Part 19

“They were all thoroughly frightened but they kept their wits about them and kept filling buckets and jugs with water which they poured over the flame.

“After a little while it was out. The Mocking Bird looked very tired. His eyes blinked as if he could hardly keep awake, and it was just then that every one of them noticed him.

“‘Mitchell, you have saved the house and our lives. That fire would have spread and goodness knows what would have happened,’ said their daddy. ‘What a fine, brave bird you are.’

“And the children stroked Mitchell and said:

“‘Fine, brave bird. Daddy says so, too! Our lovely Mitchell Mocking Bird.’

“Mitchell was almost asleep. The fire was out. He had finished his work. He was ready to rest now. He didn’t care about praise. But he was happy that they all loved him so. And how he cared for them. He had saved them and they knew it. He was very happy. And in his own bird way he had thought all this out.

“But to the great surprise of them all, Mitchell said a word they had never known he could say, but it was just the right one. ‘Safe, all safe,’ said Mitchell, as he went to sleep.”

AUGUST 2: The Milkweed Plants

Now the milkweed plant is rather thick with a hollow center and through this center the white milk goes which gives the plant its food. The milk doesn’t care for the air and so that is why the milk stains our hands when we pick the plants.

The leaves are large and of a yellow, gray-green color, while the flowers which grow in clusters are of a pink-lavender shade.

But the little pods filled with seeds are the things the children like and if you see a milkweed plant just look at the little pods.

“I must have milk to drink and to make me strong,” said Milly Milkweed.

“So must I,” said Mamie Milkweed.

“And not only does it make us strong,” said Milly, “but it gives strength to the butterflies which feast upon us, for if we are strong and delicious it makes them strong and beautiful.

“Ah,” said Mamie, “it’s fine to have butterflies and children for friends, and to have our very own milkman always with us. We’re never forgotten in the early mornings by any possible accident. No, we always have our milkman and we have friends.”

AUGUST 3: Telephone Peas

“Hello, Telephone Peas and String-Beans,” said Lord Lettuce. “Lady Lettuce and the Lettuce youngsters are coming up, too, and there are going to be lots of crops of us. We make a fine salad, we’re so young and tender and fresh. Seems to me, Telephone Peas, you hurried me up. You know this is our second crop. We’ve been here before. But I do believe it was your very name that hurried me.

“I heard you say it and I acted as my relatives say people do when they hear the telephone. I’ve even heard that they’ve left the salad on their plates and have answered the telephone before they ate their salad. Yes, your very name and saying it must have hurried us.”

“Well,” said the Telephone Peas, “we feel up to date. We don’t know that there is any special reason for our name, but we have grown to like it mighty well. We’re supposed to be a large, good kind, too; in fact, one of the best there are.”

“Dear me,” said one of the String-Beans, “I wish some one would call our family the Airplane String-Beans or something like that. Or perhaps we might be called the Submarine String-Beans.”

“There wouldn’t be much sense to that,” said the Potato, almost ready to eat, “for you are up on vines. Now we might have that name because we’re in the ground, though it is true we are not under the water.”

And the garden vegetables all agreed that that was true but that the Telephone Peas had a fine family name in reality.

AUGUST 4: The Harebell Umbrellas

“The musk-ox,” said daddy, “is prepared for the rain by the coarse hair which grows on top of his nice, soft hair. This coarse hair, as you know, catches the rain and then he shakes it all off so that his body doesn’t get wet.

“The umbrella bird can put up some of his feathers just as people put up their umbrellas and that protects him from the rain.

“Both the great big musk-ox and the little umbrella bird are very proud that they always have their rain protectors with them, and they have very little use for people who forget their umbrellas and borrow other people’s and then forget to return them.

“Of course the musk-ox and the umbrella bird can’t very well lend their umbrellas because they don’t carry them around by the beak or front paw, but instead have their umbrellas attached to them.

“But they aren’t the only creatures to be so careful about the rain, that is, there are some flowers who are just as careful, and the harebell, of which I am going to tell you, sees that none of its family will ever drown.

“Now, the harebell family of flowers are blue in color. The flowers grow on thin, rather tall stems, and when the flowers are in bud they grow very straight and stand right up. When the tiny buds burst into flowers, if they stayed straight up, as they stand when they are buds, every time the rain came it would fill the little flowers and completely drown them, and make them droop forever.

“The little blue petals aren’t strong enough to stand the rain, and the flowers are shaped so the rain would come right into them and fill them up—for the harebells are like little bells. So they drop their little heads just before they open and then the rain can’t hurt them.”

AUGUST 5: A Children’s Circus

“This way to the big show,” some children were shouting. “Come right along,” they said. “This is the way to see all the wonders of the age. Look at the Frog-Child, the Snake-Lady, the Toad-Man, the Turtle Babies.”

All the children went in the direction from which the shouts and orders were given.

The children who were shouting were very much excited. “Admission to the show, ten cents,” they kept saying. “It’s the most wonderful show in the world.”

There were a dozen children giving a play-circus which was supposed to be very much like a real one. They had asked all their friends and the money they received was to go to a children’s ward in a hospital. Every one of their friends came and soon the circus began. First of all there was a long parade while some of the children beat drums and others played tunes on combs covered with tissue paper.

Two little girls rode ponies and on the heads of the ponies sat two monkeys made of cloth! They had bead eyes!

A boy did a lot of fine tricks on a rocking horse, and there were all the usual circus tricks, although perhaps not some of the more difficult ones.

After a little while a boy came out on the platform and said,

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Cats and Dogs, we have now to offer a fine performance—a side show. We have shown you the regular acts of the circus and we trust that you are pleased.” Here followed a great deal of clapping and shouting.

“And,” the boy continued, “we are now to have the great privilege of seeing the Frog-Child, the Snake-Lady, the Toad-Man, the Turtle-Babies. Step this way, Ladies, Gentlemen, Boys, Girls, Cats and Dogs. Come right inside the tent at your left and there you will see these things. There is no extra charge for admission.”

All the children at once began to troop to their left through the side tent.

“What could it mean?” they asked each other. What surprises they were getting!

When they were inside the tent how they did laugh! One of the children was in just such a green suit as Mr. Frog would wear and really looked quite a good deal like a grandson of Grandpa Frog. He was hopping about singing in a queer croaking voice,

“Galloo, Galloo, Goog-a-room, Goog-a-room.”

Another child who looked like a snake, because she wore an imitation snakeskin, said, “Come and see the Snake-Lady. I eat things whole.” And as she said this she swallowed a tiny crumb.

“I am the Toad-Man, come and see me,” grunted the Toad—or rather the child who was dressed like one.

“We are the Turtle Babies. We snap, we play, we draw in our heads under our shells!” And sure enough they were doing all these tricks.

Their costumes were really quite wonderful, although they had been made mostly out of paper.

All the children who were looking on were quite delighted and said,

“We think you are marvelous!” And all the children dressed like animals made bows and said thank you in voices that sounded a great deal like the voices of snakes, toads, frogs and turtles.

AUGUST 6: The Bank Swallow

“Won’t you tell me what your name means?” asked Effie Elf of Mr. Bank Swallow. “Really, you have such a curious name and I’ve always been anxious to find out what it means.”

“My name is Bank Swallow because I and my family build our nests in holes in banks. By banks I mean the banks out of doors and not the banks where one saves one’s money.

“We are very friendly with one another, and we have big towns and villages and cities of nests of Bank Swallows.

“We’re the very smallest of the Swallow family, I believe. And we can always be known by our neck bands which we wear on our gray throats. Our neck bands are much darker and show very clearly.

“We dress in simple brown and gray, though our throats are white.

“We have tunnels and long entrances to our homes, and at the end of our tunnels we build the nest. Yes, we’re rather unusual, I believe.”

“Very unusual,” said Effie Elf. “Fancy nesting in a hole in a bank rather than in a tree. That is quite odd, quite different from most of the birds.

“So your name has nothing to do with banks where they have money?” she asked.

“Nothing at all,” said the Bank Swallow. “We haven’t any need of money. Of course if we needed it we’d probably save some for the bad days and spend the rest on good insects to eat and other delicacies. But we don’t have to pay for what we eat, so we don’t need any money.

“Besides, we’d be ashamed to open bank accounts for the banks are used to so much money that they’d laugh at us.”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Effie Elf, “the good ones wouldn’t do that, for no one who amounts to anything makes fun of any one else not having so much.

“People who don’t amount to much put on airs.”

“Then I’ll always be able to tell,” said the Bank Swallow.

AUGUST 7: The Cuckoo-Clock

Julius was very sleepy and he could hardly keep his eyes open. The whole trouble was that he hated to do things on time. He did not like to go to bed at the hour he was supposed to and he never, never wanted to get up in the morning when his mother said, “Time to get up, Julius.”

And now he was sleepy, now in the middle of the afternoon. It was raining hard outside and in the big library where he was sitting a large open fire was burning merrily. Near the fireplace was a cuckoo-clock and Julius always loved to watch the little cuckoo come out and tell any one who happened to be listening just what time it was.

“It’s almost time for the cuckoo to come out,” said Julius. “But oh gracious, how sleepy I am. I know I was late in going to bed last night but I don’t see why I should be so dreadfully sleepy. I do hope I will stay awake until the cuckoo says five o’clock. It is so much nicer to hear him on the hour than at other times, because he only says ‘cuckoo’ once when the hand is at the half hour.”

“Cuckoo,” said the cuckoo bird in the clock. And then he said it four times more. Each time he made a little bow as he spoke and when he had said “cuckoo” for the fifth time, Julius was waiting to watch the little door close.

The cuckoo in the clock always lives behind a little door over the face of the clock, and when he is not telling the time he is in there.

But this time the door did not close. And the cuckoo stayed out of his little home bobbing and saying “cuckoo” many times over, until at last it sounded like “Julius, Julius, Julius.”

“Yes,” said Julius, “you are calling me by my right name. How are you, Mr. Cuckoo Bird of the clock?”

The little bird was made of wood, to be sure, but he seemed so certain of himself and so well satisfied that Julius felt he must be alive.

“I am well, I thank you kindly,” said the cuckoo bird. “But I don’t have to ask you.”

“Why not?” asked Julius.

“Because I know,” said the cuckoo bird. “You are sleepy, and it’s not the time to sleep. Ha, ha, ha. Whatever would you do if you were a clock, or if your home was at the top of one?”

“Well, I am not a clock,” said Julius, “and I am jolly glad of it.”

“Tut, tut,” said the cuckoo bird. “You are getting quite cross, Master Julius. Too little sleep. Well, well, I suppose I must forgive you. But it’s a shame you couldn’t live in a clock for a time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Julius, who was quite frightened now. He felt the little cuckoo bird would hop down and pick him right up and put him in the clock.

“If you could live in a clock and take my place you would have to be on time. Six o’clock would mean six o’clock and not half-past! Seven-thirty in the morning would not mean a quarter past eight! Ah no, in the clock we keep good time. We live on the moment and on the hour and half-hours we come out to tell people to remember that the time is going by and they mustn’t waste it for it is so extremely precious.”

“Don’t you believe in people sleeping?” asked Julius.

“To be sure, to be sure,” said the cuckoo, “but I believe they should sleep at the right time. They should not choose another time for it, such as the middle of the afternoon, because they sat up too late the night before.”

Julius was very much ashamed. He felt the cuckoo bird knew that he had been doing all that and he wished the bird would go back in his little home and shut the door. He was getting more afraid every second that he would be taken back there. And oh dear, how he would hate to live in a clock.

“Just suppose,” said the cuckoo bird, “that I did things at the wrong time. Suppose I should come out at six o’clock and tell every one it was eight? You can’t imagine it, can you? And why not? Because I have had the training of a clock. I have been an assistant in keeping the time and if I don’t notice that you think more of the time I will put you back of the clock.” The cuckoo bird banged his little door, and Julius, awaking with a start, rubbed his sleepy eyes, and said,

“I shall always do things on time from now on for how dreadful it must be to live back of a clock and have the hours depend so much on you.”

AUGUST 8: Zuzeppa, the Monkey

“Zuzeppa,” said daddy, “was a monkey who had come from Africa and he was going to give a special performance of his acting. The special performance was to be given on a day set aside by the keeper. Of course it couldn’t be advertised all around as a circus could, but the keeper told all his special children friends who came to the zoo very often and they told their friends, and it got around so that for the day of the performance the monkey house was filled with children.

“‘Let me shake hands with the performer,’ the keeper said, and he shook hands with Zuzeppa. Then they each bowed, and the keeper said, ‘Now Zuzeppa will show you his circus tricks.’

“So Zuzeppa hung by his tail and turned many somersaults; he swung back and forth and jumped and twisted and turned. He did the most marvelous of circus tricks and all the children clapped their hands and the other monkeys yelled and screamed, ‘Well done, Zuzeppa.’

“No one else knew what the monkeys meant but every one knew they were excited. They weren’t jealous of Zuzeppa, for they knew he wanted to learn tricks and be a trick-performing monkey. Besides he had worked hard enough to have a whole monkey house to himself for all afternoon.

“‘Now,’ said the keeper, ‘Zuzeppa will do his special trick. It has been done before by monkeys but Zuzeppa never did it before, and he has been practising it so he could do it beautifully for this performance.’

“The keeper took out a little wooden table and put a napkin upon it and a cloth. Then Zuzeppa spread the cloth over the table, reached down in a box the keeper had, and took out a knife and a fork and a spoon. He put all these on the table and then tied the napkin around his neck.

“Next he took a little broken chair which was in his cage and sat upon it.

“The keeper acted as the waiter, and passed things to Zuzeppa. And what do you suppose Zuzeppa did?”

“What?” asked the children.

“Zuzeppa behaved at the table just as though he were a real person. He ate with his fork and he cut with his knife. He peeled his banana which he had for dessert and then he ate it, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

“But when he was all through his meal and had put his hands in a finger bowl to make them nice and clean, he took a pipe, which the keeper handed to him, struck a match and lighted the pipe. He only smoked for a second or two, blowing the smoke out, as he didn’t especially care for it. But oh, how happy he was when the children laughed and clapped their hands! And this is a true story!”

AUGUST 9: Mr. Bullfrog

“I am the king of this pond,” said Mr. Bullfrog. “If any one comes here I don’t like, I swallow him! That is the way to get rid of creatures you don’t like!

“Just swallow them!

“I’ve heard people talking who were rowing on the pond and who were gathering pond lilies, and I’ve heard them say how they were interrupted by other people when they had some important work to do.

“And that the people didn’t care in the least if they were interrupting!

“Goog-a-room, goog-a-room, I can imagine nothing more annoying.

“But I cannot understand why people do not swallow these other people who come and annoy them and interrupt them.

“Just suppose an insect hops on my nose and says:

“‘Sorry, Mr. Bullfrog, but I do hope I’m not annoying you.’ I don’t pay any attention to that speech. I know it’s not so. If he cared about not annoying me he wouldn’t land on my nose.

“But I don’t bother to answer him back, for that would be beneath my dignity. So I just swallow him!”

AUGUST 10: Allie Baa’s Letter

“Allie Baa,” said daddy, “is a rag doll. Her real name is Alice Gustava Ariel Star Jewel Bright Carol Carmen Cucumber-Green.

“Mrs. Cucumber-Green is her mother’s make-believe name, or I should say it was her mother’s make-believe name.

“Her mother is a grown-up lady now, but still she has kept Allie Baa, and when little girls go to call on her she brings out Allie Baa and Allie at once makes friends.

“Now, this summer Allie’s mother went to the seashore. She left Allie in charge of the city apartment. She told Allie to keep watch over the apartment and to see that all was safe. Allie was the name she was always called by for short, as you know.

“Now, when Allie’s great-aunt’s birthday came she wanted to send her a present as she had always done. So she sent some pillows for the porch where her great-aunt loved to sit.

“On the day of the birthday in the excitement Allie’s great-aunt did not see the little card which said:

“‘To Dear Great-Aunt Mary, with love and many happy returns from Allie Baa.’

“But the next day when Allie’s great-aunt was looking over her presents she found the little card and knew that it belonged with the present of the pillows which she had opened and which she had thought some one else had given to her.

“Well, she sat right down and she wrote Allie Baa this letter and sent it to be given to Allie Baa, care of Allie’s mother, who was at the seashore, as I have told you.

“This was the letter Allie received, and because she thought it was such a nice letter she wanted to let Jack and Evelyn and their friends hear it, too.

“‘My dear Allie Baa,’ the letter commenced.

“‘I find this morning on reading over my birthday cards that the pillows are from you, so will you please accept my thanks for your sensible, most useful, pretty gift. When I received my presents yesterday it was a distinct loss not to find a gift from you, and I thought perhaps you were too hot to shop or had some other good reason. But I am glad I thought wrongly and you did remember me as of old.

“‘I shall think of you as I lie, sit, or “back up” against these pillows.

“‘I suppose you are in the city this summer, as I have not heard of any “ocean dips” on your part.

“‘Perhaps salt water might not agree with you. It is well to be cautious, which means careful, and run no risks! You might feel a responsibility with guarding the apartment but you have a calm, brave, quiet nature which will keep you from a nervous breakdown, I feel sure.

“‘With love and thanks,

“‘Affectionately,

“‘GREAT-AUNT MARY.’

“Wasn’t that a nice letter. Well, Allie’s mother, on a trip up to town took the letter to Allie, for she couldn’t very well go to the door and get it from the postman if her mother had sent it on by mail. But oh, she was so pleased to have a letter from Great-Aunt Mary.

“And she smiled in her rag doll way, and the paint on her face cracked just a little with joy, for she loved Aunt Mary, who had often let her sit near her and draw up close as an affectionate, loving doll likes to do.

“And she told her mother to tell Great-Aunt Mary that she was so happy with her letter, and that she hoped Great-Aunt Mary would have many, many happy returns of her birthday, for she was the best Great-Aunt Mary that ever lived!”

AUGUST 11: Chickadee

“I can’t understand,” said Mrs. Chickadee, “how creatures can live together and quarrel all the time. It is such waste of perfectly good time in the first place.

“In the second place it isn’t any fun. Now, singing and chirping and worm hunting and bread-crumb parties are all lots of fun.

“But quarreling isn’t any fun at all. It makes creatures unhappy and it makes them very often quite sad. Even if they get the best of a quarrel they don’t feel all happy and excited as they do after a fine party.

“Now, the Sparrows fight all the time. But no one would ever describe the Sparrow as a merry, happy little bird.

“There is the Starling. No one would describe him as a happy bird. And the Starling is a fighter, too.

“We scold in fun, nice chuckling, scolding notes we give, but we are famous for our good spirits. Chick-a-dee-dee-dee.

“I’m sure most people know what we look like with our little black-capped heads and the patch of black right under our beaks.

“We have pretty throats, we’re told. The black patches are soft looking and rather smart, too.

“We wear simple gray suits and have white touches on our wings.

“In the winter time we like to be about, too. And nothing upsets us. We never grumble over the weather. We can’t understand how people can grumble over the weather.

“To us it is so foolish. The weather is going to do just what it wants to, in the first place, and isn’t going to pay attention to any one, nor is it going to pay any attention to what any one thinks. And yet how few seem to realize that!”

AUGUST 12: The Little Caterpillars

“Did our mother receive this leaf as a gift?” asked the first little brown caterpillar.

“Oh no,” said the second little brown caterpillar. “She just liked the looks of it or thought the taste of it would be good for us and so she just took it and left it here.”

“Gracious,” said the third little brown caterpillar, “you know caterpillars can’t wait until they’re asked to have their meals.”

“They can’t wait to be given leaves,” said the fourth little brown caterpillar.

“They’d never get them if they did,” said the fifth little brown caterpillar.

“And we must have leaves in our lives,” said the sixth little brown caterpillar.

“How handsome we will be when we become Blue Swallow-tail Butterflies,” said the seventh little brown caterpillar.

“I greatly look forward to that day,” said the eighth little brown caterpillar.

“And then we shall fly about and drink honey,” said the ninth little brown caterpillar.

“And people will forget that we were caterpillars and will say,

“‘Look at those beautiful butterflies with their blue markings,’” added the tenth little brown caterpillar.