One night, about a year after Wolly’s rescue from the bungalow, an earthquake shook all that country about the Swamp. Mum’r was thrown from her log and Dad’n was so scared that he slipped from his trembling mud-bank into the water and stayed there all through the night.
But in the morning everything seemed peaceful again; so Wolly swam away at early dawn and captured the last sheep he was obliged to carry to the magician. And when he reached the place where the Red-Eyed One’s cave had been, he found nothing left but a heap of jumbled rocks; for the earthquake had not only buried the ancient magician, but had erected above him a monument that to this day is regarded with veneration by every Alligator in the swamp.
So Wolly carried his sheep home to Dad’n and Mum’r; and thereafter he devoted himself to the task of providing a plentiful supply of food for his parents, so that they grew in time to be the biggest and fattest Alligators ever known. Dad’n, who was something of a joker, would often say to his friends and gossips:
“There are three stuffed Alligators in our family. The Man stuffed Wolly, you know; and now Wolly stuffs us!”
The Discontented Gopher
From: The Delineator, March 1905
DAWN began to lighten the sky. Mama Gopher stuck her head out of the burrow and sniffed the clear, sweet air. There was no taint of Man or animal in the breath, so she whisked from the hole and paused a yard or two away, on the summit of a little knoll.
Before her lay a broad sweep of Dakota prairie, whose dull brown color the Spring was tinting with suggestions of emerald. Far away — miles and miles, it seemed in the clear atmosphere — there were glimpses of plowed fields even now ready for the planting. But the day was too new for sight of men.
Mama Gopher whisked her bushy tail, thoughtfully stroked her nose with her front paw, and uttered a little chirruping cry: “Britz, come here!”
A streak of tawny amber flashed from the burrow, and a young Gopher, half grown, sleek and plump, squatted beside its mother. She gazed upon it, meditated a moment, and called again: “Kritt! Zikky!”
A slight scuffle reached her ears, as if the children contended which should be first to answer. Then two more young ones joined the group on the knoll, so swiftly and silently that Mama Gopher had to look at each one to be sure it was there. “The time has come,” she began, in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone, “for you three youngsters to start out in life and seek your own fortunes. I have cared for you faithfully during the Winter, as a mother should, and you have lain in my burrow and eaten of my store until the hole has grown crowded, and the food is nearly gone. Moreover, it is Spring, and time to be moving. We have slept all the Winter through, and grown lazy and fat. We must be going.”
“I am ready,” said Britz.
“And I! and I!” cried Kritt and Zikky, eagerly.
“Then listen to me,” resumed the mother, more gravely. “You are the direct descendants of the Original Thirteen Lined Gophers of America — famed for ages in song and story. Because of your high birth I went yesterday to the Gopher Fairies and implored them to grant a gift to each of my three offspring. But the Fairies are busy and have many demands upon them, so numerous are the Gophers now in existence. Yet they granted me a single magic talisman, which is contained in one of the three nuts you see before you.”
The children looked, and saw at Mama Gopher’s feet three beautiful nuts lying upon the ground.
“You are the eldest, my dear Britz,” she continued; “you shall choose first.”
Britz selected a nut and cracked it with bis teeth. It was empty, save for a few grains of dust.
“The Fairy gift is not for you,” said the mother. “So bid us good-by, my dear, and start out to seek your own fortune.”
A moment later Britz shot out of sight, and Mama Gopher, after following him with her eyes, sighed and turned to the next child.
“You are second, Kritt. Choose one of the nuts.”
This the youngster did, but when he cracked his nut it was found to be as empty as the first.
“Good-by! I’m off,” he shouted, laughingly, and whisked away through the tall prairie-grass.
This left Zikky, the youngest, facing his mother upon the knoll and looking longingly at the remaining nut.
“Your brothers, by selecting the wrong nuts, have given you the prize,” said the old Gopher, with mingled tenderness and regret in her tones. “Crack it, Zikky, and see what is inside.”
Zikky cracked the nut, and a tiny golden ball rolled out.
“This ball,” said the mother, “will grant you one of two things: Contentment or Riches. Which will you select, Zikky?”
“Riches, to be sure1” cried the young one, promptly; “for there can be no Contentment without Riches.”
“The Fairies think differently,” said Mama Gopher; “and I myself must doubt the wisdom of your choice.
But it is too late to alter your decision now, and you must abide by it!”
“That I will do right gladly,” was the answer.
“Then swallow the ball and follow the golden pathway that will lead to Fortune. It is the gift of the generous Gopher Fairies, and I trust you will use your riches with a wisdom and dignity worthy of your noble ancestors. Good-by, my child!”
With these words Mama Gopher darted into her burrow, and Zikky was left alone.
Immediately he swallowed the golden ball, and no sooner had he done so than he saw an illumined path, like a ray of golden sunshine, running from his feet straight out into the prairie and far away.
Along this pathway he darted. Fortune, granted him by the good Fairies, lay at the other end. How lucky he had been — and how wise his choice!
Up hill and down dale, through meadow-land and sagebrush the golden path faithfully led him. It was a long journey, and the instincts of his race kept Zikky alert. His eyes were bright and sharp, and saw everything as he ran. His nose was slightly uplifted that he might scent any danger that came anigh. The birds, perhaps, saw a yellow streak glide swiftly through the clumps of dried grass — following a bar of golden light — but no other thing upon the vast prairie knew that Zikky the Gopher was making a dash into the world to seek a home and fortune, or that he was guided by the powerful Fairies of his race.
Finally, as he topped a small ridge, the sun began to show over the horizon, and the golden pathway grew gradually more dim. Presently it led him to the edge of a plowed field, just below the brow of a hill, and there it ended in a round disk of mellow^ light.
While he paused, wondering what to do next, and where he should find the promised riches, a Voice sounded clearly in his ear:
“Dig here your burrow, and riches shall come to you. But it will be your task to secrete them, as well as to guard them when your treasure-house is full and overflowing. Beware of the abodes of men, which lie over the hill. Remain upon this spot; be vigilant and discreet, and your life and fortune will be safe.”
The Voice ceased. Zikky had listened carefully, and now believed he knew what was required of him. At once he tore in the sod a round hole, the size of the golden disk of light, which would be just big enough for his body to pass through. Then he clawed out the earth with both his fore feet, plying them rapidly one after the other until a little heap of loose soil lay on the grass behind him. This he next scattered, until not a trace remained. Gophers are not like prairie-dogs’, they never leave a rim of earth around their burrows to advertise their whereabouts.”
Again our adventurer scratched out a heap of earth, and again he scattered it wide. The sun rose slowly as he worked, but this did not worry h:m. Men were not likely to be abroad so early.
After an hour’s hard labor the hole was deep enough to hide in. There was even room enough for him to turn around in. So Zikky abandoned work for the present and lay within his burrow to rest, while every nerve in his nervous body tingled with the morning’s unusual exertions.
Scarcely had he curled himself up and closed his eyes when a peculiar rumbling sound began to be hea
rd, coming, it seemed, from a far distance.
“The Fairies are beginning their work,” thought Zikky. “I have done my part; it is their turn now.” But he opened wide his little round ears and listened intently while the sound grew louder and nearer until it became a perfect roar. The earth trembled; the very air throbbed with noise; then came a sudden stillness. One or two shouts, in Men’s voices, followed. He heard the occasional stamp of a horse’s hoof. But the fierce rumbling that had made his heart beat-so quickly was no longer to be heard.
Zikky was no coward, and he was curious to know what share the Fairies had in this disturbance. Gradually he approached his nose to the opening of his burrow.
The air was tainted with human smells and horsey smells, but .also with a smell he loved dearly — the odor of Indian Corn!
Once his nose peeped from the hole his sharp eyes were instantly busy, for they were close beside it. He saw before him — scarcely three feet away — a big wagon loaded full of shelled corn, the most precious thing in all the world to Gophers. A few paces beyond were two Men, carrying baskets of the corn to fill a machine they used for planting it in the earth.
The men had spilled a good deal; the ground before the Gopher hole was thickly strewn with luscious kernels, while more was constantly sifting out between the boards of the wagon-box.
The young Gopher’s heart beat high with joyful excitement as he softly withdrew into his burrow. The Riches promised by the Fairies were his! There was fortune enough piled around him to turn any ordinary Gopher’s brain!
Yet his joy was tempered with anxiety. “The Riches will come to you, but it shall be your task to secrete them,” the unseen Fairy had said. But surely it was too soon to attempt that yet. The monstrous horses hitched to the wagon looked very dreadful to the Gopher, and without doubt the Men would return to fill their baskets anew. So Zikky crowded himself into the furthest confines of his shallow hole and remained quiet throughout the long day.
Toward evening he heard more shouting; the rumbling of the wheels commenced again; but this time the sound grew less and less, until it died away in the distance.
Then Zikky, happy and hungry, crept from his hole, finding the Fairy promise fully realized. The men had not stopped to pick up the scattered corn, and it covered all the ground around the place where the wagon had stood. Zikky nibbled a kernel with much content and satisfaction, and then turned about and resumed his digging.
The moon rose over the ridge and found him still at work, for now he was obliged to scratch the earth from the far end of his long hole. Yet Gophers do not burrow deeply nor far. Six feet of inclined runway, just large enough for him to pass through, led to a circular chamber, roomy but snug. This was Zikky’s sleeping place. There was still a storehouse to be built, which he dug beyond his bedroom and made large and deep, that it might hold the biggest store of treasure that ever yet fell to the lot of a Gopher. Zikky was young and without personal experience, but he inherited from a long line of ancestors an instinct that taught him positively how to make his home and how to provide for his treasure. When the burrow was complete and the loose earth scattered from its mouth Zikky curled himself up and slept until dawn.
Then he began to gather the kernels of corn. There were so many that he filled the great storehouse he had built without securing half the riches. So he built another storehouse on the other side of his living chamber, and began to fill that also.
While at work he heard the rumbling again; but today the wagon stopped at a. place a quarter of a mile away, so Zikky had no fear in quietly persuing his task. When evening came and the men had returned over the hill every grain of the scattered corn had been safely packed away in Master Zikky’s storehouses.
Next day the men completed their planting far up on the hill, and they did not appear thereafter. A long silence fell upon field and prairie, and Zikky, nibbling away contentedly from his vast stores, began to realize that he was, in very truth, the richest Gopher in the world.
Ordinarily these little creatures are forced to work hard for a living. Zikky’s brothers were even now, doubtless, striving to find a stray grain of corn or a dandelion-root to relieve their hunger. But there was no longer need for Zikky to work; his fortune was made already.
So he sat at the mouth of his burrow day after day, dozing in the warmth of the sun and caring little what might be going on in the outside world. He ate often and plentifully, and became excessively fat.
Then he grew discontented, as people of great wealth and no active interests are apt to do. He began to find existence dull and uninteresting. There seemed to be something lacking, in spit1 of his riches. He wondered what it could be. He was healthy; he was fat; his home was comfortable; his storehouses would supply food for a lifetime; he had no enemies to bother him.
Yet he was discontented.
Mischief is sure to follow this frame of mind; but, being a Gopher, Zikky did not know that. He never even regretted that he had not chosen Contentment instead of Riches. Life had brought him so many pleasures that he believed he could find more.
He came out of his hole one morning, glanced at the low ridge of hills that separated him from “the World,” and conceived the idea that led to his undoing.
“I’ll travel,” he thought, “and see what there is to be seen.”
Of course, he remembered what the Fairy Voice had said; “So long as you remain upon this spot your fortune and life will be safe.”
But it happens that no discontented person ever Keeds good advice. “I saw Men the first day I came to this field,” he said to himself, “and I am not at all afraid of them. I saw horses, too, which are much bigger than Men; but they did not harm me. The World lies beyond that ridge, and I am determined to see what it looks like. If I do not like it. I can return. At any rate, the trip will relieve the monotony of my existence.”
So next morning he washed his face and brushed his fur and set off at a jog-trot for the ridge. The young corn was now growing fast, and reached far above the Gopher’s head; so he journeyed between the straight rows until the field was passed and he reached the summit of the ridge. Here he hid himself in a clump of grass while he took his first look at what was to him “the World.”
There were roads leading down into the valley beyond, and there were scattered farmhouses, barns and granaries. In the far distance was a larger cluster of houses — a village.
Zikky gazed at everything with much interest, and the scene seemed so peacefvil that he gained new courage.
“There is nothing to frighten one, after all,” thought he; “I’ll go down into the’Valley, and examine those buildings.”
On he trotted, growing more bold and careless the farther he went. Once he looked a bit shyly at a herd of cows grazing in a pasture, but they paid no attention ‘to him. The day was warm and pleasant, and the Gopher forgot the discontent that had haunted him so many days, and became quite cheerful and happy.
Suddenly a strange sound, fraught with terror new and awful, smote his ears. Zikky, roused from his dream of vain-glory and self-conceit, stopped short, trembled in every limb, and looked behind.
Bounding toward him was a beast he instinctively recognized as a fierce and furious foe.
Then his own muscles tightened; his body shot forward, and like a streak he darted over the fields. The dog was between the Gopher and the ridge, so Zikky was running through a-strange country. He had little time to note where he was going, and having passed a group of farm buildings he came full upon a Man, who was looking to see what game his dog was following. - The Gopher acted from instinct and circled swiftly around the Man, who hurriedly pointed a gun at him. There came a flash, a thunderous echo, and as the hunted animal dashed on he felt a stinging sensation in his hip that made him sick and faint.
But he knew he must run, run, run for dear life. Death encompassed him in many forms, turning the Valley of Peace he had so lately traversed into a Valley of Fear. His brain was in a whirl; his heart swelled painfully wi
thin him, and the strain upon his muscles grew into a dull ache. There was time for neither hope nor despair.
One idea alone possessed him — to run from the danger behind.
Once again he gave a fearful glance over his shoulder. The dog was nearer — coming straight on with lowered head and swift, powerful strides. The sight gave Zikky an access of fear; the fear gave him renewed speed.
Despite the terror and agony of that awful run the Gopher’s instinct was awake, leading him to quickly spy a burrow that appeared in his path — a big, round hole slanting far into the earth. Instantly he popped within it, to fall upon the damp floor panting, trembling and exhausted.
The hound barked sharply without; there was a shrill whistle, and then silence.
Lying prone in the darkness and recovering by convulsive gasps his breath, the foolish Gopher began to long for the peaceful home and the riches he had deserted. Already he had seen enough of the world of men to decide it was no place for one of his race. He would return to his burrow as soon as he could find strength and opportunity.
As the beating “bf his heart grew less he began to wonder what sort of burrow had given him refuge. It belonged to no Gopher; that was certain. It was too big and deep. He crawled along the underground tunnel slowly and carefully, for it was strangely built, twisting this way and that in a remarkable manner.
Finally he saw daylight ahead, and knew that for some reason the burrow had two outlets. But he did not approach this second opening. He had not fully recovered from his fright, and the stinging in his hip was becoming more and more painful. So he lay quietly and dozed until there came a sudden rush behind him — so sudden that before he could move to escape his neck was seized between two rows of sharp teeth and he was dragged to the opening and thrust upon the open prairie.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 827
