Master Meadow Mouse pulled his head in just in time.
"I didn"t suppose that chap would be here as soon as this," he gasped.
"He must have hurried over here from the woods. He must be very hungry."
As Solomon Owl returned to the old oak his cousin Simon Screecher laughed somewhat unpleasantly.
"Missed him--didn"t you?" he inquired.
"Yes!"
"Why didn"t you grab him out of the snow?" Simon asked. "What are your claws for? What"s your beak for?"
"I couldn"t dig him out," Solomon Owl replied. "The snow is three feet deep. And it has seven different crusts, one under another."
"This is a hard winter," said Simon Screecher. "I wish I"d gone South last fall. I wonder how the mousing is down there."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
20
Eating a Tree
AS SIMON SCREECHER remarked to his cousin, Solomon Owl, it was a hard winter. The snow was deep. The days were cold. And the nights were colder. And, worst of all, food became scarce. It seemed as if there wasn"t anything to eat anywhere except at the farm buildings, which Farmer Green had stuffed full of hay and grain during the summer and autumn. Many of the forest folk stole down from Blue Mountain after nightfall and visited the farmyard in the hope of getting a bite of something or other.
Even Master Meadow Mouse began to find it harder and harder to get enough seeds under the snow to satisfy his hunger. He had stored away a stock of food. But it hadn"t been big enough. And that was a great mistake. Master Meadow Mouse promised himself that he would not repeat it another time. Unfortunately, all the promises in the world wouldn"t give him a square meal when he needed one.
At last he went to one of his cousins who had already spent one winter in the meadow.
"This is my first winter," Master Meadow Mouse explained. "I"m running short of food. And I wish you"d tell me what to do in such a case."
"That"s easy," his cousin answered. "Get more!" And then he hurried away, for he had important business to attend to.
Poor Master Meadow Mouse ran after him. It was hard to follow his cousin through the winding galleries beneath the snow. Several times Master Meadow Mouse took the wrong turn and had to retrace his steps.
But at last he found his busy cousin again.
"You advised me to get more food," said Master Meadow Mouse. "But you didn"t tell me where to get it."
"In the orchard!" his cousin cried. And then he hurried away again.
"I wish he"d wait a minute," Master Meadow Mouse grumbled as he tore after his cousin once more. "I don"t feel like running. I haven"t had a hearty meal for days."
The cousin seemed surprised when Master Meadow Mouse overtook him.
"What!" that busy gentleman exclaimed. "Have you been to the orchard and back so soon?"
"No!" said Master Meadow Mouse. "I"ve been chasing you. I want you to tell me what I"ll find to eat when I go to the orchard."
"That"s easy," his cousin replied. "Trees!" Having said those three words he dashed off again even faster than before.
"Trees!" Master Meadow Mouse echoed. "I can"t eat trees. I"ve never eaten a tree in all my life. There must be something that my cousin forgot to explain. So I suppose I"ll have to run after him again and ask him what he meant."
The fourth time that Master Meadow Mouse found his cousin he took no chances. He caught his cousin by his tail and held on firmly.
"You"re not going to get away from me till I"ve found out what I want to know," he declared. "How can I eat a tree?" Master Meadow Mouse demanded.
"You can"t!" his cousin replied, struggling desperately to free himself, for he was too busy to stop long.
"Then explain what you mean!" Master Meadow Mouse cried.
"Eat the bark!" his cousin answered.
Then--and not till then--did Master Meadow Mouse let him go.
Master Meadow Mouse chased his cousin no more, but hurried away to Farmer Green"s orchard, where he gnawed a ring all the way around one of the young fruit trees, at the top of the snow. It was the first big meal he had enjoyed for weeks. And he went home feeling that the winter was not so hard as he had thought, after all.
But Farmer Green didn"t agree with him. When he happened to go into the orchard one day, later, and saw tree after tree ruined, he was very, very much displeased.
"I ought to have put wire netting around those young trees," he told the hired man. "This is what comes of a hard winter."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
21
A Cold Dip
IN one way Peter Mink was like Master Meadow Mouse. He enjoyed swimming.
And he spent a great deal of his time along the streams that threaded their way through Pleasant Valley. Sometimes Peter dawdled on the banks of Swift River. Sometimes he lingered for days in the neighborhood of Black Creek. Nor did he disdain so small a stream as the brook that crossed the meadow. It was deep enough for a swim. And he knew that muskrats lived under its banks. While as for meadow mice--well, Peter Mink had surprised many a one swimming in the brook. If it hadn"t been for the meadow mice perhaps he wouldn"t have visited the brook so often.
Even in winter Master Meadow Mouse just _had_ to have his cold dip now and then. So he ran one of his many snow tunnels to the brook, making a little opening that led under the ice, where the water had fallen away and left a cavern. Just because there was skating for Johnnie Green on top of the brook it mustn"t be supposed that Master Meadow Mouse wasn"t going to have a swim when he wanted one.
When Peter Mink wandered along a stream in winter he preferred to travel under the ice, rather than walk upon the upper side of it. It made little difference to him whether there was a dry strip along the edge of the stream, where he could steal silently along without wetting his feet. When he found no place to walk, he swam.
Now, Master Meadow Mouse was well aware of this trick of Peter Mink"s--this trick of lurking beneath the ice of river, creek and brook.
But Master Meadow Mouse _would_ have his cold dip now and then despite Peter Mink and his prowling ways.
To be sure, Master Meadow Mouse tried to be careful. Before he crept from the end of his tunnel, he stuck his head out and looked up and down and all around. He peeped under the bank of the brook. He even stared into the water. And then--if he saw n.o.body that was fiercer than Paddy Muskrat--only then would he venture to skip to the water"s edge and plunge in.