The Tale of Solomon Owl Part 2

But Solomon Owl told him that he wouldn't _think_ of letting anybody use shears so near his eyes.

[_Ill.u.s.tration 1_]

Solomon Found Mr. Frog's Shop Was Closed

"I'll take off the coat," he said. "And I know now that you're a very poor tailor, or you wouldn't have made such a mistake." He began to tug at the coat. But he soon found that taking it off was not so easy as putting it on. Solomon's sharp claws caught in the cloth; and his hooked beak, too, fastened itself in the hood the moment he tried to pull the coat over his head. "Here!" he cried to Mr. Frog. "Just lend me a hand! I can't see to help myself."

But Mr. Frog did not even answer him.

"Don't you hear me?" Solomon Owl shouted, as he struggled with his new coat, only to become tangled in it more than ever.

Still, the tailor said never a word, though something very like a giggle, followed by a splash, caught Solomon's ear.

"He's left me!" Solomon Owl groaned.

"Mr. Frog has left me to get out of this coat alone. And goodness knows how I'm ever a-going to do it." He threshed about so vigorously that he tripped himself and fell upon the bank of the brook, rolling over and over toward the water.

He had a very narrow escape. If he hadn't happened to bring up against an old stump he would certainly have tumbled into the stream.

Though Solomon couldn't see, he knew that he was in danger. So he lay on his back on the ground and carefully tore his new coat into strings and ribbons.

At last he was free. And he rose to his feet feeling very sheepish, for he knew that Mr. Frog had played a sly trick on him.

"Nevermind!" said Solomon Owl, as he flew way. "I'll come back to-morrow and ask Mr. Frog to make me a waistcoat and trousers. And then--" He did not finish what he was saying. But there is no doubt that whatever it was, it could not have been very pleasant for Mr. Frog.

Just as he had planned, Solomon Owl returned to the brook the next day.

And he was both surprised and disappointed at what he found.

The door of Mr. Frog's tailor's shop was shut and locked. And on it there was a sign, which said:

TO LET

"He's moved away!" cried Solomon Owl. And he went off feeling that he had been cheated out of a good dinner-to say nothing of a new waistcoat-and new trousers, too.

He had not been gone long when the door opened. And Mr. Frog leaped nimbly outside. He took the sign off the door; and sitting down cross-legged upon the bank, he began to sew upon Jasper Jay's new blue suit, while his face wore a wider smile than ever.

He had suddenly decided not to let his shop, after all.

VI SOLOMON NEEDS A CHANGE

For some time Solomon Owl had known that a queer feeling was coming over him. And he could not think what it meant. He noticed, too, that his appet.i.te was leaving him. Nothing seemed to taste good any more.

So at last, one fine fall evening he went to see Aunt Polly Woodchuck, who was an herb doctor; for he had begun to worry about his health.

"It's lucky you came to-day," said Aunt Polly. "Because to-night I'm going to begin my winter's nap. And you couldn't have seen me again till spring-unless you happened to come here on ground-hog day, next February.... What appears to be your trouble?" she inquired.

"It's my appet.i.te, partly," Solomon Owl said. "Nothing tastes as it did when I was a youngster. And I keep longing for something, though what it is I can't just tell."

Aunt Polly Woodchuck nodded her head wisely.

"What have you been eating lately?" she asked.

Solomon Owl replied that he hadn't eaten anything but mice since the leaves began to turn.

"H-m-the leaves are nearly all off the trees now," the old lady remarked.

"How many mice have you eaten in that time?"

Solomon said that as nearly as he could remember he had eaten twenty-seven-or a hundred and twenty-seven. He couldn't say which-but one of those numbers was correct.

Aunt Polly Woodchuck threw up her hands.

"Sakes alive!" she cried. "It's no wonder you don't feel well! What you need is a change of food. And it's lucky you came to me now. If you'd gone on like that much longer I'd hate to say what might have happened to you.

You'd have had dyspepsia, or some other sort of misery in your stomach."

"What shall I do?" asked Solomon Owl. "Insects are scarce at this season of the year. Of course, there are frogs-but I don't seem to care for them.

And there are fish-but they're not easy to get, for they don't come out of the water and sit on the bank, as the frogs do."

"How about pullets?" Aunt Polly inquired.

At that Solomon Owl let out a long row of hoots, because he was pleased.

"The very thing!" he cried. "That's what I've been wanting all this time.

And I never guessed it.... I'll pay you for your advice the next time I see you," he told Aunt Polly. And Solomon Owl hurried away before she could stop him. Since he had no intention of visiting her on ground-hog day, he knew it would be spring before he saw Aunt Polly Woodchuck again.

The old lady scolded a bit. And it did not make her feel any pleasanter to hear Solomon's mocking laughter, which grew fainter and fainter as he left the pasture behind him. Then she went inside her house, for she was fast growing sleepy. And she wanted to set things to rights before she began her long winter's nap.

Meanwhile, Solomon Owl roamed restlessly through the woods. There was only one place in the neighborhood where he could get a pullet. That was at Farmer Green's chicken house. And for some reason he did not care to visit the farm buildings until it grew darker.

So he amused himself by making the woods echo with his strange cry, "_Whoo-whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo, to-whoo-ah!_" And now and then he threw in a few "_wha-whas_," just for extra measure.

Many of the forest folk who heard him remarked that Solomon Owl seemed to be in extra fine spirits.

"Probably it's the hunter's moon that pleases him!" Jimmy Rabbit remarked to a friend of his. "I've always noticed that old Solomon makes more noise on moonlight nights than at any other time."

The hunter's moon, big and yellow and round, was just rising over Blue Mountain. But for once it was not the moon that made Solomon Owl so talkative. He was in fine feather, so to speak, because he was hoping to have a fat pullet for his supper. And as for the moon, he would have been just as pleased had there been none at all that night. For Solomon Owl never cared to be seen when he visited Farmer Green's chicken house.

VII THE BLAZING EYES