The Tale of Solomon Owl

by Arthur Scott Bailey

  So at last, one fine fall evening he went to see Aunt Polly Woodchuck, whowas 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 goingto begin my winter's nap. And you couldn't have seen me again tillspring--unless you happened to come here on ground-hog day, nextFebruary.... What appears to be your trouble?" she inquired.

  "It's my appetite, partly," Solomon Owl said. "Nothing tastes as it didwhen I was a youngster. And I keep longing for something, though what itis 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 theleaves 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 eatentwenty-seven--or a hundred and twenty-seven. He couldn't say which--but oneof 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 youneed is a change of food. And it's lucky you came to me now. If you'd goneon 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 seasonof 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 ofthe 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 Isee you," he told Aunt Polly. And Solomon Owl hurried away before shecould stop him. Since he had no intention of visiting her on ground-hogday, 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 tohear Solomon's mocking laughter, which grew fainter and fainter as he leftthe pasture behind him. Then she went inside her house, for she was fastgrowing sleepy. And she wanted to set things to rights before she beganher long winter's nap.

  Meanwhile, Solomon Owl roamed restlessly through the woods. There was onlyone place in the neighborhood where he could get a pullet. That was atFarmer Green's chicken house. And for some reason he did not care to visitthe 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 afew "_wha-whas_," just for extra measure.

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

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

  The hunter's moon, big and yellow and round, was just rising over BlueMountain. But for once it was not the moon that made Solomon Owl sotalkative. He was in fine feather, so to speak, because he was hoping tohave a fat pullet for his supper. And as for the moon, he would have beenjust as pleased had there been none at all that night. For Solomon Owlnever cared to be seen when he visited Farmer Green's chicken house.

  VIITHE BLAZING EYES

  It was some three hours after sunset when Solomon Owl at last reachedFarmer Green's place. All was quiet in the chicken house because the hensand roosters and their families had long since gone to roost. And exceptfor a light that shone through a window, the farmhouse showed not a signof life.

  Everything was as Solomon Owl wished it--or so he thought, at least, as healighted in a tree in the yard to look about him. He wanted no one tointerrupt him when he should go nosing around the chicken house, to findan opening.

  To his annoyance, he had not sat long in the tree when the wood-shed dooropened. And Solomon stared in amazement at the strange sight he saw.

  A great head appeared, with eyes and mouth--yes! and nose, too--all aglaring flame color. Solomon had never seen such a horrible face on man orbird or beast. But he was sure it was a man, for he heard a laugh that wasnot to be mistaken for either a beast's or a bird's. And the worst of itwas, those blazing eyes were turned squarely toward Farmer Green's chickenhouse!

  Solomon Owl was too wary to go for his fat pullet just then. He decidedthat he would wait quietly in the tree for a time, hoping that the manwould go away.

  While Solomon watched him the stranger neither moved nor spoke. And, ofcourse, Solomon Owl was growing hungrier every minute. So at last he feltthat he simply _must_ say something.

  "Who-who-who-are-you?" he called out from his tree.

  But the strange man did not answer. He did not even turn his head.

  "He must be some city person," Solomon Owl said to himself. "He thinkshe's too good to speak to a countryman like me."

  Then Solomon sat up and listened. He heard a scratching sound. And soon hesaw a plump figure crawl right up into his tree-top.

  It was Fatty Coon!

  "What are you doing here?" Solomon Owl asked in a low voice, which was notany too pleasant.

  "I'm out for an airing," Fatty answered. "Beautiful night--isn't it?"

  But Solomon Owl was not interested in the weather. "I don't suppose you'vecome down here to get a chicken, have you?" he inquired.

  Fatty Coon seemed greatly surprised at the question.

  "Why--no!" he exclaimed. "But now that you speak of it, it reminds me thatFarmer Green's saving a pullet for me. He was heard to say not long agothat he would like to catch me taking one of his hens. So he must have onefor me. And I don't want to disappoint him."

  At first Solomon Owl didn't know what answer to make. But at last heturned his head toward Fatty.

  "Why don't you go and get your pullet now?" he asked.

  "There's that man down below, with the glaring eyes--" said Fatty Coon."I've been waiting around here for quite a long time and he hasn't lookedaway from the chicken house even once.... Do you know him?"

  "No! And I don't want to!" said Solomon Owl.

  "S-sh!" Fatty Coon held up a warning hand. "Who's that?" he asked, peeringdown at a dark object at the foot of their tree.

  Then both he and Solomon saw that it was Tommy Fox, sitting on hishaunches and staring at the big head, with its blazing eyes and nose andmouth.

  "Not looking for chickens, I suppose?" Solomon Owl called in a low tone,which was hardly more than a whisper.

  But Tommy Fox's sharp ears heard him easily. And he looked up, licking hischops as if he were very hungry indeed. And all the while the strangercontinued to stare straight at the chicken house, as if he did not intendto let anybody go

  prowling about that long, low building to steal any of Farmer Green'spoultry.

  It was no wonder that the three chicken-lovers (two in the tree and onebeneath it) hesitated. If the queer man had only spoken they might nothave been so timid. But he said never a word.

  VIIIWATCHING THE CHICKENS

  Solomon Owl and Fatty Coon couldn't help laughing at what Tommy Fox saidto them, as they sat in their tree near the farmhouse, looking down at himin the moonlight.

  "I'm here to watch Farmer Green's chickens for him--" said he--"to see thatno rat--or anybody else--runs away with a pullet."

  "Farmer Green has someone else watching for him to-night," said SolomonOwl, when he had stopped laughing. "There's that strange man! You can seehow he keeps his glaring eyes fixed on the chicken house. And unless I'mmistaken, he's on the lookout for _you_."

  "No such thing!" Tommy Fox snapped. And he looked up at Solomon as if hewished that he could climb the tree.

  "Here comes somebody else!" Fatty Coon exclaimed suddenly. His kee
n eyeshad caught sight of Jimmy Rabbit, hopping along on his way to thevegetable garden, to see if he couldn't find a stray cabbage or a turnip.

  Solomon Owl called to him. Whereupon, Jimmy Rabbit promptly sat up andlooked at the odd trio. If it hadn't been for Tommy Fox he would havedrawn nearer.

  "Do you know that stranger?" Solomon Owl asked him, pointing out thehorrible head to Jimmy.

  "I haven't the pleasure," said Jimmy Rabbit, after he had taken a goodlook.

  "Well," said Solomon, "won't you kindly speak to him; and ask him to goaway?"

  "Certainly!" answered Jimmy Rabbit, who always tried to be obliging.

  "I hope the stranger won't eat him," remarked Tommy Fox, "because I hopeto do that some day, myself."

  It was queer--but Jimmy Rabbit was the only one of the four that wasn'tafraid of those glaring features. He hopped straight up to the big roundhead, which was just a bit higher than one of the fence posts, againstwhich the stranger seemed to be leaning. And after a moment or two JimmyRabbit called to Solomon and Fatty and Tommy Fox:

  "He won't go away! He's going to stay right where he is!"

  "Come here a minute!" said Tommy.

  Jimmy Rabbit shook his head.

  "You come over here!" he answered. And he did not stir from the side ofthe stranger. He knew very well that Tommy Fox was afraid of the man withthe head with the glaring eyes.

  As for Tommy Fox, he did not even reply--that is, to Jimmy Rabbit. But hespoke his mind freely enough to his two friends in the tree.

  "It seems to me one of you ought to do something," said he. "We'll eat nopullets to-night if we can't get rid of this meddlesome stranger."

  Fatty Coon quite agreed with him.

  "The one who was here first is the one to act!" Fatty declared. "That's_you_!" he told Solomon Owl.

  So Solomon Owl felt most uncomfortable.

  "I don't know what I can do," he said. "I spoke to the stranger--asked himwho he was. And he wouldn't answer me."

  "Can't you frighten him away?" Tommy Fox inquired. "Fly right over hishead and give him a blow with your wing as you pass!"

  Solomon Owl coughed. He was embarrassed, to say the least.

  "He's afraid!" Fatty Coon cried. And both he and Tommy Fox kept repeating,over and over again, "He's afraid! He's afraid! He's afraid!"

  It was really more than Solomon Owl could stand.

  "I'm not!" he retorted angrily. "Watch me and you'll see!" And withoutanother word he darted out of the tree and swooped down upon the stranger,just brushing the top of his head. Solomon Owl knew at once that he hadknocked something off the top of that dreadful head--something that fell tothe ground and made Jimmy Rabbit jump nervously.

  Then Solomon returned to his perch in the tree.

  "He hasn't moved," he said. "But I knocked off his hat."

  "You took off the top of his head!" cried Fatty Coon in great excitement."Look! The inside of his head is afire."

  And peering down from the tree-top, Solomon Owl saw that Fatty Coon hadtold the truth.

  IXHALLOWE'EN

  Solomon Owl was afraid of fire. And when he looked down from his perch inthe tree and saw, through the hole in the stranger's crown, that all wasaglow inside his big, round head, Solomon couldn't help voicing hishorror. He "_whoo-whooed_" so loudly that Tommy Fox, at the foot of thetree, asked him what on earth was the matter.

  "His head's all afire!" Solomon Owl told him. "That's what makes his eyesglare so. And that's why the fire shines through his mouth and his nose,too. It's no wonder he didn't answer my question--for, of course, histongue must certainly be burned to a cinder."

  "Then it ought to be safe for anybody to enter the chicken house," TommyFox observed. "What could the stranger do, when he's in such a fix?"

  "He could set the chicken house afire, if he followed you inside," repliedSolomon Owl wisely. "And I, for one, am not going near the pulletsto-night."

  "Nor I!" Fatty Coon echoed. "I'm going straight to the cornfield. The cornis still standing there in shocks; and I ought to find enough ears to makea good meal."

  But Solomon Owl and Tommy Fox were not interested in corn. They never ateit. And so it is not surprising that they should be greatly disappointed.After a person has his mouth all made up for chicken it is hard to thinkof anything that would taste even half as good.

  "It's queer he doesn't go and hold his head under the pump," said SolomonOwl. "That's what I should do, if I were he."

  "Jimmy Rabbit had better not go too near him, or he'll get singed," saidTommy Fox, anxiously. "I don't want anything to happen to _him_."

  "Jimmy Rabbit is very careless," Solomon declared. "I don't see what he'sthinking of--going so near a fire! It makes me altogether too nervous tostay here. And I'm going away at once."

  Tommy Fox said that he felt the same way. And the moment Fatty Coon, withhis sharp claws, started to crawl down the tree on his way to thecornfield, Tommy Fox hurried off without even stopping to say good-bye.

  "_Haw-haw-haw-hoo_!" laughed Solomon Owl. "Tommy Fox is afraid of you!" hetold Fatty Coon.

  But Fatty didn't seem to hear him. He was thinking only of the supper ofcorn that he was going to have.

  "Better come away!" Solomon Owl called to Jimmy Rabbit, turning his headtoward the fence where Jimmy had been lingering near the hot-headedstranger.

  But Jimmy Rabbit didn't answer him, either. He was no longer there. Themoment he had seen Tommy Fox bounding off across the meadow Jimmy hadstarted at once for Farmer Green's vegetable garden.

  So Solomon Owl was the last to leave.

  "There's really nothing else I can do," he remarked to himself. "I don'tknow what Aunt Polly Woodchuck would say if she knew that I didn't followher advice to-night and eat a pullet for my supper.... But I've tried mybest.... And that's all anybody can do."

  Solomon Owl was upset all the rest of that night. And just before daybreakhe visited the farmyard again, to see whether the strange man with theflaring head still watched the chicken house. And Solomon found that hehad vanished.

  So Solomon Owl alighted on the fence. There was nothing there except ahollowed-out pumpkin, with a few holes cut in it, which someone had lefton one of the fence-posts.

  "Good!" said he. "Maybe I can get my pullet after all!" He turned to flyto the chicken house. But just then the woodshed door opened again. AndFarmer Green stepped outside, with a lantern in his hand. He was going tothe barn to milk the cows. But Solomon Owl did not wait to learn anythingmore.

  He hurried away to his house among the hemlocks. And having quicklysettled himself for a good nap, he was soon fast asleep.

  That was how Johnnie Green's jack-o'-lantern kept Tommy Fox and Fatty Coonand Solomon Owl from taking any chickens on Hallowe'en.

  XA TROUBLESOME WISHBONE

  Solomon Owl had pains--sharp pains--underneath his waistcoat. And notknowing what else to do, he set off at once for Aunt Polly Woodchuck'shouse under the hill, in the pasture, which he had not visited since theprevious fall. Luckily, he found the old lady at home. And quickly he toldher of his trouble.

  "What have you been eating?" she inquired.

  "I've followed your advice. I've been eating chickens," said he--"verysmall chickens, because they were all I could get."

  Aunt Polly Woodchuck, who was an herb doctor--and a good one--regarded himthrough her spectacles.

  "I'm afraid," said she, "you don't chew your food properly. Bolting one'sfood is very harmful. It's as bad as not eating anything at all, almost."

  Solomon Owl showed plainly that her remark surprised him.

  "Why," he exclaimed, "I always swallow my food whole--when it isn't toobig!"

  "Gracious me!" cried Aunt Polly, throwing up both her hands. "It's nowonder you're ill. It's no wonder you have pains; and now I know exactlywhat's the matter with you. You have a wishbone inside you. I can feelit!" she told him, as she prodded him in the waistcoat.

  "I wish you could get it out for me!" said Solomon with a look ofdistress.
<
br />   "All the wishing in the world won't help you," she answered, "unless wecan find some way of removing the wishbone so you can wish on that. ThenI'm sure you would feel better at once."

  "This is strange," Solomon mused. "All my life I've been swallowing myfood without chewing it. And it has never given me any trouble before....What shall I do?"

  "Don't eat anything for a week," she directed. "And fly againsttree-trunks as hard as you can. Then come back here after seven days."

  Solomon Owl went off in a most doleful frame of mind. It seemed to himthat he had never seen so many mice and frogs and chipmunks as he cameacross during the following week. But he didn't dare catch a single one,on account of what Aunt Polly Woodchuck had said.

  His pains, however, grew less from day to day--at least, the pains that hadfirst troubled him. But he had others to take their place. Hunger pangs,these were! And they were almost as bad as those that had sent himhurrying to see Aunt Polly Woodchuck.

  On the whole, Solomon passed a very unhappy week. Flying head foremostinto tree-trunks (as Aunt Polly had instructed him to do) gave him manybumps and bruises. So he was glad when the time came for him to return toher house in the pasture.

  Solomon's neighbors had been so interested in watching him that they wereall sorry when he ceased his strange actions. Indeed, there was a rumorthat Solomon had become very angry with Farmer Green and that he wastrying to knock down some of Farmer Green's trees. Before the end of thatunpleasant week Solomon had often noticed as many as twenty-four of theforest folk following him about, hoping to see a tree fall.