“Yes’m,” replied Peter, “I visited him, but I didn’t find out much. He’s a regular old grouch. He isn’t the least bit neighborly. It took me a long time to find him. He has more holes than anybody I ever knew, and I couldn’t tell which one is his home. When I did find him, he gave me a terrible scare. I didn’t see him until I was right on top of him, and if I hadn’t jumped, and jumped quickly, I guess I wouldn’t be here this morning. He was lying flat down in the grass and he was so very flat that I just didn’t see him. When I told him that I wanted to know all about him and his ways, he replied that it was none of my business how he lived or what he did, and that was all I could get out of him.
“I sat around awhile and watched him, but he didn’t do much except take a sun bath. He certainly is a queer-looking fellow to be a member of the Weasel family. There’s nothing about him that looks like a Weasel, that I could see. Of course, he isn’t as broad as he is long, but he looks almost that when he is lying flat down and that long hair of his is spread out on both sides. He really has a handsome coat when you come to look at it. It is silvery gray and silky looking. It seems to be parted right down the middle of his back. His tail is rather short, but stout and hairy. His head and face are really handsome. His cheeks, chin and a broad stripe from his nose right straight back over his head are white. On each cheek is a bar of black. The back part of each ear is black, and so are his feet. He has rather a sharp nose. Somehow when he is walking he makes me think of a little, flattened-out Bear with very short legs. And such claws as he has on his front feet! I don’t know any one with such big strong claws for his size. I guess that must be because he is such a digger.”
“That’s a very good guess, Peter,” said Old Mother Nature. “Has any one here ever seen him dig?”
“I did once,” replied Peter. “I happened to be over near where he lives when Farmer Brown’s boy came along and surprised Digger some distance from one of his holes. Digger didn’t try to get to one of those holes; he simply began to dig. My gracious, how the sand did fly! He was out of sight in the ground before Farmer Brown’s boy could get to him. Johnny Chuck is pretty good at digging, but he simply isn’t in the same class with Digger the Badger. No one is that I know of, unless it is Miner the Mole. I guess this is all I know about him, excepting that he is a great fighter. Once I saw him whip a dog almost twice his size. I never heard such hissing and snarling and growling. He wouldn’t tell me anything about how he lives.”
“Very good, Peter, very good,” replied Old Mother Nature; “that’s as much as I expected you would be able to find out. Digger is a queer fellow. His home is on the great plains and in the flat, open country of the Middle West and Far West, where Gophers and Ground Squirrels and Prairie Dogs live. They furnish him with the greater part of his food. All of them are good diggers, but they don’t stand any chance when he sets out to dig them out.
“Digger spends most of his time under ground during daylight, seldom coming out except for a sun bath. But as soon as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun goes to bed for the night, Digger appears and travels about in search of a dinner. His legs are so short and he is so stout and heavy that he is slow and rather clumsy, but he makes up for that by his ability to dig. He doesn’t expect to catch any one on the surface, unless he happens to surprise a Meadow Mouse within jumping distance. He goes hunting for the holes of Ground Squirrels and other burrowers, and when he finds one promptly digs. He eats Grasshoppers, Beetles and small Snakes, as well as such small animals as he catches. It was well for you, Peter, that you jumped when you did, for I suspect that Digger would have enjoyed a Rabbit dinner.
“Very little is known of Digger’s family life, but he is a good husband. In winter he sleeps as Johnny Chuck does, coming out soon after the snow disappears in the spring. Of all my little people, none has greater courage. When he is cornered he will fight as long as there is a breath of life in him. His skin is very tough and he is further protected by his long hair. His teeth are sharp and strong and he can always give a good account of himself in a fight. He is afraid of no one of his own size.
“Man hunts him for his fur, but man is very stupid in many things and this is an example. You see, Digger is worth a great deal more alive than dead, because of the great number of destructive Rodents he kills. The only thing that can be brought against him is the number of holes he digs. Mr. and Mrs. Digger have two to five babies late in the spring or early in the summer. They are born under ground in a nest of grass. As you may guess just by looking at Digger, he is very strong. If he once gets well into the ground, a strong man pulling on his tail cannot budge him. As Peter has pointed out, he isn’t at all sociable. Mr. and Mrs. Digger are quite satisfied to live by themselves and be left alone. So he is rarely seen in daytime, but probably is out oftener than is supposed. Peter has told how he nearly stepped on Digger before seeing him; it is Digger’s wise habit to lie perfectly still until he is sure he has been seen, so people often pass him without seeing him at all, or if they see him they take him for a stone.
“While Digger the Badger is a lover of the open country and doesn’t like the Green Forest at all, he has a cousin who is found only in the Green Forest and usually very deep in the Green Forest at that. This is Glutton the Wolverine, the largest and ugliest member of the family. None of you have seen him, because he lives almost wholly in the great forests of the North. He hasn’t a single friend that I know of, but that doesn’t trouble him in the least.
SPITE THE MARTEN. He is found only in the great forests of the North. See page 175.
LITTLE JOE OTTER. A famous fisherman and swimmer. See page 171.
“Glutton has several names. He is called ‘Carcajou’ in the Far North, and out in the Far West is often called ‘Skunkbear.’ The latter name probably is given him because in shape and color he looks a good deal as though he might be half Skunk and half Bear. He is about three feet long with a tail six inches long, and is thickset and heavy. His legs are short and very stout. His hair, including that on the tail, is long and shaggy. It is blackish-brown, becoming grayish on the upper part of his head and cheeks. His feet are black. When he walks he puts his feet flat on the ground as a Bear does.
“Being so short of leg and heavy of body, he is slow in his movements. But what he lacks in this respect he makes up in strength and cunning. You think Reddy Fox and Old Man Coyote are smart, but neither begins to be as smart as Glutton the Wolverine. He is a great traveler, and in the Far North where the greater part of the fur of the world is trapped, he is a pest to the trappers. He will follow a trapper all day long, keeping just out of sight. No matter how carefully a trapper hides a trap, Glutton will find it and steal the bait without getting caught. Sometimes he even tears up the traps and takes them off and hides them in the woods. If he comes on a trap in which some other animal has been caught, he will eat the animal. His strength is so great that often he will tear his way into the cabins of hunters while they are absent and then eat or destroy all their food. His appetite is tremendous, and it is because of this that he is called Glutton. What he cannot eat or take away, he covers with filth so that no other animal will touch it. He is of ugly disposition and is hated alike by the animals and by man. His fur is of considerable value, but he is hunted more for the purpose of getting rid of him than for his fur. Sometimes when caught in a trap he will pick it up and carry it for miles.
“Mrs. Glutton has two or three babies in the spring. They live in a cave, but if a cave cannot be found, they use a hole in the ground which Mrs. Glutton digs. It is usually well hidden and seldom has been found by man. Glutton will eat any kind of flesh and seems not to care whether it be freshly killed or so old that it is decayed. The only way that hunters can protect their supplies is by covering them with great logs. Even then Glutton will often tear the logs apart to get at the supplies. Because of his great cunning, the Indians think he is possessed of an evil spirit.
“I think this will do for to-day. To-morrow we will take up another branch of the family, some memb
ers of which all of you know. I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good plan to have Shadow the Weasel here.”
Such a look of dismay as swept over the faces of all those little people, with the exception of Jimmy Skunk and Prickly Porky! “If—if—if you please, I don’t think I’ll come to-morrow morning,” said Danny Meadow Mouse.
“I—I—I think I shall be too busy at home and will have to miss that lesson,” said Striped Chipmunk.
Old Mother Nature smiled. “Don’t worry, little folks,” said she. “You ought to know that if I had Shadow here I wouldn’t let him hurt one of you. But I am afraid if he were here you would pay no attention to me, so I promise you that Shadow will not be anywhere near.”
24. Shadow and His Family
EVERY one was on hand when school opened the next morning, despite the fear that the mere mention of Shadow the Weasel had aroused in all save Jimmy Skunk and Prickly Porky. You see, all felt they must be there so that they might learn all they possibly could about one they so feared. It might help them to escape should they discover Shadow hunting them sometime.
“Striped Chipmunk,” said Old Mother Nature, “you know something about Shadow the Weasel; tell us what you know.”
“I know I hate him!” declared Striped Chipmunk, and all the others nodded their heads in agreement. “I don’t know a single good thing about him,” he continued, “but I know plenty of bad things. He is the one enemy I fear more than any other because he is the one who can go wherever I can. Any hole I can get into he can. I’ve seen him just twice in my life, and I hope I may never see him again.”
“What did he look like?” asked Old Mother Nature.
“Like a snake on legs,” declared Striped Chipmunk. “Anyway, that is what he made me think of, because his body was so long and slim and he twisted and turned so easily. He was about as long as Chatterer the Red Squirrel but looked longer because of his slim body and long neck. He was brown above and white below. His front feet were white, and his hind feet rather whitish, but not clear white. His short, round tail was black at the end. Somehow his small head and sharp face made me think of a Snake. Ugh! I don’t like to think about him!”
“I saw him once, and he wasn’t brown at all. Striped Chipmunk is all wrong, excepting about the end of his tail,” interrupted Jumper the Hare. “He was all white, every bit of him but the end of his tail; that was black.”
“Striped Chipmunk is quite right and so are you,” declared Old Mother Nature. “Striped Chipmunk saw him in summer and you saw him in winter. He changes his coat according to season, just as you do yourself, Jumper. In winter he is trapped for his fur and he isn’t called Weasel then at all, but Ermine.”
“Oh,” said Jumper and looked as if he felt a wee bit foolish.
“What was he doing when you saw him?” asked Old Mother Nature, turning to Striped Chipmunk.
“Hunting,” replied Striped Chipmunk, and shivered. “He was hunting me. He had found my tracks where I had been gathering beechnuts, and he was following them with his nose just the way Bowser the Hound follows Reddy Fox. I nearly died of fright when I saw him.”
“You are lucky to be alive,” declared Chatterer the Red Squirrel.
“I know it,” replied Striped Chipmunk and shivered again. “I know it. I guess I wouldn’t be if Reddy Fox hadn’t happened along just then and frightened Shadow away. I’ve had a kindlier feeling for Reddy Fox ever since.”
“I never ran harder in my life than the time I saw him,” spoke up Jumper the Hare. “He was hunting me just the same way, running with his nose in the snow and following every twist and turn I had made. But for that black-tipped tail I wouldn’t have seen him until too late.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Jimmy Skunk. “The idea of a big fellow like you running from such a little fellow as my Cousin Shadow!”
“I’m not ashamed of running,” declared Jumper. “I may be ever so much bigger, but he is so quick I wouldn’t stand the least chance in the world. When I suspect Shadow is about, I go somewhere else,—the farther the better. If I could climb a tree like Chatterer, it would be different.”
“No, it wouldn’t!” interrupted Chatterer. “No, it wouldn’t. That fellow can climb almost as well as I can. The only thing that saved me from him once was the fact that I could make a long jump from one tree to another and he couldn’t. He had found a hole in a certain tree where I was living, and it was just luck that I wasn’t at home when he called. I was just returning when he popped out. I ran for my life.”
“He is the most awful fellow in all the Great World,” declared Whitefoot the Wood Mouse.
Jimmy Skunk chuckled right out. “A lot you know about the Great World,” he said. “Why, you are farther from home now than you’ve ever been in your life before, yet I could walk to it in a few minutes. How do you know Shadow is the most awful fellow in the Great World?”
“I just know, that’s all,” retorted Whitefoot in a very positive though squeaky voice. “He hunts and kills just for the love of it, and no one, no matter how big he is, can do anything more awful than that. I have a lot of enemies. Sometimes it seems as if almost every one of my neighbors is looking for a Mouse dinner. But all but Shadow the Weasel hunt me when they are hungry and need food. I can forgive them for that. Every one must eat to live. But Shadow hunts me even when his stomach is so full he cannot eat another mouthful. That fellow just loves to kill. He takes pleasure in it. That is what makes him so awful.”
“Whitefoot is right,” declared Old Mother Nature, and she spoke sadly. “If Shadow were as big as Buster Bear or Puma the Panther or even Tufty the Lynx, he would be the most terrible creature in all the Great World because of this awful desire to kill which fills him. He is hot-blooded, quick-tempered and fearless. Even when cornered by an enemy against whom he has no chance he will fight to the last gasp. I am sorry to say that there is no kindness nor gentleness in him towards any save his own family. Outside of that he hasn’t a friend in the world, not one.”
“Hasn’t he any enemies?” asked Peter Rabbit.
“Oh, yes,” replied Old Mother Nature. “Reddy Fox, Old Man Coyote, Hooty the Owl and various members of the Hawk family have to be watched for by him. But they do not worry him much. You see he moves so quickly, dodging out of sight in a flash, that whoever catches him must be quick indeed. Then, too, he is almost always close to good cover. He delights in old stone walls, stone piles, brush-grown fences, piles of rubbish and barns and old buildings, the places that Mice delight in. In such places there is always a hole to dart into in time of danger. He hunts whenever he feels like it, be it day or night, and often covers considerable ground, though nothing to compare with his big, brown, water-loving cousin, Billy Mink. It is because of his wonderful ability to disappear in an instant that he is called Shadow.
REDDY FOX. The familiar Red Fox who holds his own against man. See page 180.
THE GRAY FOX. In some places he is called the Tree Fox. See page 186.
“Shadow is known as the Common Weasel, Short-tailed Weasel, Brown Weasel, Bonaparte Weasel and Ermine, and is found all over the forested parts of the northern part of the country. A little farther south in the East is a cousin very much like him called the New York Weasel. On the Great Plains of the West is a larger cousin with a longer tail called the Long-tailed Weasel, Large Ermine, or Yellow-bellied Weasel. His smallest cousin is the Least Weasel. The latter is not much longer than a Mouse. In winter he is all white, even the tip of his tail. In summer he is a purer white underneath than his larger cousins. All of the Weasels are alike in habits. When running they bound over the ground much as Peter Rabbit does.
“In that part of the West where Yap Yap the Prairie Dog lives is a relative called the Black-footed Ferret who looks like a large Weasel. He is about the size of Billy Mink, but instead of the rich dark brown of Billy’s coat his coat is a cream-yellow. His feet are black and so is the tip of his tail. His face is whitish with a dark band across the eyes. He is most frequently found in Prairie-d
og towns and lives largely on Yap Yap and his friends. His ways are those of Shadow and his cousins. There is no one Yap Yap fears quite as much.
“The one good thing Shadow the Weasel does is to kill Robber the Rat whenever they meet. Robber, as you know, is big and savage and always ready for a fight when cornered. But all the fight goes out of him when Shadow appears. Perhaps it is because he knows how hopeless it is. When Shadow finds a barn overrun with Rats he will sometimes stay until he has killed or driven out the last one. Then perhaps he spoils it all by killing a dozen Chickens in a night.
“It is a sad thing not to be able to speak well of any one, but Shadow the Weasel, like Robber the Rat, has by his ways made himself hated by all the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows and by man. There is not one to say a good word for him. Now to-morrow we will meet on the bank of the Smiling Pool instead of here.”
25. Two Famous Swimmers
THE bank of the Smiling Pool was a lovely place to hold school at that hour of the day, which you know was just after sun-up. Everybody who could get there was on hand, and there were several who had not been to school before. One of these was Grandfather Frog, who was sitting on his big, green, lily pad. Another was Jerry Muskrat, whose house was out in the Smiling Pool. Spotty the Turtle was also there, not to mention Longlegs the Heron. You see, they hadn’t come to school but the school had come to them, for that is where they live or spend most of their time.
“Good morning, Jerry Muskrat,” said Old Mother Nature pleasantly, as Jerry’s brown head appeared in the Smiling Pool; “have you seen anything of Billy Mink or Little Joe Otter?”
“Little Joe went down to the Big River last night,” replied Jerry Muskrat. “I don’t know when he is coming back, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him any minute. Billy Mink was here last evening and said he was going up the Laughing Brook fishing. He is likely to be back any time. One never can tell when that fellow will appear. He comes and goes continually. I don’t believe he can keep still five minutes.”
The Burgess Animal Book for Children Page 14
