Hollow Tree Nights and Days Part 8

"But right there that plump young fellow got the best surprise of his life. He had been so scared that he had forgotten all about Mr. Somers's medicine, but the medicine hadn't forgotten about him. During the little minute he had been sitting on that limb his tail had curled itself around it as tight as if it had grown there. Mr. Painter couldn't have shaken him loose in a week. He hung down just like Somers, only not so far, and he didn't swing much, because that strong medicine had taken up all his slack and there was very little room for play. He didn't care for that, of course, not then. He got brave and very cheerful right off, and called out to Mr. Painter, just like Somers:

"'Much obliged, Mr. Painter--much obliged for the nice swing. Swing me again, Mr. Painter.'

"And when the rest of our folks saw that the same thing had happened to all of them they all let go and dropped, and began calling from the different trees: 'Come and swing us, too, Mr. Painter--stay all day and swing the rest of us!'

"And when Mr. Painter heard that, and looked around and saw all my ancestors hanging head down and making fun of him, he thought the whole Deep Woods was full of the strange magic, and he piled down out of that tree and took out for the bushes, and was never seen in the Big Deep Woods again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOOK HIM ALL THE AFTERNOON TO PRY THE REST OF MY ANCESTORS LOOSE]

"My folks called after him just as far as they could see him, and when they were sure he was gone they thought they would come down and celebrate. But they didn't do it--not just yet. There wasn't one of them that could unwind himself from his limb, except old Mr. Waters, who had got only a teaspoonful of the medicine, which very likely was just about the right amount. Mr. Waters swung quite loose and free from his limb, and got down without much trouble, and it took him all the afternoon to go around from tree to tree and pry the rest of my ancestors loose, and unwind them, because those new-fangled tails would snap together like springs, and it took several days' steady practice and straightening before they were really useful at a moment's notice. By that time, another strange thing had happened: The fur on them had curled so tight at first that it was like very close wool; then it kept right on getting tighter and tighter until it seemed to curl itself clear out, and by the end of the week there wasn't one of our family whose tail wasn't as bare as your hand, except old Mr. Waters, who had a handsome curly plume, like Somers's, and became a great curiosity, the only one that we ever had like that in our tribe.

"All the others thought the fur would grow again, but it never did, and when they got used to its absence they decided they were much better off without it, especially since they had learned the Somers habit, which they said worked easier and better in the new, smooth form. They were sorry, at first, that Mr. Somers had not left them the recipe for that medicine, on account of the new little 'Possums that would be coming along. But they didn't need the recipe. That medicine was strong enough, the amount they took, to do our family at least a thousand generations, and maybe more. Somers never came back, and they never heard of him again. Some of my ancestors used to say that he was not a real person at all, but something that could take different shapes and work magic, just as Mr. Painter believed he did. Anyhow, he was a great blessing to our family, as you may have noticed."

Mr. 'Possum moved over to the Edge of the World in the sun, hooked his tail about the same little bush, and went to sleep again. The other Deep Woods people looked at the way he did it, as if it was something new that they had never seen before.

Mr. 'c.o.o.n said: "I think I'd like a little, just a little, of that medicine; Mr. 'Possum's gift certainly would come handy at times."

Mr. Squirrel nodded.

Mr. Rabbit looked out over the Deep Nowhere, and said nothing at all.

A DEEP WOODS WAR

MR. 'c.o.o.n TELLS A CURIOUS STORY OF LOVE AND BATTLE

Once upon a time Mr. Dog came over to the Hollow Tree to spend the evening with the 'c.o.o.n and 'Possum and the Old Black Crow, and pretty soon other Deep Woods people dropped in, and everybody was pa.s.sing the time of day and feeling comfortable and happy in the good society of those present. They talked about the weather, and how it seemed to be a dry spring, and Mr. Rabbit said his garden was suffering, and Mr. Turtle said he had never seen the Wide Blue Water so low at this season for a hundred and nine or ten years. He couldn't remember just which it was, but it was the year that Father Storm Turtle, who lives up in the Big West Hills, and makes the thunder, was laid up with misery in his shoulder, and Mother Storm had to run the thunder-works, and tend to sick folks, too. Most people, Mr. Turtle said, believed that good, loud thunder helps to shake the rain out of the clouds, and very likely it was so, for the next spring, when Father Storm got well, he gave them enough of it, and it rained so that the Wide Blue Water came up into the Big Deep Woods as far as the Hollow Tree, which wasn't a Hollow Tree then, but a good, sound oak only about four hundred years old,--his Uncle Tom Turtle, who lived up by the Forks, having been just about that old himself when it came up as a sapling.[5]

When Mr. Turtle got through, none of the Hollow Tree people said anything at all, at first, for whenever Mr. Turtle mentioned how old he was, and the great ages of many of his family, it seemed to them too wonderful for words. But by and by Mr. Dog said that Mr. Turtle was very likely right about the thunder making the rain, for he had heard Mr. Man explain that the reason it was so dry this year was because there was a great war going on, on the other side of the world, with big guns roaring all day and night, and that the terrible jar and noise of those guns kept it raining there steadily, so there was no rain left for this side. Mr. Dog supposed that Father Storm Turtle could not get up a noise big enough to beat that war noise, and had about given up trying.

Then Mr. Rabbit asked why Mr. Man's people wanted to have war and fire those big guns at each other, which must be very dangerous and very apt to kill people, besides causing floods in one place and drought in another, which was bad for everybody concerned.

Mr. Dog said Mr. Man himself didn't know why all those Mr. Man's over there wanted to have a war. Mr. Dog had heard Mr. Man say that those people over there didn't know themselves what it was all about, and that they were killing each other every day by the thousand with those big guns, and losing all their property, for no reason at all that anybody could think of, except, perhaps, to take each other's country, which probably wouldn't be worth much now, whoever got it. Mr. Dog said that, of course, Mr. Man's people were very smart in many ways, but that as nearly as he could find out they had always been very silly about wars, and had fought many of them, for no good reason, instead of being wise like the Deep Woods people, who only fight to get something to eat, or sometimes when there are rivals at a time of courts.h.i.+p. Mr. Dog said his own people were more like Mr. Man's, probably from a.s.sociation, and that more than once at Great Corners he had been set upon by a perfectly strange Mr. Dog, without cause; but even then it was generally a single-handed affair and soon over, except once, when he believed every Mr. Dog in Great Corners took a hand for a few minutes, though n.o.body was hurt and everybody seemed to feel better for the exercise.

Mr. Dog went on to say that he seldom enjoyed these occasions, and lately had stayed in Mr. Man's car while they were at Great Corners and talked earnestly to any strange dog that came around looking for war.

Then Mr. 'c.o.o.n, who hadn't said a word so far, but had just been smoking and thinking, seemed to wake up out of deep reflection, and said:

"I know something about war. I thought of making one, once, and afterwards I saw one."

Then everybody looked at Mr. 'c.o.o.n, who is usually rather quiet, and asked him to please tell about those wars--nothing could be more interesting, just now, than to hear about them.

So Mr. 'c.o.o.n filled his pipe up fresh, and told them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT VIOLET COULD SEE IN HIM]

"Well," he said, "there isn't much to tell about the first one. I was quite young, and there was a family lived not far from us who had a young Miss 'c.o.o.n that I thought I would like to set up housekeeping with, and when I mentioned it she was a good deal in the notion, too.

Everything seemed to be going along quite well until, one day, another young Mr. 'c.o.o.n came along and saw Violet--that was her name--and he had the same plan that I had. He belonged to that family over near the Jagged Bluffs--a common, oversized lot, with no style to speak of. I had never seen him, myself, when I first heard about his coming to call on her, and made up my mind I would fight him the first time we met. Then I thought I had better get a look at him and study his weak points, without him seeing me; so I hid in the bushes one afternoon, near Violet's house, to watch him pa.s.s. When, pretty soon, he came along and I saw the curious shape and size of him, I decided that Violet was not worthy of me. He was very wide forward, and his hind legs were set in a peculiar way. I can't imagine what Violet could see in him."

Mr. 'c.o.o.n sighed and took time to fill his pipe before he went on.

"That was the war I thought of making," he went on, after a minute or two, "and that was all there was of it. I took a walk over to see a good friend of mine, in those days, a young Mr. Bear named Redfield, generally called Cousin Redfield, or Reddie. Mr. Crow once told us about some of his little-boy adventures, as you may remember. Well, I found Cousin Redfield and told him what had happened, and he said he would go with me and help me fight that spread-shouldered ruffian, and asked me what were his weak points. I said I hadn't noticed any, and we decided that we wouldn't bother with him, and went to visit a honey-tree that Cousin Redfield had found and thought of robbing, some night. I said I didn't think it was right to rob the bees of their honey, but that we would go and look at it, to take my mind from less pleasant things.

"So we walked a good ways until we came to it, and it was there that I saw the other war that I mentioned. It seems there were several swarms of bees in that tree, it being quite a big one with a number of hollow limbs. Every year when the young bees had made new swarms they had moved into vacant limbs, until, I suppose, the tree had become quite full and pretty crowded. I don't know what had started the trouble, but there was a good deal of it going on when we got there. Perhaps some strong new or old swarm was trying to drive out a weak one and take its place. Anyway, there were about a million of those bees buzzing and whirling about outside, and you could smell that they were mad, and you could see that they were fighting, for there were dead ones on the ground, and they were pattering down on the leaves quite fast. Cousin Redfield and I first thought it was sprinkling, until we saw that the falling drops were dead bees.

"But that was nothing to what happened a few minutes later. For all those other swarms, one after another, pretty soon began to pour out from the different holes in the limbs and body of the tree, and join in the war, until the air around that tree was just black with fighting bees, and the dead ones were coming down so thick that I would not have cared to stand under it without Mr. Man's umbrella.

"Cousin Redfield and I got off a little ways to watch it. Cousin Redfield said that perhaps we ought to interfere, but I said that it wasn't our war, and that it would be better to wait and see what we could do when it was over.

"So we got in a good safe place and looked on, and I never thought anything could be like it. I don't know how those bees could decide which side they were on, or what they were fighting about, or which side was which. They must have been all relatives once, and would be all cousins, or something, now. They all looked exactly alike to Cousin Redfield and me, and pretty soon they got very thick on the ground, like a kind of black moss or something, that was spreading and piling up deeper every minute and doing n.o.body any good, and not deciding anything, that we could see. Cousin Redfield and I made up our minds that they had all gone crazy.

"I don't know how many millions of those bees there were, but they made a noise like Mr. Man's automobile when it is running at high speed, and that mad-bee smell was so strong that it seemed to Cousin Redfield and me almost dangerous to stay there. So we got a little farther away, for we didn't know but that all those bees might suddenly decide to quit fighting one another, and make a rush at us. But that didn't happen.

They were too busy with their war. They kept on pouring out of the tree until there were no more left to come, and that black cloud whizzed and stung and smelled, and the black moss on the ground kept growing and spreading until we could see that the live ones were thinning out. By and by there were more bees on the ground than there were in the air, and we thought they would quit then and go to work, but they kept right on until they were more than shoe-top deep on the ground and just about ordinarily thick in the air, and still fighting.

"I don't know how long it was that Cousin Redfield and I stood there watching those bees kill one another, but I know by sunset there were not more than a dozen or two left, and they were roosting about on the limbs and leaves, worn out or crippled, and not able to fight any more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALL DAY LONG CARRIED HONEY OUT OF THE BEE-TREE]

"Then Cousin Redfield said he thought it was time for us to interfere and see what could be done, so we each broke off a little birch brush and swept a path through that black bee moss, and looked into the hole at the bottom of the tree, but couldn't hear anything. So we climbed up a little ways and pretty soon came to honey--bushels of it. There were no bees there except a few fat, lazy ones that couldn't sting, and were probably kings or queens or something, and we didn't mind them. We ate all the honey we could, and went home, and next morning got baskets and all day long carried honey out of the bee-tree and had enough to last our families for a whole year, the best honey I ever saw in the Big Deep Woods, and the _most_ I ever expect to see.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIOLET AND THAT BIG CREATURE HAD STARTED HOUSEKEEPING]

"We didn't get it quite all, though, for the second morning when we came back we found the tree occupied. Violet and that big, rough creature from the Jagged Bluffs had found it, and started housekeeping there, with enough honey to last them at least a month. I heard later they called it their honeymoon, and I believe people sometimes call the first few weeks of being married by that name still.

"Cousin Redfield said he would help me drive them out, if I said so; but I said no, that place had seen war enough, and with all the honey we had at home I could get along without the present contents of the tree, so we went away. I said that something would probably happen to those two for the way they had done, and I was right. For about six weeks later the honey smell of that tree brought another big, new, strong swarm of bees to settle there, and they turned Violet and her thick-necked partner out, in about two minutes, and took full possession. Cousin Redfield Bear and I used to walk over that way every day, to observe things, and we happened along just as it was going on. That fellow's wide build didn't help him any against bees. Violet came out first, pawing her nose with one hand, and knocking bees with the other. He stayed to fight a little, but directly he rolled out, scratching and pawing, and five minutes later his own mother wouldn't have known him, he was so swelled. Violet looked at him, and then at me and Cousin Redfield laughing at him, and I think would have deserted him for me, then; but Violet herself had one eye closed, and her nose was the shape and size of a reversed turnip. I saw then that I had never truly loved her and had been wise to give her up. They left the country soon afterwards and I don't know what became of them. That honey-tree blew down one winter night about a year after, and then Cousin Redfield and I went back and got some more honey, but not as much as we did after the great war."

The Hollow Tree people hadn't said a word during Mr. 'c.o.o.n's story, but when he had finished Mr. Dog said so far as he could see there was just about as much sense in that war as there was in the one going on over on the other side of the world, and that the war over there would very likely end in about the same way.

But Mr. 'Possum said that Mr. 'c.o.o.n's war was a good deal better than Mr. Man's, because, being so soon over, nothing but those silly fighting bees was wasted; and for Mr. 'c.o.o.n and Cousin Redfield Bear to have stayed out of it until there was no more fighting, and then go in and carry off a wagon-load of honey, was probably the smartest thing they had ever done in their lives.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] "Mr. Turtle's Thunder Story" in _The Hollow Tree and Deep Woods Book_.

MR. CROW AND THE WHITEWASH

I

THE OLD BLACK CROW TRIES A STRANGE EXPERIMENT

One very nice May morning when Mr. Crow went over to call on Jack Rabbit, he found him whitewas.h.i.+ng his back fence, and after Mr. Rabbit had showed Mr. Crow how fine it looked when it was dry, he took him into the kitchen, which he had whitewashed the day before, and Mr. Crow went on about it and said it was the nicest thing he ever saw, and if he just knew how, and had the things to do it with, he would whitewash his own kitchen in the Hollow Tree.