.
They were afraid of him, yet down in their hearts the brothers all
thought that when they were grown up they wanted to be just like him
and strut around with their wings trailing, their tails spread, their
necks drawn back, and their feathers ruffled. Then, they thought, when
other people came near them, they would puff and gobble and cry, "Get
out of my way!" They tried it once in a while to see how it would seem,
but they were still slender and their voices were not yet deep enough.
The sisters laughed at them when they did this, and that made them feel
very uncomfortable. The long, limp red wattles that grew out between
their eyes became redder and redder as they swung to and fro under their
short, thick bills.
"Just wait," said one young fellow to another. "Just you wait until I am
really grown up and strut before your sister next spring. I don't think
she will laugh at me then." And he comforted himself by eating fully
twice as much grain as he should have done.
The farmer's little girl came into the farmyard, and all the fowls
stopped eating to look at her. She was so young that she had never
before been out there alone. Her father had brought her in his arms, and
she had laughed with delight and clapped her little hands when the
farmyard people passed by her. Now she had slipped out of the house and
stood in the sunshine smiling at every one. She came without a cap, and
the wind blew her soft yellow curls around her rosy face. It fluttered
her red dress, too, and the Gobbler saw it and became exceedingly angry.
"Red-red-red!" he cried. "Why in the world did she wear red? I hate it!"
He stalked toward her in his most disagreeable way, and you could tell
by the stiff brushing of his wing-tips on the ground that he was very
angry. "Get away from here!" he cried. "This is my home and little girls
can't wear red dresses when they visit me. Pffff! Get away!"
The little girl turned to run as the big Gobbler came puffing toward
her. In her fright she stumbled and fell, and he hurried forward to
strike her. The Black Spanish Cock began to ruffle his neck feathers and
stretch his head forward. He did not mean to have their visitor treated
so. He ran between the Gobbler's feet and they tumbled over together.
The little girl picked herself up and hurried into the house.
If the Gobbler was angry before, he was much more so after his fall.
"What do you mean, sir," he said, "by tripping me?"
"And what do you mean," said the Black Spanish Cock, "by knocking me
over?"
"Pffff! You were under my feet."
"Erruuuu! You were over my head."
Now nobody had dared to disagree with the Gobbler in so long that he did
not know what to make of it, and when the Shanghai Cock strolled over
to help his friend, the Gobbler was fairly sputtering with rage. "Ah,
Gobbler," said the Shanghai, "wonder what has become of the little girl?
It was nice of her to come out here, and I wish she had stayed longer."
[Illustration: THE BIG GOBBLER CAME PUFFING TOWARD HER.]
"I told her to get away," was the answer. "She had on a red dress. I
chased her. I always have chased anybody who wore red, and I always
shall. It's my way."
"Is it your way, too, to be cross whenever you feel like it?"
"Of course. I wouldn't be cross when I didn't feel like it," answered
the Gobbler.
"Some of us are not cross when we do feel like it," said the Dorking
Cock. "I am always happier for keeping my temper when I can."
"Pffff!" said the Gobbler. "That is not my way. I say right out what I
think, and then I am all right again and forget all about it."
"Humph!" said the Bantam Hen. "I wonder if the other people forget as
soon? It would do him more good to remember it and feel sorry. He needs
a lesson." Then she stalked up to him, looking as brave as you please,
although she was really quite frightened. "I never noticed it before,"
she cackled, "but the tuft of hairy feathers on your breast is
dreadfully ragged. And what very ugly looking feet you have! If I were
going to have any webs between my toes I should want good big ones like
those of the Ducks and Geese, not snippy little halfway webs like yours.
I hope you don't mind my speaking of it. I always say what I think. It's
just my way, and I never remember it afterward." She gave a graceful
flutter and a queer little squawk, and was off before the Gobbler got
over his surprise.
Fowls do enjoy a joke, and now the Dorking Cock took his turn. "I've
always wanted to know how you spread your tail in that fashion. It's a
good time to see." He walked up beside the Gobbler and pecked and pulled
until three feathers lay on the ground. "Ah," said the Dorking Cock, "I
see I loosened some of your tail feathers. I hope you don't mind. It is
just my way, when I want to know about anything, to find out as soon as
I can."
And so one fowl after another teased and troubled the Gobbler, and
explained afterward that "it was just their way." Then they laughed at
him and ran off.
It would be nice if one could say that the Gobbler never again lost his
temper, but he did, a great many times, for he should have begun to
master it when he was a Chick. But one can tell truly that he never
again excused his crossness by saying that "it was only his way." The
youngest Duckling in the poultry-yard had always known that this was no
excuse at all, and that if people have disagreeable habits which make
others unhappy, it is something of which they should be much ashamed.
THE BRAGGING PEACOCK
The farmyard people will never forget the coming of the Peacock; or
rather they will never forget the first day that he spent with them. He
came in the evening after all the fowls had gone to roost, and their
four-legged friends were dozing comfortably in meadow and pasture
corners, so nobody saw him until the next morning.
You can imagine how surprised they were when a beautiful great fowl of
greenish-blue strutted across the yard, holding his head well in the air
and dragging his splendid train behind him. The fowls were just starting
out for their daily walks, and they stopped and held one foot in the
air, and stared and stared and stared. They did not mean to be rude,
but they were so very much surprised that they did not think what they
were doing. Most of them thought they were asleep and dreaming, and the
dream was such a beautiful one that they did not want to move and break
it off. They had never seen a Peacock and did not even know that there
was such a fowl.
A Lamb by the pasture fence called to his mother. "Ba-baa!" cried he.
"One of the cloud-birds is walking in the farmyard." He was thinking of
the night of the storm, when all the Sheep and Lambs huddled together in
the meadow and watched the clouds, and thought that they were birds and
dropped shining worms from their beaks.
Then the Peacock, who understood the Sheep language perfectly, said,
"Paon! I am no cloud-bird. I am a Peacock." He said this in a very
haughty way, as though to be a Peacock were the grandest thing in the
world, far better than having one's home in the sky and bringing showers
to refresh the thirsty earth-people.
The Turkey Gobbler never could stand it to have others speak in that way
when he was around, so he thought he would show the newcomer how
important he was. He drew up his neck and puffed out his chest; he
pulled his skin muscles by thinking about them, and that made his
feathers stand on end; next he dropped his wings until their tips
touched the ground; then he slowly spread his tail. "Pffff!" said he. "I
am no Peacock. I am a Turkey Gobbler."
The Hen Turkeys looked at each other with much pride. They were a little
afraid of him themselves, but they liked to have him show the newcomer
that Turkeys are important people. Their children looked at each other
and murmured, "Isn't the Gobbler fine though? Guess the Peacock will
wish now that he hadn't put on airs."
But the Peacock did not seem to feel at all sorry. He stood and looked
at them all without saying a word, and they all wondered what he was
thinking. Then a Duckling who stood near him exclaimed, "Look at his
train! Oh, look at his train!" Everybody looked and saw all those
beautiful long feathers rising into the air. Up and up they went, and
spreading as they rose, until there was a wonderful great circle of them
back of his body and reaching far above his head. The Gobbler's spread
tail looked as small beside this as a Dove's egg would beside that of a
Goose.
"Paon!" said the Peacock. "I am no Turkey Gobbler. I am a Peacock."
"Pffff!" said the Gobbler. Then he turned to the Hen Turkeys. "My
dears," he said, "I think it is time that we walked along. The children
should not be allowed to see and speak with any stray fowl that comes
along. We cannot be too particular about that." Then he stalked off,
with the meek Hen Turkeys following and the children lagging behind.
They did so want to stay and see the Peacock, and they thought the
Ducklings and Goslings were much luckier than they.
The Geese were delighted with the newcomer, and hoped he would be quite
friendly with them. They wished he were a swimmer, but of course they
could tell with one look that he was not. He did not have the trim,
boat-shaped body that swimmers have, and then, his feet were not webbed.
The Gander noticed that they were remarkably homely feet. He thought he
would remember this and speak of it to the Geese some time when they
were praising the Peacock's train.
The Drake was the first to speak politely to the Peacock. "We are glad
to meet you, sir," he said. "Will you be with us long?"
"Thank you," answered the Peacock. "I have come to stay."
"We hope you will like it here. I'm sorry to see you do not swim. We
should be very glad of your company if you did. You will excuse us if we
go on to the brook. We are late already." He and all of his family
waddled away to the water. "A fine-looking fellow," said he heartily.
"Even my cousins, the Mallard Ducks, have not such a beautiful sheen on
their neck feathers." The Drake was a kind, warm-hearted fellow, and it
never troubled him to know that other people were handsomer than he.
The Geese were eager to reach the water, too, but they could not leave
without asking one question. First they told the Gander to ask it, but
he replied that if they wanted to know, they should ask it for
themselves. Then they hung back and said to each other, "You ask him. I
can't." At last the Gray Goose stepped forward, saying, "Excuse us,
sir. You said that you were to stay with us, and we wish to know if you
work for your living."
"I work!" cried he. "Paon! Never. The farmer invited me here to be
beautiful, that is all."
"We are so glad," cackled the Geese, and the Gander joined with them.
"So many of the people here work. They are very good, but not at all
genteel, you understand."
"And don't you do anything?" asked the Peacock. "I thought Geese grew
feathers for beds and pillows. It seems to me you look rather ragged.
Haven't you been plucked?"
This was very embarrassing to the Geese. "Why, yes," they said, "we do
let the farmer's wife have some feathers once in a while, when the
weather is warm, but that is very different from really working, you
know."
"Perhaps," said the Peacock. "If they want any of my feathers, they can
wait until I moult. Then you will see how much they think of me, for
whenever they find one of my train feathers (not tail, if you please;
every bird has a tail, but I have a train) they carry it carefully into
the house to be made into a duster for the parlor. I never give away any
but my cast-off plumage. I am so very, very beautiful that I do not have
to work."
This impressed the Geese very much. "We are glad to know you. Quite
honored, we assure you!"
The Peacock bowed his crested head, and they bowed their uncrested and
very silly ones, and then they went to the river. The Peacock thought
them most agreeable, because they admired him, and they thought him the
best sort of acquaintance, because he didn't work. It was all very
foolish, but there are always foolish people in the world, you know, and
it is much better to be amused by it and a little sorry for them, than
for us to lose our tempers and become cross about it. That was the way
the Shanghais, Black Spanish, Dorking, and Bantam fowls felt. They were
polite enough to the newcomer, but they did not run after him. The
Chickens used to laugh when the Peacock uttered his cry of "Paon! Paon!"
His voice was harsh and disagreeable, and it did seem so funny to hear
such dreadful sounds coming from such a lovely throat.
The Black Spanish Cock reproved the Chickens sharply for this. "It is
very rude," said he, "to laugh at people for things they cannot help.
How would you like to have a Lamb follow you around and bleat, 'Look at
that Chicken! He has only two legs! Hello, little two-legs; how can you
walk?' It is just as bad for you to laugh at his harsh voice, because he
cannot help it. If he should say foolish and silly things, you might
laugh, because he could help that if he tried. Don't ever again let me
hear you laughing when he is just saying 'Paon.'"
The Chickens minded the Black Spanish Cock, for they knew he was right
and that he did not do rude things himself. They remembered everything
he said, too.
One day the Peacock was standing on the fence alone. He did this most of
the time. He usually stood with his back to the farmyard, so that people
who passed could see his train but not his feet. A party of young fowls
of all families came along. Their mothers had let them go off by
themselves, and they stopped to look at the Peacock.
"I do think you have the most beautiful tail, sir," said a Duckling,
giving her own little pointed one a sideways shake as she spoke.
"Please call it my train," said the Peacock. "It is beautiful and I am
very proud of it. Not every fowl can grow such a train as that."