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

by Dale C. Willard

  Mrs. Baggs was very concerned that I wouldn't eat and fussed over me terribly throughout the meal. I was in fact quite hungry, but not interested in anything they were eating and too shy to ask for something else. Failing to persuade me to join them at table, then, she kept bringing bits of food to me in the corner. I watched her but ate nothing. Finally, after trying several things, she looked at me and said, "You must be starving, dear. Isn't there something I can get you?"

  I said, "I should like an insect, please."

  Everyone at the table looked at me and their jaws dropped. It was the first thing I had said to them. Although mice will sometimes eat insects, in a pinch, these mice are quite cultured and would hardly think of doing it under any circumstances. The children in fact said "Eew!" and stifled giggles noisily with their paws over their mouths. Mr. Baggs began to laugh and went on laughing as he got up, put on his cap and went out to get me some insects.

  The next day, Opportune and Arabella Baggs took it upon themselves to teach me to fly. As it had to be done indoors, on account of the stoat, the lesson took place in the sitting room. Opportune began by reading to me from an article about flying which he had found in the mouse encyclopedia.

  "It all sounds simple enough," he said. "Here, listen to this:"

  If the upper surface of a wing is curved while the lower surface is flat, the air is caused to move faster over the top than along the bottom. This causes the air pressure at the top to be less than at the bottom and produces something called lift.

  He then looked at me, thoughtfully and said, "Hmm. Let's see your wing, linnet."

  "We can't call him 'linnet,'" Arabella said.

  "Why not?" Opportune asked her. "What do you want to call him?"

  "I want to call him by his name," she said.

  "But we don't know that, do we?"

  "Well, we're not calling him linnet. Ask him his name."

  "I've already asked him that. He wouldn't tell us. He's very shy."

  "Well, ask him again."

  "You ask him," Opportune said, "as you seem to know everything about everything."

  "No. He's your linnet. Ask him."

  "All right," Opportune said and sighed. "Look, friend. I'm Opportune Baggs, as I said. And this bossy thing here, The Empress Of All Living Mice, is my sister. Her name is Arabella. What's yours then?"

  After waiting for a bit Opportune said, "There. You see. He isn't going to tell us. Let's get on with the flying."

  "Just a moment," Arabella said. "Don't rush him. These things take time, often as not."

  We all waited. At last, getting up my nerve, I said in a very small voice, "Waterford."

  "There!" Arabella screeched triumphantly. "Waterford. His name is Waterford!"

  "Yes, I heard that," said Opportune, clearing his throat and going on hurriedly. "Now, ahem...Waterford, we need to have a look at your wing. If you could just..."

  "Mother!" Arabella shrieked at the top of her lungs. "I've found out his name!" And off she ran to the kitchen to tell about it. By the time she returned with Mrs. Baggs, Opportune had got me to extend a wing and was examining it.

  "Your name is Waterford!" Mrs. Baggs said, coming in all smiles and encouragement. "How wonderful. It's a lovely name." Then she said to Opportune, "What are you doing, dear?"

  "Having a look at his wing. Look at this, Mother. It's supposed to be flat on the bottom. Would you call that flat?"

  "No, I wouldn't call it flat, exactly."

  "Nor would I," Opportune said. "Could you try flattening it, Waterford?" he asked me.

  "What makes you think it's supposed to be flat?" asked Mrs. Baggs.

  "Look here. There's a drawing."

  "Oh I don't believe so, darling. He's not an aeroplane is he?"

  And at that The Empress Of All Living Mice collapsed onto the floor in an extravagant fit of hysterical laughter. Poor Opportune was quite humiliated, said to his sister, "All right then. You teach him to fly!" and left the room, his dignity in shreds.

  His mother went after him, saying, "No, darling, it was an honest mistake." She turned back to say, "Arabella, shame on you!"

  I, for my part, was left in the sitting room—a shy young linnet, only partially fledged and with a small hysterical field mouse rolling about my feet on the floor. I folded my wing, sat very still and felt bad about everything.

  That evening after supper, in the sitting room, Mr. Baggs told us that a bird wing was not so different from an aeroplane wing and that it actually worked on the same principle. At this, Opportune Baggs made an alarmingly unpleasant face at his sister, Arabella Baggs, who was sitting across the room from him. Mr. Baggs then went on to say that birds were, however, quite different from aeroplanes in that they didn't have engines to pull them along. When, at that, Arabella Baggs made an appallingly unpleasant face at her brother, Mrs. Baggs thought it would be best for Opportune and Arabella to turn and face their respective walls during the remainder of family time.

  Mr. Baggs said that the most important thing about all this was that I was, after all, a bird. That, of course, made me very proud. He then said that, being one, I would fly exactly like a bird when the time came. At that, though still very proud, I must confess I was slightly anxious into the bargain. He seemed to understand this, for he looked directly at me and said, "It's in you, Waterford! Our part is to give you a home, protect you from your enemies and give you time to grow. But we shan't teach you how to fly. No, no. When your feathers are all in and your limbs strong, we shall take you outside, get you up onto something off the ground and then, my dear Waterford, we shall all stand back while you teach us how a bird flies!"

  It was almost like that. The time having come, they got me somehow onto the roof of the potting shed through the good services of a recumbent garden cart against its wall and a convenient forsythia bush planted next to it. The entire Baggs family then stood on the ground below me and looked up, squinting expectantly into the morning light. I perched on the edge of the slates and looked down.

  Arabella said "No, don't look down!"

  "Shhh," Mr. Baggs whispered. "Let him be. He must get used to the idea, you see."

  "Yes, let him be!" Opportune hissed, reinforcing the thought in a very loud and rasping whisper. "He must get used to the idea!"

  So they all let me be. For a long time. For a very long time, I'm afraid.

  Finally, the tension having reached unbearable levels, Mrs. Baggs, still looking up steadily and shading her eyes from the sun, said to me in a calm and encouraging voice, "Do something with your wings, dear."

  And I did. I flew—with no idea how I was doing it, in awful terror, losing altitude—and at the end of it somehow found myself on the grape arbor. The Baggses rushed over and sent up rousing cheers and congratulations from below while I clung desperately to the lattice, crazed with mindless exhilaration, panting wildly and grinning without stint. My heart races to think of it!

  It was a happy time, my sojourn with the Baggs family. At length, I got past my shyness and went on to feel quite at home with them—and with all the mice of Tottensea Burrows, in fact. I ate their foods. I had opinions. I talked of ideas. And as things went on, though very much a linnet, I became so free in the company of field mice and so abreast of their ways that I am, to this day, often referred to in these environs as the flying mouse.

  CHAPTER 11

  Unwanted Attentions

  Tottensea Burrows was, generally speaking, a quite literate community. While saying nothing against that, I think I should point out that the appeal of The Bookish Mouse to a young male of the Burrows might have had little or nothing to do with the actual reading of books. It might, on the other hand, have much or everything to do with three beautiful Fieldpea girls who would help him find the very mousebook he was looking for, whether or not he had the slightest intention of reading it.

  And it might be that said young male would be inquired of—by a friend or, indeed, even by his mother!—about unusually frequent visits to
the book shop.

  "Have you finished with that book, already?" he might be asked. "You only just bought it."

  "Yes, I know, Mother," he might say in reply, "but it was very poorly written wasn't it? and my interest began to flag, I'm afraid, about a third of the way in." Or if it were a non-fiction book he might say that he had decided to look into related books which could be read along with it to give a mouse a sense of balance and proportion and to prevent his being unduly influenced by a single author.

  In summary, suffice it to say that Grenadine, Almandine and Incarnadine Fieldpea were much sought after. One or the other of them was often chosen "queen" of these or those games, or "princess" of this or that fair, and they attracted many suitors—not all of which they wanted. Grenadine had, for example, at one point, a most distressing and unwanted suit pressed upon her by an unusual personage who went by the name of Mr. Langston Pickerel.

  There was, I think, no more remarkable sight in all of Tottensea Burrows than Langston Pickerel dressed up. Should he wish to impress, he had but to appear in, say, his Italian blue doublet with the military braid, worn over a waistcoat of crimson, probably, and overslung with a woolen sash filled absolutely to the full with badges and medals and other such brightware—all of this to be girded at the waist by a silver-buckled patent-leather strap from which would hang, in most cases, his infamous jeweled dagger with the three tourmalines worked cleverly among the carbuncles along the hilt. At such times, I'm afraid, he was utterly rakish without competition. And he knew it.

  On an afternoon, there appeared at the Fieldpea door a mole dressed quite to the nines in black livery and holding, in one paw, a modest but courtly bouquet of heliotrope and, in the other, a small silver tray—a salver, as it's sometimes called—on the surface of which rested a white envelope addressed to Miss Grenadine Fieldpea. The envelope was sealed with a dollop of wax which was stamped with an ornamented figure of some type which they finally decided was the letter "P", but it was adorned with so many scrolly lines and what-have-yous that it was impossible to be certain.

  "For Miss Grenadine Fieldpea," the mole said stiffly, without looking at Mr. Fieldpea.

  "Thank you. I'll see that she gets them," Mr. Fieldpea said.

  "An answer is requested," the mole said solemnly, keeping his eyes straight ahead and moving not a hair, so far as Mr. Fieldpea could tell.

  "Very well," Mr. Fieldpea said, "I'll see if that can be arranged. Would you care to come in?"

  The mole elected to stand pat, and Mr. Fieldpea went off to find Grenadine who, as it turned out, was working in the kitchen with her mother. After drying her paws then, Grenadine placed the heliotrope in a vase, studied the envelope for a bit, opened it and read out for her parents to hear:

  Esteemed Miss Fieldpea,

  Please do not count it strange that I, with no letter of introduction, should dare to approach you in such a manner as this. Acknowledging that I am most unworthy to do so, I make bold to announce that I have greatly admired you from a distance and, as I have had no proper opportunity to be introduced to you in the customary way and, moreover, as I have for some time wished most earnestly to make your acquaintance, I beg your indulgence to grant me, if possible, an interview on this very evening.

  I await your reply.

  Your admiring servant,

  LANGSTON PICKEREL

  The three Fieldpeas looked at one another for some few moments, thinking this communication strange indeed, as they had hardly more than seen Mr. Langston Pickerel—and even that from some distance—and thought him to be very unusual, not to say eccentric, and twice Grenadine's age, at least. Grenadine turned somewhat pale at the prospect of his attentions and, at length, was greatly relieved to remember that she was, in fact, previously engaged to spend that very evening with Mr. Predicate Quoty, the author.

  She sat down to write a brief reply to Mr. Pickerel's request, intending to express regret that she would not be able to receive him that evening. But after a bit of thought she concluded that she couldn't in all honesty express regret, though she certainly could express appreciation. Here is what she wrote:

  Mr. Pickerel,

  Thank you, sir, for the lovely bouquet. I must tell you that I am obligated this evening by a prior commitment and will not be able to receive you.

  Sincerely,

  Grenadine Fieldpea

  She thought this honest and not unkind. No one could possibly take encouragement from such a communication, she said to herself. She was to learn, however, that with some suitors neither encouragement nor the lack of it meant anything at all about anything.

  Predicate Quoty was an author of some reputation, though not among mice. He made an excellent living writing penny romances for hedgehogs and, although he considered his stories to be of an inferior genre, they were so popular and remunerative that he didn't see his way clear to not write them. Grenadine found him somewhat shy but then that seemed to be the way with some of these literary types. And as the two mice made their way silently along a pleasant walking path lit by the waning sun, Grenadine said, kindly, "You're very quiet, Mr. Quoty—the more remarkable for a mouse who makes his living expressing himself."

  To which Mr. Quoty replied:

  Those who find the pen a ready sword

  To speak whatever thoughts they wish and when

  May also find their tongues a ready cord

  To snare their thoughts and keep them bound within.

  To which Miss Fieldpea, surprised at the sudden and unexpected appearance of verse in the conversation, but pleased, nonetheless, and almost never without words herself, of course, answered:

  Then let the words made with your pen be on your tongue

  And I'll not care they started out in written form.

  Though pen be quick and tongue be slow

  The only thing I'll want to know

  Is will the heart be warm?

  To which Mr. Quoty rejoined:

  And should I try my sculptured sentences on you?

  And blushing, push them out towards you there

  To hear them clatter out across the cobbled air

  And set you mincing through the brittle shards

  Of my week's work?

  To which Miss Fieldpea returned:

  But if in spite of all your fears

  Your sentences hold up

  And are admired

  Indeed, and touch me with their art

  Would you not risk a broken thought or two

  To reach a mouse's heart?

  In answer to which Mr. Quoty said:

  Indeed your heart is what I seek to find

  Nor would I spare a thousand broken things….

  And on and on they went like that until they found themselves back at the burrow where, as previously arranged, they were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Fieldpea for lemon coolers in the parlor. And whereas Grenadine enjoyed versified conversation and even found it challenging, still, at the end of the day, so to speak, "challenging" is not quite the same thing as "romantic," is it? But, as in this particular instance, it provided an evening's protection from Mr. Pickerel's attentions, she found it pleasantly...serviceable. Though as she told this to her mother, later that night, she blushed at the thought of using Mr. Quoty in such a way.

  But, alas, this scruple was overwhelmed in the end. For on the following afternoon the mole was back. He bore a larger and more elaborate bouquet than the day before, this one being principally made up of Bristol Fairy and meadow rue with a bit of sea lavender thrown in. The salver held another envelope, also white, sealed and addressed to Grenadine, just as on the previous day. Mrs. Fieldpea answered the door this time and conveyed both items to Grenadine who was in the sewing room with her sisters. At the sight of what she was holding, Grenadine looked with a kind of helpless alarm at her mother, paid no attention to the bouquet worth reporting, took the envelope, opened it and read the message silently to herself. It said:

  Esteemed Miss Fieldpea,

  I am so
very sorry—though, of course, not surprised—that you were otherwise engaged last evening. Please then, may I inquire whether the much desired interview might take place on this evening, instead?

  I await your reply.

  Your admiring servant,

  LANGSTON PICKEREL

  Having read the note, Grenadine handed it to her sisters, sat down upon the antique burgundy tuffet in her mother's sewing room and cried. Noisily. And upon seeing their sister's suffering and distress, Almandine and Incarnadine Fieldpea sprang into action forthwith. First, with Grenadine's approval, they drafted a brief reply to Mr. Pickerel's note, thanking him for the lovely bouquet and informing him that Miss Fieldpea would not be receiving guests on that particular evening. Then they put on their bonnets, took their parasols and went out. And in consequence of this outing, Grenadine Fieldpea did not lack for evening engagements for several days running.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Suitors of Grenadine Fieldpea

  On Wednesday the mole brought, in one paw, an elegant box of individually wrapped millet seeds and, in the other, a white envelope on the silver tray. Grenadine expressed appreciation for the seeds but let it be known that she was previously engaged for the evening. And sure enough, at twilight Stopperfield Pipes, editor of The Tottensea Weekly Noticer, came calling for her. She was quite well acquainted with Mr. Pipes, he having printed a few of her short stories and many of her poems in the Weekly Noticer. She thought him pleasant enough, mostly good with words and actually a better speller than herself (a thing which she would not have thought possible until he proved it to her one afternoon over a gooseberry spritz). But the poor mouse couldn't rhyme anything, she said to her mother, and his meter was, to her way of thinking, unspeakable.