Mother West Wind "Where" Stories Part 2

Peter Rabbit was hopping along on the edge of the Green Meadows, looking for a new patch of sweet clover. It was very beautiful that morning, and Peter was in the best of spirits. It was good just to be alive. Every once in a while Peter would jump up and kick his long heels together just from pure happiness. He was so happy that he didn't pay particular attention to where he was going or what was about him. The result was that Peter got a fright. Right from under his very nose something sprang out of the gra.s.s so suddenly and so wholly unexpectedly that Peter very nearly tumbled over backward. He made two long jumps off to one side and then turned to see what had startled him so. But all he saw was an old feathered acquaintance headed towards the Old Orchard. He seemed to bound along through the air much as Peter bounds along over the ground when he is in a hurry. It was Yellow-Wing the Flicker.

Peter grinned and looked a little foolish. He felt a little foolish. You know it always makes you feel foolish to be frightened when there is nothing to be afraid of. Peter watched Yellow-Wing until he disappeared among the trees of the Old Orchard, from which presently his voice sounded clear and loud, and in it there was a mocking note as if Yellow-Wing were laughing at him. Peter suspected that he was. But Peter was feeling too happy to mind being laughed at. In fact, he chuckled himself. It was something of a joke to be frightened by one who was so wholly harmless. Peter recalled how many times he had frightened other people and thought it the best of jokes.

Peter went on until he found a new patch of sweet clover. Then he forgot all about Yellow-Wing. He was too busy filling that big stomach of his to think of anything else. When he couldn't find room for another leaf of clover he went home to the dear Old Briar-patch, and there in his favorite spot he settled himself to rest and think or dream as the case might be. Presently his thoughts returned to Yellow-Wing, and he chuckled again at the memory of his fright that morning. And then for the first time it struck Peter as queer that Yellow-Wing should have been out there on the Green Meadows on the ground. He often had seen Yellow-Wing on the ground, but until that moment there never had seemed anything queer about that. Now, however, it suddenly came to Peter that Yellow-Wing belonged in trees, not on the ground.

Peter scratched his long left ear with his long left hind foot, which was a sign that he was thinking of something that puzzled him. "He belongs to the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r family," thought Peter, "and never have I seen any of his relatives on the ground. They get all their food in the trees. Now why is Yellow-Wing so different from his relatives?"

The more Peter thought about it, the queerer it seemed that a Woodp.e.c.k.e.r should spend so much time on the ground, or visit the ground at all, for that matter. But just wondering about it didn't get him anywhere, and at last Peter decided that the only way to find out would be to ask questions. So Peter made up his mind to watch for Yellow-Wing and ask him all about it the first chance he got.

The chance came the very next day in the very same place where Peter had been so startled. This time he was on the watch and saw Yellow-Wing very busy about something. Peter stole up within speaking distance.

"Good morning, Yellow-Wing," said he. "I wonder if you will tell me something."

It was Yellow-Wing's turn to be startled, for he had not seen Peter approaching. He half lifted his wings to fly, but when he saw who it was, he changed his mind.

"It all depends on what it is you want me to tell you," he replied rather shortly.

"It is just this," replied Peter. "Why do you spend so much time on the ground?"

"That's easily answered," laughed Fellow-Wing. "I do it because it is the easiest way to get enough to eat."

Peter looked as surprised as he felt. "I thought that all your family got their living in the trees!" he exclaimed.

"All do but me," replied Yellow-Wing a wee bit testily. "But I don't have to do what they do just because they do it. No, Siree, I'm independent! Do you like ants, Peter?"

"What?" exclaimed Peter.

"I asked if you like ants," repeated Yellow-Wing.

"I've never tried them," Peter replied, "but I've heard Old Mr. Toad say they are very nice."

"They are," said Yellow-Wing. "They are more than nice--they are de-li-cious. It is because of them that I spend so much time on the ground. Ants changed the habits of the Flicker branch of the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r family. I wouldn't be surprised if we became regular ground birds one of these days."

Peter looked puzzled. He kept turning it over in his mind as he watched Yellow-Wing plunge his long stout bill into an ant hill and then gobble up the ants as they came rushing out to see what the trouble was.

"I don't see how ants could change the habits of anybody," he ventured after a while.

Yellow-Wing's eyes twinkled. "Why don't you learn to eat them?" he demanded. "If you would, they might change _your_ habits. The beginning of the change in the habits of my folks began a long time ago."

"Way back in the beginning of things, when the world was young?" asked Peter.

"No, not quite so far back as that," replied Yellow-Wing.

"Great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, who was the first Flicker, was, of course, a member of the Woodp.e.c.k.e.r family, and he got his living in regular Woodp.e.c.k.e.r fashion. It never entered his head to look for food anywhere but in the trees, and I don't suppose that it ever entered his head to set foot on the ground. It was the same with his children and his children's children for a long time.

"But though they lived as true Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs should, the Flickers always were a bit sharper-witted and more independent than most of their relatives. For one thing they had discovered that ants were fine eating and that great numbers of them were to be found running up and down the trunks of certain trees. So the Flickers used to look for these trees and feast on the ants. It saved a lot of labor. A stomachful of ants could be picked from the trunk of a tree in the time it would take to dig out one worm in the wood, to say nothing of the saving of hard work.

"One day a few years ago my great-great-great-grandfather, so the story goes, had stuffed himself with ants from the trunk of a tree and had settled himself for a rest. From where he sat he could see a procession of ants going up and down the tree, and he got to wondering where they all came from and where they all went to. So he watched and presently discovered that that double line of ants led out along the ground from the foot of the tree. This made him still more curious and he followed it, flying along just over it. He had gone but a short distance when he came to a little mound of sand, and there the line of ants ended.

Grandfather Flicker flew up in a tree from which he could look right down on that mound, and it didn't take him long to discover that those ants were going in and out of little holes in that mound.

"'As I live, that must be their home!' exclaimed he. 'That place is alive with them. What a place to fill one's stomach! I never was on the ground in my life, but the next time I'm hungry, I'm going to see what the ground is like. I won't have to stay on it long to get my dinner here.'

"Grandfather Flicker was as good as his word. When he was ready for another meal, he flew down to that ant hill. He found that when he plunged his bill into it, the ants fairly poured out to see what was happening, and all he had to do was to thrust out his long sticky tongue and lick them up. Never in all his life before had he filled his stomach so easily. After that, instead of wasting time hunting for worms and insects in the trees where he could find only one at a time, Grandfather Flicker kept his eyes open for ant hills on the ground. He taught his children to do the same thing. That was the beginning of the change of habits with the Flickers. Ever since we have spent more and more time on the ground, so that now we feel quite at home there. We still get some of our food in the trees by way of variety, and we make our homes there, but a good big part of our food we get just as I am doing now."

With this Yellow-Wing once more plunged his bill into the ant hill and licked up a dozen ants who had come rushing out to see what was going on. And so once more the curiosity of Peter Rabbit was satisfied, and he had learned something.

V

WHERE LITTLE CHIEF LEARNED TO MAKE HAY

No one in all the Great World thinks more of the present and less of the future than does careless, happy-go-lucky Peter Rabbit. Everybody who knows Peter at all knows that Peter doesn't waste any time worrying over what may happen in a day that may never be. So Peter isn't thrifty as are Happy Jack Squirrel and Chatterer the Red Squirrel and Whitefoot the Wood Mouse and Paddy the Beaver and Striped Chipmunk.

"I've got enough to eat today, and enough is enough, so what is the use of working when I don't have to?" says Peter. "I don't believe in working today so that I won't have to work tomorrow, because when tomorrow comes there may be no need of working, and then I would feel that I had wasted all this good time today." No, Peter isn't the least bit thrifty.

It is the same way with Peter's big cousin, Jumper the Hare. The truth is the whole family is happy-go-lucky. Happy Jack Squirrel says that every blessed one of them is shiftless. It does look that way. It is a pity that Peter and Jumper never have learned a lesson from Little Chief Hare, who is commonly supposed to be a relative of theirs, although, as a matter of fact, he is neither a Hare nor a Rabbit, but is a Pika, which is another family altogether. He is also called a Coney and sometimes the Calling Hare. But if you want sure-enough proof that he is neither a Rabbit nor a Hare, just watch him, if you are lucky enough to have a chance, cut and dry and store away a great pile of hay for winter use. No true member of Peter's family ever would think of doing such a thing as that, more is the pity.

Peter never has seen Little Chief, because Little Chief lives high up on a mountain of the Far West among the rocks where Peter would never go, even if he could, but he has heard all about him. Old Man Coyote told him all about him, and he got the story from his grandfather, who got it from his grandfather, who had one time visited the great mountain where Little Chief's ever-so-great-grandfather lived in the very place where Little Chief lives now. Old Man Coyote had chased Peter into the dear Old Briar-patch one cold winter day, and as he peered through the brambles at Peter he noticed that Peter was very thin, very thin indeed.

Old Man Coyote grinned.

"I'm just as well pleased not to have caught you this time, Peter," said he. "You wouldn't make much of a dinner just now. When I dine I want something more than skin and bones. It must be that you are having as hard work as I am to get a living these days."

"I am," replied Peter. "With all this snow and ice on the ground, there is nothing to eat but bark and such tender twigs as I can reach, and they are not very filling. But they'll keep me alive until better times come, and then perhaps I'll get fat enough to suit you." It was Peter's turn to grin.

Old Man Coyote grinned back good-naturedly. "I should think, Peter,"

said he, "that when there is so much sweet gra.s.s and clover in the summer, you would make some of it into hay and store it away for winter, as Little Chief Hare does. There's the thrifty little hay-maker for you!"

"Who is Little Chief, and where did he learn to make hay?" demanded Peter, his ears standing straight up with curiosity.

Old Man Coyote likes to tell a story once in a while, and having nothing else to do just then, he sat down just outside the dear Old Briar-patch and told Peter all about Little Chief and his hay-making.

"Of course," said he, "Little Chief's father taught him how to make hay, and his father's father taught him, and so on way back to the days when the world was young and Old Mother Nature made the first Pika or Coney, whichever you please to call him, and set him free on a great mountain to prove whether he was worthy to live or was so helpless that there was no place for him in the Great World. Now Mr. Pika, who was promptly called Little Chief, no one remembers now just why, was exactly like Little Chief of today. He was just about a fourth as big as you, Peter.

In fact, he looked a lot like one of your babies, excepting his legs and his ears. His legs were short and rather weak, and his ears were short and rounded. He was very gentle and timid. He had neither the kind of teeth and claws for fighting nor long legs for running away, and it did seem as if Little Chief's chances of a long life and a happy one were very slim indeed, especially as it happened that he was set free to shift for himself just at the beginning of the hard times, when the big and strong had begun to hunt the small and weak.

"For a while Little Chief had a hard time of it and so many narrow escapes that his heart was in his mouth most of the time. In trying to keep out of the way of his enemies he kept climbing higher and higher up the mountain, for the higher he got the fewer enemies he found. At last he came to a big rock-slide above where the trees grew, and where there was nothing but broken stone and big rocks. The sun lay there very warm, and Little Chief crept out among the stones to take a sun-bath; as he squatted there it would have taken keen eyes indeed to tell him from a stone himself, though he didn't know this.

"After he had had a good rest, and jolly Mr. Sun had moved so that Little Chief was no longer in the warm rays, Little Chief decided to look about a little. It didn't take him long to discover that there were wonderful little winding galleries and hiding-places down among the stones. These led to little cracks and caves deep down in the mountain side. Little Chief was tickled almost to death.

"'This is the place for me!' he cried. 'No one ever will think to look for me up here, and if they should they couldn't find me, for no one, not even King Bear, could pull away these stones fast enough to catch me. All day long I can enjoy the sun, and at night I can sleep in perfect safety in one of these little caves.'

"So Little Chief made his home in the rock-slide high up on the mountain and was happy, for it was just as he thought it would be--no one thought of looking in that bare place for him. For food he ate the pea vines and gra.s.ses and other green things that grew just at the edge of the rock-slide and was perfectly happy. One day he decided he would take some of his dinner into his little cave and eat it there. So he cut a little bundle of pea vine and other green things. He left his little bundle on a flat rock in the sun while he went to look for something else and then forgot all about it. It didn't enter his head again until a few days later he happened along by that flat rock and discovered that little bundle. The pea vines and gra.s.ses were quite dry, just like the hay Farmer Brown's boy helps his father store away in the barn every summer.

"'I guess I don't want to eat that,' said Little Chief, 'but it will make me a very nice bed.' So he carried it home and made a bed of it.

There wasn't quite enough, so the next day he cut some more and carried it home at once. But this, being green, soon soured and smelled so badly that he was forced to take it out and throw it away. That set him to thinking. Why was the first he had brought in so dry and sweet and pleasant? Why didn't it spoil as the other had done? He cut some more and spread it out on the big flat rock and once again he forgot. When he remembered and went to look at it two or three days later, he found it just like the first, dry and sweet and very pleasant to smell. This he took home to add to his bed. Then he took home some more that was green, and this spoiled just as the other had done.

"Little Chief was puzzling over this as he squatted on a rock taking a sun-bath. The sun was very warm and comforting. After a while the rock on which he sat grew almost hot. Little Chief had brought along a couple of pieces of pea vine on which to lunch, but not being hungry he left them beside him on the rock. By and by he happened to glance at them.

They had wilted and already they were beginning to dry. An idea popped into his funny little head.