The Mussel
[Illustration]
The next evening, the reed-warbler peeped down into the water.
The fresh-water mussel was sitting there and yawning as usual. There was
nothing out of the way about him.
"Good-evening," said the reed-warbler. "How are you, after your friend's
unhappy end?"
"Thank you," replied the mussel. "It has not disturbed my composure in
the least. Generally speaking, nothing disturbs my composure. Only, if
any one sticks something between my shells, I become furious and I
pinch."
"I should do the same in your place," said the reed-warbler. "And your
equanimity is really quite enviable. But still I think that the
misfortune of one's neighbour ... of your intimate friend."
"I have no neighbour," said the mussel. "And the carp was not my
intimate friend. We were not rivals, that is all. In a case like that,
it's easy to be friends. I was often amused at the carp's way of
talking. But I never contradict, except when any one sticks something
between my shells. The carp had had to do with human beings; that's what
it was. It always makes animals so ridiculous. You're the same, for that
matter."
"I look upon that as a compliment," said the reed-warbler, who was a
little offended but did not wish to show it. "However, I have nothing to
do with human beings, except that they protect me and have not the heart
to do me harm, because of my pretty voice. They stop and listen to me as
they pass. Many a poet has written beautiful lines about me."
"Oh, really?" said the mussel. "Upon my word, they did something of the
sort about me too. But what they said was lies."
"What did they say?"
"There was a lot of rubbish about pearls."
"Oh, have you pearls? Wife! Wife! The mussel has pearls!"
"Not a bit of it," said the fresh-water mussel. "Do stop shouting like
that. You can be heard all over the pond. If any one overheard you, I
should be in danger of being fished up. Thank goodness, there are no
pearls formed on me!"
[Illustration]
"O-oh!" said the reed-warbler, in a disappointed tone.
"It's just the pearls the poets talk their nonsense about. They sing of
how happy the mussel is with the precious pearl he guards, and all that
sort of thing.... Do you know what a pearl is?"
"No," said the reed-warbler.
"It's a nasty, pushing parasite ... something like the double-animal
that hurt the carp. When it comes into us, it hurts us, of course. Then
we cover the brute with mother of pearl till it dies. And then it sits
on our shell and plays at being a pearl."
"Oh!" said the reed-warbler. "Do you hear that, wife? All our illusions
are vanishing one by one. Soon there will be nothing but vacancy around
us."
"Oh, it won't be vacant so long as we have those five greedy children!"
said she. "They are crying for more."
"They shall have no more to-day," he answered, crossly. "You and I have
been running and flying about for them all day long. Now, upon my word,
I intend to be left in peace to have a chat with the neighbours. Let's
give them a flogging."
And a flogging they got. And then they cried still more and then they
went to sleep.
"You hinted last night that you were not born here, in the pond," said
the reed-warbler. "Tell us where you come from."
"With pleasure," replied the mussel. "I am fond of a gossip in the
evening myself. And no one will believe that I have had any experience,
because I move about so little.... But wait a bit. There's a saucy
person there I want a word with...."
It was no other than Goody Cray-Fish.
She had crawled nearer and was fumbling at the mussel with her legs. Now
he slammed his shell down upon one of them and cut it off in the middle.
Goody screamed like one possessed and hammered away at the mussel with
her claws, but he only laughed.
[Illustration: 'HE SLAMMED HIS SHELL DOWN']
"What a common fellow!" cried Goody. "Can't he leave a respectable woman
alone?"
"Aye," said the mussel, "when she doesn't go for me!"
"A wretched mussel like that!" she screamed. "A mollusc! He is much
lower in rank than I and he dares to be impertinent. I have twenty-one
pairs of legs and he knows it: how many has he?"
"Come along, with all the one-and-twenty!" said the mussel.
Goody went on scolding and then the reed-warbler interfered:
"Drop that strong language now," he said. "It doesn't matter about those
legs. I have only two myself."
"I should be sorry to be found lacking in respect for you, Mr.
Reed-Warbler," said the cray-fish. "I know who are my betters, right
enough. But I can't understand how a fine gentleman like you can care to
talk to one of those molluscs."
Scolding and grumbling, she withdrew to her hole, but left her head and
claws hanging outside. The mussel opened his shell, but kept four or
five of his eyes constantly fixed on Goody. These eyes were on the edge
of the mantle which lay in the slit between the shells. As soon as the
cray-fish made the slightest movement, he closed his shells at once:
"One's soft inside all right," he said. "But one shows the hard shell to
the world."
"Go on with your story," said the reed-warbler.
"I was born in another pond, far from here," said the mussel. "I can't
give you a detailed description of it, because, as you will understand,
one in my position does not have many opportunities of looking about
him. It was not as grand as in the high-class carp-pond, that's sure
enough. To be honest with you, I think it was much the same as here--an
awful heap of rabble of every kind, but lots of mussels in particular.
They sat in the mud as close as paving-stones and took the bread out of
one another's mouths. If you had a mouthful of water, it was generally
mere swipes. Some one else had sucked all the goodness out of it, you
see."
"What did you do then?" asked the reed-warbler.
"I did nothing," replied the mussel. "I never do anything, except when
any one sticks something between my shells. Then I become furious and I
pinch.... Hullo, are you there again, Goody Cray-Fish? Do you want one
of your little legs amputated, eh?"
"The wind-bag!" said the cray-fish.
"But you might have died of hunger," said the reed-warbler.
"One doesn't die so easily as that," replied the mussel. "Unless an
accident befalls one, as in the case of our poor carp. In fact, I once
lay for a whole year on a table in a room."
"Goodness gracious!" said the reed-warbler. "How did you get there?"
"I was fished up by a student or somebody. He wrapped me in a piece of
paper and put me on the table. He wanted to see how long I could live.
Every Saturday, he unpacked me and poured a little water over me; and
that was enough to keep me alive."
"But how did you escape from him?"
"Well," said the mussel, "it was when he got engaged. People used to
come and see him sometimes, you know, and, of course, they all had to
look at the wonderful mussel that refused to die. There was a young girl
among them who was very cross with him for teasing me so. But he only
laughed at her. Well, when I had been there a year, he got engaged to
her.... They were sitting on the sofa just by me, when it happened, and
I was not so dead but that I could lift my shells a little and see the
whole thing: they're funny creatures, those human beings! Well, then he
asked her if there was anything she would like on that joyful day. Yes,
she would like me to be put back in the water again. He laughed at her.
But off they went with me to the very pond where I was fished up and
threw me in. Then I settled down among the other fellows and began all
over again."
"Yes ... love!" said the reed-warbler, looking round at his wife.
"Ah ... love!" said she, returning his glance.
"I have nothing to say against it," said the mussel. "But, as a matter
of fact, I have no personal experience of it."
"Surely you have a wife," said the reed-warbler. "Or, perhaps ...
perhaps you are a lady ...?"
"I am neither one or the other. I am just a mussel. And I lay my eggs
and then that's done!"
"Do you look after your children nicely?" asked the reed-warbler.
"What next!" exclaimed the mussel. "My children are very remarkable
individuals. They are sailors."
"Sailors?"
"Yes, they are indeed. As soon as they come out of the egg, they hoist a
great sail and put out. It's only when they grow older, if they haven't
been eaten by that time, that they settle down as decent mussels with
shells upon them and philosophy in their constitutions."
"Don't let us talk about children," said the reed-warbler. "It always
upsets my wife so. Tell us now how you found your way to this pond."
"Ah," said the mussel, "that comes of a peculiarity I possess of
becoming furious when any one sticks something between my shells. I
don't know if I told you that I possess that peculiarity?"
"You've told me several times," answered the reed-warbler. "I shall
never forget it; I shall take care, be sure of that."
"Mind you do," said the mussel. "You know, it was one of your sort that
managed my removal."
"A reed-warbler?"
"I don't exactly know if it was a reed-warbler. I can't see very well
outside the water.... Good-day to you, good-day to you, Goody Cray-Fish!
I can always see you!... And to me one bird is much like another.
However, it must have been a gull. Well, I was sitting at the bottom and
yawning, as I usually do. Just above me was a little roach. Then,
suddenly, splash came the gull and seized the roach. He swooped down at
such a pace that he plumped right to the bottom. One of his little toes
stuck between my shells and I pinched. The gull tugged and pulled, but I
am strong when I become furious and I held tight. He was the stronger,
in a way, nevertheless. For he pulled me off the bottom and then I went
up through the water and into the air."
"Why, it's quite a fairy-tale!" said the reed-warbler.
"We flew a good distance," the mussel continued, "high above the fields
and woods. I could just peep out, for my shells were ajar because of the
bird's toe. We lost the fish on the way, but I held on, however much the
gull might struggle and kick. Of course, I did not mean to hang on for
ever, you know, but I wanted to have my say as to where we should
alight. Suppose I had been dropped into a tall tree and had to hang
there and wait until a student came and got engaged...."
[Illustration]
"He would have come all right," said the reed-warbler. "I've travelled a
great deal, but I have never been anywhere that there wasn't a student
who got engaged."
"Well, in my case, it would have been rather uncertain," said the
mussel. "And so, when I looked down and saw that there was blue
underneath me, I let go and fell here, into the pond."
"And are you satisfied?"
"Yes, for the present. I have seen no other mussels, so it is a good
deal pleasanter than in the other place."
"That's a curious story," said the reed-warbler.
Then he sat and fell a-thinking and night came.
But Mrs. Reed-Warbler ran down the reed and peered into the dark water:
"Are you there, my little grub?" she asked.
"Yes, thank you," said the May-fly grub.
"Have you had a good time to-day?"
"Yes, thank you. I was only nearly eaten up by the perch; and then there
was a duckling after me and a horrid dragon-fly grub and a water-beetle.
Otherwise everything was very nice indeed."