children came near enough, however, to learn that after the celebration
and the dance, which was to be held on the ice floor of the Bear
palace, there was to be a great supper in Mrs. Bear's kitchen. It was
to be a feast of the eggs of the eider-duck. A supper, needless to say,
that any bear or fox would travel night and day to enjoy.
On the night of the feast Mrs. Fox crept quietly up to the bears' house.
Mrs. Bear and all the ladies were in the bedroom, brushing down their
rich winter suits, and prinking away to look their best before going
down to meet the other guests. And, of all things, they were gossiping
about Mrs. Fox! Just because she wasn't there (as they thought), they
were speaking of her in the most slighting terms. It seemed as if they
were all talking at once; but Mrs. Fox, whose ear was close to the
chimney, could hear Mrs. Wolf's deep voice distinctly.
"That old coat of Mrs. Fox's is the shabbiest I have ever seen," she
was saying in her severest tone. "One would think that a woman of her
build, slinky and queer as it is, would put on white every winter. I
would wear white myself if I didn't think this handsome gray of mine an
elegant thing the year round."
They all agreed that Mrs. Wolf was indeed very elegant, and that Mrs.
Fox was very shabby. Little Miss Ermine, who, as all the world knows,
has the finest white coat in the world, piped up shrill and cross:
"Right you are, Mrs. Wolf. White's the thing in winter, but only for
those adapted to it. It scarcely becomes every one."
At this she made a great showing of her own dainty figure, cutting
several merry dance figures before the mirror.
Mrs. Fox had heard enough. She waited for the ladies to go downstairs
to the great room where all the gentlemen sat about. She knew what they
would do. There would be wonderful speeches by the biggest and oldest
bears, about the midnight sun and other blessings; the walrus would
make a long speech, too, mostly about seaweed and fish; and then, after
a dance or two, they would all come trooping out to the kitchen. Old
Uncle Penguin would make a very long prayer, and everybody would eat
until he could eat no more.
Mrs. Fox was very angry. She resolved that there should be no supper
for her mean, back-biting friends.
Cautiously she felt her way down the sides of the cliff which was the
outside of Mrs. Bear's great house. As she expected, the eider-duck
eggs were in a basket suspended from the pantry window. Quick as a
flash she ran back for her children, and in another minute they were
all beside her on the roof of Mrs. Bear's kitchen.
"Old Mrs. Sloth, who cooks for Mrs. Bear, is sound asleep by the fire.
Don't wake her up. And do just what I tell you to," whispered Mother
Fox.
The little foxes held their breath.
"Stand in a line! Now each one of you take hold of the next one's tail.
Each of you except little Fuzzypaw. He's the quickest and the lightest
and he is going to run up and down the ladder which the rest of you
will make, and bring me those eggs, one by one. Just grip each other's
tails as tight as you can, and don't make a sound!"
It was no sooner said than done. One after another the eggs were
brought up to the edge of the roof by the little fox, who ran up and
down the ladder as nimbly as a weasel. Mrs. Fox stowed the eggs away
carefully in a brand-new basket she had brought with her, and in a few
minutes the basket by Mrs. Bear's pantry window was quite empty.
Then off through the big woods the little foxes trotted gaily behind
their mother.
[Illustration: "OFF THROUGH THE BIG WOODS THE LITTLE FOXES TROTTED
GAILY BEHIND THEIR MOTHER"]
What happened when the supper party found that it had no supper, Mrs.
Fox never knew. For while Mrs. Bear and her guests were reduced to
confusion and disappointment, the foxes were at home roasting eggs by
the fire, and sitting up to all hours in the jolliest fashion.
The next year Mrs. Fox was invited. Old Mr. Wolf, who knew a thing or
two, thought it would be the wisest thing to ask her. So all the other
animals agreed; and Mrs. Fox never found society in the Arctic Circle
more cordial than after the season it ignored her and she stole the
eggs of the eider-duck from Mrs. Bear.
XI
SUNNY GOURD AND LADY TRUMPET-VINE
Very much out of the beaten track--in fact, only to be approached by an
old road that had long fallen into disuse--stood a neglected cabin, a
poor weather-beaten thing with sunken roof and decaying timbers.
Its door-yard had already begun to grow the young pine trees which come
up in great plumes of long, green needles; and the little garden plot,
which used to boast its vegetables, had become a mass of brambles and
nettles.
"How sad this all is," the poor little cabin used to sigh. "Although I
suppose it is better to be harboring rabbits and squirrels, and to have
my beams plastered up with nests, than to have no living thing enjoy
my shelter. Still, I wish spring when it comes would bring people to
unlock my door and children to fill these poor little rooms with their
laughter."
For the cabin could remember many children that had lived there, and
sometimes it seemed to him that he heard them again, playing in the
nearby woods, or running and calling down the road.
Sometimes he did hear such voices, for people often passed the cabin
on the way to a distant plantation, and children were as likely to be
among them as not.
But the squirrels and the rabbits had it pretty much their own way
with the deserted cabin, running in and out beneath the underpinning;
and the only noise around the place was that of Mrs. Yellowhammer when
she came pounding at the roof for what the decayed old shingles might
conceal.
"I declare, you poor old house!" the energetic bird would say. "It's
terrible how the worms are eating at your timbers and shingles."
Whereat she would fall to and nearly pound the life out of the poor old
cabin, in her determination to get all there was.
But Mrs. Yellowhammer and the rabbits that danced in the moonlight
were not the only visitors, for often in the summer time came the
humming-birds to visit the trumpet-vine which covered nearly all of one
end of the structure.
"I am the saving grace, the chief beauty of this establishment," the
Lady Trumpet would say. "And I know it."
"Of course you are," Mrs. Yellowhammer would reply. "And it was a great
mistake that you were ever planted here. A lady of your elegance, among
such weeds and common things, and at the very edge of nowhere!"
"Oh, I don't mind it much, although we have little company now. But
who's this coming this very minute?"
Sure enough, a man was passing. And he came through the old door-yard
straight up to the cabin steps and stood there a minute, and then was
gone. But not before he had thrown something over his shoulder which
lighted with a dry rattle, like that of corn, in at the base of the old
chimney.
"What a queer thing to do!" thought Lady Trumpet-Vine, thereby speaking
her own mind and that of the cabin as well.
"Not at all," suddenly spoke up Mr. Rabbit. "That man is throwing seed
over his left shoulder for his luck. I've seen it done before. And I'm
glad he doesn't want my left hind foot, or whatever it is that such
people like to carry in their pockets for good luck."
Immediately Mrs. Yellowhammer, who had been screaming to her friend,
Red-necked Woodpecker, to come and enjoy this mystery, flew down to
inspect the seeds which lay on the soil at the foot of the chimney. And
Mr. Rabbit scampered to get to the spot also.
They looked long and hard at the little brown things; then Mr. Rabbit
tried biting one of them.
"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "Bitter as poison!"
"I never taste things I am in doubt about," Mrs. Yellowhammer declared;
"but I'm not a seed-eater anyway. What does Mr. Bob-White think they
are?"
For a dapper little partridge was on the scene now, turning his head
this way and that as he squinted at the mysterious seeds.
"Gourds!" he finally pronounced them. "Gourd seed. No good for eating.
Even a sparrow wouldn't touch them."
Then the birds flew off and Mr. Rabbit skipped rope with himself all
around the yard, for he wanted to restore his spirits; this curious
incident having for a second clouded his buoyant nature.
This happened in the very early spring, before even a leaf was showing
on Lady Trumpet-Vine, and before even a purple wood violet had shown
herself in the borders of the deserted garden. Rains came; long ones
that drenched the earth and gullied the roads. The eaves of the cabin
dripped and dripped night and day, and it was not long before great
puddles lay by the sunken door-step, and were soaking down into the
roots of everything.
"What a pity there's nothing but weeds and those low-down gourd seeds
to be benefited by all this!" sighed the Lady Trumpet. "I shall
probably flower generously this year. But what's the use?"
Then she would grow very sad as the rain increased and out of the dark
skies came the heavy south winds.
But when the sky cleared, the gourd seeds had sunk out of sight. That
was good luck for them. Deeper down they went and at last their first
little roots were feeling the rich soil that no plant had enjoyed in
many a year. Then two bright green leaves, laden with halves of the old
seed coverings, came up.
The glistening earth was trying to dry itself in the sunshine, and the
jolly Woodpecker was looking out of his window in the trunk of the old
cherry-tree.
"Well, I'm a crow!" he exclaimed, "or there are those gourd seeds up
and out of bed so soon!"
He was so delighted with this that he told his wife; and soon all the
other people around the poor neglected place were flying and running to
take a look.
The little fellows, very sturdy and determined, were holding their
leaves out exactly as if they were spreading their palms upward to
catch the sunlight in their hands.
Time went on and the seeds became vines. The old chimney, built of
sticks and mud, and very unsightly, was revived to new feelings.
"Not since my supper fires went out have I felt so much alive," it
moaned as though it would like to be really pleased.
"If only I could smoke again, I should feel completely contented."
Soon the chimney and the eaves were green with gourd vine. Summer was
underway, with its long hot mornings and its wonderful nights. Lady
Trumpet-Vine was covered with buds, and she was already telling of how
she would be visited by all the most beautiful creatures in the world.
"But nobody'll visit your flowers," she said to the gourd vine. "Nobody
wants to. You're a bitter, ugly, common vine. That's what you are."
"I have some very respectable relatives, just the same," sang out
Sunny Gourd, determined not to be utterly demeaned. "There's Mr.
Watermelon and Mr. Cucumber. They are very well esteemed, you know. I
think they are appreciated perhaps almost as much as you are."
"But not for their beauty, my dear," was the retort. "I am loved by all
the world for my magnificence. Birds and men know beauty when they see
it. Trust me in that."
Then, almost in anger, such was her queenly pride, Lady Trumpet burst
a few of her buds. The full open flowers were wonderful, and a perfume
exhaled from them which made her neighbor dizzy.
"It's no use," Sunny Gourd sighed. "I can't do that. My flowers are
merely little no-account white things. No perfume to speak of. But I
don't care, I've reached the roof anyway, and I can look up at the sky
and watch the birds in these trees, and have a good time to myself. And
I can look at you, too, Mrs. Trumpet."
The stately vine waved her tendrils and fanned herself gently. She
couldn't help seeing that this gourd person was at least polite.
But the hardest thing in the world to bear is the idea that you are of
no use to anybody. And it was this which hurt the robust gourd vine.
Not a bird came for honey, and yet they hovered in ecstasy over Lady
Trumpet. Humming-birds, as brilliant as flashing gems, came whirring
like rays from a diamond shot from the sky. They would plunge their
long beaks deep into the flowers to get the nectar, and then dart away,
only to return again for more. Other beautiful creatures came to the
deserted garden and sang madly with delight, simply trying to make
their melody as intoxicating as Lady Trumpet's perfume.
But they studiously avoided Sunny Gourd. His leaves, big and green and
very rough, and his sinewy stems, his modest flowers and the bitter
juice of them, were odious to everybody. Yet he was green as emerald,
and he had made a picture of his end of the cabin.
"But the birds, how I love them!" he kept saying to himself. "And they
will have none of me!"
At last, however, to his great consolation, there came a little green
bee to visit him.
"Well, well!" it buzzed. "Here you are! Just what I want!"
And the little visitor tried to hang in every flower. His visits lasted
all day.
"Yes, I'm only a low ground bee," he remarked, after Sunny Gourd had
confided in him. "Those aristocratic honey-bees don't recognize me at
all. But I don't care. And you mustn't care. The birds will be mightily
obliged to you yet."
And without a word more, he was off. Nor would this handsome little
fellow ever explain what he meant. He would only say: "You just wait!"
Nor were there many weeks of waiting. For the autumn came, and the
pinch of cold nights with it. Things began to shrivel, but the
wonderful fruit of the gourd vine turned from green to yellow; lovely
as gold. Sunny Gourd had produced a hundred dippers: some with handles
curled and long, some straight as rulers, and some that were short and
thick. They hung in yellow companies from the eaves trough, or they
clustered over the roof. The best of them grew against the chimney,
and yet all were as gourds should be, stout of shell and beautifully
rounded.
"Very strange!" Lady Trumpet remarked. "Almost impressive. But I'm glad
I don't have to do it. My seed pods are elegance itself, and yet they
do not obtrude themselves that way. I call it vulgar."
But others thought differently. People began to go that way just to
see the house that was covered with gourds, and in the last days,
as the sap was drying in the vines, Sunny Gourd found that he was
attracting much attention.
Yet he was not to guess just the thing that was to happen.
One day the man who had thrown the seeds for luck, returned. And he
took but one delighted look.
Soon there was much going on and the old cabin came back to life
again. And, just as the chimney hoped, it was smoking once more.
There were children running around the weedy garden, and voices and
laughter brought back the happiness so long gone. The blue-jays and
the yellowhammers greeted the newcomers with delight, and Lady Trumpet
could only wish that they had seen her in her July glory. But to Sunny
Gourd happened the best of it all; for the man cut many of the gourds
into bird houses and hung them to a pole which he planted by the door.
Then came the martins to build, losing no time at all. The beautiful
yellow gourds hung high and happy, their hollow shells sheltering a
dozen beautiful birds. And the best of the gourds, the one with the
longest handle, which had swung clear of the door lintel all summer
long, and had ripened to a magnificent color, was hung by the well. It
made a dipper fit for a king; that is, if the king were a very good man.
Sunny Gourd knew no words for his happiness. And it was joy, not the
cold of the winter nights, to which he at last succumbed.
"That's the way with this wonderful world," said Mr. Mocking-bird. "And
I thought he was beautiful all along."
"And think what he did for me," the cabin kept saying.
So that even the proud Lady Trumpet knew her place at last, and she
honestly hoped the dear Sunny Gourd would come back in the spring.
XII
THE END OF THE TIMBER WOLF
Far away to the North, where the great rocky capes point out through
the sea toward the land where it is always snow and ice, there lived
two shepherds whose little huts were almost the only habitations in
many and many a mile of trackless forest. To be sure, they were within
traveling distance of a market town. For had there been no place for
trading the wonderful white wool which they sheared every spring from
their sheep, there would have been no object in their living in a place
so uncouth where year in and year out there were only the grandeurs of
earth and sky and the thunderous roar of the seas to keep them company.
But the shepherds and their families were not unhappy, and the chances
are that if you took them southward over sea and land to the great
cities they would only have longed to go back to their own cloudy
skies, to their wind-swept pastures, and the steep cliffs where the
sea-gulls nest. And it is certainly true that their little boys and
girls would never have been content to have stayed away very long from
the faithful dogs, who are the most important members in a shepherd
home. And it is of these dogs and what they did to the last of the
wolves that the shepherds were always telling. For the memory of a
brave act is slow to die; and when you add sagacity to bravery, putting
wits with strength, you have something which men love to relate.
One of the dogs was Dan, and that was a suitable name, for he was what
his master called "long-headed." The other was Denmark, for he was so
great and powerful and possessed of so wonderful a voice and appetite,
that both by power and dignity he resembled his people, the noble
Danes, and no name in the world could fit him better than that of his
native land.
Denmark had come to this far-away settlement when a ship from the
Danish ports had gone to pieces in a storm below the cliffs. And the
shepherds had taken him home. A dog that could swim ashore in such a
storm as that had been, when the waves turned to ice as they dashed
against the rocks, was a dog worth keeping.
But Denmark was not a shepherd dog. His shiny coat of black, his heavy
build, with a neck as powerful as a young bull's, and his great square
jaws made him at first sight a dog to be feared. But he was gentle and
wanted to play and sport like any puppy, as soon as he had recovered
from the shock of shipwreck and his icy hour in the water. But there
was no one to play with in the family of the fisherman who had first
rescued him from the water. And that worthy man, who was a brave and
silent sort, was gone from home so long at a time that he was not sorry
when the great Dane betook himself to another home.
Some children were passing the fisherman's hut one morning in early
spring, on their way to gather wild flowers which grew in the crevices
and little sheltered nooks of the headlands. They were laughing and
chasing one another and singing. That was all the great dog wanted to
hear, for he had lived a solemn and uneventful life during these weeks
that he had lain around the fisherman's place. And the fisherman had
not dreamed of entertaining his guest. He had not played tag in sixty
years and you may be sure he was not going to begin again for the sake
of a great overgrown dog.
Denmark introduced himself to the children in what he thought was
a playful way; but his voice was so terrible that the children were
at first terror-stricken. They had never seen any dogs except the
beautiful Scottish kind which the shepherds keep. They screamed and
ran in fear, taking up stones as if to throw them. But Denmark was not
discouraged. At first he kept his distance, but he followed; and, once
they were out on the green pastures that sloped and curved down to the
steep shore, he began his most enticing efforts to please.
The children forgot all about their wild flowers then, and they romped
and played for hours with the dog. Of course they took him home.
In this new home Denmark was a neighbor of Dan, the wise shepherd dog,
who came to be his lifelong friend; for the shepherds did not live very
far apart, and it was easy for the dogs to get together, as they always
did at odd times of night and very early in the morning, when they
would go far afield in a mad chase for rabbits or on the trail of a fox.
Every one had thought the two would fight when they met, but the
shepherd dog only stood off on his dignity a few seconds, and then he
spoke to the great Dane in the most courteous tones, which the Scotch
can always employ to such effect. He well knew that he was no match
for the gigantic stranger and he saw no necessity for making a fool of
himself; besides he really was more than glad to find such a companion.
The comradeship of these two lasted long and only came near to its
end when they cornered the great timber wolf in the sheep pen. This
was Dan's crowning achievement, and no one was more proud of him than
was the brave and courteous Denmark, who always gave to the shepherd
dog the full credit of having planned the whole thing. To rid the
countryside of this last wolf had been Dan's great desire. No one
but he was really sure of the wolf's existence. The time had passed
when the terrible packs of wolves descended on the sheep, and when
the belated traveler over the snowy roads was in peril of his life
from these stalking, famished enemies. But the shepherds were by no
means sure that the wolves were entirely gone, and when they sat by
the fireside telling stories of the dangers and hardships of the old
days, they would always end by admitting that not yet were the terrible
marauders hunted down.
Dan's back would bristle as he lay by the fire, and he would pound his
tail up and down on the hearth as if he entirely agreed. Could he have
spoken, he would have told them that often he had smelt the track of
something that was not a bear nor a fox. Then his blood would freeze in
his veins when the shepherds, talking in their slow way between sips
of ale, told how powerful and ferocious the wolf can be. They knew of
wolves that had snapped a dog's head nearly clean off the body with
just one flash of their terrible jaws. And they agreed that a wolf
could not be overpowered by any dog alone.
Dan always came to one conclusion in these recitals. If ever he could
find the wolf, and could employ his friend Denmark to help him, they
would show their masters that two dogs, at any rate, could get the best
of the timber wolf.
It came about at last that a long, heavy winter drove the wolf to
bolder and more risky operations among the sheepfolds. He ventured from
the dark, forest lairs closer and closer to the sheep pens and the
shepherd huts. The dogs knew this. But in the daytime the wolf was gone
far beyond the barriers of the steep cliffs of the mountains. And at
night the dogs could never venture far afield, for it was their duty to
stay close by the barns and the pens where the sheep were sheltered.
With the coming of spring, Dan's master had to spend many a night at
a pen some distance from the home. Down close to the shore he kept
another flock and in it were many little lambs that were sick. For in
the spring it is a common thing for the lambs that are winter-born to
be stricken with a sickness which only the best shepherds can cure.
Dan's master was up and about at all hours of the night, and poor Dan
was greatly concerned in his efforts to keep guard over two folds. But
if his dear master would take no sleep, Dan would take none. He was as
wakeful and anxious as though he owned the sick lambs himself.
It was well past midnight and the air was full of the wet odors which
denote the melting snows and the first coming of spring. As Dan was
trotting up the path from the lower fold, a whiff of that strange and
terrible odor which he knew to be the scent of the wolf, came to his
sensitive nostrils. He stood still. He snuffed the ground around him,
but he found no track. The wolf was near, but where?
Then a thought came to him. First, he must get Denmark. It would take
him but a few moments to run across to the neighboring farm, and now
was the time to put his plan into execution. He was much disturbed in
his mind, however, for he had never before left his master at night.
But the necessity was a pressing one.
Down the path and across the fields he ran, and came to Denmark's
home. The great dog was lying by the barn door, under a little shelter
which formed a kennel. He was wide awake and felt very much alert. He
confessed to Dan that he felt particularly nervous about something.
Yes, he was sure he could scent the wolf on the stagnant, heavy air.
Back they ran, their tails lowered, and their noses to the ground, for
this was no hour to play. Once they were in sight of the hut where the
shepherd and the little lambs were housed, Dan explained his plan.