Chapter 3

"This raft--" he said to himself proudly--"this raft belongs to me. I'll be a traveler. I'll see the world--at least as far as the big willow at the lower end of the meadow!"

He scarcely cared to go beyond the big willow. Beyond it lay another farm. And Master Meadow Mouse had never been off Farmer Green's place in his whole life. He feared that he might not be able to find his way back, if he ventured too far from home.

Soon he spied a friend on the bank of the creek. Master Meadow Mouse cried, "Good-by!" and waved a paw at him.

The person on the bank was one of his many cousins. And when he caught sight of Master Meadow Mouse he stared hard for a few moments. Then he shouted, "Don't jump! I'll rescue you." He was already running to the water's edge when Master Meadow Mouse stopped him.

"I don't want to be rescued," he called. "I'm seeing the world."

His cousin hurried along the bank, still watching the strange sight.

"It seems to me--" he told Master Meadow Mouse--"it seems to me that the world is seeing you. Where would you hide if Henry Hawk discovered you?"

Master Meadow Mouse did not answer. To tell the truth, the question set him to thinking. He had to admit that it might be a bit awkward to find any cover in case somebody or other made a sudden swoop at him.

"Oh, well!" he said at last. "It can't be helped. There's always _some_ danger in traveling--so I've heard."

His cousin on the bank had stopped running and now stood still and watched him anxiously until the raft had borne Master Meadow Mouse out of sight around a bend.

As the flood swung the craft toward the further side of the creek Master Meadow Mouse beheld a long-legged fisherman standing in the water. Not only did the fisherman have long legs. He had a long bill as well. And he was standing like a statue, waiting for a fish to swim past him. A fish, or a frog, or a mouse! He didn't care which.

Master Meadow Mouse knew him at once. He was Mr. Great Blue Heron--or plain "G. B." as he preferred to be called. While Master Meadow Mouse gazed at him in horror Mr. Heron swiftly thrust his spearlike bill into the water. Even his head went out of sight for a moment.

Mr. Heron did not do that in order to cool his head. Ah, no! When he pulled his bill out of the creek a pickerel came with it. And the pickerel vanished very quickly down Mr. Heron's long neck.

It was not a nice sight for Master Meadow Mouse to see, especially when he was on a pleasure trip. Besides, he noticed with dismay that his raft was bearing him straight towards the fisherman.

"If I only had some oars, or a rudder, I could steer this old raft away from him," Master Meadow Mouse thought. But he had nothing of the sort.

Master Meadow Mouse groaned.

"I wish I'd never gone a-traveling!"

17

A Lucky Escape

NEARER and nearer the board, with Master Meadow Mouse upon it, drifted around the bend of the creek toward Mr. Great Blue Heron. And at last Mr. Heron noticed it. And he noticed its passenger, too.

"Ahem!" he said softly to himself. Except for swallowing once or twice, he never made a move, but stood there in the water and waited. He waited for Master Meadow Mouse's raft to drift closer; for it was plain to him--as to Master Meadow Mouse--that the current of Black Creek was slowly bearing the board straight down upon him. "When it gets near enough I'll just reach out and pluck that fellow off," Mr. Heron promised himself with a sort of silent chuckle.

Meanwhile Master Meadow Mouse was having a very bad quarter of an hour. Slowly though his craft moved, to him it seemed to travel with lightning speed.

"I'll pass him soon," Master Meadow Mouse thought. "If I crouch down and make myself as small as possible perhaps he won't see me."

So he hugged the board tight. But the closer he came to Mr. Heron the bigger and fiercer that gentleman looked.

Suddenly Master Meadow Mouse's courage oozed out through his toes. He couldn't stay on his raft another second. Springing to his feet, he scurried to the edge of the board and slipped off it into the water.

At his first move Mr. Heron moved too. He lifted his great wings and flapped them, tucking his legs under his body at the same time. A half dozen flaps carried him abreast of the floating board. And there Mr. Heron let his long legs down into the water until he stood again upon the bottom of the creek. He scanned the water eagerly, even plunging his head into it and looking all around. But he couldn't see Master Meadow Mouse anywhere.

"This is queer," he mumbled. "I knew those fellows were good swimmers. But I didn't think this one could get away from me so quickly."

Mr. Great Blue Heron waded about the creek for some time, searching everywhere--or almost everywhere. And while he was searching, the deserted raft swung off down the creek, hung for a few moments at the edge of the channel, and then drifted lazily toward shore, where it lodged at last among the reeds.

The disappointed fisherman returned to his fishing. But it seemed as if his luck had turned. Not another fish came his way. And being too wise to expect that another Meadow Mouse would come traveling down the creek on a raft, Mr. Great Blue Heron at last forsook his sport and sailed away through the air towards the lake on the other side of Blue Mountain.

He hadn't been gone a great while when Master Meadow Mouse might have been seen picking his way along the bank. He was journeying upstream, on his way home.

"It was lucky for me--" he explained to his cousin, whom he met later--"it was lucky for me that I could swim under water. Otherwise I shouldn't have been able to hide beneath the board and stay there until it swung into the rushes."

"You had a narrow escape," his cousin told him. "Don't say that I didn't warn you!"

That cousin was one of those persons that always exclaim, "I told you so!"

18

Under the Snow

WINTER had come. The snow lay deep over Pleasant Valley. But Master Meadow Mouse didn't object to that. On the contrary, he had welcomed the snow. Even Johnnie Green, peeping out of his chamber window at the first snowfall of the season, hadn't been any happier over it than Master Meadow Mouse was. To Johnnie Green the snow meant fun. To Master Meadow Mouse it meant fun and something more.

At last he could scamper about the meadow without being seen by everybody. For he set to work at once to make tunnels beneath the snow. They ran in every direction from his house. And he was forever pushing them further and further.

Through those tunnels Master Meadow Mouse could look for seeds and grain in the stubble. And while he was rambling along his network of halls he didn't have to worry about anybody's making trouble for him, unless it was Peter Mink, perhaps, or Grumpy Weasel.

Of course Master Meadow Mouse didn't stay under the snow all the time. Now and then he liked to climb up into the open air. And he made many shafts that led to the world above.

Although most of the birds had gone South to spend the winter, there were still some that Master Meadow Mouse had to shun. Old Mr. Crow was spending the winter on the farm. And there were Solomon Owl and his cousin Simon Screecher, who hunted over the meadow nightly. And at dusk sometimes a fierce hawk known as "Rough-leg" would beat his way back and forth across the snow covered stretches in the hope of catching one of the Meadow Mouse family unawares.

In spite of such unpleasant neighbors, the big Meadow Mouse family managed to have many a gay frolic under the stars on crisp winter nights. Sometimes Johnnie Green, wandering over the fields on snow-shoes by day, noticed a lacy tracery on the snow. It was the tracks of the tiny toes of Master Meadow Mouse and his dozens of cousins. At first Johnnie almost thought that he had stumbled upon the scene of a revel of fairy mice. He did not know then that the Meadow Mouse family had a village of their own right under his feet.

But Solomon Owl and Simon Screecher and old Rough-leg, the hawk, knew all about the habits of the villagers. In fact they sometimes complained about the way the Meadow Mouse family had built their tunnels. They agreed that there were too many holes leading down to the village streets. It gave the Meadow Mouse people too many openings into which to dive in case of a sudden surprise when they were having a moonlight party.

"If they ever invited me to one of their affairs I wouldn't care what they did," Solomon Owl remarked one evening to his whistling cousin, Simon Screecher. "If they'd welcome me just once to one of their dances I'd be satisfied."

"It's plain that they don't like you," his cousin remarked.

"Nor you, either!" Solomon Owl boomed. And then all at once he burst forth with a peal of ghostly laughter. _"Wha, wha, whoo-ah!_"

Now, Master Meadow Mouse had just crept out of one of his doorways and was looking up at the stars when that shivery sound came rolling out of the woods. When he heard it he turned quickly and hurried back where he came from.

"There won't be any fun to-night," he grumbled.

19

Owl Friends

"THERE'S no sense in wasting our time here," said Solomon Owl to his small cousin, Simon Screecher. "It's a fine night. The Mice will all be out sooner or later. Let's go over and sit in that old oak on the edge of the meadow!"

Simon Screecher was more than willing. And they had no sooner settled themselves among the bare branches of the oak when Simon started to amuse himself by giving his well-known quavering whistle.

Solomon Owl stopped him quickly.

"Don't do that!" he said sharply. "Do you want to scare the Mice?" Simon Screecher cut his whistle off right in the middle of it.

"I forgot," he murmured. "But I don't believe my whistling would do any harm. I don't think there are many Mice left on Farmer Green's place. It's my opinion that they've moved away--most of them. Or maybe old Rough-leg, the Hawk, has caught more than his share. Anyhow, it's so long since I ate a Meadow Mouse that I've almost forgotten what they're like."

Solomon Owl made no reply. He was a person of few words. If anybody asked his opinion he was ready to give it. But he seldom gave any unsought advice.

"I've about made up my mind," said Simon Screecher, "that I'd move to some other neighborhood. If I knew where there was good mousing I'd move to-morrow."

While he was speaking, Solomon Owl started ever so slightly. And he cocked his head on one side, as if he were listening for something.

At that moment his cousin began to whistle again.

"Be quiet!" Solomon Owl thundered. "If I'm not mistaken I heard a squeak. But no Meadow Mouse will ever venture out of doors if you're going to whistle."

"I forgot," said Simon Screecher once more. "I'm so used to whistling that I don't know when I'm doing it."

"That's the reason why you can't catch more Mice," Solomon Owl snapped; for he was angry. "There are dozens of Meadow Mice under the snow. But of course you can't surprise them if you tell them you're coming. You might as well send them a telegram, saying that you'll be on hand to meet them at eight P. M."

Simon Screecher was silenced for the time being.

And it wasn't long before Solomon Owl gave another start.

"There's that squeak again!" he whispered. "I believe it is getting nearer, too."

Now, Master Meadow Mouse had a tunnel that led right beneath the tree where the two cousins were sitting. And he had strolled that way after scurrying under the snow when he heard Solomon Owl laughing in the woods earlier in the evening.

It was he that Solomon heard. It was he that stuck his head out of a hole in the snow and peeped up at the star-sprinkled sky.

Solomon Owl saw him. And he dived out of the old oak straight at Master Meadow Mouse.

Master Meadow Mouse pulled his head in just in time.

"I didn't suppose that chap would be here as soon as this," he gasped. "He must have hurried over here from the woods. He must be very hungry."

As Solomon Owl returned to the old oak his cousin Simon Screecher laughed somewhat unpleasantly.

"Missed him--didn't you?" he inquired.

"Yes!"

"Why didn't you grab him out of the snow?" Simon asked. "What are your claws for? What's your beak for?"

"I couldn't dig him out," Solomon Owl replied. "The snow is three feet deep. And it has seven different crusts, one under another."

"This is a hard winter," said Simon Screecher. "I wish I'd gone South last fall. I wonder how the mousing is down there."

20

Eating a Tree

AS SIMON SCREECHER remarked to his cousin, Solomon Owl, it was a hard winter. The snow was deep. The days were cold. And the nights were colder. And, worst of all, food became scarce. It seemed as if there wasn't anything to eat anywhere except at the farm buildings, which Farmer Green had stuffed full of hay and grain during the summer and autumn. Many of the forest folk stole down from Blue Mountain after nightfall and visited the farmyard in the hope of getting a bite of something or other.

Even Master Meadow Mouse began to find it harder and harder to get enough seeds under the snow to satisfy his hunger. He had stored away a stock of food. But it hadn't been big enough. And that was a great mistake. Master Meadow Mouse promised himself that he would not repeat it another time. Unfortunately, all the promises in the world wouldn't give him a square meal when he needed one.

At last he went to one of his cousins who had already spent one winter in the meadow.

"This is my first winter," Master Meadow Mouse explained. "I'm running short of food. And I wish you'd tell me what to do in such a case."

"That's easy," his cousin answered. "Get more!" And then he hurried away, for he had important business to attend to.

Poor Master Meadow Mouse ran after him. It was hard to follow his cousin through the winding galleries beneath the snow. Several times Master Meadow Mouse took the wrong turn and had to retrace his steps. But at last he found his busy cousin again.

"You advised me to get more food," said Master Meadow Mouse. "But you didn't tell me where to get it."

"In the orchard!" his cousin cried. And then he hurried away again.

"I wish he'd wait a minute," Master Meadow Mouse grumbled as he tore after his cousin once more. "I don't feel like running. I haven't had a hearty meal for days."

The cousin seemed surprised when Master Meadow Mouse overtook him.

"What!" that busy gentleman exclaimed. "Have you been to the orchard and back so soon?"

"No!" said Master Meadow Mouse. "I've been chasing you. I want you to tell me what I'll find to eat when I go to the orchard."

"That's easy," his cousin replied. "Trees!" Having said those three words he dashed off again even faster than before.

"Trees!" Master Meadow Mouse echoed. "I can't eat trees. I've never eaten a tree in all my life. There must be something that my cousin forgot to explain. So I suppose I'll have to run after him again and ask him what he meant."

The fourth time that Master Meadow Mouse found his cousin he took no chances. He caught his cousin by his tail and held on firmly.

"You're not going to get away from me till I've found out what I want to know," he declared. "How can I eat a tree?" Master Meadow Mouse demanded.

"You can't!" his cousin replied, struggling desperately to free himself, for he was too busy to stop long.

"Then explain what you mean!" Master Meadow Mouse cried.

"Eat the bark!" his cousin answered.

Then--and not till then--did Master Meadow Mouse let him go.

Master Meadow Mouse chased his cousin no more, but hurried away to Farmer Green's orchard, where he gnawed a ring all the way around one of the young fruit trees, at the top of the snow. It was the first big meal he had enjoyed for weeks. And he went home feeling that the winter was not so hard as he had thought, after all.

But Farmer Green didn't agree with him. When he happened to go into the orchard one day, later, and saw tree after tree ruined, he was very, very much displeased.

"I ought to have put wire netting around those young trees," he told the hired man. "This is what comes of a hard winter."

21

A Cold Dip

IN one way Peter Mink was like Master Meadow Mouse. He enjoyed swimming. And he spent a great deal of his time along the streams that threaded their way through Pleasant Valley. Sometimes Peter dawdled on the banks of Swift River. Sometimes he lingered for days in the neighborhood of Black Creek. Nor did he disdain so small a stream as the brook that crossed the meadow. It was deep enough for a swim. And he knew that muskrats lived under its banks. While as for meadow mice--well, Peter Mink had surprised many a one swimming in the brook. If it hadn't been for the meadow mice perhaps he wouldn't have visited the brook so often.

Even in winter Master Meadow Mouse just _had_ to have his cold dip now and then. So he ran one of his many snow tunnels to the brook, making a little opening that led under the ice, where the water had fallen away and left a cavern. Just because there was skating for Johnnie Green on top of the brook it mustn't be supposed that Master Meadow Mouse wasn't going to have a swim when he wanted one.

When Peter Mink wandered along a stream in winter he preferred to travel under the ice, rather than walk upon the upper side of it. It made little difference to him whether there was a dry strip along the edge of the stream, where he could steal silently along without wetting his feet. When he found no place to walk, he swam.

Now, Master Meadow Mouse was well aware of this trick of Peter Mink's--this trick of lurking beneath the ice of river, creek and brook. But Master Meadow Mouse _would_ have his cold dip now and then despite Peter Mink and his prowling ways.

To be sure, Master Meadow Mouse tried to be careful. Before he crept from the end of his tunnel, he stuck his head out and looked up and down and all around. He peeped under the bank of the brook. He even stared into the water. And then--if he saw nobody that was fiercer than Paddy Muskrat--only then would he venture to skip to the water's edge and plunge in.

To tell the truth, Master Meadow Mouse always felt safer when one of the Muskrat family happened to be taking a swim at the same time. For the Muskrats all had a warning signal that told everybody when there was danger. When one of them caught sight of Peter Mink he never failed--if he was in the water--to give a loud slap upon the surface with his tail.

Master Meadow Mouse always had one ear that was listening for that slap. And when it sounded he never waited an instant, but darted into his tunnel without even stopping to shake the water off his coat. He said that he could dry his coat after he reached home; while if he stopped to dry it at the edge of the brook perhaps he'd never get home at all.

You might think that now and then he would have said to himself, "Oh, I won't bother to look for Peter Mink to-day. He must be miles away. I'll step right out of my tunnel and have my swim without taking a look-see first." But Master Meadow Mouse was never so lazy as that. And the day came at last when it was well worth his while to take the little extra trouble of peeping out before he had his swim.

For Master Meadow Mouse caught a glimpse of a snakelike head that darted out from under the bank of the brook and darted back again, out of sight. He knew that that queer head belonged to Peter Mink, and to nobody else.

22

Fishing for Mice

MASTER MEADOW MOUSE peeped out of the end of his tunnel and gave a faint squeak. As he watched, he saw Peter Mink's head, on its long neck, flash out from beneath the overhanging bank of the brook.

"What are you doing up there?" Master Meadow Mouse called.

"Fishing!" said Peter Mink promptly.

"Aren't you a long way from the water?" Master Meadow Mouse inquired.

"With a pole, one doesn't need to stand right at the water's edge," said Peter Mink.

"But you haven't a pole," Master Meadow Mouse pointed out. "At least, I can't see that you have one."

Peter was greatly surprised--or seemed to be.

"I declare!" he said. "I forgot to bring my pole with me. And if you hadn't reminded me of it I shouldn't have known what was the trouble. I was wondering why I didn't get any bites." As he spoke he slid down the lower part of the bank and stretched himself like a cat. But all the time he was looking at Master Meadow Mouse out of the corner of his eye. "What are _you_ doing here?" Peter Mink asked pleasantly.

"I came to take a swim," Master Meadow Mouse explained.

"Have you had it?"

"Not yet!" Master Meadow Mouse told him. "And I believe I'll wait till to-morrow."

"The water's fine to-day," said Peter Mink. "I've been in and out of it forty times."

But Master Meadow Mouse wasn't to be persuaded so easily.

"I might spoil your fishing if I went in now," he remarked.

"I don't care if you do," said Peter Mink. "The pleasure of seeing you enjoy a swim would more than repay me for the loss of the biggest fish in this brook."

Now, such speeches sounded very strange, coming from the mouth of a surly rascal like Peter Mink, who was never known to do anybody a good turn. Master Meadow Mouse pondered over this last statement. There seemed to be a catch in it somewhere. And he decided, finally, that he had discovered it.

"I didn't know there were any fish in this brook worth catching," he piped. "They say there were trout here once. But now there's nothing bigger than a minnow."

Peter Mink nodded. "That's the truth," he said. "If this brook has a fish that's as meaty as you are, I've never seen him."

"Ah!" cried Master Meadow Mouse. "You'd far rather catch me than catch a fish in this pool."

Peter Mink grinned at him brazenly.

"I won't deny it," he replied.

"But you tried to deceive me," Master Meadow Mouse told him. "You said--when I asked you what you were doing here--you said that you were fishing."

"So I was!" Peter Mink exclaimed with a horrid chuckle. "I was fishing for mice. And if you'd been a little less careful I'd have caught one, too."

"Good day!" said Master Meadow Mouse. "Good day and good-by!"

"Don't say good-by!" Peter Mink corrected. "Say, 'Till we meet again!'"

But Master Meadow Mouse had already pulled his head out of sight and vanished inside his tunnel.

23

Moving Day

MASTER MEADOW MOUSE had a great-uncle who was known as Uncle Billy. He was the oldest of all the members of the Meadow Mouse family that lived under the snow near the brook. Hobbling along through one of the tunnels beneath the seven crusts of snow he happened to meet Master Meadow Mouse as he was returning from his talk with Peter Mink.

"I just saw Peter Mink at the brook!" Master Meadow Mouse called.

"Ha!" Uncle Billy snorted. "The question is, did he see you?"

"He did," Master Meadow Mouse answered with no little pride, for he felt quite important. "He not only saw me. He talked with me."

"Ha!" Uncle Billy snorted again. "Then this is moving day."

"Why, it's not the first of May, is it?" Master Meadow Mouse cried.

"Hardly!" said Uncle Billy, with something like a sniff. "It's not Ground Hog Day yet; and that's only the second of February."

"Then why should anybody move, right in the middle of winter?" Master Meadow Mouse wanted to know.

"Because--" Uncle Billy declared hotly--"because somebody has gone and let Peter Mink know where we're spending the winter. And it's not safe for us to stay here any longer."

Master Meadow Mouse couldn't help feeling guilty. Still, he hoped he hadn't made as great a mistake as Uncle Billy would have him believe.