Part 2

He rubbed his fat cheeks with his paws and sat very straight on his haunches, looking his best and trying to sing, for he wanted very much to say something by way of letting the world know what he thought of it. Feeling as he did, so exceedingly happy, he wished to join the lovely sounds around him, for birds were singing everywhere, and even the river at the foot of the orchard had a song.

So the little squirrel made all the noise he could, which is just what the children do when they have all day to play and the sky is blue and clear above the fields.

But just as he paused for breath he heard his words repeated from another tree. Somebody was mocking him, word for word, and making a very ridiculous thing of his happy little song. His tail bristled with anger, and he ran higher in the tree to get a better view of his neighbor. He would teach another squirrel to mock him! No living creature could he see, but he heard a bluebird call, and then, as if to insult him, came again his own exultant _chirp, chirp-chee, chee, chee, chee_, and after it a perfect flood of laughter, just like the silly notes of the little owl who sits up all night to laugh at the moon.

Indeed, the squirrel was more puzzled than angry now, and he rushed home to his mother in the highest branches of the walnut-tree, and as fast as he could chatter he told her all about it. She was a very busy woman, Mrs. Squirrel, and she was too much engaged in her sweeping and making of beds to stop and talk with her little son. Moreover, she did not know exactly what to say; so she told him to find the wise old woodchuck under the hill, who was lazy and good-natured and fond of company, and to inquire of him just why the mocking-bird should repeat everything that was said or sung.

So off to the foot of the orchard and the old rail-fence the little squirrel scampered, and, as he expected, the good old woodchuck was lounging by his door-step, blinking at the sunlight and munching clover.

"There's nothing here for you," the woodchuck muttered with his mouth full. "You've come to the wrong house for breakfast."

"No, no," the squirrel hastened to say. "You do not know my errand. I've come to ask you why the mocking-bird is so fond of mocking. Has he no song of his own? And why should he laugh at me?"

Poor little squirrel was so full of anger, as he spoke his mind, that he puffed and bristled mightily, and the fat woodchuck burst out laughing.

"So he jeered at you, did he? Why, that's his business; but you mustn't mind the things he says. He's really a very fine fellow, Mr. Mocking-bird, and everybody loves him."

Then the woodchuck brushed the clover aside and came out a little farther into the sun to warm his back, for he was very wise, and he knew that the sun on the back was good for the shoulder-blades.

"Mr. Mocking-bird," he began, "is a great artist. That's why he can say what he thinks and do what he wants to do. And once, in the long ago, he taught all the songs in the world to the birds. You see it was this way:

"The thrush and the robin and the catbird fell to disputing about their songs. And all the noisy blackbirds and the little wrens, even the crows with their ugly notes, entered the discussion, with results which I can't describe. Oh, it lasted years and years, and every bird thought he was the best singer in the world and tried to sing everything he ever heard, whether it was his own song or not; and at last the confusion was so terrible that if the robin flew North, everybody thought he was a finch, and when he came back, he made a noise like a wild goose."

"Impossible!" exclaimed the squirrel.

"Not at all. That's the way with singers the world over, until they are sharply taught where they belong. Few people are content with their own talents. My own family is the only modest and unassuming one that I know of. We are content to dig and eat and sit in the sun. We have never trained our voices or gone in for dancing. Very different from your family, young Mr. Squirrel, which is frivolous and noisy. But you must pardon that--it was a mere observation. As I was saying, the only way to decide the business and restore order was to hold a meeting of all the birds, with a few good judges of music on hand to decide the question once for all.

"The adder, being deaf, was the chairman. Deafness, they say, is the prime requirement in a critic, for it allows him time to think. And the buzzard, also, was there to award the prizes. A peculiar choice, you might say, but he has a horrid way of putting things and he wears a cut-away coat.

"So the day came. The woods and the orchards were full of birds, singing and calling and screaming and whistling. Everybody was too much excited to think of eating, and every bush held a crowd of contestants. It was orderly enough, however, when the contest began.

"The wood dove began the concert. Very soft and sweet. It always makes me think of my giddy youth and my first wife to hear the wood dove. She's really a little bit too sad.

"Then they came on, each one in turn. It was a fine cherry-tree where they sang, and it was so full of blossoms that you could hardly see the performers. Poor little Miss Wren was scared to death. She tried to sing, but all she could say was, _Tie me up, tie me up_, and she fell off the branch with fright. One redbird, and the tanager, and that whole gay family of buntings--what a brilliant, showy lot! But they were very clear and high and full of little scraps of tune in their singing. More suited to the hedgerow, however, than the concert room.

"The best, to my thinking, was the thrush. You can hear him any evening down there in the alder bushes. He's very retiring and elegant. They say he sings of India and the lotus flowers. It's something sad and far away that he just remembers. I'm not much of a hand at poetry myself, and I personally have a great fondness for the crows. Good, sharp, business men, the crows, and although they are not strictly musical, they appeal to me. You see, we have a great deal in common, the crows and myself, by way of looking after the young corn. We meet, as you might say, in a business way.

"Well, the contest was long and lively. The bluebird and rice-birds, and even the orioles performed in wonderful fashion; and at last, when it was all over, the prize was never given at all. For right out of the clear sky came the mocking-bird, who had kept himself out of the contest until the end, and after he lighted on a branch of that cherry-tree and began his song, there was simply nothing to be said. It dawned on the whole lot of them that they had sung their notes wrong! Yes, young Mr. Squirrel, fine and noisy as it all had been, not one of these birds had sung the tune his father had taught him! Just by trying to outsing each other all those years, their own sweet notes were injured. And only the mocking-bird could remember every lovely song as it should be done. Even the thrush had to admit as much. The adder crawled off in disgust, and the buzzard grew positively insulting in his remarks. He said he had been detained for nothing.

"'Listen, listen, listen,' said the mocking-bird, and straightway he sang like the nonpareil, and then you would have thought him the oriole. It was enough to break your heart, for it was just the lovely old songs that the birds used to sing.

"And what do you suppose came of it all?" added the worthy woodchuck after he had wiped a tear from his eyes, for thoughts of the old days made him sad.

"What do you suppose the other birds agreed upon? They decided never to raise the burning question again, and they begged the mocking-bird to teach them their songs once more. That's why the robins fly South in the fall of the year, along with the other songsters. They want their children to hear the mocking-bird. Yes, Mr. Squirrel, I have that on authority. There's nothing so fine for the singer as a good start and a good teacher. And even the robin, who is full of conceit, has admitted to me that he feels at times the need of a little correction. He hates to go North without a few lessons from that wonderful teacher, the mocking-bird."

With all this, little Mr. Squirrel was greatly entertained and was at a loss how to thank Mr. Woodchuck; but he was spared the necessity of it, for the good warm sun and the sound of his own voice had induced Mr. Woodchuck into a pleasant sleep, and he was already snoring on his door-step. Little Squirrel tiptoed away and ran home in glee. He felt that he had learned all that there was to learn in the wide world.

Anyway, he had learned what he wanted to know, and that is the best of learning.

V

MR. RACCOON'S OYSTER SUPPER

It was the loveliest of moonlight nights in the early autumn when word was carried from house to house that Mrs. Raccoon would give an oyster supper.

There was Mrs. Coon herself, the present Mr. Coon, and four little Coons. At the upper farm lived several branches of the family--uncles and aunts and their respective children. For the Coons, as a lot, lived mainly on the farmsteads, or near to them; for, as Mrs. Ringtail Coon, the oldest of them, always declared: "It is altogether wiser to keep in touch with civilization." By which she meant it was wise to live as near as possible to the orchards and the corn-fields, and the good things which farmers keep planting every year, apparently for the especial benefit of just such persons as Mr. Coon and Mr. Crow.

"And it is wonderful what a variety of good things you can find to eat if you can run and climb trees and dig in the ground," Mr. Coon would add, "especially if you live where they are very generous in the gathering, and you can have the best of apples and pears and the sweet corn to add to your table."

So it was altogether best to stick as close to the haunts of mankind as possible, if you could do so without foregoing the pleasures of the river and the woodland.

The great river, be it said, which was sluggish and muddy, contained a thousand things which the Coons declared in rather snobbish fashion were not to their taste. They wouldn't go fishing if they could. But the fat mussels which lived in the mud-banks were exactly to Mr. and Mrs. Coon's liking. And to open them is not difficult for a Coon who has once learned the trick.

"That's what your wonderful, black fingernails are for," Mr. Coon always told the children when he taught them to open oysters. "You need only give the joint of the thing a sharp bite, and pull out that tough bit of meat at the end, and then with your nails you can pry the shell right open."

The ability to do this was a matter of pride to the Coons, for they knew of no one else who could open oysters. Like many people who may excel in a particular art, they fancied that they were the only adepts in the world.

"But there's where they are mistaken," Mr. Fox would laugh, whenever he heard of the Coons and their oyster suppers. For he knew of some one else who could get the juicy meat out of those shells, although it was not himself.

"I really pity their ignorance," he would say. "If they ever went abroad in the daytime they'd see a thing or two, and maybe they'd learn that there are wiser folks in the world than themselves."

This was an unfair thrust at the Coons, for their habit of sleeping most of the day should not be laid against them. The world is wisely divided into day workers and night workers anyway, and Mr. Coon, for his part, always put down such criticism by asking what on earth would happen if everybody rushed to his meals at the same identical moment.

And in this Mr. Coon revealed the gentility of his nature, for he was a person of manners, and believed not only in a six o'clock dinner, but kept his clothes in the neatest fashion and was constantly washing his face between his two fore legs, brushing his hair and attending to his ears after the accepted fashion of the cat. And the cat, as all the world knows, is the cleanest of beasts.

"Your Fox is a shaggy creature," he would say. "Almost as unkempt as the farm Dog, whom I despise."

So it is not to be wondered that Mrs. Coon, if she were going to have an oyster supper, would have an elegant one.

Elegance in the matter of suppers is simply a question of due preparation, and of this Mrs. Coon was thoroughly aware. Nothing would please her husband more, she knew, than to have the party go off without a hitch.

"We'll spend to-night getting ready," she planned. "I can't bear to see people digging in the mud and eating at the same time. It is not nice. Perhaps it is well enough on a merely family picnic to let everybody shift for himself, and I know the children rather enjoy getting dirty. I did when I was a little girl. But my ideal of the thing, done as it should be, is to have a great lot of oysters already dug, and arranged in an appetizing pile. It saves time, too, and makes the guests feel better. I never liked these parties where you go digging for your own victuals."

How could an elegant gentleman have a wife more in accord with his desires than that? Immediately Mr. Coon embraced Mrs. Coon in a loving clasp, for he felt that she was responding to his best and most refined impulses.

For two nights, then, while the October moon rode serenely overhead, Ringtail Coon and Mother Coon, with little Grayfur and Brownie, and the two boys, Broadhead and Fuzzy Muzzle, went from their home in the sweet-gum tree, through the wood to the farm road, under the fence to the orchard, back of the orchard to the corn-field, and then downhill to the steep clay banks of the river. At that point they let themselves tumble over the edge, for there were only bushes to fall into, and Mr. Coon did not approve of sliding down mud-banks.

"It's hard on the seat of your trousers," he said; "and Mother has all the washing she can do."

And then they lost no time digging, but scampered here and there, nosing out the great black shells, which they scratched and worried out of the wet soil, sometimes venturing into the water to get a particularly fat and enticing one.

"We'll store them here in a hole under this cornel bush," Ringtail decided; "and if we cover them well, putting back all this driftwood and rubbish on top, no one will guess what's been done."

And no one, indeed, but sly old Mr. Fox would ever have known what had happened. The tempting collection of oysters, pecks of them, was not, however, to remain unmolested. But as the Coons increased their provisions, and worked mightily until the moon went down, they foresaw no accident, and only entertained themselves with happy visions of the remarks and exclamations which their cousins would be sure to make when they beheld such stunning abundance.

"Dear me, Ringtail, there's only one thing that troubles me. I feel that we ought to invite the 'Possums. You know how generous they were in that matter of the persimmons. No one would ever have guessed that there was such a tree in the whole State; and it was, after all, an invitation that they gave us, even if you did threaten Mr. 'Possum in a business way."

"I guess I did," laughed Ringtail as he put another handful of oysters into the hole and stamped them down; "I told Wooly 'Possum not to be hiding his assets that way or I'd bite his tail off. But go ahead and invite them, if you want to. It'll show that we're not snobbish anyway. And the 'Possums are as likely to appreciate all this as anybody. You'll have to open their oysters for them, you know."

"Surely, my dear. I will do so gladly. A hostess never gets any of her own party anyway. I don't expect to do anything but watch other people eat. That's the way of receptions and such."

For Mrs. Coon had arrived at that stage of excitement in which a hostess feels herself elevated and ennobled above humanity in general by virtue of the toiling she has gone through in order to make the rest of the world happy.

By this time they had to stop and take a bite themselves, for day was beginning to break, and the children, at least, must have something to eat. Then, having arranged the top of their secret store with the greatest care, and very loath to leave it, they scrambled up the bank and set out for home. Tired they were and a little cross, so that the youngsters quarreled a good deal, and Mr. Coon, slightly worried, was not so pleasant as when he set out.

"Oh, nothing," he replied to his wife's inquiry as to why he was so glum. "Only I'm a bit anxious about those oysters. It's just possible that somebody may find them."

"Oh, pshaw!" was all she would say. "Nobody's going near that spot. And if anybody did and went and sat right down on top of them, he'd never guess what was under all those sticks."

But somebody did exactly this. For the Coons were all fast asleep in the sweet-gum tree, not even dreaming of their party, when Mr. Fox edged along the river shore, greatly elated at discovering so many little foot-prints in the mud. It was plain who had been there. And as the dainty tracks centered under the cornel bush, it took no wits at all, and only a little brisk pawing, to discover the secret.

Mr. Fox laughed as though he would give up. For that is a trait of all foxy natures to go into fits of laughter when the possibility of turning a mean trick presents itself.

"Well, of all things!" he finally gasped, as he held his sides. "How mighty kind of them!" Then, licking his chops, and fairly choking with humor, he set off just as fast as he could go. Up the shore and through the woods he ran; and at a certain tree where a great sentinel crow sat eying the farmers in a distant field, he barked out one short, sharp message.

He had to say nothing more. Before he could get back to the spot where the delicious supper was stored, the crows were coming, one and two at a time, then three and four, and finally a small flock of them.

Mr. Fox got very little for his pains, for the crows were as quick as lightning in their motions. Up in the air they flew with an oyster in their beaks, and over the rocks and bowlders which jutted from the shore they would pause but a second to drop their burden. Down it would come, breaking to pieces as it fell on the rock, and then the crow would come down almost as fast as the oyster, to tear out the meat and swallow it. Mr. Fox played around the edges, as it were; for too many crows had come, and they fought him off when he tried to snap up his share.

"Oh, well, I don't care much for oysters anyway," he muttered, trying to console himself. But he was in reality bitterly tantalized, and he was truly in tears of disgust when the great black crowd of noisy birds flew at him in a body and drove him off. They benefited by his confidence, but they were utterly selfish, and he suddenly felt wickedly put upon.

What he had done to the Coons never occurred to him.

Mr. Coon never recovered from the mortification of that evening. The guests had assembled in a body; all of his brother's family and their dependents, and the little 'Possums, who were so set up at the invitation that they fairly beamed. Such toilets had been performed and such preparation of pleasant remarks had gone on, that everybody was in the finest of party feeling.

The walk through the corn-field, the ease and happy expectancy! Getting down the mud-bank was not altogether a formal ceremony, for some slid, and some just plunged headlong; but at the bottom everybody brushed his clothes, and the little Coons and the little 'Possums danced in glee.

Then, lo and behold, there was no supper at all! The work that the crows had done was apparent enough. But how they ever knew where to find the banquet was an unsolved mystery to Mr. Coon.

Never again did Ringtail or his wife try to be fashionable. "Dig and swallow," became the rule at all the oyster suppers; and even at this one, after the disaster had bestowed its first stunning blow, the guests and the company as a whole fell to digging as hard as they could, and ate with might and main.

Mrs. Coon, having urged the 'Possums to come, had to open oysters until her thumbs were sore; but she did it with a good grace, and after everybody got to going, there was all the laughter and happiness the heart could wish.

"Yes, it was a merry party, after all," Mr. Coon admitted several hours later. He was curling up in his sweet-gum tree bedroom, ready for another day's sleep. "But it was a free for all, a regular guzzling. What's the use of trying to be nice when all the world's made up of crows?"

But in this query, Mr. Ringtail Coon was only a bit petulant. The best of it is that he does not know the ignorance of the world. For scarcely anybody appreciates or even guesses the true elegance and the dainty ways of Mr. and Mrs. Raccoon.

VI

MRS. GOOSE AND HER SWAMP COUSINS

It was a beautiful morning, very early, with the dew on the grass and the mists lifting from the sea, when Mrs. Goose with her seven little goslings walked through the farm gate, down the path to the road, and then waddled under the fence into the pasture.

"You are well along now, my children," she was saying, "and your travels should begin."

"And what are our travels?" the little geese piped as they stepped along beside their stately parent.

"Your travels, my dears, are those excursions away from the cramping and monotonous surroundings of the farmyard. That's what your travels are. None of your family are given to staying always and forever at home."

"Oh, no," the goslings all quacked in chorus. "We don't want to stay around that farmyard all our days. That's what the chickens do, and the guinea-hens. But where are we going now, Mother?"

For the beautiful Mrs. Goose was heading straight for the swamp at the foot of the great pasture, and already she was taking them through the tufted grass and the low bushes, through which they could not easily descry her stately form. They were quite out of breath, and bore along behind her, being very careful to keep exactly in her foot-prints.

"We are going to the great salt river, and the marshes," she called back to them. "That is where your cousins live and we shall spend a lovely day with them. But we must hurry through these bushes. I never feel safe until I am well out of them."

She explained no more than this, for she was a bird well versed in the bringing up of children, and she did not wish to frighten them. But, truth to tell, this bushy part of the path to her favorite haunts was always full of its terrors for her.

"It looks so very much like the spot where my first husband was attacked by a fox," she confided to one of her friends. "He was never seen again, of course, and although I was not long a widow, still I have never been consoled for his taking off."

Naturally, then, she had for the rest of her days a distrust of bushy paths, and it was with a great quack of relief that she emerged with all her little ones on the banks of the deep, narrow stream which was a part of the great marsh.

Off she swam on the water, paddling with a majestic ease, and down they hopped and splashed and paddled beside her, the seven of them, highly excited over the prospect of a day's adventure.

The stream was narrow and deep, much unlike the shallow duck-pond in the farmyard, and it gave the goslings an exhilarating sensation to be thus abroad on a real stream.

"How good it is," Mrs. Goose quacked, "to feel the clear, cool water, and to know that you are not paddling across a mere mud-puddle!

"And there are no tin cans and other rubbish here," she went on. "Very different, all this, from the rather common surroundings of the duck-pond. You must realize that your family is a superior one, and that while the ducks on the farm do very well for neighbors, they are not the aristocrats that we are. And I am taking you purposely, my children, to visit my most exclusive friends."