Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster waited for Mr. Bear to return.
“Do you think he is lost?” asked Mr. Lobster anxiously, after a long time.
“I don’t know.” Mr. Badger sighed. “But he may be in trouble anyway, and he is our friend and we are both heroes; so it is our duty to go and look for him.”
“Do we have to?” asked Mr. Lobster.
“Yes, we have to,” said Mr. Badger.
Mr. Lobster didn’t say anything out loud, but he knew that he had learned something. “Sometimes,” he said to himself, “being a hero is very uncomfortable. It is not so easy as it looks.”
Mr. Badger opened the door, and they both went in search of Mr. Bear. Almost immediately they heard a muffled growling, a growling that was angry even when muffled. They hurried toward the sound.
There was Mr. Bear stuck in a very small doorway. It was so small that he had been able to get only his head and shoulders through. There he stood, apparently with no head at all, kicking with his hind legs and growling terribly. The growls, of course, came from the dark place where he had his head, which Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger could not see.
Mr. Badger couldn’t help chuckling at the ridiculous sight.
Mr. Lobster was frightened.
“He is probably choked!” he cried.
“Oh, I guess not,” said Mr. Badger. “He can still growl all right. Just listen to him! Let’s see if we can pull him out.”
Mr. Badger grabbed Mr. Bear’s right hind leg. Mr. Lobster could grab in only one way; so he fastened his big claws on Mr. Bear’s left hind leg.
“Now pull!” cried Mr. Badger.
They pulled for dear life. Mr. Bear let out the most awful growl they had ever heard.
“Pull again!” commanded Mr. Badger. “One, two, and three!”
This time they pulled even harder than before, and with a ferocious roar Mr. Bear came unstuck and sat down, and Mr. Badger went flying into one corner and Mr. Lobster went flying into another. Then they all got up and hurried back to their cabin.
“Who had hold of my left hind leg?” demanded Mr. Bear.
“I did!” exclaimed Mr. Lobster, pleased with himself because he had pulled so hard.
“Well, it was kind of you and all that,” said Mr. Bear, “but those claws of yours grabbed right through to the very marrow of my bone, I should think by the feeling. I shall be lamed for life.”
“I am very sorry,” said Mr. Lobster.
“I am sorrier,” said Mr. Bear, and with that he went over to the corner of the cabin and licked his wounds.
Afterwards he was a little more friendly, and he explained that he had smelled fish and had put his head in the little door and tried to reach a fish.
“Of course I couldn’t reach,” he said. “It has been my experience in life that everything is just an inch too far away.”
Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger said nothing. They were all so hungry now that conversation lagged.
However, the voyage was not going to last forever after all. In the dark of the night the ship nosed gently up to a wharf. There was a great deal of hustle and bustle, and for more than an hour a great deal of unloading and banging around. Then the crew went ashore, and all was quiet.
“We’re here!” exclaimed Mr. Badger. “We have come to the other side of the Ocean. As soon as I find out where we are I shall know whether I am a bandicoot or a wallaby or a brock!”
“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Bear. “It doesn’t matter to me what you are as long as we get something to eat.”
“What shall we do?” asked Mr. Lobster, who was now so curious to see the other side of the Ocean that he could hardly wait another minute.
“Follow me,” said Mr. Badger.
So they followed Mr. Badger to the deck of the ship, then to the wharf, and then to the bank of the river near by.
It was a very dark night, with no moon or stars shining. Mr. Badger had been living by daylight so long that even his eyes could not see very well. Mr. Lobster and Mr. Bear had no idea where they were. But they could see the river in front of them, and land on the other side. And Mr. Badger spied a boat.
“You see,” he said, “here is a river somewhat like our own river at home. Of course, there are rivers everywhere. But this one looks wider and darker than ours. And over there is probably a beach, though I am sure it will be different from ours. We must row over in that boat.”
“We must eat, you mean!” put in Mr. Bear.
“Not now,” said Mr. Badger. “You can never think of comfort when traveling. The first thing is to see the place you have come to, no matter what happens.”
Mr. Bear growled at that.
Mr. Lobster was so curious he was perfectly willing to wait a little longer for food.
“It is really wonderful!” he exclaimed.
“We are having a wonderful adventure!” said Mr. Badger.
Mr. Bear only growled.
Of course Mr. Bear had to give in and do what the others did; so he rowed the boat across the river, and they all got out and walked across the sand in the dark. There, sure enough, was a beach, although they could see only a few feet of it, and there was an Ocean.
Mr. Lobster immediately crawled down to the water and had a good swim.
“It tastes just like our Ocean,” he said when he returned to his friends.
“Of course,” agreed Mr. Badger. “It is the same Ocean, but this is the other end of it.” Mr. Badger was a happy creature, for his voyage was a success. He said now, “Just wait until the daylight comes, and then we shall see all the wonders of this strange place.”
Mr. Bear was grumbling a bit, but the three friends sat down in the dark to wait for the morning. After all, it seemed that Mr. Badger’s idea had been a good one.
They had been waiting only a short time when Mr. Bear heard a noise from across the river.
“That sounds like a noise on our ship!” he exclaimed in alarm.
“It can’t be!” cried Mr. Badger.
They hurried across the sand, stumbling in the dark. They saw lights on board the ship, and then, before they could even get into their boat to row across the river, they saw their ship begin to move away from the wharf. Down the river it went, out into the Ocean, and finally out of sight altogether.
It was gone, and they were left!
“Do you know what that means?” cried Mr. Bear.
“What?” asked Mr. Lobster.
“We are left here forever! We shall never get home!”
At that thought Mr. Lobster trembled all over. He would never see his lovely home again!
It was the bitterest blow the three friends had known in all their adventures. They were so dismayed that not even Mr. Badger could say a word.
In sad silence they walked back to the beach to wait for the morning, and in sad silence they sat for a long time. Finally Mr. Badger got up courage to say one thing.
“I hope this turns out to be a beautiful place,” he said.
“There is no place as beautiful as home,” said Mr. Lobster.
“Please do not speak,” said Mr. Bear. He forgot to growl.
And so they were all sad and forlorn when the great sun came up and the world and all the Ocean before them grew light. And then they began to look around.
First Mr. Bear made a queer sound, and then Mr. Badger made a queer sound, and then Mr. Lobster made a queer sound.
For they were on their own beach, and not on the other side of the Ocean at all!
“The ship came back!” said Mr. Badger.
“Well,” said Mr. Bear. “That was a fine voyage, wasn’t it? We landed right where we started.”
“All travel should end where it starts,” said Mr. Badger.
“Well, I dreaded the thought of the voyage home, to tell the truth,” said Mr. Bear. “I admit that this is a very happy ending after all. Now I can go and eat a tremendous dinner, and I shall not be too late to hibernate.”
“It is the best joke of the summer!�
�� said Mr. Badger. “That is the happiest kind of ending to our adventures!”
Mr. Lobster said very little. The friends said good-by to each other and decided that the summer had been very pleasant. Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear walked away together like the best of old friends.
Mr. Lobster hurried to the Ocean and then swam and crawled as fast as he could to his own home.
“I didn’t satisfy my curiosity about the other side of the Ocean,” he said to himself, “but I did get safely home. And home is the happiest ending of all.”
THOSE INTREPID EXPLORERS, MR. BEAR, MR. LOBSTER AND MR. BADGER.
Mr. Lobster Faces the Winter
IT WAS a cold day along a certain river that winds through the meadows and comes down to meet the sea near a big cliff. All the meadow grasses and cat-o’-nine-tails were brown. The blackbirds and long-legged herons were gone, and all the small birds that make their nests in the deep grass. Only the tough old crows, shiny black and bright-eyed, flew over the river country. They didn’t want cold weather, but they weren’t going to leave home, even if it snowed and froze.
Near the sea and along the beach the gulls were just as busy looking for small fish and flying on white and gray wings as though it were summer time. For the gulls, like the crows, stay in the north in the winter time. But one old gull, who had seen a good many years and who had been studying the sky for some time, said to some young gulls who were near: “I feel very sure by the feel of the water on my toes this morning that we are going to have a hard winter.”
“What is it that will be hard about it?” asked a very young gull who had never seen a winter.
“Everything,” replied the old gull, “but especially the water in the river. And when the water becomes hard nothing comes floating down, like fish or turnips or other dinners, and so it is hard work to find food. Also, when the water is hard you can’t dive into it. Altogether that makes a hard winter.”
The young gulls decided to land on the clam flats and talk the matter over, and they went off with a good deal of noise.
Up on the hills and in the woods, where such creatures as Mr. Bear and Mr. Badger and the owl and the dormouse and the permanent partridge lived, a cold wind was blowing. It made a wintry sound in the sky, and a dry rattly rustle in the bushes and trees. The pine trees knew that they would be green, no matter how cold it got, so they didn’t care. The other trees were already red and yellow and brown, so that the sunshine made them beautiful; but they shivered. And the bright-colored leaves, tired of holding on to their branches, and cold in the chill wind, let go and fell to the ground.
In all that shore country, which is a very special country where things are different from city and town things, only the old ocean was unchanged. There it was, as blue as blue and reaching away forever to the edge of the sky. And when you looked at it you were glad that even if winter were coming the great water would still be there, and its waves would still come rolling in on the sandy beach. But if you put your foot in the water, or your hand, then you would know that something had happened since summer.
Now Mr. Lobster, who was known far and wide as The Curious Lobster, lived in that ocean. And he was therefore in it all over; so he was sure that something had happened.
Mr. Lobster was in his home under two big rocks at the bottom of the ocean not very far from shore. When he woke up on this particular day his long feelers shivered a little.
“I believe,” he said to himself, “that we are going to have the turn of the seasons. This house has been a very handy place because it is easy for me to get from here to shore, where I love to go, and it does not take me long to get from shore to home. And home should be a place not too difficult to reach. Home is too important to be far away. But I am afraid that I am living so near the shore that the change of seasons will bring cold water here, and I hate water that’s too cold. A wise creature always prepares for necessary changes, and since I am wise I must think about preparing. I may even have to move for the winter.”
It occurred to Mr. Lobster that he could think just as well if he were walking, and he might meet a pleasant creature, such as a small fish, which would serve for breakfast. So he left his home and his seaweed garden and crawled along the bottom of the ocean.
As he crawled he realized that he was quite hungry, and he began to look carefully about for dabs, flounders, perch, or stray clams. In fact, he looked so carefully and thought so hard about breakfast that he forgot all about the coming of winter and preparations for moving.
He made several very fast rushes, and he tail-snapped backwards with amazing speed for a lobster sixty-eight years old when he thought he saw a shark, so that, generally speaking, he felt unusually strong and well. And when he had met several pleasant creatures—to be exact, two dabs and two small flounders, he felt even better.
Just at the moment when he felt that it was not necessary to look for any more breakfast along came his old acquaintance the sculpin, looking extremely sulky, which made his ugliness even uglier than ever—and that is saying a good deal. For an instant Mr. Lobster had hopes that the sculpin was too cross to speak to him, because Mr. Lobster did not enjoy speaking with cross creatures. But the old fish came right up and, without the slightest courtesy, not even a good-morning greeting, said:
“Well, Mr. Lobster, it is a wonder you are not walking around on dry land this morning.” The sculpin had never gotten over the fact that Mr. Lobster had learned to go ashore, and whenever he thought about it he was angry because he could not go ashore, too. So the tone that he used now was not a pleasant one.
“Good morning,” said Mr. Lobster, who was too wise to be discourteous. “I am afraid I shall not be going ashore again for some time.”
“Afraid, indeed!” If the sculpin had had a nose he would have sniffed. As it was, he blew several impolite bubbles. “May I ask why, if you don’t mind talking with one who merely remains in the ocean where he is supposed to remain—and where you should remain?”
The sculpin did not say this in a humble tone. On the contrary, he was trying hard to be superior.
“I beg your pardon,” replied Mr. Lobster, “but I also consider the ocean my home. The mere fact that I have had many delightful times ashore with my friends this summer does not change my feeling about home. Home is the same, no matter where you go. The reason I shall not go ashore any more is that it is cold weather there now, and my friends, Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear, are no longer there to meet me.”
“Ah, so they have gone away.” The sculpin was actually pleased that Mr. Lobster’s land friends were gone.
“Well, you might say so,” said Mr. Lobster.
“I might? Now what do you mean by that?”
“They are not really gone,” explained Mr. Lobster. “They are hibernating.”
“Oh!” The sculpin was immediately unpleasant again—more unpleasant than ever. For he didn’t know what Mr. Lobster meant, and if there is anything superior creatures dislike, it is to find out that there is something they don’t know. So he scowled terribly; but he remained silent, as he did not want to ask Mr. Lobster to explain, which would reveal his ignorance. And then he waved his huge fins and sailed away without a sound. As he went, he stirred up a good deal of sand in Mr. Lobster’s face, apparently on purpose.
“AFRAID, INDEED!” THE SCULPIN BLEW SEVERAL IMPOLITE BUBBLES.
Mr. Lobster, now that he was alone again, dismissed the sculpin from his mind. He realized that he had not been thinking about preparations for winter at all.
“It’s strange,” he said to himself, “but when I am very hungry I find it hard to think about anything but eating, even if there are other important matters to be considered. I wonder if that’s so with all creatures.” And that thought made him curious to know what other creatures thought about it, and he wished that he could ask Mr. Badger, who always had an answer for any question. It made him sad to think that he would not see Mr. Badger again until spring.
While he was still being curious and
somewhat sad, the sculpin came swimming back. He had decided that he would have to ask Mr. Lobster, after all.
“What is hibernating?” he demanded.
“Hibernating is sleeping,” answered Mr. Lobster politely, just as if the sculpin had also been polite. Mr. Lobster always pretended that other people were polite, for he had discovered that if only one person is impolite there is not much trouble caused by it, but if two people are impolite things are very difficult.
“Then why didn’t you say ‘sleeping’ in the first place?” snapped the sculpin.
“But it means sleeping all winter,” said Mr. Lobster.
“What! Night and day?”
“Yes.”
“And not ever eating?”
“Not eating a thing.”
“Then it is absurd, and I don’t believe it. If you did that you’d be gone.”
“Well, Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear do it all winter,” said Mr. Lobster.
“Then they’re gone, aren’t they?”
“Not really gone,” replied Mr. Lobster, “because they told me that they would be back in the spring of the year.”
“Nonsense, I should say!” This time the sculpin blew bubbles of satisfaction and superior knowledge. “You will see that they won’t ever come back. You can’t go all winter without eating and not be gone.”
Mr. Lobster straightened out the joints in his tail and shell so that he looked as big and important as possible. He was somewhat angry himself now.
“I am sorry to disagree with you,” he said calmly, “but my friends are both heroes, and heroes always tell the truth, and Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear both promised me that they would return. Besides, they have tried hibernating before, and they have always come back. So I guess they will this time.”
“Anyway, the whole thing is absurd!” The sculpin was surrounded by bubbles, and they weren’t pleasant bubbles either.
“Nothing a hero does is absurd,” declared Mr. Lobster. “And now I think I shall be going home.”
He gave an extra hard tail-snap, which left the sculpin yards away, and then turned and started for home.
The Curious Lobster Page 13