Three Stickleback Mothers and several Clams were visiting under the
lily-pads in the early morning. Mother Eel was also there. "Yes," she
said "I am glad to come back and be among my old friends, and the
children are happier here. As I often tell Mr. Eel, there is no place
like one's home. We had a hard journey, but I do not mind that. We are
rested now, and travel does teach people so much. I should think you
would get dreadfully tired of being in the water all the time. I want my
children to see the world. Now they know grass, and trees, and air, and
dry ground. There are not many children of their age who know more than
they. We stayed in a brook the one day we were gone, so they have felt
running water too. It was clean--I will say that for it--but it was no
place for Eels, and so we came back."
There is no telling how long she would have kept on talking if she had
not been called away. As soon as she left, the Sticklebacks began to
talk about her.
"So she thinks we must be tired of staying in the water all the time,"
said one. "It doesn't tire me nearly so much as it would to go dragging
myself over the country, wearing out my fins on the ground."
"Indeed?" said a Clam, to whom she turned as she spoke.
"Well, I'll tell you what I think," said another Stickleback Mother. "I
think that if she didn't care so much for travel herself, she would not
be dragging her family around to learn grass and trees. Some night they
will be learning Owls or men, and that will be the end of them!"
"I do not believe in it at all," said the first speaker. "I certainly
would not want my sons to learn these things, for they must grow up to
be good nest-builders and baby-tenders. I have told their fathers
particularly to bring them up to be careful housekeepers. With my
daughters, it is different."
For a long time nobody spoke; then a Clam said, "What a difference there
is in mothers!" It quite startled the Sticklebacks to hear a Clam say so
much. It showed how interested he was, and well he might be. The Clam
who brings up children has to do it alone, and be both father and mother
to them, and of course that is hard work. It is hard, too, because when
a little Clam is naughty, his parent can never say that he takes his
naughtiness from any one else.
"And there is a difference in fathers too," exclaimed one fine-looking
Stickleback Mother. "_I_ say that a father's place is by the nest, and
that if he does his work there well, he will not have much time to want
to travel, or to loaf around by the shore." The Clams looked at each
other and said nothing. Some people thought that the Stickleback Mothers
were lazy.
Just then a Crayfish Mother came swimming slowly along, stopping often
to rest. Her legs were almost useless, there were so many little
Crayfishes clinging to them.
"Now look at her," said one Stickleback. "Just look at her. She laid her
eggs at the beginning of last winter and fastened them to her legs. Said
she was so afraid something would happen if she left them, and that this
was a custom in her family anyway. Now they have hatched, and her
children hang on to her in the same way."
The Crayfish Mother stopped with a sigh. "Isn't it dreadfully warm?"
said she.
"We haven't found it so," answered the Sticklebacks, while the Clams
murmured "No."
"Let me take some of your children," said one Stickleback. "Perhaps
carrying them has made you warm and tired."
The Crayfish stuck her tail-paddles into the mud, and spread her
pinching-claws in front of her family. "Oh no, thank you," said she.
"They won't be contented with any one but me."
"That must make it hard for you," said another Stickleback politely. She
was thinking how quickly she would shake off the little Crayfishes if
they were her children.
"It does," answered their mother. "It is hard, for I carried the eggs on
my legs all through the cold weather and until it was very warm again;
and now that they are hatched, the children hang on with their
pinching-claws. Still, I can't bear to shake them off, poor little
things!" She held up first one leg and then another to show off her
dangling babies.
"I don't know what will happen to them when I cast my shell," said she.
"I shall have to soon, for I can hardly breathe in it. My sister changed
hers some time ago, and her new one is getting hard already."
"Oh, they'll be all right," said a Stickleback cheerfully. "Their
fathers tell me that my children learn remarkably fast how to look out
for themselves."
"But my children can't walk yet," said the Crayfish Mother, "and they
don't know how to swim."
"What of that?" asked a Stickleback, who was beginning to lose her
patience. "They can learn, can't they? They have eight legs apiece,
haven't they, besides the ones that have pincers? Isn't that enough to
begin on? And haven't they tail-paddles?"
"I suppose so," said their mother, with a sigh, "but they don't seem to
want to go. I must put them to sleep now and try to get a little rest
myself, for the sun is well up."
The next night she awakened and remembered what the Sticklebacks had
said, so she thought she would try shaking her children off. "It is for
your own good," she said, and she waved first one leg and then another.
When she got four of her legs free, and stood on them to shake the other
four, her children scrambled back to her and took hold again with their
strong little pinching-claws. Then she gave it up. "You dear tiny
things!" she said. "But I do wish you would walk instead of making me
carry you."
"We don't want to!" they cried; "we don't know how."
"There, there!" said their mother. "No, to be sure you don't."
The next night, though, they had to let go, for their mother was casting
her shell. When it was off she lay weak and helpless on the
pond-bottom, and her children lay around her. They behaved very badly
indeed. "Come here and let me catch hold of you," cried one. "I can't
walk," said another, "because I don't know how."
Some of them were so cross that they just lay on their backs and kicked
with all their eight feet, and screamed, "I _won't_ try!" It was
dreadful!
The Crayfish Mother was too weak to move, and when the Wise Old Crayfish
came along she spoke to him. "My children will not walk," said she,
"even when I tell them to." He knew that it was because when she had
told them to do things before, she had not made them mind.
"I will see what I can do," said he, "but you must not say a word." He
walked backward to where they were, and kept his face turned toward
their mother, which was polite of him. "Do you want the Eels to find you
here?" he said, in his gruffest voice. "If you don't, you'd better
run."
What a scrambling there was! In one way or another, every little
Crayfish scampered away. Some went forward, some went sidewise, and some
went backward. Some didn't keep step with themselves very well at first,
but they soon found out how. Even the crossest ones, who were lying on
their backs flopped over and were off.
The Wise Old Crayfish turned to their mother. "It is no trouble to teach
ten-legged children to walk," said he, "if you go at it in the right
way."
The little Crayfishes soon got together again, and while they were
talking, one of their many aunts came along with all her children
hanging to her legs. Then the little Crayfishes who had just learned to
walk, pointed their pinching-claws at their cousins, and said, "Sh-h-h!
'Fore I'd let my mother carry me! Babies!"