"Come very soon," said Turkey Tim.
"Call tomorrow," cried Goosey Lucy.
But the little rabbit was out of hearing by this time, and just as Mr.
Merry Sun went down behind the West Hill, he hopped into the Old Bramble Patch.
"Come, wash your hands; supper is ready," said Mrs. Rabbit, as she took the carrot m.u.f.fins out of the oven and dished the stewed lollypops.
HENNY PENNY"S MISTAKE
THERE was great excitement at the Old Barn Yard. A big mistake had been made. Whose fault it was no one could tell; but the fact was that Henny Penny had hatched out a brood of ducklings.
At first n.o.body thought anything was wrong, except that, perhaps, her little brood had very large bills and feet, much larger than those of any little chicks at the farm.
But one day when the whole brood waddled off down to the Old Duck Pond and jumped in everybody knew that Henny Penny had little ducks and not little chickens.
Poor little Henny Penny! She stood upon the bank and clucked and clucked to them to come back.
"You"ll be drowned, my darlings!" she cried. But the little ducks threw out their great brown feet as cleverly as if they had taken swimming lessons all their lives and sailed off on the Old Duck Pond, away, away among the ferns, under the pink azaleas, through reeds and rushes and arrowheads and pickerel weed, the happiest ducks that ever were born.
And soon they were quite out of sight.
Poor little Henny Penny. She didn"t know how to swim, so she sat down on the bank and waited for her little ducks to come back. Now and then she wiped her eyes on her downy breast feathers.
"Don"t cry," said c.o.c.ky Doodle kindly.
"Don"t worry," said Rosy Comb. "Your children seem to know how to swim as well as Ducky Waddles."
Just then across the Old Duck Pond came a chorus of quacks, and at a distance was seen the little brood swimming home, their feathers gleaming in green and gold.
"Such a splendid time we"ve had," they all cried as they waddled up the bank. "And we know now how to get our own living, for there are lots of little fish and flies out there on the Old Duck Pond. We can take care of ourselves, so don"t worry any more about us, Mother Henny Penny."
"They are little ducks, not chickens," said Ducky Waddles.
"Are you sure?" asked Henny Penny tearfully, wiping her eyes with a tiny yellow handkerchief.
"Of course I am," replied Ducky Waddles. "Don"t I know a duck"s foot when I see it?"
"Dear, Oh dear!" sighed the poor little hen, "there has been a dreadful mistake!"
But whose mistake it was no one could tell, for the Kind Farmer never confessed that he put duck eggs in Henny Penny"s nest.
THE DAM
THE Bubbling Brook was slowly drying up. Everyone on the Sunny Meadow was worried, and the little people who lived in the water were even more worried.
It was just like having one"s house pulled down while living in it. You see, as the water became more shallow there were places in the little brook that were hardly covered with water, and it was only in the deep holes that the fish and crabs could swim at all.
And the cause of all this was Busy Beaver. Yes, sir. Busy Beaver was building a dam across the Bubbling Brook.
Somehow he knew that winter was coming, when it would be all frozen over. But he knew that if he built a dam across it, a little pond would form where the water would be too deep to freeze clear down to the bottom.
"I"ll leave a little opening in the dam to let the water run out when it gets high enough," said Busy Beaver to himself as he laid mud and stones on top of a log.
If the Little People of the Sunny Meadow had only heard him they wouldn"t have been so worried. Little Jack Rabbit did, though, as he came hopping down the Shady Forest Path.
"Good morning," said the little bunny.
Busy Beaver looked up from his work. He had almost finished a mighty good job. First, he had cut down a tree, and then sawed it with his sharp teeth into logs. These he had rolled into the water, weighting them down with stones and mud until gradually he had built up a splendid dam from the bottom of the pond.
"It"s almost finished," said Busy Beaver. "It took me quite a long time, for sometimes the logs would bob up and drift away, and I"d have to begin all over again. But I kept at it, and now I"ve got a nice dam to hold back the water."
"Why do you want deep water?" asked the little rabbit.
"Come over here and I"ll show you," answered Busy Beaver, leading Little Jack Rabbit around to the end of the dam nearest the Shady Forest.
"There, you see my house. Now the water must be deep enough so that when it freezes my front door will always be below the ice. Otherwise I wouldn"t be able to swim in and out."
"How soon will the Bubbling Brook start running again?" asked the little bunny.
"Pretty soon--maybe tonight," answered Busy Beaver.
"Hurrah! I"ll tell my friend the little Fresh Water Crab!" and away hopped the little rabbit to the Sunny Meadow.
GOOD NEWS
ALREADY the water was beginning to trickle over the pebbly bottom of the Bubbling Brook.
All of a sudden a voice overhead shouted, "Good morning!" and there sat Chatterbox, the Red Squirrel, in the Big Walnut Tree. "Why are you in such a hurry?"
"I must tell all my friends in the Sunny Meadow the good news," replied the little rabbit. "I can"t wait a minute."
"I"ll go with you," said Chatterbox, running down the tree. "Tell me, what"s the news?"
"The Bubbling Brook will be running again tonight," answered the little bunny, and he explained all about Busy Beaver"s dam.
"Well, I declare," exclaimed Chatterbox, "Busy Beaver has a lot of nerve to stop the water running in the Bubbling Brook. He doesn"t own the water rights. The Bubbling Brook belongs to everyone alike."