The Curious Lobster

by Richard W. Hatch

  Then Mr. Badger looked over at Mr. Bear and went on talking, this time to Mr. Bear.

  “You are always so gloomy if things don’t happen just at the minute you want them to,” he said. “I told you Mr. Lobster was not gone. Mr. Lobster is too much of a hero to be gone. I don’t believe he ever will be gone.”

  “MR. LOBSTER!” CRIED MR. BADGER HAPPILY. “I KNEW YOU WOULD COME BACK!”

  Mr. Badger had been talking so fast and so happily that neither Mr. Lobster nor Mr. Bear had had a chance to get in a word.

  And now Mr. Bear gave a growl.

  “If you would stop talking, I would like a moment of peace,” he said crossly. “Of course, I am not important at all, but I would like to tell Mr. Lobster that I am glad to see him too.”

  “Why, you are the biggest hero of us all, you know,” said Mr. Lobster to Mr. Bear, “and I shall never forget that last summer would have been my last and I never would have been sixty-nine or had a new shell if it had not been for you.”

  Mr. Bear looked happier. Praise was sweet to him, and praise from a creature as wise as Mr. Lobster was especially pleasant to hear.

  “There!” he said to Mr. Badger.

  “There, indeed,” said Mr. Badger, and then he chuckled. “But you did insist on being miserable every day that Mr. Lobster did not appear.”

  “I believe in facing facts,” said Mr. Bear seriously. “And it was a fact that Mr. Lobster was not here.”

  “A fact is something you can’t change,” observed Mr. Lobster.

  “Very true,” agreed Mr. Badger, “but there are just as many happy facts as unhappy ones. So I believe in facing the happy ones and turning my back on all the others. If I just don’t happen to think of a specially happy fact, I make a wish and think about that.”

  “Well, I learned one fact last winter,” said Mr. Lobster, “and that was that I did not succeed in hibernating. But tell me, did you have a pleasant winter, Mr. Bear?”

  Mr. Bear sighed rather wistfully.

  “Oh, yes,” he answered. “I dreamed all winter of fried fish and honey.”

  “I dreamed of adventures,” said Mr. Badger. “Heroic adventures! It is a wonderful way to pass the time when everything is cold and the world is covered with snow.”

  “Snow?” said Mr. Lobster. “I’ve never heard of that before. Would you mind explaining?”

  “I am glad to say I have never seen any snow,” put in Mr. Bear. “I understand that it is very cold and not good to eat; so evidently it is perfectly useless.”

  “I saw some once,” said Mr. Badger. “One spring when I woke up early I found it in the deep woods. I walked in it and got my feet cold because they sank right in. I should say snow is a kind of white mud.”

  “White mud!” exclaimed Mr. Lobster. “I didn’t know there was such a thing. And does it cover all the earth?”

  “That’s what the permanent partridge told me. He never hibernates; so he has seen a great deal of snow. Someone puts it down in the winter and takes it away in the spring.”

  “It must take a lot of work,” remarked Mr. Bear, feeling glad that he did not have to do it.

  “It must be a mystery,” observed Mr. Lobster. “Like the tide and the wind. The older I get the more I realize that there are many mysteries in the world; and I like to think about them.”

  The three friends were silent for a moment, thinking of mysteries.

  Then Mr. Bear spoke up:

  “I must begin to think of my supper.”

  “The tide has turned, and I must return home,” said Mr. Lobster.

  “Let us all meet on the beach tomorrow,” said Mr. Badger.

  With that happy thought the friends parted. Mr. Lobster went home to the ocean with the ebbing tide, and all the way he was thinking of snow and being curious about it and at the same time being perfectly happy because he had found his friends.

  “There is nothing else like meeting old friends, as I must have said before,” he said to himself. “If you have a home you love and true friends who are glad to see you, you have everything, it seems to me. No wonder I am happy.”

  Mr. Lobster Has an Idea

  AFTER THEIR reunion the three friends passed many happy days on the beach, walking and fishing and enjoying the fine summer weather. Mr. Lobster stayed on shore longer and longer each day until he was just as used to being out of water as he had been the year before. This year it was not as much of an adventure to go ashore because it was not a new experience, and an adventure has to be new. But Mr. Lobster had more confidence than he had had the year before, so he enjoyed every visit with Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear.

  On his way home Mr. Lobster usually met the sculpin, who still considered Mr. Lobster’s travels foolish and dangerous but made an effort to be as pleasant as possible.

  “It is a good thing for the sculpin to be polite even when he feels cross,” said Mr. Lobster to himself. “It strengthens his character and makes other creatures respect him. But I am very curious at times to know what he is thinking about me.”

  One day the sculpin said:

  “It strikes me that you are having a very quiet summer. You are never late getting home, and you seem to have no narrow escapes. Surely all your adventures are not over, are they?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Mr. Lobster. “You really never know about an adventure or a narrow escape until it happens.”

  “Well, I hope that if you have one you will live through it so that you can tell me about it,” said the sculpin in a most serious manner. “I have always felt that when things are especially quiet it is a sign that something is going to happen.”

  “Not something unpleasant, I hope.”

  “That depends.” The sculpin spread all his fins and tried hard to look wise. “It depends on whether you do dangerous things, such as leaving the ocean, the only really safe place there is.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Lobster. “You still disapprove of my going ashore, don’t you?”

  “Since you have asked me, I must say I do,” replied the sculpin, “but please do not think that I am being disagreeable. As I have said before, it is the duty of a friend to give advice.”

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Lobster. “I am sorry that I can’t take your advice if it would make you happier. But I feel that I have not learned all about things ashore yet, and I have not nearly satisfied my curiosity. I am sure that if you are patient I shall have something interesting to tell you. Things have always happened in the past, so I suppose they will keep on happening. How unfortunate it would be if nothing happened!”

  With these words, which were the sentiment of Mr. Badger as well as Mr. Lobster, he crawled away home, looked over his seaweed garden, and prepared for a night of contentment and thinking about the morrow.

  The next day when he saw Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear he remembered the sculpin’s words.

  “We are having a very quiet summer,” he remarked.

  “Too quiet,” said Mr. Badger at once. “In fact, I have been thinking for the past few days that we had better have an idea. I am getting restless.”

  “I’m not,” said Mr. Bear, “and before you say anything more I say that this is one of the best summers I have ever had. There has been plenty of food and no danger or hard work. I call that perfect. If you have an idea, there will probably be trouble. You know your ideas are risky.”

  “Of course they are,” agreed Mr. Badger. “What is the use of thinking of ideas unless they may lead to adventures? And how can you have adventures that aren’t risky? Now answer me that!”

  “My answer is, don’t have any ideas.” Mr. Bear gave a very small growl.

  “A creature as smart as I am can’t help having ideas,” Mr. Badger said, chuckling. “All smart creatures have ideas. You had better look out if you don’t have any. It is a bad sign.”

  “I confess that I have ideas,” Mr. Lobster remarked, “but I haven’t any good ones just now.”

  “Well, I have one!” exclaimed Mr. Badger triumph
antly. “It just came to me.”

  “Tell us!” Mr. Lobster was eager.

  “Don’t tell us if it’s dangerous!” protested Mr. Bear.

  “It is probably not dangerous at all,” Mr. Badger said calmly. “It is only a small idea to keep us busy until someone thinks of a bigger one. My small idea is this: let us all separate for two or three days and each one make a secret search for something new, something we haven’t seen before, or something handy for an adventure. We shall see who brings back the strangest and best thing.”

  “Can it be anything at all?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “Certainly.”

  “It sounds silly to me,” said Mr. Bear. “It just means that I shall have to spend all my spare time hunting. That will keep me busy, and it is work.”

  “But you will do it, won’t you?” begged Mr. Lobster. “I am already curious to know what you and Mr. Badger will bring. I am sure that it will be something I have never seen before, and that will increase my knowledge.”

  “Yes,” agreed Mr. Bear. “At least it isn’t dangerous; so I will do it. Only you must remember that if trouble comes of it Mr. Badger is to blame.”

  “Good!” said Mr. Lobster happily. “And now I suppose we must part for three days.”

  “Wait a minute, please,” said Mr. Bear. “As long as this isn’t a picnic we don’t have to bring our things to a hard place, do we? Let us bring them to the meadow.”

  “I agree to that,” said Mr. Badger.

  So it was all settled in a most friendly manner, and Mr. Lobster started for his home.

  With three days for searching, Mr. Lobster was determined to find something exceedingly interesting to take ashore; and he began a careful search of the bottom of the ocean, hoping that he would come upon something really new and surprising. His travels were interesting because he always liked to see new places, but, although he spent all the first day searching, the result was very disappointing as a search for new things. He found a huge piece of whale bone, a great anchor lost from a ship, and several of the strange things made of slats in which he had once seen another lobster pulled up through the water. He tried to move each one of these objects, but they were all too heavy for him. With all his strength, he could not even budge them. And most of the movable things, such as seaweed and shells and strange stones, seemed too unimportant to take ashore.

  He thought of consulting the sculpin, but as the sculpin disapproved so strongly of going ashore at all it seemed hardly possible that he would be interested in giving any help in the matter.

  “I guess I shall have to go ashore on the beach by the cliff, where we have not been this year,” Mr. Lobster decided. “The winter storms may have washed something interesting ashore.”

  So the second day he went ashore on the loneliest part of the beach, first making sure that there were no dangerous-looking creatures in sight. Then he crawled along the beach under the great overhanging cliff, searching the sand and going amongst the rocks, being very careful to look over every inch that he covered.

  For a long time he saw nothing but driftwood and stones and a few cans, such things as might be found on any beach. But as he approached the end of the cliff, where the beach ended at the river mouth, he climbed up on a rock to get a better look around, and he spied a large dark object between two boulders. When he hurried over to examine it, he found that it was a large coil of rope in excellent condition. Of course rope was not exactly a new thing, for there had been a short piece tied to the boat in which he and Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear had gone fishing the summer before; but this was a fine piece thirty or forty feet long.

  “Surely this will be handy for something,” Mr. Lobster said to himself. “It just couldn’t help being useful on an adventure, for instance. I shall take it into the ocean and then up the river.”

  When he took hold of the rope with his big claws he found it most awkward and heavy to move, and he realized at once that it would be impossible for him to drag it all the distance along the bottom of the ocean and the bottom of the river to the meadow.

  “I must pull it the way I pulled the boat,” he decided.

  So he crawled over it and under it and in amongst the coils until he found an end which he could pull. When he pulled on that good and hard the rope unwound, and soon Mr. Lobster was crawling down the beach with the rope like a long tail behind him, and the end of it fast in one of his big claws.

  It was slow, hard work, but by keeping at it steadily he succeeded in getting it to the mouth of the river by the end of the afternoon. There he put two big stones on the end so that it would not drift away. Then he went home.

  The next day, which was the third and last, and the day on which the three friends were to meet in the afternoon, Mr. Lobster started with the tide to pull his rope up the river. This also proved to be very slow work, for every little while the far-away end of the rope, a long distance behind him, would get heavy; and whenever he went back to see what was the matter there were whole crowds of crabs hanging on and having a ride. Every time he crawled back and scolded them the crabs scurried away, but soon after he started pulling again the rope would once more get heavy, and he would know that the crabs were riding again.

  Mr. Lobster was patient with the crabs, who were distant relatives of his, and he kept his temper; but he was rather tired and cross when he finally reached the place where he was going ashore.

  “If you ride any further,” he told the crabs, “you will find yourselves on dry land, for that is just where I am going.”

  Then he took the end of the rope in his claw once more, gave a mighty tug, and swam to the bank of the river. There he climbed up a low place in the bank, still holding fast to the rope, and got the end of it safely up on the meadow. Then, still holding it, he decided to rest and wait for his friends.

  It was a beautiful day, bright with sunshine, and soon Mr. Lobster was startled by something which flashed and sparkled some distance away in the grass of the meadow. He had never before seen anything like it. Watching closely, he saw that it moved, but it was so bright that it quite dazzled his eyes so that he could not tell the size or shape of what was coming.

  “If Mr. Bear were here, he would say it was trouble,” he said to himself, “and perhaps it is. But I am curious to know what it is, and I shan’t move until I know. Perhaps it is a new kind of creature.”

  He squddled down in the grass, trembling just a little in his joints, but still watching. As the flashing brightness came nearer, he could see a huge figure behind it, and a noise came over the meadow, a strange noise.

  Mr. Lobster began to think that perhaps, after all, he had better return to the bottom of the river, but then he thought that there was something familiar about the noise. It was muffled and strange, but it was very much like Mr. Bear’s worst growls.

  “IF YOU RIDE ANY FURTHER,” HE TOLD THE CRABS, “YOU WILL FIND YOURSELVES ON DRY LAND.”

  Sure enough, behind the bright object came Mr. Bear himself. He was holding the bright object in his teeth, holding his head up to keep the object from bumping along the ground. He growled every step he took, and he squinted so that it looked as if he were making a funny face.

  When Mr. Bear saw Mr. Lobster, he stopped at once and set his burden down.

  “There now!” he exclaimed proudly. “Did you ever see anything like that? I guess that will be a surprise even to Mr. Badger. I’ve practically ruined all my teeth getting it here, and I’m nearly blind from the sun.”

  The object was a glass jug full of a clear liquid, so that the whole thing shone when sunshine struck it.

  “What is it?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Bear answered, “but it is mysterious and new, and it will certainly come in handy. Look. It is as hard as a rock, and yet you can see right through it. Isn’t that strange?”

  “I never knew there was such a thing,” observed Mr. Lobster.

  He crawled over and touched the jug with his feelers and big claws.
/>   “It is amazing!”

  “It is stupendous!” came a brisk voice behind Mr. Bear. There was Mr. Badger, looking especially pleased with himself but not carrying a thing.

  “Is stupendous more than amazing?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “Much more,” answered Mr. Badger.

  Mr. Bear was swelling with pride.

  “Look carefully,” he said. “It is not only stupendous, but it is handy. It is filled with water. Whenever you get thirsty you can drink without having to search for water.”

  “You have done well,” said Mr. Badger. “What did you bring, Mr. Lobster?”

  Mr. Lobster pulled the end of his rope and crawled across the meadow until the whole rope was in sight.

  “It is not stupendous, I am afraid,” he said modestly, “but I thought it might be useful. I also thought it was fine until I saw Mr. Bear’s wonderful object.”

  “Don’t feel bad about it,” put in Mr. Badger. “A long rope is just what we shall need some time.”

  Mr. Bear gave a low growl.

  “What about you, Mr. Badger?” he demanded. “You had this idea of bringing things, and now you haven’t brought anything at all.”

  “Oh, yes, I have!” Mr. Badger chuckled. “I have brought the most wonderful thing of all. Just wait a minute, if you please.”

  He turned and hurried across the meadow and disappeared in the long grass, where it was higher than his head. In a few minutes he reappeared, walking slowly backwards and pulling something. When he reached Mr. Bear and Mr. Lobster they saw something new to all of them. It was a large cart with four strong wheels, a stake at each corner, and a long wooden handle by which Mr. Badger was pulling it.

  Mr. Bear and Mr. Lobster watched the wheels turning. They were both fascinated, and so surprised that for a moment neither could speak.

  Then Mr. Bear growled.

  “Just my luck,” he said in a tone of disgust. “When I bring something stupendous you bring something even better. I suppose this is more than stupendous.”