King Oberon's Forest

by Hilda van Stockum

  Mr. Squirrel was reading the Gazette, and only half attended to what his wife was saying. “As long as I don’t have to do anything …” he murmured.

  As if Mamma Squirrel would ever have asked for his help! She and Ross managed the whole move, of course. The triplets were too young to be anything but in the way, and Scarlet and Pinkie were each going steady and never available. When they weren’t dreaming of marriage, they were curling their tails or off on a date.

  Mr. Squirrel was very busy these days, as he had been offered a job on the Gazette, which he had accepted. He now divided his time between his memoirs and his journalistic work. His ambition was to write the editorials and influence public opinion. He felt eminently fitted for this. Unfortunately they were at present being written by Professor Hoot, who wrote dull passages such as:

  In the case of juvenile delinquency we have another instance of the unbridled tendencies of our modern era. Far from taming the budding flower of our manhood, we cast adrift the stones of our future ship of state and con tinue to nurse the viper in our bosom for the paltry sum of a few moments’ peace.

  Mr. Squirrel felt that he could do better than that.

  He had composed a song on Felix which had been printed in the Gazette.

  RED SQUIRREL’S LAMENT

  Our love is lost—what shall we do?

  Uncurl our tails … alas … alack …

  Felix—the name goes through and through

  Our hearts. Come back, Felix, come back.

  You were our friend, you shared our nuts,

  Our nests were gladdened when you came,

  Now all is gray—Felix, come back,

  Without you, nothing is the same.

  The dwarfs had wept when they read this. They didn’t have the heart to object to having a squirrel family in their tree. When Mamma Squirrel came down to tidy their kitchen, they were even grateful.

  Gradually Brother Alban began to feel better, and finally the day arrived when he was allowed to sit up in a chair. The others were very excited about it. Brother Ubald chose the softest armchair and made it more comfortable with his own pillows and blankets. Brother Botolph lit a roaring fire in the grate and had marshmallows handy for toasting.

  Mamma Squirrel got wind of the event (she could follow everything that went on by listening at the chimney) and dressed up herself and the triplets to pay a visit. They carried gifts, of course—a special nut cake which it had taken Mamma two days to bake, some acorn bread, and various other delicacies.

  “Now, take off your caps, dears,” said Mamma Squirrel proudly when they were admitted into the presence of the invalid, who seemed to have disappeared entirely among his cushions and blankets. “Say ‘How do you do?’ to dear Uncle Alban.… The right paw, there’s my good little men.… I hope you don’t mind my bringing them, Mr. Alban, but they’ve been praying to the great Pan for you every day, and they wanted so much to come. No, Carmine, don’t touch those … they’re marshmallows, honey, but not for you. Oh, Mr. Botolph, you’re too kind, they shouldn’t beg. Now, one then, Carmine. Yes, of course, Coral and Crimson may have one too, if Uncle Botolph permits it.… Now watch you don’t mess.… Oh dear, all over your best suit.… Don’t lick at it; put it into your mouth all at once and swallow.… Oh dear, she’s choking …” Mamma Squirrel quickly held Coral upside down and saved the child’s life. Then she caught Crimson before he fell into the fire, and prevented Carmine from playing with a knife. She didn’t stay long, which was just as well, as poor Brother Alban still felt very weak.

  However, he was on the mend and every day saw an improvement in his condition. The winter wasn’t over yet before he was up and about, and very grateful for it.

  “I never knew I’d enjoy washing dishes,” he said, blinking watery eyes. He took longer to do things; he wasn’t the dwarf he had been; but he felt happy. It seemed such a privilege to be alive.

  Brother Ubald and Brother Botolph were happy too. It seemed to them such a privilege to have Brother Alban do the work again. And, true to their resolution, they helped him more. They dried the dishes after every meal, surprised him sometimes by making their own beds, and laid the table for him.

  Brother Alban couldn’t get over it. “Everyone is so kind to me,” he quavered. He still missed Felix very much, but it was a gentler ache than it had been in the beginning. He welcomed Felix’s friends when they came to the door. Poor frozen forest children were allowed to warm themselves in his kitchen, and he always had an extra cup of soup for them. That seemed to bring Felix nearer, somehow.

  Having the Squirrel family live in the same tree proved a comfort, as Mamma had hoped. She had a basket on a string, which she lowered to the dwarfs’ front door, filled with little surprises. Brother Alban would return the compliment by placing a dish of his delicious mushroom goulash in the basket, or a special big pumpkin.

  That way relations between the two households became friendlier and friendlier, and when Mamma Squirrel gave birth to twins early in the year the dwarfs were the first, after her, to see the babies. (Mr. Squirrel was out on an assignment for the Gazette at the time.)

  The dwarfs gave her excellent advice on the feeding and bathing of infants. She called the twins Ruby and Rusty.

  Soon it was quite a familiar sight to see one of the dwarfs dandling a squirrel baby on his lap, or feeding it, or changing its linen. This proved very lucky for Mamma too, for Ross had deserted her. He had discovered a very pretty little gray squirrel who lived in the ash tree beside the oak tree, and now he was always at her house, and Mamma scarcely ever saw him. She would have been very helpless and lonely without the dwarfs, but they had got so used to looking after Felix that it was a relief to them to take care of her.

  And so the dark days passed, and the new spring with its sunshine and promise was just around the corner.

  6. The Nectar Party

  After so sad a winter, the spring seemed more of a miracle than ever. Never was there such stealthy growing and unfolding, such gentle surprises, such twittering and wooing and blooming and betrothing. Scarlet and Pinkie both got married. Their mother did not shed a tear.

  “Why should I?” she said. “They’re happy. They’ve both got good husbands who don’t know what is in store for them.”

  Ross and little Griselda, his sweetheart, went for long climbs in the moonlight. They would have got married too if Ross had not been so solid and dependable. “I must first find a good job,” he told her. “I want you to have a maid and all the comforts. You’re not to slave and drudge, like my poor mamma. When I do things, I do them properly.”

  Griselda admired him very much for this, though she would rather have married right away. She wasn’t sure she even wanted a maid. Wasn’t it more fun to look after your own nest? However, already she realized that Ross knew best—which was just as well for her.

  It was again the season of birth. As spring advanced, with more and more blossoms and babies, Brother Botolph began to feel worried about the way the young things were left to jump around, without supervision. In the old days he had only objected to the noise; now it worried him that the tiny creatures might get hurt.

  “Look,” he exclaimed one day, “Ruby almost broke her neck, falling out of the tree! Do you know what? I’ll clear part of our yard, put in a swing and a sandbox, and then I’ll tell the mothers to send their babies here, where they’ll be safe.” He had hardly thought of it when he was already sawing the wood for the fence. Soon he had made a beautiful playground. “If only I had had the wit to make one for Felix,” he lamented, brushing a tear out of his eye.

  The mothers of the forest were grateful. Every morning they brought their babies, and every evening they came to fetch them. Brother Botolph had even made a tiny pond for tadpoles, out of the way of ducks. He began to enjoy playing with the young folks, and could not understand why he had ever been cross with them.

  Brother Ubald could not stay in the library while all this was going on. He took the storybooks Felix had
liked best and sat under a tree, reading aloud to whoever wanted to listen—and he never lacked an audience. Brother Alban would interrupt whatever was going on by sudden appearances, his arms full of surprises. Sometimes it was strings of popped corn, sometimes a huge dish of doughnuts, or baskets of peanuts, or cinnamon sticks to chew on, or toffee. Sometimes it was a bowl of soapy water and pipes, for blowing bubbles, or homemade paper trumpets, or colored hats. Whatever it was, it added to the general gaiety.

  The dwarfs felt less and less lonely as they made more friends. They were always welcome at Mamma Squirrel’s, where Mr. Squirrel, who had returned from his trip for the Gazette, had taken to reading aloud. He recited poetry or read out his memoirs, and the dwarfs were full of admiration. “It’s good to get the opinion of intelligent people, for a change,” Mr. Squirrel told his wife.

  When the Skunk-Phoos gave their annual nectar party, the dwarfs were invited, for the first time. After a certain amount of trepidation, they decided to accept.

  Messrs. Ubald, Alban, and Botolph McOakum will be delighted to accept the kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Skunk-Phoo to a nectar party at “The Willows,” Blueberry Avenue, King Oberon’s Forest, at six P.M., July the twentieth inst.

  They didn’t know what “inst.” meant, but it had been on the invitation, so they copied it. They copied RSVP also, only Mr. Squirrel saw their letter before they posted it and told them not to, for it only meant that they were to answer. The dwarfs felt rather annoyed about that.

  “Of course we’d answer; where do they think we’ve learned our manners?” they grumbled.

  Mr. Squirrel explained that it was just a custom. “It makes the invitation seem more important.”

  “Well, they could be important without insulting us,” the dwarfs protested.

  “Hardly,” said Mr. Squirrel, who was used to society by now.

  The dwarfs were in a great state of excitement about this party. They hadn’t made a public appearance since their father’s funeral, twenty years ago.

  “What are we to wear?” they asked. Mr. Squirrel told them that everyone else would be putting on his best clothes. There would be a description of the general appearance of the most important guests. Naturally the dwarfs felt they were important, so this frightened them.

  “I can’t go in my overalls,” Brother Botolph decided.

  “Of course you can’t,” the others chorused. “We must look and see what we have in our trunk. What did we wear at the funeral?”

  It turned out that there were three frock coats in the trunk which more or less fitted them. Mamma Squirrel said she’d press the coats. Brother Alban laundered three white shirts and polished three pairs of boots. They shampooed their beards the night before, and promised to look very smart.

  “If only Felix could have seen us dressed up,” they mourned. “He’d have been so proud.”

  Mamma Squirrel wasn’t able to help them as much as they had hoped, for she had Mr. Squirrel’s tie to fix, and his collar buttons to find, and his cuffs to fasten, besides putting on her own best suit and hat. Ross had promised to baby-sit for his mother. It was a cheap way of entertaining Griselda (he was going to read to her from the Gazette), and he was a frugal young man.

  However, by fastening one another’s cuffs, and brushing one another’s backs, the dwarfs got dressed in proper fashion and set out, filled with anticipation. The wood was in a somnolent July mood. It had been a hot day, and midges danced between the dark, heavy leaves that already began to show yellow edges. They arrived early at the Skunk-Phoo mansion, set a little bit off the path and built under two willow trees. A maid—a sister of Miss Rosie Chipmunk, called Susie—in white cap and apron, opened the door for them. They expected to have their hands shaken in cordial welcome, but she merely looked over their heads and asked for their names. (“Just as if we weren’t invited,” Brother Alban muttered angrily.)

  She then took their hats and coats and opened a door to the Skunk-Phoo living room, saying in a bored voice, “The Brothers McOakum.”

  Mr. Skunk-Phoo had on a simple suit—not half as elegant as their own, the dwarfs were pleased to observe. But Mrs. Skunk-Phoo had really pulled out all the stops. She was in a gold lamé gown, showing her whole back with its two white stripes. Her forelegs were covered, however, and she wore lace mitts on her paws. Her hair was smoothed away tight from her forehead, with a glistening lacquer on it. She wore big gold earrings and carried a long red cigarette holder with a cigarette in it, at which she puffed now and again in a manner which showed that it was really more trouble than it was worth.

  “How do you do?” she said with sleepy exaltation when she saw the dwarfs. “Delighted you could come—simply delighted. Do make yourselves at home.” Then she turned to Mrs. Powderpuff, who had just entered, trailing a scarf. “How do you do?” she said in exactly the same tone. “Delighted you could come—simply delighted. Do make yourself at home.”

  The dwarfs didn’t stop to listen to more. They mingled with the crowd, for a crowd was there already, at this early hour. There weren’t enough chairs for people to sit down. The dwarfs were surprised at that: their mother had taught them that the first thing you offer a visitor is a chair. But here everyone was standing. Though it was a large, bare room, the atmosphere was getting smoky and it was hard to breathe. Several weasels, who had been hired for the evening, went around with trays bearing glasses of nectar. The dwarfs timidly took one each; as they sipped the nectar they noticed that it had a rather stinging taste. They stood shyly together, with their backs to the wall. They hadn’t realized how many people they did not know.

  At last they caught sight of a familiar face: it was Archibald, in a white sailor suit. “Hullo,” they said, but Archibald merely gave them a nod and went on. His interest was in the food, he had his eye on various little canapés and small rolls that were being served, and managed to intercept several dishes, which never reached their destination.

  “I don’t know why we were invited,” whispered Brother Ubald to Brother Alban. “No one pays the slightest attention to us; nobody seems to want to talk to us. It is more comfortable at home, where we can sit down. Let’s leave.”

  “Wait a minute—the Squirrels have just arrived; let’s say hello to them first,” proposed Brother Alban. They had taken so much trouble dressing, it seemed a pity to go before anyone had had a chance to admire them. Mr. Squirrel had already caught sight of them and was working his way to them through the crowd. He seemed to know everybody; there were cries of, “Hi, Red, how’s the memoirs? … Write me up, please! … I’ve got a piece of news for you, Red.… Meet my niece, Red, she has been longing to be introduced to you; she so much admired your poem in the Gazette.… Red, listen to this one, you’ll die laughing …” and that sort of thing. Red smiled, sparkled, twinkled, but steadily worked his way to the dwarfs.

  “Ooph!” he sighed when he reached them. “Hasn’t anyone introduced you to anyone, the way you three are standing there as if you were up for auction? … Come along with me, then, and I’ll show you the life of the forest. The great thing about nectar parties is that you can do what you like. It’s no use being modest, you know; that’s out of fashion now. People will think as much of you as you think yourself. See that woodchuck over there? He is a common enough fellow, hasn’t anything to say for himself, but he studied the fashion journals and made himself look so smart that he is invited to the best parties. He knows he is not interesting, so he never says a word, but looks through his monocle and makes others feel inferior. Here is an amusing creature, though—she is our fashion editor, and she may put you in the paper, if you like. Miss Pigeon, may I introduce you to the Brothers McOakum?”

  “Oh, dwarfs,” said Miss Pigeon with a delighted giggle. “I adore dwarfs! Do tell me all about yourselves. It’s hot, isn’t it?—hotter than usual at this time of the year. Have you played any golf lately? … Oh, you never do.… No, of course, one can overdo sports.… Yes, I entirely agree with you; it is all so sup
erficial. You dwarfs are awfully learned, I hear. My father used to know your father, I believe.… Didn’t you write something.… Oh, I see; no, perhaps it was somebody else I was thinking of. Oh, there is Mrs. Pheasant—do excuse me; I promised …” Miss Pigeon had fluttered off, and Mr. Squirrel was nowhere to be seen either. The dwarfs were again left to themselves.

  “Let’s go home,” Brother Ubald proposed, but just at that moment the waiters came round with a dish of delicious cream buns, and the dwarfs couldn’t resist taking one each. They felt weak from standing. Unfortunately, there was more cream in the buns than they had anticipated. It spouted up their noses, lodged in their beards, and spread over their cheeks. It was a funny sight, and people in the neighborhood began to giggle. The dwarfs tried frantically to lick up the superfluous cream; their tongues, however, did not stretch far enough, and the result was worse. It was exactly as if they’d been soaped up for a shave. Conscious of mocking glances aimed at them from all directions, they hauled forth their handkerchiefs and wiped one another’s faces.

  “What antediluvian characters,” they heard a fashionable wood hen say. “Where did dear Vincent dig them up?”

  “They are probably here for comic relief,” her partner drawled.

  The dwarfs were deeply hurt. They had been so long away from society that they had forgotten what it feels like to be criticized.

  “Let’s go,” they whispered, quickly pocketing their sticky handkerchiefs. But now that they wanted to slip away unnoticed they seemed to meet everyone they knew.

  “Ah, the dwarfs!” cried Professor Hoot. “Dear Ubald, may I introduce you to my wife? … Honey, here are the dwarfs you’ve heard so much about. Ubald is an extremely learned man.”