Mother West Wind Where Stories

by Thornton W. Burgess

  MOTHER WEST WIND "WHERE" STORIES

  by

  THORNTON W. BURGESS

  Illustrations by Harrison Cady

  "Then there was a crash, and everybody's eyes flew open."FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 243._]

  Burgess Trade Quaddies Mark

  Grosset & DunlapPublishers New YorkBy arrangement with Little, Brown, and CompanyCopyright, 1918,by Thornton W. Burgess.All rights reservedPrinted in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. WHERE GRANDFATHER FROG GOT HIS BIG MOUTH 1

  II. WHERE MISER THE TRADE RAT FIRST SET UP SHOP 17

  III. WHERE YAP-YAP THE PRAIRIE DOG USED HIS WITS 31

  IV. WHERE YELLOW-WING GOT HIS LIKING FOR THE GROUND 47

  V. WHERE LITTLE CHIEF LEARNED TO MAKE HAY 61

  VI. WHERE GLUTTON THE WOLVERINE GOT HIS NAME 77

  VII. WHERE OLD MRS. 'GATOR MADE THE FIRST INCUBATOR 91

  VIII. WHERE MR. QUACK GOT HIS WEBBED FEET 107

  IX. WHERE THUNDERFOOT THE BISON GOT HIS HUMP 123

  X. WHERE LIMBERHEELS GOT HIS LONG TAIL 139

  XI. WHERE OLD MR. GOBBLER GOT THE STRUTTING HABIT 155

  XII. WHERE SEEK-SEEK GOT HIS PRETTY COAT 169

  XIII. WHERE OLD MR. OSPREY LEARNED TO FISH 185

  XIV. WHERE OLD MR. BOB-CAT LEFT HIS HONOR 199

  XV. WHERE DIPPY THE LOON GOT THE NAME OF BEING CRAZY 213

  XVI. WHERE BIG-HORN GOT HIS CURVED HORNS 229

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  PAGE

  "THEN THERE WAS A CRASH, AND EVERYBODY'S EYES FLEW OPEN" _FRONTISPIECE_

  "LITTLE CHIEF'S FATHER TAUGHT HIM HOW TO MAKE HAY" 74

  PETER NOTICED THOSE FEET THE FIRST TIME HE MET MR. AND MRS. QUACK 122

  "DON'T CALL ME STRIPED CHIPMUNK, AND DON'T CALL ME GOPHER!" SAID HE 170

  MOTHER WEST WIND "WHERE" STORIES

  I

  WHERE GRANDFATHER FROG GOT HIS BIG MOUTH

  Everybody knows that Grandfather Frog has a big mouth. Of course! Itwouldn't be possible to look him straight in the face and not know thathe has a big mouth. In fact, about all you see when you look GrandfatherFrog full in the face are his great big mouth and two great big gogglyeyes. He seems then to be all mouth and eyes.

  Anyway, that is what Peter Rabbit says. Peter never will forget thefirst time he saw Grandfather Frog. Peter was very young then. He hadrun away from home to see the Great World, and in the course of hiswanderings he came to the Smiling Pool. Never before had he seen so muchwater. The most water he had ever seen before was a little puddle in theLone Little Path. So when Peter, who was only half grown then, hoppedout on the bank of the Smiling Pool and saw it dimpling and smiling inthe sunshine, he thought it the most wonderful thing he ever had seen.The truth is that in those days Peter was in the habit of thinkingeverything he saw for the first time the most wonderful thing yet, andas he was continually seeing new things, and as his eyes always nearlypopped out of his head whenever he saw something new, it is a wonderthat he didn't become pop-eyed.

  Peter stared and stared at the Smiling Pool, and little by little hebegan to see other things. First he noticed the bulrushes growing withtheir feet in the water. They looked to him like giant grass, and hebegan to be a little fearful lest this should prove to be a sort ofmagic place--a place of giants. Then he noticed the lily-pads, and hestared very hard at these. They looked like growing things, and yet theyseemed to be floating right on top of the water. It wasn't until a MerryLittle Breeze came along and turned the edge of one up so that Peter sawthe long stem running down in the water out of sight, that he was ableto understand how those lily-pads could be growing there. He was stillstaring at those lily-pads when a great deep voice said:

  "Chug-a-rum! Chug-a-rum! Don't you know it isn't polite to stare atpeople?"

  That voice was so unexpected and so deep that Peter was startled. Hejumped, started to run, then stopped. He wanted to run, but curiositywouldn't let him. He simply couldn't run away until he had found outwhere that voice came from and to whom it belonged. It seemed to Peterthat it had come from right out of the Smiling Pool, but look as hewould, he couldn't see any one there.

  "If you please," said Peter timidly, "I'm not staring at anybody." Allthe time he was staring down into the Smiling Pool with eyes fairlypopping out of his head.

  "Chug-a-rum! Have a care, young fellow! Have a care how you talk to yourelders. Do you mean to be impudent enough to tell me to my face that Iam not anybody?" The voice was deeper and gruffer than ever, and it madePeter more uncomfortable than ever.

  "Oh, no, Sir! No, indeed!" exclaimed Peter. "I don't mean anything ofthe kind. I--I--well, if you please, Sir, I don't see you at all, so howcan I be staring at you? I'm sure from the sound of your voice that youmust be somebody very important. Please excuse me for seeming to stare.I was just looking for you, that is all."

  A little movement in the water close to a big green lily-pad caughtPeter's eyes, and then out on the big green lily-pad climbed GrandfatherFrog. If Peter had stared before he doubly stared now, eyes and mouthwide open. Grandfather Frog was looking his very best in his handsomegreen coat and white-and-yellow waistcoat. But Peter had hardly noticedthese at all.

  "Why, you're all mouth!" he exclaimed, and then looked very much ashamedof his impoliteness.

  Grandfather Frog's great goggly eyes twinkled. He knew that Peter wasvery young and innocent and just starting out in the Great World. Heknew that Peter didn't intend to be impolite.

  "Not quite," said he good-naturedly. "Not quite all mouth, though I mustadmit that it is of good size. The fact is, I wouldn't have it a bitsmaller if I could. If it were any smaller, I should miss many a goodmeal, and if I were forced to do that, I am afraid I should be veryill-tempered indeed. The truth is, I am very proud of my big mouth. Idon't know of any one who has a bigger one for their size."

  He opened his mouth wide, and it seemed to Peter that GrandfatherFrog's whole head simply split in halves. He hadn't supposed anybody inall the Great World possessed such a mouth.

  "Where did you get it?" gasped Peter, and then felt that he had asked avery foolish question.

  Grandfather Frog chuckled. "I got it from my father, and he got his fromhis father, and so on, way back to the days when the world was young andthe Frogs ruled the world," said he. "Would you like to hear about it?"

  "I'd love to!" cried Peter. So he settled himself comfortably on thebank of the Smiling Pool for the first of many, many stories he was tohear from Grandfather Frog.

  "Chug-a-rum!" began Grandfather Frog. You know he always begins a storythat way. "Chug-a-rum! Once upon a time the Great World was mostlywater, and most of the people lived in the water. It was in those daysthat my great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather lived. Those were happydays for the
Frogs. Yes, indeed, those were happy days for the Frogs. Ofcourse they had enemies, but those enemies were all in the water. Theydidn't have to be watching out for danger from the air and from theland, as I do now. There was plenty to eat and little to do, and theFrog tribe increased very fast. In fact, the Frogs increased so fastthat after a while there wasn't plenty to eat. That is, there wasn'tplenty of the kind of food they had been used to, which was mostly waterplants, and water bugs and such things.

  "Of course there were many fish, and these also increased very fast,and the big fish ate the Frogs whenever they could catch them, just asthey do to this day. The big fish also ate the little fish, and itwasn't long before the Frogs and the little fish took to living wherethe water was not deep enough for the big fish to swim, and this made itall the harder to get enough to eat. The mouths of the Frogs in thosedays were not big. In fact, they were quite small. You see, living onthe kind of food they did, they had no need of big mouths.

  "One day as a Great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather Frog sat with justhis head out of water, wondering what it would seem like to have hisstomach really filled, a school of little fish came swimming about him,and it popped into his head that if little fish were good for big fishto eat, they might be good for a Frog to eat. So he caught the firstone that came within reach, and he found it was good to eat. He liked itso well that after that he caught fish whenever he could. Of course heswallowed them whole. He had to, because he had no chewing or bitingteeth.

  "Now the Frogs always have been famous for their appetites, andGreat-grandfather Frog found that it took a great many of these teenyweeny fish to make a comfortable meal. He was thinking of this one daywhen a larger fish came within reach, and almost without realizing whathe was doing Great-grandfather snapped at and caught him. He caught thefish by the tail and at once began to swallow it, which, of course, wasno way to swallow a fish. But Great-grandfather Frog had much to learnin those day, and so he tried to swallow that fish tail first insteadof head first. He got the tail down and the smallest part of the body,and then that fish stuck. Yes, Sir, that fish stuck. The fact was,Great-grandfather Frog's mouth wasn't wide enough. It was bad enough notto be able to swallow all of that fish, but what was worse was thediscovery that he couldn't get up again what he had swallowed. That fishwas stuck! It would go neither down nor up.

  "Poor Great-grandfather Frog was in a terrible fix. Big tears rolleddown his cheeks. He choked and choked and choked, until it looked verymuch as if he might choke to death. Just in time, in the very nick oftime, who should come along but Old Mother Nature. She saw right awaywhat the trouble was, and she pulled out the fish. Then she asked howthat fish had happened to be in such a place as Great-grandfather Frog'smouth. When he could get his breath, he told her all about it--how foodhad been getting scarce and how he had discovered that fish were good toeat, and how he had make a mistake in catching a fish too big for hismouth. Old Mother Nature looked thoughtful. She saw the great numbers ofyoung fish. Suddenly she reached over and put a finger inGreat-grandfather Frog's mouth and stretched it sideways. Then she didthe same thing to the other corner. Great-grandfather Frog's mouth wasthree times as big as it had been before.

  "'Now,' said she, 'I don't believe you'll have any more trouble, and I'mgoing to do the same thing for all the other Frogs.'

  "She did that very day, and from then on the Frogs no longer had anytrouble in getting plenty to eat. So that is where I got my big mouth,and I tell you right now I wouldn't trade it for anything anybody elsehas got," concluded Grandfather Frog, as he snapped up a foolish greenfly who came too near.

  "I think it is splendid, perfectly splendid," cried Peter. "I wish I hadone just like it." And then he wondered why Grandfather Frog laughed sohard.