The Magic Speech Flower Part 7

"'No, we are not,' spoke up one bold, saucy little fellow. 'We don't care for what they say. We've been having a good time all by ourselves.'

"'Very well,' said Gloos-cap, 'since you are not willing to obey your parents, you shall never trouble them any more. You shall become birds.

Since you love to play in the mud, you shall always build your nests of mud; and since you love to gad about so much, you shall wander about the earth forever.'

"And so it has been with the swallow folk since that time.

"But," went on the old swallow, "our foreparents learned their lesson, and since that time we always bring up our children to be very obedient.

No doubt you have noticed how very well they mind."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIV. LITTLE LUKE AND A-BAL-KA THE CHIPMUNK

One of little Luke's best friends among the wild folk was A-bal-ka the Chipmunk. He was a dainty little fellow about five inches long, with a tail of the same length. His coat was of a yellowish-brown color, with black stripes running down his back. This fine, striped coat made him look much prettier than his cousin Mee-ko the Red Squirrel.

He was a clean, jolly, little chap, and very fond of singing, though he knew but two songs. One was a sharp chip, chip, chip, which he would sometimes keep up for a long time. At a distance it sounded like the call note of some bird. The other was a cuck, cuck, cuck, which sounded much like the song of the Cuckoo. A curious thing about this song was that one could scarcely tell where it came from. Little Luke was often deceived by it. Sometimes when it sounded as if A-bal-ka was near by, he was really a good way off, and when it sounded as if he were a good way off, he was really close by.

Beside these songs, A-bal-ka had an odd way of saying chip, chur-r-r-r-r, when he was scared. This meant, "I am not afraid of you,"

and he never said it till he was safe in some hole where no one could get at him.

A-bal-ka never harmed any one, nor did he scold and steal like Mee-ko the Red Squirrel. Yet he had many foes. Ko-ko-ka the Owl, Ak-sip the Hawk, Kee-wuk the Fox, Kag-ax the Weasel, Ko-sa the Mink, and A-tos-sa the Snake were always ready to pounce upon him at sight and make a meal of him. Even Mee-ko was not to be trusted. Sometimes he would chase A-bal-ka and rob him of the nuts which he was carrying to his storehouse. He would have robbed the storehouse, too, if he could have got into it. But A-bal-ka's door was too small, and his hallways too narrow for Mee-ko.

Little Luke knew all about A-bal-ka's underground dwelling. The way he found out was this: Uncle Mark and Sam the hired man were digging stones on the hillside in the edge of the woods for the foundations of a new barn. While at this work, they uncovered the home of one of A-bal-ka's brothers. It was made up of a long, winding pa.s.sageway, ending in a sleeping chamber, near which was a storehouse, and in this storehouse there was a large quant.i.ty of nuts. These nuts were all good ones. The greater part of them were little, three-cornered beech nuts, which the squirrels like better than anything else. In all there was as much as half a bushel of nuts, enough to last a chipmunk all winter. The bedroom was a neat, little, round chamber, nicely filled with leaves, gra.s.s, and moss. In such a house as this, with its store of nuts, a chipmunk could live snug and warm all winter long and come out sleek and fat in the spring.

Because of A-bal-ka's many enemies, he was very watchful. He seldom went far from home, and when he did venture to go abroad, he nearly always followed the same path. At first it ran along under the side of a fallen log. From the end of this, a few quick leaps carried him to a brush pile. A jump or two more brought him to a rock and yet a few more to a stone fence. Once there, he felt safe. At the least alarm, he could run into a hole too small for any of his foes except, perhaps, A-tos-sa, whom he dreaded more than any of the others.

All along the stone fence stood nut trees,--oaks, hazels, walnuts, beeches, and others. And at one end was a cornfield.

This made it very handy for A-bal-ka. He could gather the nuts which fell upon the stone fence, and when he went for corn, he could keep to the fence and thus avoid his enemies. Early in the fall he began to fill his storehouse. To and fro he went along the fence with his cheek-pouches full of corn and nuts.

Little Luke often amused himself by watching him. He would pick up the nuts with his paws and put them into his cheek-pouches, and it was amazing how many they would hold. When he started for home, his cheeks sometimes looked as if he had a very severe case of the mumps.

One day in the autumn little Luke found out a queer thing about A-bal-ka. He was going up the trail with Old John. A-bal-ka started to cross the trail, but seeing the old Indian he became scared and ran up a tree. This was a thing which he seldom did; never unless he was obliged to, to escape from his enemies. He is a ground squirrel, and no tree climber, like his cousins the Red and the Gray Squirrels.

"Now," said Old John, "I'll show you something." So he got a stout stick and began to tap the tree. Tap, tap, tap, tap, as if he were beating time to music. This tapping had a strange effect upon A-bal-ka. At first he was greatly excited and tried to run farther up the tree. Soon he gave this up, turned around, and began to come down head foremost. He would lift his little feet and shake them as if something hurt them.

Lower and lower he came, until the old Indian could easily have killed him with his club or caught him with his hand. He did neither. He just laughed and threw away his stick.

"There," said he, "that's the way to make a chipmunk come down out of a tree. They'll always do it, if you tap long enough,"

"That's queer," said the little boy; "what makes them come down? Why don't they run farther up?"

"I don't know," said Old John, "perhaps they think you are trying to cut down the tree, or maybe the jar hurts their feet. The Red Men used to think that there was some kind of a magic charm about it."

"I am glad you didn't hurt him," said the little boy, as they went on up the trail.

"Hurt him!" exclaimed the old Indian, "why, don't you know that no Indian ever hurts a chipmunk?"

"Why is that?" asked the little boy.

"It's an old, old story," said Old John, "but come, let us sit down on this log, and I'll tell it to you."

So when they were both comfortably seated, the old Indian began the tale which you will find in the next chapter.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XV. HOW A-BAL-KA GOT HIS BLACK STRIPES

"In the old days before winter had come into the land, the beasts and the birds, the fishes, and even the insects, all had one language. They could speak the speech of the Red Men and they all lived together in peace and friendship.

"In those days, there was no killing and no war. But after winter had come upon the land, the Red Men learned to kill the wild folk and to use their flesh for food and their skins for wigwams and for clothing.

"At first this was bad enough, but after men had learned to use bows and arrows, spears, knives, and hooks, it was still worse. They became more and more cruel. They delighted to slaughter even creatures for which they had no use. Out of heedlessness, they trod upon the worms and the frogs, and killed them without caring for the pain and suffering which they caused. At last the animals made up their minds to try to find out some means to check the slaughter of the wild kindreds.

"The bears were the first to meet in council. After much talk, they decided to begin war at once against the human race.

"'What weapons shall we use against them?' asked one of the bears.

"'Why,' answered another, 'the same that they use; bows and arrows, of course.'

"'But how shall we make them?' asked one bear.

"'Oh, that is easy,' said another. 'I'll show you how to do it. You know I lived for a long time in one of their villages.'

"So this bear got a piece of ashwood and a string, some straight reeds and pieces of flint, and made a bow and some arrows.

"The White Bear, who was chief of the council, stepped out to make a trial of the bow. He pulled back the string and let the arrow fly, but his long claws caught the string and spoiled the shot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TESTING OF THE BOW]

"Seeing this, one of the bears proposed to cut off his own claws and make another trial. This was done and the arrow went straight to the mark.

"Now all the bears were ready to cut off their claws that they might practice with the bow and arrow. But their chief, the old White Bear, was wise.

"'No,' said he, 'let us not cut off our claws. If we do, we shall not be able to climb trees or to tear our food to pieces, and we shall all starve together. It is better to trust to the teeth and claws that the Master of Life has given us. Man's weapons are not for us.'