The Linnet's Tale (A Mouse Story for Grownups) (The Tottensea Series)

by Dale C. Willard

  While Opportune Baggs and I helped Mrs. Baggs with the washing up, the children got on their pajamas and gathered expectantly around their father's chair in the sitting room. As he took his place in their midst, Papa Baggs said, "So what shall it be tonight then, darlings? A bit of poetry perhaps? Something elevating."

  "Greystreak, please," piped a small clear voice somewhere near the front.

  "What? Greystreak again?"

  "Yes, please," said a chorus of mouseling voices all over the room.

  "Didn't we just have that some short time back?"

  "Last night Papa, last night," they all said excitedly and they laughed and some said, "And the night before that." While others said, "Oh, Papa, you know!" and they all giggled and giggled and giggled as he took the longest time to polish his reading spectacles, all the while looking every single one of them in the eye, in turn. Every single one of them, I do believe.

  "As you wish then," he said. "Greystreak it shall be." A great cheer went up. He took up the little reddish brown book which was lying exactly beside the lamp on the table next his chair, and one knew, somehow, that there had never been the slightest doubt about what he was going to read that evening.

  He opened the book and intoned from the title page:

  GREYSTREAK

  Being a romance

  by

  Waterford Hopstep

  Illustrated

  I blushed with pleasure, not at the mention of my name or the name of my book, but at the enjoyment which my book seemed to give these little listeners.

  "May we see the frontispiece please, Papa?"

  "Of course," their Papa said and turned the book right round and held it up, canting it this way and that so they could all see, in turn, a very average line drawing, partly colored, of a muscular mouse striking something of a heroic pose, looking off somewhere and shading his eyes with a paw.

  "May we have the caption then?"

  "Certainly," their Papa said and turned the book slightly so as to read, solemnly, "Greystreak surveys his kingdom." And then, when everyone seemed to be ready—at last—their Papa turned the book back round, opened it and began to read.

  CHAPTER 4

  Greystreak

  Lord Greystreak was a highborn field mouse and an entomologist. That is to say, he was very rich and it was his interest to study rare and exotic species of insects wherever he might have to go to find them. And if one is looking for rare and exotic species of insects one could do a lot worse than visiting the back garden out behind the yew hedge. The soil is very poorly drained back there and, though the agricultural output is decidedly inferior, there are marvelous examples of strange plant life and insect species such as are yet to be recorded in books. And as Lord Greystreak was very rich and had leisure to do exactly as he liked, he undertook an extended safari to the back garden in the heat of summer. Lady Greystreak went with him. She went with hoopskirts and parasols and, what was worse, she was expecting.

  The heat of summer can be a very bad time for highly cultured field mice in the back garden, as it turns out, and so it came to happen that while on this safari Lord and Lady Greystreak were both of them struck down with the grippe and thereupon immediately and tragically died. Just before expiring, however, Lady Greystreak gave birth to one lone mouseling, a male, small and naked, and seemingly doomed to die right there, wallowing helplessly in a small tussock of fescue. Wonderfully, however, young Greystreak was happened upon by a kind and good family of potato leaf hoppers who took him right in, or right up, I should say, into their home at the top of a potato plant where they raised him with tenderness and affection as if he were their own bug.

  Owing to this strange upbringing, Greystreak was an unusual mouse in several respects. To begin with the worst, he spoke very poor field mouse. He would out with things like, "Greystreak no like eggplant," for example, and other even stranger locutions which no one had ever imagined. In almost all other respects, however, he was a superb mouse—very noble and good and absolutely overflowing with derring-do of all types.

  The leaf hoppers taught him their ways and this meant that Greystreak could fairly fly through a thicket of goosefoot, say, covering great distances by swinging from weed to weed and never a paw touching the ground. He also had a mysterious bond with all insect life and was able to communicate with lower creatures by various means, not the least of which was an astonishing and unnerving yell at the top of his lungs which would bring many types of strange multi-legged creatures to his aid wherever he might be.

  On one fine afternoon, Greystreak was standing high in a weed surveying his kingdom, as it were, when he suddenly sensed, with his uncanny insect-like sensibilities, that all was not well in the back garden. He swung himself to the ground and stalked through the undergrowth. Creeping through a scrub of henbit and purslane—dotted here and there with a bit of spurge—he came upon an alarming and heartbreaking scene: a coffle of poor house mice, ten or twenty of them, chained hind foot to forepaw and being driven unmercifully by a villainous lot of heavily-armed natterjack toads—all of them fitted out in khaki shorts and pith helmets and smoking short cigars. The house mice groaned and strained under enormous loads of spring onions as they moved slowly across a large clearing.

  What on earth the toads were going to do with all those onions was never determined. Some said they were going to float them down the river on barges and sell them to cats. But that is surely manifest nonsense as cats do not eat spring onions, do they? So we shall have to leave that question pretty much as we found it. And, in any event, it hardly matters what they were going to do with the onions. They had to be stopped.

  The stopping itself was a bit more difficult than Greystreak had hoped. Immediately he tried doing it, he found himself surrounded by five armed amphibians with very disagreeable expressions on their faces. He had no alternative, in his own estimation, but to throw back his head and let go the astonishing and unnerving yell at the top of his lungs.

  In a matter of moments, there were strange buzzing sounds coming from every direction—starting at a low level and rising steadily to a terrifying frenzy. The toads were then set upon by insects: horse radish flea beetles, raspberry sawflies, turnip aphids and many other things, including at least one clover seed midge—each of them swarming and biting and being generally unpleasant all over the place. Right away, five natterjack toads scattered in five directions with at least one of them coming to a most disagreeable end when a passing goshawk happened to see him and swooped down to catch him away for further disposition at another location—pith helmet and all.

  The insects kept coming along well after the toads were gone and the issue decided, until the entire clearing was completely filled with a roiling confusion of disorderly arthropods—the lot of them bawling for something to eat or spoiling for a fight or wondering what all this had been about. Greystreak was ever so grateful for their help, of course, but he was having a terrible time of it getting everyone straightened out and sent back home until it suddenly occurred to him what to do—and it turned out to be one of the very best ideas of his career. He simply threw back his head and did the astonishing and unnerving yell at the top of his lungs—backwards! There followed a stunned silence in which all the insects in the clearing stood around looking at one another with puzzled expressions. Then, one by one, each creature seemed to realize what he, she or it was supposed to do and did it. The jumble of legs and antennae and proboscises seemed simply to melt away into the surrounding bush—the noise and confusion going with it—until, after a time, everything was completely quiet and the clearing utterly devoid of any insect life whatsoever.

  Greystreak released the poor house mice saying, "You ever no trust natterjack toad again, house mice?" or something like that, and sent them back to the house where they lived a happy life ever after (indoors, I'm afraid, but they didn't seem to mind that, being house mice).

  As for Greystreak and his insect friends, they had many further adventures (which are told
in other books) and lived contentedly and interestingly, righting wrongs with entomological relish and thoroughness in the vast and trackless wilderness of the back garden for a very long time.

  THE END

  After the story there was a question.

  "What does 'caught him away for further disposition at another location' mean, Papa?" asked a young lady over toward the right and back about halfway.

  "It means the goshawk was going to eat him," said one of the boys, quietly.

  "Parnassas Baggs", said their Papa, "you have it exactly. Eating him is precisely what the goshawk intended to do."

  "And did he then? Eat him, I mean," the young lady asked, concerned.

  "Oh, I'm quite certain that he did, my dear Phillipa," said their Papa gravely.

  "I hate that, Papa," said Phillipa, in a very small voice.

  "I know my dear," said Opportune Baggs.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Look at the Drawings

  After the children had their bedtime snacks in the kitchen, they returned to the sitting room to take their leave of me. The girls were first. "It was ever so nice to have had you in our home, Mr. Hopstep. We, all of us, enjoy your books exceedingly! I hope you can share another evening with us very soon," said one quite grownup young lady, accompanying her comment by a lovely smile and a small curtsy. Another one said, "I can't think when I've enjoyed so much having one or another linnet in our home." Still another spoke of "outstanding pleasantness" and "the hope for additional evenings of this type"—she and all of them showing unmistakable flashes of their mother's warmth and hospitality.

  The boys, on the other hand, tried more for erudition and vocabulary. "Quite a nice parlance over the cuisine, I thought," said one of them. "Enjoyed your disquisition on economics and things," said another, "I think we must do this again, don't you agree?" I did indeed.

  Then it was off to bed with the lot and during the confusion and pother of this process I should tell you that I heard any number of unnerving yells. Though not given at the top of one's lungs, of course, I thought them each suitably astonishing in its own compact way.

  By the time the children's bedtime was successfully accomplished Mrs. Baggs had a pot of chamomile tea waiting in the kitchen. She and Mr. Baggs and I sat to it and talked about proper literature for children and one thing and another. We played gin. I was able to manage two knocks, and Mr. Baggs four. Mrs. Baggs settled for a knock or two herself, early on, but then finding her stride, got several gins in a row and won the game going away, stifling yawns the while. She then excused herself and went to bed, apparently having some things she must do the next morning.

  Opportune Baggs looked after her for a moment, then rose and fetched a bottle of blackberry port from the sideboard, decanted two glasses and raising one, solemnly said, "To that good wife."

  "Hear, hear," I answered.

  Baggs motioned for me to follow him. We went and stood listening for a moment at each of the children's bedrooms. From the truckle beds in those rooms came the most complex rhythms of small adenoidal mouse breathings it has ever been my privilege to hear. But nothing else. Satisfied, my host looked at me, his eyes dancing, and said, "Very well then. Shall we have a look at those drawings?"

  We each carried a glass and a candle to his studio. He lit the hanging lantern there and presented the drawings of an amazing invention, one after another, each of them pulled from its own labeled cubbyhole in the wall. Setting a roll down and weighting one edge with his candlestick, he would, with an unselfconscious flourish of his paw, send the rest of it flying to the far end of the table where it would overshoot the edge to bounce in a graceful springy curl partway to the floor. The effect was not unlike the opening of the curtain at a theatrical.

  The first drawing was a plan view of the whole. I was overwhelmed with a bewildering complexity of lines and arrows and explanatory comments pointing to and elucidating several intricately drawn mechanisms. I saw things labeled "nib impellers" and "parchment straighteners" and "ink canals." I saw claw pull-downs and double claw pull-downs. There were toe excluders and elbow sockets, knee-crossovers and ankle extenders, a head bracket, ear standoffs—the scope of the thing was truly breathtaking.

  He next pulled detailed drawings of the swoop-extenuators—a whole series of these ("The heart of the invention," he said quietly.)—not only a top-to-bottom swoop-extenuator and left-to-right swoop-extenuator but also a top left of center to right very near the bottom swoop-extenuator and a diagonally-inclining bottom leftward to upper right about a fourth of the way down swoop-extenuator and quite a few more.

  Roll after roll received its due comment and explication from the inventor. Quiet, glowing and full of special information he was: "This is to be mortised here, you see"; and "The ones in red are slipknots"; and "That is the underside you're looking at—magnified a bit"; and "Reverse thread there, of course. Wouldn't work at all, otherwise."

  I would nod, or frown gravely, or say something like, "Hmm. Yes," to each explanation.

  I came to learn that the hallmark of Opportune Baggs' inventions was adjustment. Everything about them positively bristled with thumbnuts and wingscrews and slip joints and tie-downs and notches numbered 1 2 3 4 and so forth. "Adjustment is the key," he said simply. "I could do almost anything with this machine if I wanted to take the time to make the necessary adjustments. I could make butter with it. Easily! Shall I show you how?"

  In the end he didn't. Rather, he sat and demonstrated the kinds of movements which the operator would make to use the invention for its intended purpose. Perched on the front edge of the seat, he rocked back and forth in one rhythm, right to left in another slower cycle—all the while moving his four limbs in various combinations of syncopated arcs and oscillations and humming quietly to imitate, I think, the overall effect of the various mechanisms moving in harmonious conjunction.

  At length he stopped, suddenly, and slumped back into the chair as if utterly spent by an excess of inventive zeal. Then, as suddenly, he rose and held his glass high over the drawings. The blackberry port smoldered like a darkling ruby in the lantern's light. I raised my glass, too.

  "To mechanical calligraphy, then," he said.

  "Mechanical calligraphy," I answered.

  We stood for a long time in silence, both of us, I believe, trying to imagine what those wonderful flourishes and curlicues would look like—made with real ink on real parchment by a real Mousewriter.

  CHAPTER 6

  Merchanty Swift

  It was normal to refer to Merchanty Swift as Merchanty Swift Who Brought The Cheese Trade Down To Earth Almost Single-Handedly. If you have not often been in the company of field mice you may perhaps need to be advised of the importance and nature of this sort of epigraphic extension which attaches itself to field mouse names. If a field mouse says something about Warburton Nines for example, he will almost certainly say in his opening reference something like "...and then in came Warburton Nines Who Once Lifted A Cat." He will sometimes give you the complete epigraph—if he's feeling up to it and there's plenty of time—which would be "…and then in came Warburton Nines A Quite Large And Strong Mouse Who Once Lifted A Small Cat Clean Off The Ground And Has One Good Eye Left." But not to give either version when Warburton Nines came up in the conversation would be perceived as a slight discourtesy at best and, in extreme cases, outright shabbiness. Moreover, I would have you know that this kind of respect—it is called a meritorious epigraph—is not at all a hollow formality. Far from it. It is only given where it has been earned, and that soundly. Relatively few get it at every opening reference to their name and, in fact, the higher the respect for the mouse the oftener the reference. A meritorious epigraph is a way of letting a mouse's deeds follow him. Quite nice, actually, but there are other kinds.

  Some epigraphs adhere, not because of merit but for some other reason—interest, usually. I must pause here to say, right away, that there are NO negative epigraphs. Field mice would never have a thing like that. The
y are very forgiving, these mice, and hate gossip. They quite insist on fresh starts being given to whoever wants one. But they are fond of knowing interesting and distinctive things about one another. Or about anyone. They sometimes refer to me, for example, as "Waterford Hopstep Who Is Actually A Bird." As you can see, the epigraph has nothing to do with any merit of mine, but rather with an interesting accident of my lineage which I shall not take time to detail here. These are usually referred to as distinguishing epigraphs. "Opportune Baggs The Inventor" would be a kind of distinguishing epigraph. That is to say, it distinguishes him from most other mice, though it is not considered particularly a badge of honor or merit as a meritorious epigram would be. Though not of dishonor either, of course. Certainly not!

  But to return to meritorious epigraphs for a moment: it must be said that sometimes they tend to grow. In the case of Merchanty Swift's, however, I am in an excellent position to credit it to the full. In any event, he almost always got the reference. But, as is so often the case, he hardly needed it—especially among the marriageable girls of the company. They were absolutely sick over him. He was very handsome, very dashing, he had been practically everywhere, and if he wasn't rich, he could have been the moment he decided to stop giving whatever thing away to whoever asked him for it.

  As to love, it was said that Pleasings Tatterstraw had broken Merchanty Swift's heart when she ran away with Henri de Rochefoot (a French mouse, I believe). There were, to be sure, many of those Tatterstraw girls but if one mentioned that fact to Merchanty Swift he would always say something like, "Still, they're not Pleasings, are they?" and say it so dismissively and carelessly that that would be the end of it. After his heart was broken then, he simply wasn't, as the Tottensea maidens put it, "interested." And, as refusal to sell is incentive to buy, the market raged.