A VERY MEEK YOUNG OTTER
The wise will never scorn retreat
When facing swift and sure defeat.
_Little Joe Otter._
Yes, Sir, it certainly looked bad for that young Otter fighting with
Yowler the Bobcat. It looked very much as if in the end Yowler would
have that dinner of tender, young Otter for which he was fighting. Such
a snarling and spitting! Such a thrashing about in the snow, as they
rolled over and over! Never had Yowler fought harder.
But though he was so busy with teeth and claws, he never once forgot to
keep his ears open. He never once forgot to listen for sounds that might
warn him of the approach of Little Joe Otter or Mrs. Joe. He knew that
they were not so far away but that they might hear that fight. So it was
with a sudden wrench he tore himself free, and with a screech of
disappointment and anger bounded to the nearest tree and climbed it.
He was just in time and that was all. Snarling, her eyes blazing with
anger, Mrs. Joe plunged down the trail, and behind her came Little Joe
Otter. Had they succeeded in reaching Yowler, the Green Forest would
have known him no more.
Mrs. Joe paid no attention to him. She rushed straight to the young
Otter and began to lick her wounds and try to comfort her. She examined
her all over to see how badly she was hurt, as only an anxious mother
could. But Little Joe made straight for the tree up which Yowler had
climbed. At the foot of it he glared up and dared Yowler to come down.
Yowler was licking a badly bitten paw. Between licks he snarled and
growled and spit at Little Joe. But he didn’t come down. No, Sir, Yowler
didn’t come down. He was far too wise to do that. And so all that Little
Joe could do was to snarl and spit back at him and tell him what he
would do to him if ever he had the chance.
It didn’t take Mrs. Joe long to find that the young Otter was not badly
hurt. Her coat was torn in places and she was very, very sore, but she
was not seriously hurt. As soon as Mrs. Joe was sure of this she called
to Little Joe, and regretfully Little Joe left the foot of that tree and
once more led the way along the trail. This time Mrs. Joe was the last
one. She kept behind the two young Otters. She didn’t intend to give
them a chance to get into more trouble.
As for the young Otter, never was there one more meek. She had had a
lesson she would never forget. She smarted and ached, but she knew that
she deserved it. She knew that it was wholly because of her wilfulness
and disobedience.
“I’ll never, never disobey again,” she kept saying over and over to
herself. “I’ll never, never disobey again. I guess I don’t know as much
about the Great World as I thought I did. Ouch! That fellow’s teeth and
claws were sharp. I—I—I wish I hadn’t thought myself so smart. I
wonder who that fellow is, anyway.”
Before this she had been too busy to even wonder who she had been
fighting with. But now she wanted to know who this enemy was. And so at
the first chance she asked her mother.
“That was Yowler the Bobcat,” replied her mother. “He is the greatest
sneak in the Green Forest. He wouldn’t have dared to touch your father
or me. I wish we had been in time to catch him. There are a lot of
people who would have been thankful to us if we had.”