The Curious Lobster

by Richard W. Hatch

  “To tell the truth, I didn’t even see the river,” admitted Mr. Badger. “When you grabbed me with those awful claws of yours, I shut my eyes, and I didn’t open them until you shouted. Thank you for shouting.”

  “Thank you for letting me hold on to you,” said Mr. Lobster. “I would have fallen out but for you.”

  “I suppose you are welcome.” Mr. Badger sighed. “But if you ever have to grab me that way again, there’s no telling what will happen.”

  At this point Mr. Bear, who had run down the hill, came puffing up.

  “Is my object safe?” he demanded.

  Mr. Bear’s object and the fish lines and rope were still in the cart.

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Badger. “Everything is safe, and so are we. Did you see the wonderful ride we had? I’ve never traveled so fast in my life!”

  “I heard you yell, and it didn’t sound like joy,” said Mr. Bear.

  “That was my fault,” said Mr. Lobster. “I was forced to grab Mr. Badger. Now I feel that I have had a great experience and that I am wiser than before, as I can say that I have ridden fast on land.”

  “We are both wiser than before,” said Mr. Badger. “What a pity Mr. Bear wasn’t with us.”

  “I suppose that now I am not so wise as you and Mr. Lobster,” said Mr. Bear, “and I shall never hear the end of it.”

  “Well, hardly,” said Mr. Badger in a superior manner. “You can’t expect to be as wise as we are unless you do what we do.”

  “Do you mean that I have to come flying down the hill the way you did?” asked Mr. Bear with horror in his voice.

  “Certainly,” Mr. Badger answered.

  Mr. Bear gave a low growl.

  “Be sure and steer around when you get to the river bank,” said Mr. Lobster, “if you decide to try it. We very nearly went right off the bank.”

  “Would you do it again?” asked Mr. Bear.

  “Just now I feel that I would not care to go again,” replied Mr. Lobster frankly. “You see, I feel that there are some experiences it isn’t necessary to have but once.”

  “Remember,” said Mr. Badger, “that you can’t gain wisdom without courage.”

  “I wonder whether it would be courage or foolishness, though,” observed Mr. Bear. The more he thought of it the more terrified he was at the idea of flying down the hill; but at the same time he could not think of letting Mr. Badger get the best of him.

  “That is something you never can tell until afterwards,” said Mr. Badger.

  “Well, I am going to be as wise as you are. I know that!” exclaimed Mr. Bear. And he took the loop of rope from the front of the cart, put his head through it, and started for the hill.

  “Wait a minute!” cried Mr. Badger. He ran over and took the rope and fish lines and Mr. Bear’s object out of the cart. “Now you have all the room you need. Mr. Lobster and I will watch you.”

  “Good luck!” called Mr. Lobster. Then, feeling a little dry, he slipped into the river for a few minutes while Mr. Bear pulled the cart across the meadow to the woods. When Mr. Lobster climbed back to the meadow, with Mr. Badger’s help, Mr. Bear was just disappearing into the woods.

  “Now for the fun,” said Mr. Badger. “There is really no danger, because Mr. Bear won’t have to shut his eyes from pain as I did; but I’ll bet he gets a surprise when he finds out how fast he comes.”

  “I trust that he thinks his surprise is a pleasant one,” said Mr. Lobster. “An unpleasant surprise makes a whole day miserable.”

  “It is time for him to be starting,” observed Mr. Badger.

  They were both watching the top of the hill, where the crows still sat in the tree tops.

  Suddenly the two friends heard a roar from the woods, and all the crows flew up out of the trees and came flying down the hill toward the meadow.

  “They are following Mr. Bear!” exclaimed Mr. Badger excitedly. “And that means trouble. Crows never chase after anything but trouble. And listen to that roar!”

  Mr. Bear was roaring indeed. He had forgotten that he was much heavier than Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster, and he had gone clear to the top of the hill. As soon as he started his ride his great weight made the cart go faster than he had ever dreamed of going. So he started roaring with surprise and fright.

  “Here he comes!” cried Mr. Lobster.

  Mr. Bear and the cart shot out of the woods at lightning speed. He was sitting upright, all his hair blown out straight behind him, his paws around the steering handle, and his mouth wide open with the most fearful sounds coming from it. And right over his head and right behind him came the whole flock of crows, cawing and yelling with delight because Mr. Bear seemed to be running away from them.

  It was a strange and wild sight.

  The cart came flying across the meadow, all the noise and Mr. Bear and the crows with it, and headed straight for the river.

  Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster were too excited to speak.

  In spite of his terror, Mr. Bear was steering very well, and probably everything would have gone all right—but just as the cart came rushing up to Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster it hit a small bump. Mr. Bear let out a groan and pulled hard on the steering handle; and he pulled with such great strength that the handle came off the cart and Mr. Bear fell over backwards in the cart, his four feet sticking up in the air.

  The cart kept going straight for the river.

  “Jump!” yelled Mr. Badger.

  THE CART REACHED THE BANK OF THE RIVER AND WENT SAILING INTO THE AIR.

  Mr. Bear couldn’t jump because he was on his back. He tried to sit up, but it was too late. The cart reached the bank of the river, went sailing into the air, and then fell with a great splash into the water.

  All the crows gave shrieks of delight and flew pellmell back to the woods.

  Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster rushed to the river bank.

  Mr. Bear had gone completely under water, cart and all. When he came up, he was trying to growl and spit out water at the same time, which made the strangest sounds. He was floating on the cart and splashing all his feet and making a terrific commotion so that the water was flying everywhere.

  “Help!” he managed to shout.

  “Lie still!” yelled Mr. Badger. “Stay in the boat!”

  There was a small island of mud in the middle of the river, just a clam flat, and the cart and Mr. Bear were drifting toward it.

  “I’m floating away!” Mr. Bear shouted. “Help! I’m in water!”

  He struggled and splashed all the more.

  “Be calm!” called Mr. Badger.

  Mr. Bear lifted up his head and growled horribly.

  “How can I be calm when I’m floating in water and never coming back?” he demanded. “I’m going to be gone!”

  Then the wheels of the cart struck bottom in the shallow water near the island. Mr. Bear made another struggle and fell out of the cart into the water, and the cart floated away down the river. Mr. Bear groaned fearfully, but then he found that his feet were on bottom, and he ran through the water as fast as he could go until he was on the island. There he stood, wet and trembling, the unhappiest looking bear in the world.

  “You’re safe!” cried Mr. Badger joyfully.

  “Safe!” Mr. Bear snorted. “How can I be safe when I am surrounded by water?”

  “Can you swim ashore?” asked Mr. Lobster, who for some moments had been too horrified to speak.

  “I don’t know how to swim.”

  “Try it,” advised Mr. Badger. “It is easy.”

  Mr. Bear made a low, unhappy sound.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I wasn’t made to swim. Only fishes and things born in the water are supposed to swim. Besides, I hate being in water!”

  “What shall we do?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “Build me a bridge!” exclaimed Mr. Bear. “A bridge is the only safe way to cross water. Oh, why did I ever make friends with Mr. Badger? He causes me more trouble as a friend then he did as an enemy. It was his idea to ride in that la
nd boat, and every idea he has makes trouble for somebody, usually me.”

  “You broke the handle, and you have lost my colossal land boat,” said Mr. Badger sadly, “but I shall have to forgive you.”

  “You will have to build me a bridge!” declared Mr. Bear in an angry tone. “I demand a bridge!”

  Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster looked around. There was not a bit of wood in sight. There was nothing on the meadow which looked like material for a bridge. And over beyond the hill they had come down so fast, the sun was setting. The day was nearly done.

  “Well,” said Mr. Badger, “Mr. Lobster and I will look for a boat or a bridge, but the night is coming now, and it will be impossible to search until the morning. You must be patient and wait till then.”

  “I have never been very patient, even at my happiest moments,” said Mr. Bear. “And now how can I be patient at the unhappiest moment of my life?”

  No one could answer that question. Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger were both silent, and Mr. Bear was so miserable he could only make low moans. It was a most desperate and unhappy situation.

  “I shall go to the woods for the night,” said Mr. Badger, “and shall return and save you the first thing in the morning. Have no fear. I shall have an idea.”

  Mr. Bear only moaned a little louder.

  “I shall sleep at the bottom of the river,” said Mr. Lobster.

  “Probably that is where my bones will lie,” muttered Mr. Bear.

  It was a sad parting, the saddest parting the three friends had ever had.

  As Mr. Lobster slipped into the water, he thought: “I am afraid it turned out to be a most unpleasant surprise for Mr. Bear, although I cannot understand how anyone can think that water is anything but delightful. Life is very strange, indeed. I guess that no matter how wise a person is, he doesn’t know how a surprise will turn out, for even a wise person can’t know everything, no matter how hard he tries. I must remember that and not be too proud of my wisdom.”

  He found a deep hole under the bank of the river, and, although he was deeply worried and unhappy over Mr. Bear’s plight, he finally managed to spend a fairly comfortable night.

  As soon as the sun was brightly shining the next morning, so that its rays came down through the water, Mr. Lobster climbed slowly up the bank of the river to the meadow.

  Mr. Badger was already there.

  “Look!” said Mr. Badger.

  Mr. Lobster looked.

  There was no island. The tide had come in and covered it. And there was no Mr. Bear. There was only water.

  Mr. Bear’s Terrible Night

  THE TWO friends had a strange feeling, as if it could not be true that Mr. Bear was nowhere in sight and the island covered with water. For a few minutes they kept on looking at the river, hoping that somehow Mr. Bear would reappear, and trying to think that perhaps they had come to the wrong place. But it was no use. It was the right place, and there was no island, and no Mr. Bear.

  “He is gone,” said Mr. Badger.

  “We must search,” said Mr. Lobster. “Nothing is gone until you have searched for it without finding it. It must be the same with people.”

  “How wise you are. Perhaps there is hope. Let us start at once.”

  So Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster started walking along the bank of the river. It was an unhappy walk, and neither Mr. Lobster nor Mr. Badger cared to say anything about exploring. In fact, they were so silent as they went along that Mr. Lobster realized that he had never known Mr. Badger to stay quiet for such a long time.

  “It is a beautiful day,” Mr. Lobster said, trying to make a little pleasant conversation.

  “I really haven’t noticed,” said Mr. Badger. And even after that he didn’t try to notice.

  Mr. Lobster decided not to attempt any more conversation.

  Slowly they followed the winding river, keeping on the bank so that they could search the water as well as the meadow. When they came to a creek, Mr. Badger would run along it until he found a place where he could jump to the other side. Mr. Lobster swam across all the creeks.

  When they had traveled for what seemed an endless and totally unhappy distance without seeing any sign of Mr. Bear, they stopped for a few minutes of rest.

  “I am becoming more and more wretched,” said Mr. Badger. “I wish now that I had never found the land boat. It was all my fault.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” protested Mr. Lobster. “It is best, when something unfortunate happens, to call it an accident. Then nobody is to blame.”

  “Don’t you think it was my fault?”

  “No, I do not.” Mr. Lobster spoke positively. “Mr. Bear broke the handle himself, and that caused the accident. Either Mr. Bear was too strong or the handle was not strong enough. It certainly had nothing to do with you.”

  Mr. Badger sighed with relief.

  “I feel very much better. Thank you very much, Mr. Lobster,” he said with great feeling. “Since you are so wise, of course you are right. I always believe every word you say. This has been a hard morning for me, for I am by nature so happy and carefree that when I am miserable I am extra miserable thinking of how happy I used to be.”

  “We have not finished our search yet, you know,” Mr. Lobster said. “So Mr. Bear is not gone yet. Why don’t you go to the woods and look down from a hill? Perhaps then you could see far enough to see Mr. Bear.”

  “A brilliant idea!” exclaimed Mr. Badger. “You wait here, and I will go at once and hurry back and tell you what I see.”

  Mr. Badger trotted off.

  Mr. Lobster, left alone, slipped into the river to get wet. For some time he crawled aimlessly along the bottom. When two small flounders just the size of a lunch came swimming by he did not try to catch them. He was too busy thinking about the unfortunate end of the exploring and about Mr. Bear to be able to eat.

  When he climbed out on the bank again Mr. Badger was returning from the woods as fast as he could run.

  “There is something big and black lying on the meadow right by a tall tree without any leaves,” he said, panting. “We must hurry along. It may be Mr. Bear.”

  They started again. Mr. Lobster could not go as fast as he wanted to because he could never travel by snapping his tail when he was on land. But he made his eight legs go as fast as possible, and together they headed in the direction where Mr. Badger had seen the tree without leaves.

  “There it is!” cried Mr. Badger after a short time. “Right near the river and sticking up out of the meadow!”

  Mr. Lobster tried to go faster.

  “There’s Mr. Bear!” shouted Mr. Badger.

  Sure enough, there was Mr. Bear curled up on the soft grass of the meadow fast asleep. And the tree without any leaves was the mast of a sailboat which was floating in a little creek behind Mr. Bear.

  “Mr. Bear!” called Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger at the same time.

  Mr. Bear opened his eyes and yawned. Then he saw Mr. Badger, and he managed to give a low growl.

  “Well! So it is you,” he said in a sleepy voice.

  “Are you all right?” asked Mr. Lobster anxiously.

  “Oh, yes,” answered Mr. Bear in a contented manner. Then he remembered to be cross, and he growled again at Mr. Badger. “But no thanks to you and your precious land boat,” he said crossly. “What a terrible night I had! You will be the end of me yet! I always get the worst of everything.” He was trying to look very miserable, but actually he looked sleek and well-fed and comfortable.

  “Perhaps I owe you an apology,” said Mr. Badger, “but I did not know the handle on my land boat was not strong.”

  “Apologies are always too late,” said Mr. Bear severely.

  “I am sure it was not Mr. Badger’s fault,” said Mr. Lobster kindly, hoping to restore friendship without any more cross words.

  “And Mr. Lobster is so very wise,” added Mr. Badger hopefully.

  Mr. Lobster, being modest, said nothing more.

  “Well,” said Mr. Bear, “I suppos
e that if Mr. Lobster says it was not your fault I can believe it.”

  “By all means!” said Mr. Badger eagerly. “It was all an accident, and explorers are bound to have accidents.”

  “Accident!” Mr. Bear snorted. He was wide awake now. “I call it a catastrophe!”

  “Goodness! What is that?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “A catastrophe,” said Mr. Badger, who loved to explain, “is an accident that happens to a great many people at the same time, or else it is just a single accident of tremendous size.”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Lobster. “And Mr. Bear is tremendous; so this was certainly a catastrophe, wasn’t it?”

  “Certainly,” agreed Mr. Badger.

  “Well, now we are all together again, and we can be happy once more,” said Mr. Lobster. “And I am curious to know what happened. Will you please tell us, Mr. Bear?”

  Mr. Bear looked actually happy. For once he was the most important of the three friends, and for once Mr. Badger would have to let him do most of the talking. He stood up, looked calmly around, and then glanced with pride at the sailboat floating in the creek.

  “By the way,” he said in his most important manner, “that is my boat. And it is better than any land boat you have to pull.”

  “How did you get it? What happened last night?” asked Mr. Lobster, whose curiosity was making him tremble with eagerness to hear every word of Mr. Bear’s story.

  “You are right about the boat,” said Mr. Badger. “It is much more colossal than mine.”

  Mr. Bear gave a sound of approval at Mr. Badger’s words. Then, settling himself comfortably in the soft grass, he began.

  “It was a terrible night,” he said. “I walked back and forth on that miserable island, which was not nearly big enough for a creature my size, for hours. I was hungry and unhappy. And I was surrounded by water. How I suffered—thanks to that awful ride in Mr. Badger’s land boat. While you both were sleeping happily, I was suffering.”

  “Oh, we weren’t happy at all!” exclaimed Mr. Badger.

  “Please do not interrupt,” said Mr. Bear sternly. “As I was saying, while you were sleeping happily, I was suffering. While you were safe on dry land, I was in the greatest danger.”