The Tale of Benny Badger.
by Arthur Scott Bailey.
I
A GREAT DIGGER
Of course, Benny Badger had the best of reasons for living on the high, dry plains. There he had for neighbors plenty of ground squirrels and prairie dogs. And it is likely that he enjoyed their company much more than they did his.
If anyone had asked them, those little wild people would no doubt have confessed that they wished Benny Badger was somewhere else. But their wishes meant nothing to Benny--if he knew anything of them. Although he couldn"t help noticing that his small neighbors hurried into their homes whenever they caught sight of him, Benny never took the hint and went away. On the contrary, when he spied a prairie dog or a ground squirrel disappearing into his burrow Benny was more than ready to go right in after him.
Now, the tunnels that led to the houses of those smaller folk were too small to admit anybody as bulky as Benny Badger. But that difficulty never hindered Benny. Digging was the easiest thing he did. He had a powerful body, short, stout legs, and big feet, which bore long, strong claws. And when he started to dig his way into somebody else"s home he certainly did make the dirt fly.
He was so fond of digging that he even dug countless holes of his own, just for the fun it gave him--so far as anybody could find out. And if he had only left other folk"s holes alone some of his neighbors would not have objected to his favorite sport. For more than one fox and coyote had been known to make his home in a hole dug by Benny Badger.
And, though they never took the trouble to thank him for saving them work, they often chuckled about his odd way of having fun, and remarked among themselves that Benny must be a stupid fellow.
If they really thought that, they made a great mistake. To be sure, at anything except digging he was slow and awkward. He was too heavy and squat to be spry on his feet--to chase and catch his more nimble neighbors. But no one that knew much about Benny Badger would have said that his wits were dull. They were sharp. And so, too, were his teeth, which he never hesitated to use in a fight.
Left alone, Benny Badger--when he wasn"t too hungry--was a peaceable person. But if a dog ever tried to worry him Benny had a most unpleasant way of seizing his annoyer with his powerful jaws and holding the poor creature as if he never intended to let him go.
Cornered, Benny knew no such thing as fear. He had the heart of a lion, and jaws like a steel trap. And no wise dog ever let Benny get a good, firm grip on him.
Usually no one saw Benny Badger except at night. He seldom left his den in the daytime except to sun himself. And even then not many noticed him. Though he did not hide when anyone surprised him while taking a sun-bath, he had a trick of lying flat in the gra.s.s without moving. And it took a sharp eye to spy him when he lay low in that fashion.
Curled up asleep, with his long fur on end, he looked too comfortable to disturb. At least, that was what the ground squirrels thought. And if one of those busy little fellows ever paused to stare curiously at Benny when he was having a nap in the warm sunshine, Benny Badger had only to awake and turn his head toward the onlooker to make him scamper for home as fast as he could go.
It was not Benny"s face, either, that frightened the ground squirrels away, though everybody had to admit that he had a queer one. A black patch spread over his eyes and ran like the point of a V down his nose.
For the most part, however, he was of a grayish color, with still more black running in streaks across his back. Underneath he was a--yes! a dirty white color. But then, one must remember that he was forever digging in the dirt; and there was very little water where he lived.
Anyhow, he was particular enough about one thing: his long hair was always carefully parted in the middle from his head to his tail.
And certainly that ought to show that he tried to keep himself looking neat.
II
HUNTING FOR SOMETHING
It was a pleasant summer"s night. Anyone would have supposed that it was just the sort of weather that Benny Badger might have chosen for digging holes. But he must have thought that he had dug enough holes for the time being. He wandered about as if he had lost a hole somewhere and couldn"t find it. And whenever he spied a hole made by one of his smaller neighbors he stopped and looked at it closely.
But none of them seemed to be the one he was looking for. At least, Benny examined a good many holes, and then pa.s.sed on again, before he came to one at last that was different from all the rest. If you could have seen the look of pleasure on Benny"s odd face when he caught sight of this particular hole you would have known at once that his search had come to an end.
Now, as a matter of fact, Benny Badger had not lost a hole. His strange behavior did not mean that. It meant that he was searching for a _fresh_ hole, which some ground squirrel had dug so short a time before that there couldn"t be much doubt that the small owner was then living in it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Mr. Ground Squirrel Escapes from Benny.]
To be sure, Benny might have dug his way to the furthest end of each hole that he found that night. And doubtless he would have enjoyed such a pastime. But as for finding a plump ground squirrel at the end of every tunnel--ah! that would have been a different matter. No such pleasant sight would have greeted Benny"s eyes. And on this evening he wanted to find some such reward when his digging came to an end.
He knew as well as he knew anything in the world that newly scattered earth never lay strewn about the doorway of an _old_ hole.
And that was the reason he pa.s.sed by so many holes with hardly more than a swift glance.
But when at length he found what he had been looking for--a hole with fresh brown dirt scattered carelessly around it--Benny Badger showed by every one of his actions that he didn"t intend to move on until he had burrowed to the very end of it.
A broad smile lighted up his queerly marked face. At least, he opened his mouth and showed a good many of his teeth. And a bright, eager glint came into his eyes; whereas they had had a somewhat wistful look before, as if their owner might have been hungry, and didn"t exactly know where he was going to find a meal.
Then Benny Badger looked all around, to see whether anybody might be watching him. But there was no one in sight. And if there had been, Benny Badger would have done no more than tell him that he had better run along about his business, because it would do him no good to wait--none at all.
And if the onlooker had happened to come so near as to bother Benny in what he intended to do, that unfortunate person might have wished that he had taken a bit of friendly advice in time, and made himself scarce.
But, of course, Benny Badger was not so foolish as to give any such warning, for there was no one there to hear it.
III
NO ONE AT HOME
Since there seemed to be n.o.body lurking in the shadows around him, and watching him, Benny Badger turned to the ground squirrel"s hole and began to dig. How he did make the dirt fly! He scooped it up with his big feet and flung it back in a shower, not caring in the least where it fell. For he was interested not in what lay behind, but before him.
In almost less time than it takes to tell about it, Benny Badger had made the entrance of the tunnel so big that it swallowed his head and shoulders.
Now, when some people do anything they are forever stopping to see how much they have finished, as if they hated to work and wished that they didn"t have to. But Benny Badger was not like them. He loved to dig. And instead of wishing that it wasn"t far to the ground squirrel"s chamber he kept hoping that it was a good, long tunnel, so that he might have plenty of fun digging his way to the end of it.
_He_ didn"t pause to look back at the pile of dirt he had thrown behind him. In fact, he didn"t stop for anything--not even to take a long breath--until he noticed a sound that made him pause and listen for a few moments.
It was a yapping, growling noise that caught Benny Badger"s ear--a noise that changed, while he listened, to a howl, and then suddenly ended as it had begun.
That call, coming as it did out of the night, would have frightened many people. Not knowing just what it was, they might have thought it sounded like the cry of a wolf. But Benny Badger showed not the least sign of fear. On the contrary, he seemed almost angry with himself because he had stopped even for a few moments to listen.
"Oh, fudge!" he said--or something a good deal like that. "It"s nothing but a Coyote."
And then he went to digging faster than ever, to make up for lost time.
He hadn"t been working long after that when Mr. Coyote"s call made him back out of the hole and listen once more.
"Shucks!" said Benny Badger--or something like that, anyhow. "He"s coming this way."
Anyone could have seen that Benny Badger was not pleased. But he continued his work just the same. And he made the dirt fly even more furiously than before, because he wanted to reach the end of the ground squirrel"s tunnel before Mr. Coyote arrived on the scene.
It happened that Mr. Coyote was stalking slowly across the country in the moonlight, headed for no place in particular. So Benny Badger had time to burrow his way to the ground squirrel"s bedroom without being interrupted.
And then Benny met with a sad disappointment. The owner of the burrow was not at home! Benny knew that he could not have been gone long, because the bed of dried gra.s.ses was still warm.