The Pond Part 7

Then I must die. And then you may eat me and welcome. But let me go now.

And tell your husband also. He has been after me twice."

"Very well," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, "though it's foolish of me. You'll probably cheat me and let someone else eat you first."

"I shall do my best to escape," said the grub. "And, now, thank you ever so much."

Before the grub had done speaking, little Mrs. Reed-Warbler was up in the nest again, with six midge-grubs, which she had caught in one bite.

Her husband was there too with a dragon-fly, which the children tore to pieces and ate up amid cries of delight.

"There's nothing the matter with their appet.i.tes or with their voices either," he said. "If only they could s.h.i.+ft for themselves! I am as lean as a skeleton."

"And what about me?" said she. "But the children are thriving and that is the great thing."

He sighed and flew away and came home and flew away again; and so it went on till evening. Then they both sat wearily on the edge of the nest and looked out across the smooth pond:

"It is curious how the life exhausts one," she said. "Sometimes, when I feel thoroughly tired, I can almost understand those animals who let their children look after themselves. Did you notice the eel the other day? How fat and gay he is."

"Are you talking of me, madam?" asked the eel, sticking his head out of the mud.

"Oh, you're always there!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"More or less. One has to wriggle and twist."

"Have you any news of your children?"

"No, thank goodness!"

"Oh, really?" said the perch. "I have an idea that I ate a couple of them at breakfast.... Excuse me for being so frank!"

"Not at all, not at all!" said the eel. "The family is large enough even so."

"How on earth did they come up here from the sea?" asked the roach.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Just as I did, I imagine," said the eel. "They've got scent of something to be made here; and two or three miles are nothing to them."

"Heigho!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Are you sighing because of all this fuss with the children? Well, madam, what did I tell you?"

"Not at all," replied Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "I could never behave like you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'OH! REALLY,' SAID THE PERCH [p. 64 ]

"One has one's duties," said the reed-warbler. "And the loftier one's station in life, the heavier the duties."

"Thank goodness, then, that I am of lowly station," said the eel. "I have a capital time in the mud."

"Then, again, one is interested in preserving a certain amount of poetry in the world. There is plenty of rabble, plenty of ugliness, I admit.

All the more reason why we higher animals should do something to promote the ideal. And I can't imagine anything more ideal than a father's labours on behalf of his family, even though they do become rather fatiguing at times."

"You're tremendously up in the clouds to-day, Mr. Reed-Warbler," said the eel. "Every one to his taste. But, as for poetry, I must confess that I have not seen much of it in my life. And yet I have wriggled and twisted about the world a good deal. The great question, everywhere, is eating and eating and eating. And those who have children to care for are the worst robbers of the lot. Good-bye."

"That's a disgusting fellow," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "It was very nice of you to give him a piece of your mind. I quite agree with you.

Besides, I myself performed a really fine action to-day."

She ran to the reed and looked into the water:

"Are you there, my little grub?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you," said the May-fly grub.

"And how are you?"

"Fairly. The eel almost caught sight of me; and I was nearly getting into the bladder-wort's prison; and the water-spider was after me before that. Otherwise, I'm all right."

"What's this now?" asked the reed-warbler.

"Oh," answered his wife, "it's a protegee of mine! A little May-fly grub. I promised that I wouldn't eat her. She is so happy at the thought of being grown-up ... and that only for a couple of hours, poor little thing!"

She said nothing about her intention of eating the grub when she was grown up; and the reed-warbler was seriously angry.

"What sentimental gammon!" he said. "It's unseemly for a woman with five children to commit such follies."

"I thought it so poetic to give her leave to live," said she.

"Fiddlesticks!" said her husband. "Poetry doesn't apply to one's food.

If it did, we should all die of hunger. Besides you can't take a creature like that into consideration."

Thereupon he ran down the reed and hunted eagerly for the grub, to eat her.

But she heard what he said and had gone down to the bottom with terror in her little heart.

CHAPTER VII

The Carp

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The summer wore on and things grew worse and worse.

No end of young had come out of the eggs and they filled the whole pond.

Out in the middle it was quite green with millions of little water-weeds, which died and rotted and reeked till seven big perch died of it and floated on their backs.