Part 4

Old Mother West Wind told me the story, and she got it from Peter Rabbit, and Peter got it from--well, I don't know for sure, but I suspect he got it from Bob White himself. You know Peter and Bob White are great friends. They are very near neighbors. They are such near neighbors and such good friends that if it popped into Peter's funny little head to be curious about Bob White's affairs, he wouldn't hesitate an instant to ask Bob about them. Anyway, some one told Peter the story, and I like to think that that some one was none other than that brown-coated little whistler, Bob White the Quail, himself. Here is the story as Old Mother West Wind told it to me:

“Long, long ago, way back in the beginning of things, when the world was young, when the Green Meadows were new, and the Green Forest was new, and the Smiling Pool and the Laughing Brook and the Big River were new, and the little and big people whom Old Mother Nature put in them to live were new too, being the very first each of his kind, things were different, quite different from what they are now. Old Mother Nature was busier than she is now, and goodness knows she is busy enough these days. In fact, she is a million times busier than the busiest other person in all the Great World. If she wasn't, if she grew tired or lazy or careless or anything like that, I am afraid things would go so wrong with the Great World that they never, never could be righted again.

“But in these far-away days in the beginning of things she was busier still. It is always easier to keep things going after they are once started than it is to start them, and Old Mother Nature was just starting things. So she started a great many of the little people off in life, and told them to make the best of things as they found them in the Great World and do as well as they could while she was attending to other matters.

“Now one of these little people was a plump little person in a coat of reddish-brown feathers. He was Mr. Quail, the great-great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of all the Quails. To Mr. Quail, as to all the others, Old Mother Nature said: 'The Great World is new. There is a place in it for you, but you must find that place for yourself. There is work for you to do, but you must find out for yourself what it is. When you have real need of anything come to me, but don't bother me until you do have. No one who proves to be helpless or useless will live long. Now run along and prove whether or not you have a right to live.'

“So little Mr. Quail went out among the other people in the Great World to try and find his place. All the other people were trying to find their places, and some of them were having a dreadful time doing it. A great many began by trying to do just what their neighbors did, which was the very worst kind of a mistake. It was a pure waste of time. Worse still, it wasn't making a place in the work of the Great World. Little Mr. Quail's eyes were very bright, and he used them for all they were worth. His wits were quite as bright, and he used these the same way.

“'There are two things for me to find out,' said he to himself, 'what I can't do and what I can do. The sooner I find out what I can't do, the more time I'll have to find out what I can do. I've got wings, and that must mean that Old Mother Nature intends me to fly. I'm glad of that. It must be fine to sail around up in the air and see all that is going on down below.'

“Up overhead Ol' Mistah Buzzard was sailing 'round and 'round, high up in the sky, with hardly a motion of his broad wings. Little Mr. Quail watched him a long time, and a great longing to do the same thing filled him. At last he sprang into the air, and right then he made a discovery. Yes, Sir, he made a discovery. He must beat his wings with all his might in order to stay in the air. When he stopped beating them and held them spread out as Ol' Mistah Buzzard did, he found that he simply sailed a little way straight ahead and then began to come down. He must keep those wings moving very fast or else come down to the ground. Then he made another discovery. In a very little while his wings were so tired that he just had to stop flying.

“Little Mr. Quail squatted in the grass and panted for breath. He was disappointed, terribly disappointed. 'It's plain to me that Old Mother Nature doesn't intend that I shall spend my time sailing about in the air,' said he. He scratched his pretty little head thoughtfully. 'I can fly pretty fast for a short distance,' he continued, talking to himself, 'but that is all. That must mean that I have been given wings for use only in time of need. There are some birds flitting about in a tree. They seem to be having a good time. I think I'll join them. If I can't sail about in the air, the next best thing will be flitting about in the trees.'

“So after he had rested a bit, little Mr. Quail flew to the tree where the other birds were flitting about, and there he made another disappointing discovery. Try as he would, he couldn't flit about as they did. Moreover, he didn't feel comfortable perched in a tree for any length of time. It made his toes ache to bend them around the branch on which he was sitting. He watched the other birds, and his bright eyes soon discovered that their feet were different from his feet. Their toes were made to clutch twigs and hold them there comfortably, while his were not. 'Old Mother Nature doesn't intend that I shall spend my time flitting about in trees,' said he sorrowfully, and flew down to the ground once more.

“Right away his feet felt better. All the ache left them. It was good to be on the ground. Pretty soon he began to run about. It was good to run about. He felt as if he could run all day without getting tired. While hunting for food he discovered that if his toes were not made for perching in trees, they certainly were made for scratching over leaves and loose earth where stray seeds were hiding. Then he made still another discovery. His coat was just the right color to make it hard work for others to see him when he squatted down close to the ground. If an enemy did discover him, his stout little wings took him out of danger like a bullet.

“Little by little it came over him that he had found his place in the Great World, which was on the ground most of the time. But he remembered what Old Mother Nature had said about work to do, and this worried him a little. One day he watched Mr. Toad catching bugs. Old Mr. Toad was grumbling. 'I can't keep up with these pesky bugs,' said he. 'When I get my stomach full, I have to wait for it to get empty again before I can catch any more. But _they_ don't wait. _They_ keep right on eating all the time, and there won't be any green things left if I don't have help.'

“Little Mr. Quail grew thoughtful. Then he started in to help Old Mr. Toad catch bugs so as to give the green things a chance to grow. He had found work to do, and he did it with all his might. He forgot he ever had wanted to sail around in the air or flit about in the trees. He had found his place in the Great World, and he had found work to do, and also he had found the secret of the truest happiness. He was so happy that he had to tell his neighbors about it. So every morning, just before starting work, he would fly up on a stump and whistle with all his might; what he tried to say was, 'All-all's right! All-all's right!' But what his neighbors thought he said was, 'Bob-Bob White! Bob-Bob White!'

“So they promptly called him Bob White and loved him for the cheer which his clear whistle brought to them. When Old Mother Nature came to see how things were getting on, she found little Mr. Quail the happiest and the most useful of all the birds, and as she listened to his whistle, she smiled and said: 'I love you, Bob White, and all the world shall love you.' And all the world has loved him to this very day.”

X. WHEN TEENY-WEENY BECAME GRATEFUL

|DID something move among the dead leaves along that old log, or was it the wind that stirred them? Peter Rabbit stared very hard trying to find out. Not that it made the least bit of difference to Peter. It didn't. If something alive had moved those leaves, that something was too small for Peter to fear it. Probably it was a worm or a bug. It might have been a beetle. That looked like a good place for beetles. There was Jimmy Skunk ambling down the Lone Little Path this very minute, and Jimmy always appeared to be looking for beetles. Peter stared harder than ever. A leaf moved. Another turned fairly over. There wasn't any wind just then. Dead leaves don't turn over of themselves, so there must be something alive there.

“What has Peter on his mind this morning to make him stare so?” asked Jimmy Skunk as he ambled up.

Peter grinned. “I was just wondering,” said he, “if there are any fat beetles under that log over there. Those dead leaves along the side of it have a way of moving once in a while without cause that I can see. There! What did I tell you?”

Sure enough, a couple of leaves had moved. Jimmy Skunk's eyes brightened. He actually almost hurried over to that old log, and began to rake away the leaves. Suddenly he stopped and sniffed. At the same time Peter thought he saw something dart in at the hollow end of that log. It might have been a shadow, but Peter had a feeling that it wasn't. Jimmy Skunk sniffed once more and then deliberately turned his back on that old log, and with his nose turned up, his face the very picture of disgust and disappointment, he rejoined Peter.

“Teeny Weeny, clever and spry,

Disappears while you wink an eye.'

said Jimmy.

“Oh!” exclaimed Peter. “Is that who it was? I suppose he was hunting beetles himself. He's such a little mite of a fellow that I should think a goodsized beetle could almost carry him away. I declare to goodness, I don't see how any one so small manages to live! Danny Meadow Mouse and Whitefoot the Wood Mouse are small enough, but they are giants compared with Teeny Weeny the Shrew. They have a hard enough time keeping alive, and I should think that any one smaller would stand no chance at all.”

“Do you know Teeny Weeny very well?” asked Jimmy.

“No,” confessed Peter. “I've seen him only a few times and then had no more than a glimpse of him.”

“And yet he lives right around here where you come and go every day,” said Jimmy.

“I know it,” replied Peter. “I suppose it is because he is so small. He can hide under next to nothing.” Jimmy grinned. “I don't see but what you've answered yourself,” he chuckled. “It's because he is so small that Teeny Weeny manages to keep out of harm. He isn't very good eating, anyway, so I have heard say.”

“Why? Because there isn't enough of him to make a bite?” asked Peter.

“No,” replied Jimmy. “Of course I don't know anything about it, but I've heard those who do say that a Shrew doesn't taste good, and that no one who is at all particular about his food will touch one. I am told that Hooty the Owl hunts Teeny Weeny, but Hooty isn't at all particular, you know. If Teeny Weeny tastes the way he smells, I for one don't want to try him.”

Peter laughed right out. He couldn't help it. The idea of Jimmy Skunk being fussy about smells was too funny.

“What are you laughing at?” demanded Jimmy, suspiciously.

“At the idea that any one so small can smell bad enough to make any difference,” replied Peter. “I wonder how he comes to have that bad smell.”

“It's a reward,” replied Jimmy. “It's a reward handed down to him from the days when the world was young, and his great-great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, the first Shrew, you know, who was also called Teeny Weeny, was given it by Old Mother Nature, because he had sense enough to be grateful and to tell her that he was.”

“It's a story!” cried Peter. “It's a story, and you've just got to tell it to me, Jimmy Skunk.”

“Say please,” grinned Jimmy.

“Please, please, please, please,” replied Peter. “If that isn't enough, I'll say it as many times more.”

“I guess that will do, because after all it isn't so very much of a story,” returned Jimmy, scratching his head as if he were trying to stir up his memory.

“It happened way back in the beginning of things that when Old Mother Nature had about finished making the birds and the animals, she had just a teeny weeny pinch of the stuff they were made of left over. Because she couldn't then and can't now bear to be wasteful, she started to make something. First she started to make it into a very tiny mouse. Then she changed her mind and started to make it into a tiny mole. Finally she changed her mind again and made it into something like each but not just like either, blew the breath of life into it, and set it free in the great world. That was Teeny Weeny, the first Shrew, and the smallest of all animals.

“For a while Teeny Weeny wished that he hadn't been made at all. He wished that Old Mother Nature hadn't been so thrifty and saving. What was the good of being an animal at all if he wasn't big enough to be recognized as such? That's the way he felt about it for a while. It hurt his feelings to have old King Bear say, after just missing him with his great foot. 'I beg your pardon, You are so tiny I thought you were a bug of some kind. Of course, I don't mind stepping on bugs, but I wouldn't step on you for the world. Why don't you grow so that we can see you?'

“'Yes, why don't you?' asked old Mr. Wolf. 'If you get stepped on, don't blame us.' Even Mr. Meadow Mouse laughed at him because he was so small. Teeny Weeny was quite furious at that. So for a while he was very unhappy because he was so small. He ate and ate and ate, hoping that this would make him grow bigger. But it didn't. He remained as small as ever, the smallest of all the four-footed people. And his temper didn't improve. Not a bit. He was fretful and snappish. He said all sorts of things about Old Mother Nature because she had made him so small. He almost hated her. He couldn't see a single advantage in being so small.

“Time went on, and at length came the hard times of which you have heard, the times when food was so scarce and most of the little people were always hungry. Then it was that the big and strong began to hunt the small and weak, as you know. At first Teeny Weeny was in a regular panic of fear. He felt that because he was so small he hadn't any chance at all. But after a while he made a discovery, a most amazing discovery. It quite took his breath away when he first realized it. It was that because he was so small he had more chance than some of those of whom he had been envious. Because he was so small, he could slip out of sight in a twinkling. He could slip into holes that no one else could get into. A leaf on the ground would hide him.

“Then he discovered that because he was so very small, it didn't take much food to fill his stomach, and he had no trouble in finding all he needed to eat. While his neighbors were going hungry, he was fat and comfortable. Bugs there were and worms there were in plenty, and on these he lived. One day he saw Old Mother Nature, and she looked worried. She _was_ worried. It was in the very middle of the hard times and wherever she went, the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows crowded about her to complain and ask her help. Teeny Weeny remembered all the bitter things he had said and all the bitter thoughts he had had because she had made him so small, and he was ashamed. Yes, Sir, he was ashamed. You see, he realized by this time that his small size was his greatest blessing.

“What did Teeny Weeny do but march right straight up to Old Mother Nature the first chance he got and tell her how grateful he was for what she had done for him. He was quite honest. He told her how he had felt, and how he had said bitter things, and how sorry he was now that he understood how well off he was. Then he thanked her once more and turned to leave. Old Mother Nature called him back. She was wonderfully pleased to have these few words of thanks amid so many complaints.

“'Teeny Weeny,' said she, 'because you have been smart enough to see, and honest enough to admit a blessing in what you had thought a hardship, and because you have been grateful instead of complaining, I herewith give you this musky odor, which will be distasteful to even the hungriest of your enemies. It is a further protection to you and your children and your children's children for ever and ever.'

“And so it was, and so it has been, and so it is, and that's all,” concluded Jimmy Skunk.

XI. WHEN OLD MR. HARE BECAME A TURNCOAT

|TURNCOAT isn't considered a very nice name to call any one. You see, it is supposed to mean one who has turned traitor, as it were; has been on one side and gone over to the other side. If a soldier who is fighting for France should go over to the German army and fight for Germany against France, he would be a turncoat. Benedict Arnold, of whom you have read in history, was a turncoat. But the meaning isn't always bad. Just take the case of Jumper the Hare. In summer he wears a coat of brown, but in winter he wears a coat of white, the white of the pure driven snow. So you see he is a turncoat, but in his case it doesn't mean anything bad at all. On the contrary, it means something rather nice and very interesting.

Now you know Jumper is the cousin of Peter Rabbit and looks very much like Peter, save that he is very much larger and has longer hind legs and longer ears. But Peter wears the same little homely brown coat in winter that he does in summer, the only difference being that it is thicker and so warmer. I am afraid that Peter has sometimes let a little envy creep into his heart when he has met his cousin wearing a coat of pure white. Be that as it may, Peter puzzled over the matter a great deal until he found out from Grandfather Frog how it happens that Jumper has such a lovely winter coat.

It happened one evening in early June, when Peter was hopping along down the Lone Little Path through the Green Forest, that he met Jumper and stopped to gossip for a few minutes. He had not seen Jumper since gentle Sister South. Wind had swept away the last of the winter snow. Then Jumper's coat had been white; now it was brown. This reminded Peter that he never had been able to tease Jumper into telling him how he could change his coat that way. None of Peter's other friends of the winter seemed to know, for he had asked all of them, and each had told him to ask Grandfather Frog. Of course, Peter couldn't do that in winter because Grandfather Frog was then fast asleep in the mud at the bottom of the Smiling Pool. With the coming of spring he had forgotten all about the matter. Now at the sight of Jumper once more, it all came back to him.

When Peter and Jumper parted, Peter started for the Smiling Pool, lip-perty-lipperty-lip. He arrived there quite out of breath. Grandfather Frog smiled a big, broad smile. Before Peter could say a word Grandfather Frog spoke.

“If you will catch a foolish green fly for me, Peter, Ill tell you the story,” said he.

For a full minute Peter couldn't find his tongue, he was so surprised. “How do you know what story I want?” he stammered at last.

“I don't know, but that doesn't make any difference,” replied Grandfather Frog. “Catch me a foolish green fly, and I'll tell you any story you want.”

“But--but--but I can't catch foolish green flies,” cried Peter. “I would if I could, but I can't, and you know I can't.”

“You can try,” replied Grandfather Frog gruffly, but with a twinkle in his eyes which Peter didn't see.

Peter hesitated. Then suddenly he shut his lips in a way that meant that he had made up his mind to something. He looked this way and that way. Whichever way he looked he saw foolish green flies flitting about. He jumped for one and missed it. He jumped for another and missed it. It was the beginning of such a funny performance that Grandfather Frog nearly rolled off his big green lily-pad with laughter. Peter raced and jumped this way and that way on the banks of the Smiling Pool as if he had gone quite crazy, and at last in his excitement jumped right into the Smiling Pool itself after a foolish green fly. But not one did he catch.

As he crawled out of the water, looking forlorn enough, Grandfather Frog took pity on him. “Chug-a-rum!” said he. “Lie down there in the sun and dry off, Peter, and I'll tell you the story.”

“But I haven't caught you a foolish green fly!” exclaimed Peter.

“No, but you've tried, and willingness to try is just as deserving of reward as successful effort. Now what was it you wanted to know?” replied Grandfather Frog.

“If you please, I want to know how it is that my cousin, Jumper the Hare, happens to have a white coat in winter. It seems to me very curious,” replied Peter.

“A long time ago, in the beginning of things,” began Grandfather Frog, “Old Mother Nature gave the first Hare a brown coat and turned him out into the Great World to shift for himself, just as she had done with all the other animals. That was a very easy matter for old Mr. Hare, who wasn't old then, of course. You see, those were good times with plenty for all to eat without trying to eat each other. Mr. Hare was very bashful, and like most bashful people he liked to be by himself. So he made his home in the most lonely part of the Green Forest and was very happy and contented for a long time.

“Now being alone so much made him very timid, ready to jump and run at the least unusual sound, and this, it happens, proved to be a very good thing for Mr. Hare. You see, being by himself that way, he had plenty to eat even after the hard times of which you have-heard had begun. So he was in splendid condition, was Mr. Hare, even after some of the other little people had begun to grow thin because of lack of food. One day Mr. Lynx happened to stray to that part of the Green Forest where Mr. Hare was living. He saw Mr. Hare before Mr. Hare saw him. He licked his lips hungrily. 'Ha!' thought he, 'this is where I get a good dinner.'

“With this he began to creep ever so softly towards Mr. Hare. But careful as he was, he stepped on a tiny stick and it snapped. Instantly away went Mr. Hare without stopping to see what had made the noise. That was because he had grown so timid from living so much alone. Then Mr. Lynx made a mistake. With a yell he started after Mr. Hare, and so Mr. Hare learned that it was no longer safe to trust his neighbors. Mr. Lynx didn't catch Mr. Hare, because Mr. Hare was too swift of foot for him, but he gave him such a scare was that Mr. Hare was more timid than ever.

“Others tried to catch him, and, little by little, Mr. Hare learned that he must always be on the watch, and that safety lay in two things--his long legs and his brown coat. He learned about the latter by being surprised once by Mr. Wolf. He knew that Mr. Wolf didn't see him as he crouched among the brown leaves. For once he was too frightened to run, Mr. Wolf was so close to him, and this, as it happened, was a very good thing. Mr. Wolf trotted right past without seeing him or smelling him.