"This is strange," Solomon mused. "All my life I"ve been swallowing my food 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 against tree-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 him that he had never seen so many mice and frogs and chipmunks as he came across 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 had first 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 him hurrying to see Aunt Polly Woodchuck.
On the whole, Solomon pa.s.sed a very unhappy week. Flying head foremost into tree-trunks (as Aunt Polly had instructed him to do) gave him many b.u.mps and bruises. So he was glad when the time came for him to return to her house in the pasture.
Solomon"s neighbors had been so interested in watching him that they were all sorry when he ceased his strange actions. Indeed, there was a rumor that Solomon had become very angry with Farmer Green and that he was trying to knock down some of Farmer Green"s trees. Before the end of that unpleasant week Solomon had often noticed as many as twenty-four of the forest folk following him about, hoping to see a tree fall.
But they were all disappointed. However, they enjoyed the sight of Solomon hurling himself against tree-trunks. And the louder he groaned, the more people gathered around him.
XI CURED AT LAST
"How do you feel now?" Aunt Polly Woodchuck asked Solomon Owl, when he had come back to her house after a week"s absence.
"No better!" he groaned. "I still have pains. But they seem to have moved and scattered all over me."
"Good!" she exclaimed with a smile. "You _are_ much better, though you didn"t know it. The wishbone is broken. You broke it by flying against the trees. And you ought not to have any more trouble. But let me examine you!" she said, prodding him in the waistcoat once more.
"This is odd!" she continued a bit later. "I can feel the wishbone more plainly than ever."
"That"s my own wishbone!" Solomon cried indignantly. "I"ve grown so thin through not eating that it"s a wonder you can"t feel my backbone, too."
Aunt Polly Woodchuck looked surprised.
"Perhaps you"re right!" said she. "Not having a wishbone of my own, I forgot that you had one."
A look of disgust came over Solomon Owl"s face.
"You"re a very poor doctor," he told her. "Here you"ve kept me from eating for a whole week-and I don"t believe it was necessary at all!"
"Well, you"re better, aren"t you?" she asked him.
"I shall be as soon as I have a good meal," replied Solomon Owl, hopefully.
"You ought not to eat anything for another week," Aunt Polly told him solemnly.
"Nonsense!" he cried.
"I"m a doctor; and I ought to know best," she insisted.
But Solomon Owl hooted rudely.
"I"ll never come to you for advice any more," he declared. "I firmly believe that my whole trouble was simply that I"ve been eating too sparingly. And I shall take good care to see that it doesn"t happen again."
No one had ever spoken to Aunt Polly in quite that fashion-though old Mr.
Crow had complained one time that she had cured him _too quickly_. But she did not lose her temper, in spite of Solomon"s jeers.
"You"ll be back here again the very next time you"re ill," she remarked.
"And if you continue to swallow your food whole--"
But Solomon Owl did not even wait to hear what she said. He was so impolite that he flew away while she was talking. And since it was then almost dark, and a good time to look for field mice, he began his night"s hunting right there in Farmer Green"s pasture.
By morning Solomon was so plump that Aunt Polly Woodchuck would have had a good deal of trouble finding his wishbone. But since he did not visit her again, she had no further chance to prod him in the waistcoat.
Afterward, Solomon heard a bit of gossip that annoyed him. A friend of his reported that Aunt Polly Woodchuck was going about and telling everybody how she had saved Solomon"s life.
"Mice!" he exclaimed (he often said that when some would have said "Rats!"). "There"s not a word of truth in her claim. And if people in this neighborhood keep on taking her advice and her catnip tea they"re going to be sorry some day. For they"ll be really ill the first thing they know.
And then what will they do?"
XII BENJAMIN BAT
Solomon Owl was by no means the only night-prowler in Pleasant Valley. He had neighbors that chose to sleep in the daytime, so they might roam through the woods and fields after dark. One of these was Benjamin Bat.
And furthermore, he was the color of night itself.
Now, Benjamin Bat was an odd chap. When he was still he liked to hang by his feet, upside down. And when he was flying he sailed about in a zigzag, helter-skelter fashion. He went in so many different directions, turning this way and that, one could never tell where he was going. One might say that his life was just one continual dodge-when he wasn"t resting with his heels where his head ought to be.
A good many of Benjamin Bat"s friends said he certainly must be crazy, because he didn"t do as they did. But that never made the slightest difference in Benjamin Bat"s habits. He continued to zigzag through life-and hang by his heels-just the same. Perhaps he thought that all other people were crazy because they didn"t do likewise.
Benjamin often dodged across Solomon Owl"s path, when Solomon was hunting for field mice. And since Benjamin was the least bit like a mouse himself-except for his wings-there was a time, once, when Solomon tried to catch him.
But Solomon Owl soon found that chasing Benjamin Bat made him dizzy. If Benjamin hadn"t been used to hanging head downward, maybe he would have been dizzy, too.
Though the two often saw each other, Benjamin Bat never seemed to care to stop for a chat with Solomon Owl. One night, however, Benjamin actually called to Solomon and asked his advice. He was in trouble. And he knew that Solomon Owl was supposed by some to be the wisest old fellow for miles around.
It was almost morning. And Solomon Owl was hurrying home, because a terrible storm had arisen. The lightning was flashing, and peals of thunder crashed through the woods. Big drops of rain were already pattering down. But Solomon Owl did not care, for he had almost reached his house in the hollow hemlock near the foot of Blue Mountain.
It was different with Benjamin Bat. That night he had strayed a long distance from his home in Cedar Swamp. And he didn"t know what to do. "I want to get under cover, somewhere," he told Solomon Owl. "You don"t know of a good place near-by, do you, where I can get out of the storm and take a nap?"
"Why, yes!" answered Solomon Owl. "Come right along to my house and spend the day with me!"
But Benjamin Bat did not like the suggestion at all.
"I"m afraid I might crowd, you," he said. He was thinking of the time when Solomon Owl had chased him. And sleeping in Solomon Owl"s house seemed far from a safe thing to do.
[_Ill.u.s.tration 2_]