edge of a cliff. He halted and raised his pretty head to look far up
the canyon before him. There, away off against the pine-woods on the
mountain-side, he caught sight of a spot of brown moving toward him.
Nearer and nearer it came, till he saw that it was an animal even
bigger than his mother. It was an old father elk coming down from his
summer retreat in the highest gorges.
In all his short life the baby had never seen such a stately and
beautiful creature. His mother was not nearly so large as this elk, and
she wore no antlers at all. The big brother’s antlers were only short
spikes without any prongs. On strode the newcomer, leaping over fallen
trees and wading through the brooks to join the band. His long black
mane was waving on his neck; his nostrils were quivering; his great
eyes were flashing; his splendid antlers rose, branching high above his
graceful head.
The fine stranger stalked among the others and smelled them, in their
way of getting acquainted. Then he began to feed with them all. The
mother elk and little ones followed meekly when he started to lead the
band down the mountain. He did not pay much attention to the babies.
Sometimes he pushed them out of his way, or drove them hither and
thither, as he pleased. He was a selfish old fellow and never thought
of taking care of the others. Whenever he found a delicious tuft of
juicy grass he hurried to munch it all by himself.
As the frosty days passed by another father elk appeared, and then
another and another. Each one wanted to be leader of the band. Many a
snowy night the baby elk huddled close to his mother as he listened to
the noise of the old father elk roaming through the woods. He could
hear them snuffing the frosty air. They beat the bushes with their
antlers and stamped on the crackling branches underfoot. The snow lay
thick on their bristling manes. Now here in the valley, now there high
on the ridge, the sound of their whistling came pealing down through
the still white woods in the moonlight.
Often and often the baby trembled as he heard the shrill squealing of
two old elk fighting together. Each one was trying to drive the other
away from the band. They rushed together with a crash, and pushed and
strained, with their antlers locked tight. Though the prongs could not
cut through the tough skin of their shoulders, still the weaker one
always had to give way and run. The other chased him off and then came
back, whistling and barking in triumph, to be leader of the band.
In a few weeks the old elk became tired of fighting. The band settled
down to spend a peaceful winter together. Their fur grew long and
thick to keep out the cold. On they travelled mile after mile. They
were looking for a sheltered spot to be their home during the coldest
weather.
The old elk walked so fast that the babies had to gallop to keep from
being left behind. Up hills and down gorges they went crashing through
thickets and over the rocks. They climbed steep cliffs and went leaping
down narrow trails. Even the little ones were sure-footed. They never
stumbled or slipped as they bounded over the dead logs and tangled
vines between the trees.
At last they found a wooded spot where the hills sheltered them from
the bitterest winds. There was grass on the ground. There were plenty
of young trees with twigs and buds and bark for them to eat. A swift
little brook ran over the rocks not far away.
Here in this place the band of elk spent the winter. When the snow fell
deeper they trod it into narrow paths by walking from tree to tree to
feed. These paths led to and fro, criss-crossing, and around in uneven
curves all through the yard, as it may be called. With every storm the
snow beside the paths piled higher and higher, till the baby could not
see over the edges, even when he stretched up his neck.
It must have been a dreary winter for the little fellow. Night after
night he huddled beside his mother to keep warm. Sometimes the stars
sparkled above the white earth, and sometimes the wind sifted the icy
flakes over their brown bodies. Day after day of cold and storm he
walked along the paths from tree to tree. Here he could reach a bunch
of dead leaves, there a cluster of twig-ends, or a mouthful of bark.
The older elk were so much taller than he was that they could reach
the higher branches by standing on their hind-legs and stretching out
their necks. Often he went hungry, for the fodder near the paths was
all eaten before spring. The snow was so deep outside the yard that he
could not touch solid ground with his feet. Sometimes he pawed through
the icy crust, and dug away the snow from over the grass.
Once a pack of wolves came prowling near and tried to drive the elk out
into the deep snow. Though the elk, like all deer, are the fleetest of
mammals, the wolves could run better over the snow, for their broad
paws did not sink in so far as the elk’s slender hoofs. Instead of
running away all the mother elk rushed squealing after the wolves and
tried to stamp them to death. The mother elk were always very brave in
taking care of their little ones. The cowardly old fathers were afraid
to fight anything, now that they had lost their sharp antlers.
Spring came at last, and the snow melted from the hill-tops and then
from the valleys. The first tender grass began to sprout in the
meadows. The elk left their winter home and scattered over the plains
in search of food. The sun shone and the soft winds blew.
The baby elk followed his mother, when she left the others, and started
up toward the mountains. He wandered after her, grazing as he went,
till he lost her in a mountain thicket. While he was looking for her he
heard a rustling of twigs. He peered through the branches, and there he
saw a new little baby elk lying on a bed of leaves. The old mother was
standing over him, and licking his satiny spotted coat with her long
red tongue.
V
THE BEAVER
“THE BEST BUILDER”
THE BEST BUILDER
OUT in the woods rain was pouring down steadily from the black sky. It
beat against the leaves and trickled over the trunks of the trees and
spattered into the pond. Now and then a flash of lightning glimmered
over the water and twinkled in through the hole at the top of the
little round house where the beavers lived.
From the outside this house looked like a heap of old brush-wood on a
tiny island in the middle of the pond. But inside of it there was a
little room, like a cave, with a smooth floor and an arched roof. Along
the sides of this room there were five beds of leaves and grass. On one
of these beds lay three baby beavers fast asleep in the dark.
The other beds were all empty. The big one at the end belonged to the
father beaver. Before the babies were born in May he had gone away for
the summer. He had started off with all the other old fathers in the
beaver village to have a good time in the woods up the brook. They
played and feasted on roots and plants, while the mother beavers stayed
home to take care of the babies.
The other three beds belonged to the mother and to her two older
children. On this rainy summer night they had gone out to eat their
supper under the trees by the pond.
Suddenly the three baby beavers opened their eyes with a start, and
rolled off their bed. They had been awakened by the sound of a loud
whack on the water outside. It was a noise made by the mother’s flat
tail as she dived down toward the door of her house. Her front hall was
a tunnel that led from the bottom of the pond to the floor of the dark
little room. Through this she went swimming, while the waves bubbled
and splashed around her.
When the babies saw her round head poke up through the door in the
floor they squeaked and ran to meet her. She was carrying a bundle of
small sticks between her chin and her fore-paw. Each little beaver sat
up on his hind-legs, with his tail propping him steady from behind.
Then he took one of the sticks in his hands and began to nibble the
bark with his new yellow teeth.
They were wonderful teeth. After the babies were too old to live on
milk, four curved teeth grew out in the front of each little mouth. Two
were in the upper jaw and two in the lower jaw. It was the strangest
thing! The more these teeth gnawed the sharper they became. The inner
side of each tooth was softer than the outer side. In biting together,
the inner edge wore down faster, and left the outer edge as sharp as a
knife.
The beaver belongs to the _Order of Gnawers_. Squirrels and rabbits
and rats and many other mammals belong to this order. They all have
these chisel-shaped front teeth, which keep on growing all their lives
long. If any one of them is too lazy to gnaw every day his teeth grow
so long that he cannot bite anything at all. Beavers are the largest of
the gnawing animals, except the water-hog of South America. They have
stronger teeth than any of the others.
Not long after this stormy night the mother beaver decided to take the
three babies out with her into the woods. She chose another rainy
evening because then their enemies were not likely to be wandering
under the dripping trees. Bears and foxes and wild-cats hate to get
wet, but beavers enjoy feeling the cool water trickle over their fur
and splash on their tails.
Except for their broad, flat tails, the three little beavers looked
like rats covered with silky brown fur. The mother seemed like a giant
rat, about three feet long from her round nose to the root of her tail.
Instead of fur her tail was covered with thick skin. This skin was so
creased and dented that it looked like scales.
What an exciting evening it was for the babies! One behind the other
they trotted down the dark tunnel after their mother. At first the
floor was dry and hard. After a few steps their feet touched something
wet. Soft mud oozed between the fingers on their fore-paws. Their
hind-feet were webbed up to the toe-nails, and so did not sink in so
deep as their fore-paws. Beavers are the only mammals which have webs
on one pair of feet, and not on the other pair. They are half land
animals and half water animals.
This was not the first time that the three little beavers had ventured
into the tunnel. More than once before they had crept down as far as
the water and waded about at the edge. But now they kept right on,
splashing in farther and farther. The water grew deeper and deeper.
In the dark they felt it wash up to their knees, and then up to their
chins, and finally away over their backs and their heads to the roof of
the tunnel.
Away went the three babies swimming after the old mother. They held
their breaths, and shut their ears tight. Their small fore-paws hung
down by their sides. They paddled with their webbed hind-feet, and used
their broad tails as rudders, to send them now this way, now that.
It seemed the longest time to the last little beaver before his head
popped up into the fresh air above the pond. He blinked his light-brown
eyes, and winked away the drops on his eyelashes. Now and then a flash
of lightning glimmered on the trees around the pond. Of course he did
not know yet that his food came from those tall, shadowy things at the
edge of the water.
Half-way to the shore a round, dark spot was ploughing through the
water, with two ripples spreading out behind it. It was the head of the
mother beaver. Behind her followed another head, and then another. The
last little beaver swung his tail around and started after them. He
puffed and sputtered when a wave washed over his nose. But he did not
mind that at all, because this cool water was much pleasanter than the
stale air in the warm room at home.
There, under a bush on the bank, he saw his older brother and sister
sitting on their tails, while they nibbled the bark from some sticks
beside them. When the baby reached his hand toward the pile they
grunted and sniffed at him. Just then a flash of lightning gleamed on
their long, yellow teeth, and frightened the little fellow so much that
he scampered after his mother and the two other babies.
They followed a path into the woods. The father beavers in the village
had made it by cutting down trees and bushes and dragging them out of
the way. It was a straight path, and more than wide enough for the
fattest old beaver. But the last baby was so much afraid of being
left behind that he ran without looking on the ground. He stumbled over
two low stumps, and bumped into a trunk at one side, before he caught
up to the others.
[Illustration: THE BEAVER.
“Across the pond to feast in the woods.” _Page 65._]
He saw the mother beaver standing on her hind-legs under a tree. She
reached up as high as she could with her mouth and gnawed off a branch.
When it fell crackling and rustling she called the three babies to come
and learn how to cut their own sticks to eat. She showed them how to
set their teeth against the bark, and tear off a chip with a jerk of
the head. Another chip and another was gnawed out till the branch was
cut in two. The mother could bite through a small stick with one snip
of her jaws.
After that, every night all summer long, the three babies followed
their mother out through the tunnel and across the pond to feast in the
woods. They ate tender grasses and roots as well as bark. Sometimes
they went out before dark to romp and play tag in the pond. The biggest
little beaver thought that it was the greatest fun to push the others
off floating logs. He chased them round and round, splashing water in
their faces and making them duck their heads. They enjoyed the fun as
much as he did, especially after they all scrambled upon the bank to
rest.
On land, the biggest baby was too fat and clumsy to move as fast as the
other two. They danced about on their hind-legs, and pretended to step
on his tail or pull his fur. It was beautiful fur, so fine and thick
and soft that water could not soak through to the skin. The babies did
not have a coat of coarse outer hair like the old beavers. When tired
of play they sat up and scratched their heads and shoulders with the
claws on their hairy fore-paws. Then, after combing their sides with
their hind-feet, they curled down in the grass for a nap.
There were plenty of other little low houses in the pond, and in each
one lived a family of beavers. The three babies made friends with all
the other babies. Together they explored every corner of the pond, from
the brook at the upper end to the dam at the lower end.
Very likely the little fellows believed that the dam had always been
there. But in fact the old beavers had built it themselves. When they
first came to that spot in the woods they found only a brook flowing
over a hard, gravelly bottom. They first cut down a bush and floated it
along till it stuck fast between a rock and a clump of trees. Next they
cut other bushes, and carried down poles and branches, till they had a
tangle of brush stretching from one bank to the other. Upon this they
piled sticks and stones and mud, and then more sticks and stones and
mud, and then still more sticks and stones and mud.
At last the dam was so high and solid that the water could not flow
through. So it spread out in a pond above the dam till it was deep
enough to trickle over the top and tinkle away in a little brook under
the trees.
Tiny islands were left here and there in the pond. The old beavers
built their houses on the islands or on the bank. First each mother and
father dug two tunnels from the bottom of the pond up through the earth
to the floor of their house. One tunnel was to be used when going in
and out during the summer. The other tunnel led to their winter pantry
under the water. This pantry was to be a pile of fresh sticks cut in
the woods every autumn.
Around the two holes in the floor the beavers laid logs and stones in
a circle. Upon this foundation they piled sticks and sod to form walls
and a roof. Then they plastered the house all over with mud. At the
top of the roof they left a small hole, covered only with a tangle of
sticks. This was for fresh air. Last of all they swam inside and made
the walls even by gnawing off the sharp ends of the wood. Then the
house was ready to be furnished with beds of leaves and grasses.
Perhaps during the happy summer the babies believed that play was the
most delightful thing in the world. But soon the father beavers came
strolling back to the village to cut down trees for the winter. Then
the little fellows found that work was even better fun than play.
One night the three babies followed their parents into the woods and
watched them cut down a tree. The father stood up on his hind-legs,
propping himself with his tail, and began to cut a notch around the
trunk. The mother helped on the other side. They gnawed upward and
downward, digging out huge chips with their chisel teeth. The circle
grew deeper and deeper, till the father’s head was almost hidden
whenever he thrust it in to take a fresh bite.
When finally the wood cracked and the tree-top began to sway all the
family scampered away to the pond. They dived for the tunnel and hid in
the house for a while. There was danger that some hungry wild-cat had
heard the crash of the branches and had hurried there to catch them for
its supper.
As soon as it seemed safe to do so the beavers paddled out again and
trotted away to the fallen tree. The parents trimmed off the branches
and cut the trunk into pieces short enough to carry. The father seized
a thick pole in his teeth and swung it over his shoulders. As he
dragged it toward the pond he kept his head twisted to one side, so
that the end of the pole trailed on the ground.
The biggest little beaver tried to drag a smaller branch in the same
way. When he rose on his hind-legs, so as to walk along more easily,
he forgot to brace himself with his tail. The branch caught on a stone
and tipped him backwards, heels over head. The two other babies were
rolling a short log by pushing it with their noses. At the sound of
their brother’s surprised squeals they gave the log a last wild poke.
It seemed to make a jump over a bump, and then tumbled into a hole.
There it stayed, though they pushed and pulled and puffed and grunted
in trying to get it out again.
It happened that the father beaver reached the pond just in time to
help mend the dam with his thick pole. A pointed log had jammed a hole
in the dam. The water was beginning to pour through the hole with a
rush. If the pond should run dry the doors of the tunnels would be left
in plain sight. Then probably a wolf, or some other enemy, would hide
there to catch the beavers on their way from the woods to their houses.
The old father pushed his pole into the water; then he jumped in, and,
taking hold of it with his teeth, he swam out above the hole. When he
let go the water carried the pole squarely across the break in the dam.
The other beavers cut bushes and floated them down to weave across the
hole. After that they scooped up mud and stones to plaster the dam
till not a drop trickled through the mended places.
The next work to be done that autumn was to gather food for the winter.
Some of the trees with the juiciest bark grew too far away to be
easily dragged to the pond. All the grown-up beavers set to work to
dig a canal. They dug and scooped and gnawed off roots, and dragged
out stones, till they had made a long canal more than a foot deep. The
water flowed into this from the pond. Then it was easy enough to float
wood from the juicy trees down to the beaver village.
Even the babies could help in towing the wood down the canal and across
the pond to the different houses. Some of the wood became so heavy
with soaked-up water that it sank to the bottom beside the doors, and
could be packed in a solid pile as easily as on land. Most of the wood,
however, kept light enough to float. Instead of heaping new sticks on
top, the beavers pushed them under the top branches. Then more was
pressed under that, and more under that, till the pile reached to the
bottom. In the winter, of course, the top sticks could not be eaten,
because they would be frozen fast in the ice.
The autumn days were growing frostier and frostier. After mending the
dam and gathering their woodpiles, the beavers plastered a last coat of
mud all over the outside of their houses. The mud froze hard and made
the little rooms inside as safe as a fort, with walls two feet thick.
The babies carried leaves and grasses for their fresh beds. With a
bundle tucked between his chin and fore-paw, each one hobbled along on
three legs, “working like a beaver,” as the saying is.
One cloudy night, when the beavers were busy out in the woods,
something soft and cold began to float down through the chilly air.
The biggest baby felt a sting on his nose. When he put out his tongue
to lick it he touched only a speck of water. Bits of white sifted
on his fur and melted in drops. Presently the ground began to look
lighter colored. Something fluttered about his head and settled on his
eyelashes. He winked and sneezed and squeaked to the other babies. They
had never seen a snowstorm before.
When they jumped into the pond to paddle home something sharp and
brittle cracked and snapped in the icy black water. One of the little
fellows caught a bit in his mouth. It smarted on his tongue and then it
was gone. It was the first time that he had ever tasted ice.
The next night, when the beavers swam to the top of the pond, they
bumped their heads against something hard. It cracked all around them.
They pushed on, with the water lapping at the jagged edges. After they
reached the shore they found it very tiresome to wade through the snow.
Before the night was quarter past the old father hurried back to the
pond. He was afraid that the ice might freeze too thick for them to
break their way home again. He arched his back and slapped his tail on
the water with an echoing whack to call the babies after him.
All winter long the beavers lived quietly in their little homes under
the snow. Most of the time they slept, each on his own soft bed in the
dark. Whenever they were hungry they paddled down the tunnel which
led to the woodpile. Gnawing off some sticks they swam back with the
bundles under their chins. They used the middle of the room for a
dining-table. There they nibbled the bark. Then they carried the peeled
sticks back into the pond. They did not like to have rubbish left on
the floor.
Sometimes the babies grew restless and tired of staying still in the
room. They swam out into the pond and moved about under the ice. They
hunted for roots of the yellow water-lily. It must have been hard to
hold their breaths long enough to dig up the roots and paddle away back
into the house. Once the biggest baby almost had a fight with one of
his playmates over a juicy root. They pulled at it so roughly that it
was torn to pieces.
So the winter months slipped away. At last spring melted the ice on the
pond. Here and there in the black water little brown heads came popping
up. They went plowing toward shore, leaving v-shaped ripples stretching
out behind. Up the banks scrambled the beavers,—mother beavers and
father beavers, big brother beavers and big sister beavers, and all the
little beavers who had been babies the year before.
Away roamed the fathers up the brook, to have a good time travelling
all summer long. The grown-up brothers and sisters started out to build
dams and houses of their own. The little fellows wandered into the
woods to find their dinners of tender buds and twigs. The mothers ate
the bark from fresh sticks, and then hurried back to carry milk to the
new baby beavers, asleep on their soft beds at home.
VI
THE RABBIT (HARE)
“THE TIMID ONE”
THE TIMID ONE
THE nest was a small hole scooped out of the turf and lined with bits
of fur from the mother bunny’s breast. The five baby bunnies lay packed
close together. Their long ears were pressed flat on their furry backs,
and their hind-legs were doubled up under their round, little soft
bodies.
Over them rested a blanket of dry grass and fur matted together. The
sunlight outside shone through tiny holes here and there. Once the
bravest bunny poked up the cover and tried to look out. All he could
see was a little roof of green grasses interlacing above the nest. The
grasses rustled in the summer breeze.
During the day the babies cuddled down fast asleep. Sometimes a red ant
wandered into the nest. It clambered down from wisp to wisp of dead
grass and scurried across the bunnies’ faces. That tickled so that they
screwed up their pink noses and opened their round bright eyes for a
drowsy minute. Once a big spider crawled upon the edge and stared at
them with all its eyes, till the bravest bunny scared it away with a
flap of his ears. Another time a bird flew down to the nest and pecked
at the blanket till its bill stuck through and almost pricked one of
the babies.