Seven Little People and their Friends Part 9

"Look, my dear!" said he, "surely the woods are a-fire in the north!"

"Oh!" said she, "it is only the moon rising."

"Hold your trunk!" said he, sharply. "Are you such a camel as not to know that the moon never rises in the north?" But on second thoughts, he added, "I don't think it can be the woods on fire. See! the light is streaming up the sky. How many colours it has!"

"Perhaps it is the rainbow," timidly suggested the mother-Elephant.

"Rainbow! your Grandelephant!" retorted he, contemptuously. They stood looking at the increasing light for some time longer with their trunks elevated, the mother-Elephant wisely refraining from further comment; when suddenly the father-Elephant, in a state of great excitement, began whisking his trunk about, and turning, ran his ivory tusks against the large sides of the mother. It was his way of expressing joy. "Have a care!" said she, impatiently, clumsily avoiding his thrusts. "Do you want to make a hole in me?"

"I have it! I have it!" said he, joyfully. "That is the way to the stars! all we have to do is to reach the foot of these Northern Lights, and then there must be some ascent by them to the stars." Hereupon the Elephant began to dance about as well as he could, and tore up several small trees by the roots in his exultation. The mother-Elephant, however, had her doubts.

"I don't believe," said she, "that we shall be any more likely to reach these lights than I was to get to the foot of the rainbow, which you know I tried once and had the mortification of being laughed at by the monkeys in consequence. Nevertheless, I will do as you say, my dear; you know best."

That very night, accordingly, the two set out in search of the Northern Lights. They travelled for days and weeks. Every once in a while, when they began to get discouraged, the Aurora would appear and they would press on with new hope. At last they came to a very cold country. Here they made enquiries of a polar bear. Now the Polar Bear is generally courteous. Like all the family he is very affectionate and always gives one a hearty embrace upon meeting; but he is not sincere. It so happened that his family also had a story and about these very Northern Lights.

The story was, that if one could find the foot of them one would discover an immense hole or pit where one could sleep forever. This was precisely what the polar bears most wanted, and they were forever going north in search of the hole. This particular Polar Bear that the Elephants met was at that very time on his way thither. So he thought to himself, "This will never do. If these immense animals reach the hole--for I'm sure that is what they are going for, the idea of the stars is only an absurd blind--they will occupy all the room." This he said to himself, and then he turned to the Elephants and said in answer to their question as to the most direct road--"You will have to keep to the east for some distance; then you will come to ice; cross it and you will come to land again, after which you can again enquire as I am unable to direct you further; though if you go a little south, and call on my cousins, the Black Bears, they will be very happy to give you any information. Just mention my name to them and it will be sufficient." He knew very well that the Black Bears knew nothing whatever of the matter.

What they wished was to find the Great Tree up which they could climb and in which they could burrow. But all that the Polar Bear wanted was to put the Elephants off the track.

They thanked him for his politeness, and followed his directions. They came to the ice which they crossed; and once more they trode on land, but upon a new continent--upon North America, in fact, as it is now called. "I am not so sure about this matter of going south," said the father-Elephant. "It seems to me that we shall be going away from the Northern Lights. I begin to mistrust the Polar Bear."

"But my dear," said the mother-Elephant, "surely the way has been just as he told us; and I could never doubt one so evidently warm-hearted.

Besides, don't you think it would be best to get where it is a little warmer? You know we don't propose going ourselves; the journey is taken solely on account of our son not yet born. We might let him grow a little in a warmer country and then conduct him to the Northern Lights."

The father-Elephant would not agree with her; he preferred to have his own way; but finally he said: "I think we will go a little farther South, on the whole. I am not sure but there is an easier way of getting to the North, by taking just a little southerly and then an easterly course." This was a very foolish reason, but it satisfied him. All he wished was to do as he chose and not because his wife advised it. It satisfied her too. All she wanted was to get where it was a little warmer; but she found it hard not to say--"that is just the plan I proposed." She was wise not to say it however.

They had suffered a great deal by this time. So much travel and so much severe weather, had brought sorrow and discomfort to them. They were really thin for Elephants. The father-Elephant had lost much flesh, and his skin hung about him very loosely. They complained too of the trees; they were so stunted and such poor eating. They were, in truth, very miserable. They even began to care but little for the object of their journey. The object was changed in fact. Before, they were only anxious to reach the Northern Lights--the staircase to the stars. Now, all they desired was to reach a warmer place--one like that where they once lived.

At last the father-Elephant, overcome by all his trouble died; but the mother-Elephant sustained by the hope of her unborn son, still pressed toward the South, and rejoiced as the days grew warmer. Finally, she reached a pleasant place where the hills were all about her, and the sun shone warmly. Here was born the young Elephant, the son of the two Elephants who had travelled so far. The mother now felt herself very weak.

"My son," she began with great difficulty, "there is a tradition"--but just as she got through the word, she died, and the young Elephant in vain listened for the rest of the sentence.

"What's a tradition? I wonder," he said to himself. "It must be something to eat, I am excessively hungry." He looked round and saw a birch tree standing by. "Ah! that must be the tradition my mother meant, when she said, 'There is a tradition.' Yes, her trunk is pointing to it." So he pulled up the birch tree and devoured it, as well as he could. The young Elephant continued to wander among the mountains but with no great purpose in life; for he was totally ignorant of the story that one of his race would one day mount to the sky and dwell among the stars, so that he was without that great object before him. Neither did he know how much suffering his father and mother had gone through, that he might be the fortunate Elephant who should ascend the sky. It was spring when he was born. The days grew warmer and warmer and he enjoyed them exceedingly. But after a while the days became shorter and the sun was not so hot.

"What is the meaning of this?" he one day asked of a Black Bear with whom he was somewhat intimate.

"It means," said the Bear gruffly, "that bye-and-bye the sun will go a great way off, the snow will be on the ground; there will be no whortle berries to eat, and I shall go to sleep."

"Dreadful!" said the Elephant. "Is there no way of avoiding such discomfort?"

"None that I know of or care for," said the Bear. "Roll yourself up and go to sleep as I do, and you'll be comfortable enough." But the Elephant despaired of ever rolling himself up; he was growing larger every day and such a proceeding was of course becoming more and more difficult.

"Let us call a council of the animals," said he, "and see what is to be done about it." Now the Elephant was greatly feared in the place. He was so large and powerful. So no animal dared disobey when the Hare whom the Elephant had sent brought the message to them. They a.s.sembled about a deep pool. The Elephant opened the meeting by dipping his trunk into the pool and squirting water over all the animals. He thought it was great fun, and they did not dare run away, for they feared his anger.

"The Elephant is very good-natured," whispered the Otter, who cared nothing for the wetting, to the Fox who was shivering under his ducking, and contriving a way of getting off. "You never see a large fat fellow but he is so good-natured. What a joke that was of his to squirt water all over the crowd!"

"V-v-very," chattered the Fox. "It isn't what you call a dry joke, though, is it?"

"What a cunning fellow you are!" said the Otter. "But, holloa, are you going off on the sly?" Yes, surely the Fox was starting away.

"Tell the Elephant," said he, "that I'm off after a partridge. We shall want something to eat after meeting." But he did not come back again.

While they were all shivering with the wet, the Elephant wiping the end of his trunk upon some moss, opened his mouth and spake.

"I notice," quoth he, "that it is not as warm as it was, and my friend the Bear at my right hand (here the bear sitting on his hind legs nodded his head and growled,) tells me that it will grow much colder even. It would be a great calamity to all of us, and I have called you together that we may confer as to the best means of avoiding this severe cold that is to come, which my friend the Bear (another growl) calls by the name of winter. You are at liberty to make any suggestions you please."

The Wolf spoke first. "Who cares for the winter?" snarled he. "For my part I think it is great sport. The snow grows very hard, and one glides over the crust so swiftly. Besides, it is easy then to see the footsteps of my little friends," and the Wolf leered round upon the smaller animals. "The winter is grand sport."

"But I could not walk on the crust," said the Elephant, "I am too heavy.

No, it will not do at all just to take the winter as you would any other season. We must either prevent the winter or protect ourselves from it.

Let us hear the Hare. I am not above listening to him."

The Hare came out trembling and hardly dared open his mouth. His friend the Squirrel, however, stood near and clapped to rea.s.sure him. "Go it, Long Ears!" said he, encouragingly. Then the Hare bashfully spoke. "My own course is to make a hole and get into it." Saying this, he hopped back to his seat alarmed that he should have said so much.

"That is very ridiculous!" said the Elephant. "It would be quite absurd to expect me to make a hole and get into it." Just then there was a rustling noise over head, and a dark cloud seemingly pa.s.sed over them.

"What is that?" asked the Elephant. No one answered at first, when the Squirrel came forward in a deferential manner and said: "Please your Bigness, that is a flock of geese flying to the South. They go every winter to keep warm."

"Do they?" said the Elephant. "Why shouldn't I too go South to keep warm?" No one objected to this; they all secretly hoped he would go, except indeed the Wolf, who had been counting on the Elephant falling a prey to him. At last the Squirrel spoke again.

"Please your Bigness, I can show you the way to the South if you wish it."

"Pray what do you know about the South?" asked the Wolf, sneeringly, "How would you go to get there?"

"Follow my tail!" retorted the Squirrel.

"I think I will go to the South," said the Elephant, "and the Squirrel may go with me to show the way. We will start immediately; there is no time to be lost. Stay you all about here till I return." And off he walked, preceded by the Squirrel.

"How thankful I am that he has gone!" said the Hare, "but I wish the Squirrel had not gone with him." The Wolf was savage at the idea of the Elephant's going off and depriving him thus of such a fine winter's provision. He showed his teeth fearfully. And when the night was later, he stole swiftly and silently along the path over which the Elephant and Squirrel had gone. "He will go to sleep," said the Wolf, "and then I will spring upon him." He came up with the Elephant after a while, and found him as he expected fast asleep, with the Squirrel perched on one of his tusks. But the Squirrel kept good watch. He saw the gleaming eyes of the Wolf and knew that he came for no good. Quickly he jumped upon the Elephant's trunk, and running down to the end of it tickled it with his tail. This instantly awoke the Elephant. It was no use now for the Wolf to spring upon him. He could only hope to get the mastery of him if he caught him asleep and off his guard. So the Wolf slunk back into the woods again.

In the morning the Elephant and Squirrel again took up their march. For several days they walked toward the South, until they came one morning to a river that was flowing quietly along. It was not a wide river; it was hardly more than a brook, and one could scarcely hear a sound, it flowed so smoothly. It ran through the forest, its edges skirted with rows of flowers, and its banks cushioned with every variety of moss.

There was hardly a large stone in it for the water to eddy about. The Squirrel ran up the Elephant's back, and he in two or three steps waded across. It was not above his knee in any place. Once over on the other side, the Squirrel ran down the Elephant's fore-leg to the ground. The Elephant drank some of the cool water and then amused himself with squirting it about in every direction. He aimed it chiefly at some rocks that lay by the side of the river--rocks of all sizes and shapes. This sport grew tiresome, however, and the Elephant began to look about for some new fun. The rocks again met his eye.

"What fun it would be," said he to the Squirrel, "if I should pitch these rocks into the river." Saying this he twisted his trunk round an immense boulder and flung it into the bed of the stream.

"Oh!" screamed the Squirrel. "Don't do so! you will hurt the river."

"It deserves to be hurt," said the Elephant. "What business has it to flow along without making any noise. I'll teach it to sing." He threw rock after rock into the river, piling them high up in some places. The Squirrel looked on mournfully, and could bear it at last no longer. He ran to the Elephant and looked up into his face.

"Do you remember the first night we left home," said he, "how I prevented the Wolf from killing you? For my sake, then, do not destroy or hurt the river!" At this the Elephant grew very angry.

"Go to the Wolf with your nonsense!" said he, and lifting his heavy foot, he cruelly stepped upon the little Squirrel and crushed him to death. The Elephant was now perfectly fiendish. He raised his trunk in the air and blew a terrible trumpet sound. He hurled rock after rock into the stream. He walked down its side and kept casting in the rocks and stones that lay about so plentifully. The river, when the first stone fell in was shocked by it, and eddied around it in a petulant way.

As stone after stone came splashing in, choking its current, the river more loudly complained and remonstrated, but to no purpose. Still the rocks came crushing down, and now the river growing more and more angry, rushed foaming madly along. Over the rocks and between it rushed and roared. The moss on the banks and the tall flowers growing out of it, trembled as the stream rose higher and higher. The Elephant snorted and blew his terrible trumpet, walking up and down, and throwing rocks and trees up-torn by the roots, into the rushing flood. At last the rocks were all thrown in. Not one was left on the banks.

Where now was the beautiful, quiet river? It was turned by the remorseless Elephant into an angry, hateful flood. It was the Mad River.

Where was the little Squirrel that had saved the Elephant's life and led him hither, and pleaded for the lovely river that it might be spared? Dead! crushed by the unthankful, cruel Elephant, and swept down the stream that dashed so fiercely along!

The Elephant, after he had done this deed of violence, left Mad River and walked into the woods beyond, cooler in spirit since his anger had spent itself. He began now to reflect upon his conduct. "The river had done nothing to me," he thought, "that I should treat it so harshly. And the Squirrel--I killed the Squirrel, who was my best friend. That was an unkind act." But though the Elephant thus began to blame himself, he never thought of turning back, and undoing as much as he might of the mischief he had done. He kept on his journey and tried to dismiss from his mind such unpleasant thoughts. The Elephant is called good-natured because he is so fat; that may be, but really he is both cruel and cowardly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He hurled rock after rock into the stream."]