A Mother
[Illustration]
Time passed and all respectable bird-wives were sitting on their eggs
and wearing a serious look in their eyes, while their husbands went
hunting for flies or sang to them.
It was the same at the Reed-Warblers'. But there was no denying that the
husband was sometimes a little tired and cross. Then he would reflect
upon the easy time which the Eel husband had and the Frog husband and
the Perch husband and all the others.
One evening he sat in the nest and sang:
Now spring is here, to God all praise!
Though in hard work I'm up to the eyes.
For billing and cooing I'd just seven days;
Now I've to flutter about after flies
For my little wife, who our eggs is hatching;
And don't those flies just take some catching!
And each chick will want food for the good of its voice.
Aha, I have every right to rejoice!
"If you're tired of it, why did you do it?" said little Mrs.
Reed-Warbler. "You took pains enough to curry favour with me at first.
How smart you used to look. I believe you're already beginning to lose
your colouring."
"It's weary work," he said. "When a fellow has to go after flies like
this, in all weathers, his wedding-finery soon wears out."
"I don't think you're singing as nicely as you did," said she.
"Really? Well, I can just as easily stop. It's for your sake that I pipe
my tune. Besides, you can see for yourself that I'm only joking. I'm
tremendously glad of the children. It will be an honour and a pleasure
to me to stuff them till they burst. Perhaps we might have been
satisfied with three."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she said.
"So I am, dear, because of the other two. But, as I don't know which two
those are, it makes no difference."
She put on a very serious face. But he caught a fat fly that was
passing, popped it into her mouth and struck up so pretty a trill that
she fell quite in love with him again.
[Illustration]
At that moment a deep sigh rose from the water under the bank.
"That came from a mother," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "I could hear that
plainly."
"That's what it did," said a hoarse voice.
The Reed-Warblers peeped down and beheld a cray-fish, who sat in the mud
staring with her stalked eyes.
"Dear me, is that you, Goody Cray-Fish?" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"It is indeed, dear madam," said the cray-fish. "It's myself and no
other. I was just sitting down here in my dirt listening to what the
quality were saying. Heavens, what a good time a fine lady like you
enjoys, compared with another!"
"Every one has his burden," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "Believe me, it's no
joke sitting here and perspiring."
The cray-fish crossed her eyes and folded her antennae.
"Yes, you may well talk," said she. "How long does it last with you?
Four or five weeks, I should say. But I have to go for six months with
mine."
"Goodness gracious! But then you can move about."
"Oh," said Goody, "moving is always a rather slow matter for a
cray-fish. And then you have only five eggs, ma'am, but I have two
hundred."
"Dear me!" said the reed-warbler. "Then your poor husband has to slave
to provide food for that enormous family."
"He? The monster!" replied the cray-fish. "He knows too much for that. I
haven't so much as seen him since the wedding."
"Then you must have a huge, big nest for all those eggs," said the wife.
"It's easy to see that you don't know poor folks' circumstance, dear
madam," said the cray-fish. "People of our class can't afford nests. No,
I just have to drag the eggs about with me as best I may."
"Where are they, then, Goody Cray-Fish?"
"I carry them on my hind legs, lady. I have ten little hind legs, you
see, besides my eight proper legs and my claws, which are very necessary
to bite one's way through this wicked world with. And on each of my hind
legs there is a heap of twenty eggs. That makes two hundred in all. I'll
show them to you, if you like. The eggs are worth looking at."
[Illustration]
So saying, the cray-fish turned over on her back and stuck out her tail
as far as she could. And there the eggs were, just as she had said, on
ten little back legs.
"That comes of having too many hind-legs," said the reed-warbler.
"For shame! To poke fun at the poor woman!" said his wife.
But the cray-fish slowly turned round again and said, quietly:
"Gentlemen are always so witty. We women understand one another better.
And I shouldn't so much mind about the eggs, if it wasn't that one can't
change one's clothes."
"Change your clothes?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"Yes, ma'am ... you change yours too, from time to time, I know. I have
seen the feathers with my own eyes, floating on the water. And it goes
so easily and quickly: a feather here, a feather there and it's done.
But other people, who wear a stiff shirt, have to take it all off at
once. And I can't do that, you see, as long as I am carrying the eggs
about. Therefore, since I have been married, I change only once a year.
Now one always grows a bit stouter, even though one is but a common
woman; and so I feel pretty uncomfortable sometimes, I assure you."
Mrs. Reed-Warbler was greatly touched; and her husband began to sing,
for he was afraid lest all this sadness should make the eggs melancholy
and spoil the children's voices.
But, at that moment, the cray-fish screamed and struck out with her
claws and carried on like a mad woman.
"Look!... Ma'am ... do look!... There comes the monster!"
Mrs. Reed-Warbler leant so far over the edge of the nest that she would
have plumped into the pond if her husband had not given her a good
shove. But he had no time to scold her, for he was curious himself. They
both stared down into the water.
And there, as she had said, came Goody Cray-Fish's husband slowly
creeping up to her backwards.
"Good-day, mother," he said. "I'm going to change."
"Oh, are you?" she screamed. "Yes, that's just like you. You can run and
change at any moment while your poor lawfully-wedded wife has to go
about in her old clothes. You would do better to think of me and the
children."
[Illustration]
"Why should I, mother?" he replied, calmly. "What good would it do if I
thought of you? And what need have I to meddle with women's work? What
must be must be. Hold your tongue now, while it lasts, for this is no
joke!"
Then the reed-warblers saw how he raised himself on his tail and split
across the middle of his back. Then he bent and twisted and pulled off
his coat over his head.
"That's that," he said, puffing and blowing. "Now for the trousers!"
Mrs. Reed-Warbler drew back her head, but immediately peeped down again.
And the cray-fish stretched and wriggled until, with a one, two, three,
the shell of his tail was shed as well.
Now he was quite naked and funny to look at and talked with a very faint
voice:
"Good-bye, mother," he said. "Give the young ones my love, for they will
be gone, I daresay, before I come back again. I am retiring for ten days
or so and shall be at home to nobody."
"You monster!" yelled Goody. "Just look at him ... now he'll creep into
his hole and lie there idle. In ten days' time he'll come out again, in
brand-new clothes, looking most awfully arrogant." She wrung her claws
and glared terribly with her stalked eyes. "I should really like to
crawl into the hole after him and bite him to death," she continued.
"His life isn't worth twopence in his present condition. But I loved
him once. And one is and remains just a silly woman."
"Yes, Goody Cray-Fish, and then you have the children," said little Mrs.
Reed-Warbler.
"That's true," she replied. "And, indeed, they are my only comfort. The
dear little things, I feel as if I would love to eat them. You should
just see, ma'am, how they hang on to my skirts during the first week.
They are so fond of me that they simply can't leave me."
"How nice that is!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
"Yes. And afterwards I have no trouble with them at all. You may believe
me or not, as you please, dear lady, but, as soon as they are a week
old, they go into the world and look after themselves. It's in their
blood. It has never been known in the pond for a twelve-day-old
cray-fish to be a burden on his family. And then you're done with them;
and that may be rather sad, but, of course, it's a relief as well: two
hundred children like that, in a small household! But you shall see
them, ma'am, when they come ... I really have to control myself in order
not to eat them, they're such dears!"
"Well, I'll tell you something, Goody Cray-Fish," said Mrs.
Reed-Warbler. "When my young ones are out, you shall have the shells."
"Oh, how good of you, ma'am!" said the cray-fish. "You could not
possibly do me a greater kindness. For I promise you I shall eat them. I
eat as much chalk as I can get hold of against the time when I change my
things, for that puts starch into the new shirt. But then, also, you
must really promise me, ma'am, to look at my young ones. They are so
sweet that, goodness knows, I should like to eat them...."
At that moment, a large carp appeared in the water, with a sad, weary
face:
"You do eat them," he said.
"Oh!" yelled Goody, and went backwards into her hole and showed herself
no more.
But Mrs. Reed-Warbler fainted on her five eggs and the carp swam on with
his sad, weary face.