THE FLIGHT OF THE LOON
“Maybe you would like to sing something?” the Great Huge Bear said to
the Donkey. “You do sing so beautifully.”
“With pleasure,” was the response, “if you will despatch one of the
servants for my lute.... And now,”--when the lute was fetched--“what
shall it be?”
“_Sammy Patch_,” whispered Buddie.
“You know I’m tired of that song,” protested the Donkey. Nevertheless
he sang it, and was roundly applauded. Then, to oblige the Great Huge
Bear, he sang _The Land of Nod_, and with such skill that the Bear
dozed off into one of his half-sleeps.
As to the next song, Doctor Fox and Doctor Goose fell into a fresh
wrangle. One wanted _Doctor Foster_ and the other called for _Jack and
Jill_.
“Sing both of them,” giggled the Owl. But this suggestion didn’t help
matters much, as each Doctor demanded that _his_ favorite song be sung
first. At last the Donkey, who had a positive genius for settling
disputes, sang both songs in this fashion:
“Doctor Foster went to Gloucester,
To fetch a pail of water.
He stepped in a puddle up to his middle,
And Jill came tumbling after.
Then Jack and Jill went up a hill
In a shower of rain.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And never went there again.”
“The Loon sings very well,” said the Rabbit, when the Donkey suggested
that somebody else might wish to favor the company. “Sing us that
ballad called _If_, old fellow.”
“I should like to hear it,” said the Donkey, and courteously offered
the use of his lute. But the Loon declined it, saying that he always
sang without music, which, it turned out, was no more than the truth;
for the noise he made could hardly be called music. And besides, as
Buddie said, there wasn’t any sense to the words. However, this was the
Loon’s song:
“If thistles grew on plum-trees,
And plums were wayside flowers,
We’d trudge along together,
And never mind the weather,
If gum-shoes grew on gum-trees,
To pluck in April showers--
If thistles grew on plum-trees,
And plums were wayside flowers.
“If melons grew on hall-trees,
And tall hats on a vine,
No need to go a-roaming
Across the ocean foaming.
If needles grew on all trees,
Who would for Norway pine?--
If melons grew on hall-trees,
And tall hats on a vine.
“If you were wise as could be,
And I an April fool,
You’d mayonnaise a ballad,
While I dashed off a salad,
Composed, as salads should be,
Of things both hot and cool--
If you were wise as could be,
And I an April fool.”
“May I ask,” the Donkey inquired politely, “what method of singing you
use?”
“Great fish! I haven’t any,” replied the Loon. “I just sing.”
“I mean, how do you sing ‘Ah’?”
“I don’t sing ‘Ah.’ I sing ‘Hoo-Wooooo-wooooo!’”
“That is certainly a loony method,” remarked the Donkey.
“It suits me,” returned the other; and he nudged the Owl. “Come,
suppose _you_ give us a song.”
“Oh, la! I haven’t sung for years,” tittered the Owl.
“Nonsense!” Spoke up the rabbit. “I heard you only last week. Give us
_I can not sing the owl songs I sung long years ago_.”
“But if he _can’t_ sing them there’s no sense in his trying,” said the
Donkey. “My ear is so sensitive,” he added, in the ear of the Great
Huge Bear, “that an untrained voice grates on it fearfully.”
“What’s the row?” asked the Great Huge Bear, sleepily. And as nobody
told him he dozed off again.
“Suppose we hear from Just Buddie,” said the Middle Bear. She spoke but
seldom, and always to some purpose.
The suggestion met with entire favor, and again Buddie was much
embarrassed. As before, everybody stopped talking and turned his eyes
upon her. Even the Great Huge Bear, when awakened and informed that
Just Buddie was going to sing, appeared greatly interested.
Now you, Little One, who go to kindergarten and learn so many pretty
songs, will be surprised to hear that Buddie did not know a single
song she could sing “in company.” Music was almost unknown in the log
house by the lake. Indeed, she had heard more songs this very day than
ever she had heard before; but these, even, were so jumbled up in her
mind that, with the possible exception of _Sammy Patch_, she could not
remember two successive lines of any one of them; and even if she
_had_ been able to remember them, they had been sung once, and the
company wanted something new. Suddenly she thought of the Yellow Dog’s
song, _Nobody Knows_. Perhaps they hadn’t heard that.
“I’ll accompany you on the lute, if you wish,” offered the Donkey.
“Have you heard _Nobody Knows_?” Buddie asked. The question was
addressed to the Rabbit particularly.
He nodded brightly.
“Oh, yes,” said he; “but I don’t think the others have heard it.”
“I’m sure I never have,” said the Donkey.
“Nor I,” said the Middle Bear.
“I can’t seem to remember the first line,” said Buddie. “There were so
many verses, and all the lines were so much alike.”
“It begins ‘_We know_--’” prompted the Rabbit.
“I thought the song was called _Nobody Knows_,” the Owl tittered.
[Illustration: HAVE YOU HEARD “NOBODY KNOWS”?]
“Silence!” said the Middle Bear. “Go on, Just Buddie.”
“Well, I’ll try,” she said; and she began:
“We know why a peach is all covered with fuzz,
While a fig is as flat as a floor;
We know why a fire won’t burn when it does,
And why three and seven are four--”
“That doesn’t sound just right,” she said, with an appealing glance at
the Rabbit.
“It sounds all right to me,” said the Middle Bear. “Please continue.”
So Buddie, though still doubtful, went on:
“We know why green peas and potatoes won’t jell,
Why peanuts are relished by crows;
But no one, I’m sure, has been able to tell
Why a rabbit must wabble his nose.”
“I’m _sure_ that isn’t right,” said Buddie. “Anyway, I know how the
Chorus goes.” The Rabbit knew, too, and he joined in:
“WE’VE WHISPERED IT SO YOU COULD HEAR IT FOR MILES;
We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’.”
At this point a curious thing happened. The Loon burst into hysterical
laughter, and, springing into the air, went whizzing round the room in
gradually narrowing circles, wheeling higher with each turn. Buddie
followed him with her eyes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
“He’ll have to stop when he gets to the ceiling,” she thought.
But the ceiling rose with the Loon, and it grew brighter and brighter,
until at last the sky appeared. Up and up wheeled the Loon, until he
became a mere speck in the blue, and disappeared altogether. Then
Buddie looked down--
But the Bear’s house, and the Bears, and the Donkey, and all the
others, had vanished with the Loon, and she was again in Beavertown.
Everything was as she had left it, except that the Laziest Beaver no
longer fanned himself with his tail; he had fallen asleep. But the
Yellow Dog, apparently as fresh as ever, was finishing the Chorus which
Buddie had begun and the Loon had interrupted.
And, as before, there came the peculiar echoes around Buddie’s head;
but this time she kept her eyes fixed on the Yellow Dog.
“Every time I look up,” she thought, “I am carried off to somewhere
else. And I want to stay a little while and talk to Colonel.”
The experiment succeeded beautifully. The echoes floated away, but the
meadow and the little river remained; the Laziest Beaver slept beside
his tumble-down house, and the Yellow Dog began another verse of his
seemingly endless song:
“We know why two birds may be killed with one stone,
While it’s hard to kill one bird with two;
Why a sunshiny shower won’t last half an hour,
Is a cud that is easy to chew;
Why horseshoes are good to keep witches away,
Is too simple by far to propose;
But no one can tell--we must ask of The Well--
Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.
“WE’VE WHISPERED IT SO YOU COULD HEAR IT FOR MILES;
We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;
And Echo replies, with tears in her eyes,
‘Oh-why-does-he-wabble-his-nose?--
Wabble-his-no-o-o-o-ose--
His-no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ose--’”
“I’ll look up just the least little bit,” said Buddie to herself, when
the echoes again came flying around her head. But no sooner did she
raise her eyes than, as before, the sky broke into little patches and
the tree-tops ran together. She looked back quickly--but it was too
late! Just a glimpse of the Laziest Beaver’s tail as the scene shifted,
and she found herself, as she had expressed it, “somewhere else.”