YES, the end was come! The woodchuck sounded, the next morning, the note
which had for days been vibrating in the hearts of all the wild
creatures, but which they had been loth to strike, for Toto's sake.
"Come!" he said. "It is time we were off. I don't know what you are all
thinking of, to stay on here after you are awake. I smelt the wet earth
and the water, and the sap running in the trees, even in that dungeon
where you had put me. The young reeds will soon be starting beside the
pool, and it is my work to trim them and thin them out properly;
besides, I am going to dig a new burrow, this year. I tell you I must be
off."
And the squirrel with a chuckle, and the wood-pigeon with a sigh, and
the raccoon with a strange feeling which he hardly understood, but
which was not all pleasure, echoed the words, "We must be off!" Only the
bear said nothing, for he was in the wood-shed, splitting kindling-wood
with a fury of energy which sent the chips flying as if he were a
saw-mill.
So it came to pass that on a soft, bright day in April, when the sun was
shining sweetly, and the wind blew warm from the south, and the buds
were swelling on willow and alder, the party of friends stood around the
door of the little cottage, exchanging farewells, half merry, half sad,
and wholly loving.
"After all, it is hardly good-by!" said the squirrel, gayly. "We shall
be here half the time, just as we were last summer; and the other half,
Toto will be in the forest. Eh, Bruin?"
But Bruin rubbed his nose with his right paw, and said nothing.
"And you will come to the forest, too, dear Madam!" cried the raccoon,
"will you not? You will bring the knitting and the gingerbread, and we
will have picnics by the pool, and you will learn to love the forest as
much as Toto does. Won't she, Bruin?"
But Bruin rubbed his nose with his left paw, and still said nothing.
"And when my nest is made, and my little ones are fledged," cooed the
wood-pigeon in her tender voice, "their first flight shall be to you,
dear Madam, and their first song shall tell you that they love you, and
that we love you, every day and all day. For we do love you; don't we,
Bruin?"
But the bear only looked helplessly around him, and scratched his head,
and again said nothing.
"Well," said Toto, cheerily, though with a suspicion of a quiver in his
voice, "you are all jolly good fellows, and we have had a merry winter
together. Of course we shall miss you sadly, Granny and I; but as you
say, Cracker, we shall all see each other every day; and I am longing
for the forest, too, almost as much as you are."
"Dear friends," said the blind grandmother, folding her hands upon her
stick, and turning her kindly face from one to the other of the
group,--"dear friends, merry and helpful companions, this has indeed
been a happy season that we have spent together. You have, one and all,
been a comfort and a help to me, and I think you have not been
discontented yourselves; still, the confinement has of course been
strange to you, and we cannot wonder that you pine for your free,
wildwood life. Coon, give me your paw! it is a mischievous paw, but it
has never played any tricks on me, and has helped me many and many a
time. My little Cracker, I shall miss your merry chatter as I sit at my
spinning-wheel. Mary, and Pigeon Pretty, let me stroke your soft
feathers once more, by way of 'good-by.' Woodchuck, I have seen little
of you, but I trust you have enjoyed your visit, in your own way.
"And now, last of all, Bruin! my good, faithful Bruin! come here and let
me shake your honest, shaggy paw, and thank you for all that you have
done for me and for my boy." She paused, but no answer came.
"Why, where _is_ Bruin?" cried Toto, starting and looking round; "surely
he was here a minute ago. Bruin! Bruin! where are you?"
But no deep voice was heard, roaring cheerfully, "Here, Toto boy!" No
shaggy form came in sight. Bruin was gone.
"He has gone on ahead, probably," said the raccoon; "he said something,
this morning, about not liking to say good-by. Come, you others, we must
follow our leader. Good-by, dear Madam! See you to-morrow, Toto!"
"Good-by!"
"Good-by!"
"Good-by!" cried all the others.
And with many a backward glance, and many a wave of paw, or tail, or
fluttering wing, the party of friends took their way to the forest home.
Boy Toto stood with his hands in his pockets, looking after them with
bright, wide-open eyes. He did not cry,--it was a part of Toto's creed
that boys did not cry after they had left off petticoats,--but he felt
that if he had been a girl, the tears might have come in spite of him.
So he stared very hard, and puckered his mouth in a silent whistle, and
felt of the marbles in his pockets,--for that is always a soothing and
comforting thing to do.
"Toto, dear," said his grandmother, "do you think our Bruin is really
_gone_, without saying a word of farewell to us?"
"So it seems!" said the boy, briefly.
"I am very much grieved!" cried the old lady, putting her handkerchief
to her sightless eyes,--"very, very much grieved! If it had been Coon,
now, I should not have been so much surprised; but for Bruin, our
faithful friend and helper, to leave us so, seems--"
"_Hello!_" cried Toto, starting suddenly, "what is that noise?"
Both listened, and, lo! on the quiet air came the sharp crashing sound
of an axe.
"He's there!" cried the boy. "He _isn't_ gone! I'll go--" and with that
he went, as if he had been shot out of a catapult.
Rushing into the wood-shed, he caught sight of the well-beloved shaggy
figure, just raising the axe to deliver a fearful blow at an unoffending
log of wood. Flinging his arms round it (the figure, not the axe nor the
log), he gave it such a violent hug that bear and boy sat down suddenly
on the ground, while the axe flew to the other end of the shed.
"Oh, Bruin, Bruin!" cried Toto, "we thought you were gone, without
saying a word to us. How could you frighten us so?"
The bear rubbed his nose confusedly, and muttered something about "a few
more sticks in case of cold weather."
But here Toto burst out laughing in spite of himself, for the shed was
piled so high with kindling-wood that the bear sat as it were at the
bottom of a pit whose sides of neatly split sticks rose high above his
head.
"You old goose!" cried the boy. "There's kindling-wood enough here to
last us ten years, at the very least. Come away! Granny wants you. She
thought--"
"There will be more butter to make, now, Toto, since that new calf has
come," said the bear, breaking in with apparent irrelevance.
"I suppose there will!" said the boy, staring. "What of it?"
"And that pig is getting too big for you to manage," continued Bruin, in
a serious tone. "He was impudent to _me_ the other day, and I had to
take him up by the tail and swing him, before he would apologize. Now,
you _couldn't_ take him up by the tail, Toto, much less swing him, and
there is no use in your deceiving yourself about it."
"Of course I couldn't!" cried Toto. "No one could, except you, old
monster. But what _are_ you thinking about that for, now? Come along, I
tell you! Granny will think you are gone, after all." And catching the
bear by the ear, he led him back in triumph to the cottage-door, crying,
"Granny, Granny! here he is! Now give him a good scolding, please, for
frightening us so."
But the grandmother never scolded. She only stroked the shaggy black
fur, and said, "Bruin, dear! my good, faithful, true-hearted Bruin! I
could not bear to think that you had left me without saying good-by.
That hurt me very much. But you would not have done it, would you,
Bruin? We ought to have known you better."
The bear looked about him distractedly, and bit his paw severely, as if
to relieve his feelings. "Yes I would!" he cried. "At least, if I meant
to say good-by. I wouldn't say it, because I couldn't. But I don't mean
to say it,--I mean I don't mean to do it. If you don't want me in the
house,--being large and clumsy, as I am well aware, and ugly too,--I can
sleep out by the pump, and come in to do the work. But I cannot leave
the boy, please, dear Madam, nor you. And the calf wants attention, and
that pig _ought_ to be swung at least once a week, and--and--"
But there was no need of further speech, for Toto's arms were clinging
round his neck, and Toto's voice was shouting exclamations of delight;
and the grandmother was shaking his great black paw, and calling him
her best friend, her dearest old Bruin, and telling him that he should
never leave them.
And, in fact, he never did leave them. He settled down quietly in the
little cottage, and washed and churned, baked and brewed, milked the cow
and kept the pig in order. Happy was the good bear, and happy was Toto,
in those pleasant days. For every afternoon, when the work was done,
they welcomed one or all of their forest friends; or else they sought
the green, beloved forest themselves, and sat beside the fairy pool, and
wandered in the cool green mazes where all was sweetness and peace, with
rustle of leaves and murmur of water, and chirp of bird and insect. But
evening found them always at the cottage door again, bringing their
woodland joyousness to the blind grandmother, making the kitchen ring
with laughter as they related the last exploits of the raccoon or the
squirrel, or described the courtship of the parrot and the crow.
And if you had asked any of the three, as they sat together in the
porch, who was the happiest person in the world, why, Toto and the
Grandmother would each have answered, "I!" But Bruin, who had never
studied grammar, and knew nothing whatever about his nominatives and his
accusatives, would have roared with a thunder-burst of enthusiasm,
"ME!!!"
University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 44, illustration caption, "Wah-song! Wah-song!" changed to
"Wah-Song! Wah-Song!" (Golden Dragon. "Wah-Song! Wah-Song! Awake!")
Page 194, "gigantie" changed to "gigantic" (statement, the gigantic)
End of Project Gutenberg's Toto's Merry Winter, by Laura E. Richards