Tucker's Countryside Page 3

  “And it isn’t just me,” Chester went on. “What’s going to happen to everyone else who lives here? I could get by in any little old bush, houses or no houses. And so could John Robin and Bill Squirrel; they don’t mind houses, as long as there are trees around. But what about all the rabbits and the chipmunks and the pheasants? And Simon Turtle—it’ll be the death of him if they put the brook underground!” The cricket fell silent and shifted uneasily from one set of legs to another. Tucker and Harry had never seen such a fretful look on his face.

  “Now don’t worry,” said Harry Cat. “We’ll think of something, Chester.”

  “I certainly hope so!” said Chester. “All the meadow folks I know—we haven’t been able to come up with a single good idea!”

  In order that the cat and the mouse might have a clear picture of the problem, and also to meet some of Chester’s friends, the cricket took them both on a tour of the Old Meadow. It was roughly in the shape of a square. The brook, which started out life as the overflow of a reservoir, entered the meadow from the west at the southwest corner. It bubbled along parallel to the southern border until it came to the hilly, woody land in the southeast. There, since its way was blocked, it turned back toward the center of the meadow and proceeded northward. But then, for no apparent reason, when the brook was approaching the northern border, it suddenly changed its mind. It made a sharp turn—that was where Chester’s stump was located—and flowed along in an eastern direction until it left the meadow at the northeast corner. It was as if the brook, like everyone else who lived in the Old Meadow, just simply loved the place and wanted to spend as much of its time as it could right there.

  Chester first led his friends through what he called “Tuffet Country.” That was the stretch of land just south of his stump. And, naturally, it was full of tuffets. It was also full of various rabbits and sundry fieldmice. That was how Chester introduced them. “There are too many of you to call by name,” he said, “so I’ll just say, Harry Cat and Tucker Mouse, these are various rabbits and sundry fieldmice.”

  Lots of timid little whiskered faces and soft brown rabbit eyes peeked out from around tuffets and through the tall grass. “I think the sundries are afraid of Harry,” said Tucker Mouse under his breath.

  “Nobody be scared!” said Chester in a loud voice. “These are friends. They’ve come to help us.”

  There was a rustling, whispery pause. Then a tiny voice, which probably came from the littlest sundry, shouted out, “Hooray!”

  The three friends continued on through the meadow, walking beside the brook and stopping every now and again so that Tucker could pick a few more fern handkerchiefs. “Everybody is really counting on us, aren’t they, Chester?” said the mouse. “To save the meadow, I mean.”

  “We certainly are!” said Chester. “We’ve been racking our brains for weeks and weeks, and not even Simon Turtle could think of anything.”

  “When do we meet Mr. Turtle?” said Harry Cat.

  “Very soon now,” answered Chester. “First we go through Pasture Land, and then we come to the pool where Simon lives. You know, the whole meadow used to be part of a farm. The farm house either burned down or fell down ages ago—the cellar is way over there in the west, across the brook, where those trees are—but the part where we are now, Pasture Land, is where the farmer kept his cows. See how nice and flat and green it is?”

  And, indeed, the grass over which they walked now was as soft and thick as a tended lawn. Buttercups and forget-me-nots swarmed over the earth. And near the brook, where the soil was moist, tall irises lifted elegant purple blossoms. Tucker Mouse heaved a sigh. “Ah, the countryside!” Then he sneezed and blew his nose again.

  At the end of Pasture Land they came to the hilly country where the brook turned in toward the center of the meadow. Beneath one of the rises the water had formed a deep, still pool. The current ran slow, and a glint of fish could be seen from the dark but living depths. This was Simon’s Pool. And despite the fish who lived there, two or three crafty water snakes, and half a dozen pompous bullfrogs, there was no question who ruled the water. Simon Turtle was by far the oldest and also one of the most revered dwellers in the Old Meadow—even if he did have a tendency, like many old souls, to reminisce a little too much.

  Chester found him taking the sun on the back of a big log that had floated up beside the bank. “Mr. Turtle, these are my friends Harry Cat and Tucker Mouse—the ones I told you about.”

  Simon craned his head out from under his black, wavy shell. His eyes were sharp and wise, but not unkind. He gave Harry and Tucker a long, hard look. And when those eyes had looked at you, you knew you’d been looked at! “Pleased to meet you,” said Simon in a raspy, soft voice. Harry and Tucker both said they were glad to meet him, too. “What do you think of our meadow?” the turtle went on.

  “Wonderful!” said Harry.

  “Beautiful!” said Tucker, suppressing a sneeze.

  “You should have seen it the way it was when I was your age,” said Simon Turtle. “Now that was real country then! There were only three or four houses across the road there, in the east—and north and south, maybe one or two—and off west, none at all! Just good thick forested hills. Did you know there even used to be deer in the meadow?”

  Chester Cricket could see that the old turtle was longing to share some of his recollections with Tucker and Harry. So he thought he’d just help him out with a hint. “One of Mr. Turtle’s best friends was a deer named Ned.”

  “The best, Chester—the best,” said Simon, “until I met you. What a buck he was too, Ned Deer! So strong and handsome, with beautiful tall antlers. And for some reason we just hit it off together and got to be best friends. I’m not very good at walking, you know—but when Ned and I would go for a stroll, he’d lounge along beside me on those long legs of his, very steady and slow, so that I could keep up. My, what talks we had! And what days!” The turtle shook his head at the joy the memory brought back to him. “But Ned’s relations—they all used to live down here, too—and they knew what was happening. They could see what was written in the trees chopped down and the hills dug up. They told Ned they’d have to leave pretty soon—go out there west, beyond the reservoir, where it still was forested and good. And one by one they did leave. But not Ned. He stayed in the meadow—out of friendship for me, I think. Until finally he was the last deer left.”

  Simon Turtle’s eyes went dark, and he pulled his head back under his shell a little, as if an old pain had been renewed. “Well, there came an autumn—October, it was—and on one afternoon both Ned and I realized that the whole west side had been built up just in one summer, while our backs were turned, you might say. That dreadful afternoon when we knew! For the first time I saw fear come in those beautiful great brown eyes of his. And my heart just shrank up inside me. I said to him, ‘Ned, you’ll have to go. No question about it. You wait till dark—and then run! There’s probably only a couple of rows of houses—you can get past them to the reservoir.’ Ned didn’t say anything—just nodded. And we started to work our way toward where the brook comes in. I can’t go back there any more—too much old sadness left for me there.”

  Simon Turtle cleared his throat, and went on. “That night came chill and misty—which was lucky, since Ned could hide in it. But he still couldn’t bring himself to leave. We just stood there, beside the brook, and neither one of us said a word. At last I had to speak! I said, ‘Go, Ned! For pity’s sake—run!’ He looked down on me, frowning that such a bad thing could happen—then, without a word, turned his back and ran. And I still hear his hoofs, at first on the turf and then on the streets the humans had built. It is something that you remember, you know—the sound of your best friend running away for dear life, when you know that you’ll never see him again.”

  The turtle fell silent, reliving the awful experience. Then, having gotten through it once more, he drew a deep breath and said, “And that was so long ago—ages!—I can’t even begin to remember the years.
Poor Ned, poor Ned. The way they’ve been building since then, he’s probably been pushed all the way up to Maine by now!”

  “At least he escaped,” said a small sad voice behind Tucker Mouse. “That’s more than we can.”

  Tucker turned around. In back of him two funny little animals were sitting on their hind legs. They each had auburn fur and bright black eyes and worried expressions on their faces. “This is Henry Chipmunk and his sister Emily,” said Chester.

  “How do you do?” said Emily Chipmunk, and made a short bow to the new arrivals. She was a few years older than Henry and very polite.

  “We’re awfully glad you’re here,” said Henry. It was he who had spoken before. “We’ll be safe now, won’t we?”

  “Well—I—I hope so.” Tucker Mouse was a bit flustered by the confidence everyone had in him. He glanced around and saw that they were completely surrounded by the animals of the meadow. While the turtle had been telling his story of Ned Deer, the various rabbits and sundry fieldmice had gone all over, telling everyone they met that Chester’s friends from the city had arrived and that now everything would be all right. “I certainly hope we can help you,” said Tucker nervously.

  “I know you can!” said someone above them. Halfway up the hill grew an elm tree. And one of its branches extended out over the pool. A squirrel was perched there.

  “That’s Bill,” said Chester.

  “Hi!” Bill Squirrel called down. As quick as blue fire, he ran back on the branch, down the trunk, and dashed over to join them. “Now what’s the plan?”

  “The plan?” Tucker looked helplessly at Harry Cat. “Harry—what’s the plan?”

  “You’re the expert on the countryside,” said Harry. “What is the plan?”

  “Um—the plan.” Tucker began thinking in earnest, pacing back and forth. “The plan, the plan—” And then suddenly he did have a plan! “Well, of course! The plan!” He shook his head at the ease of it all. “Really, Chester, it’s so obvious I’m surprised you didn’t think of it yourself.”

  “What?” “What?” “What?” shouted everyone at once.

  “All Chester has to do is chirp!” announced the mouse. “I mean, chirp human music! When the people all realize that the famous cricket from Times Square is now living in Connecticut, and giving concerts again, they won’t dare tear up his meadow!”

  “Oh, Tucker, I did think of that already,” said Chester.

  “Oh, you did, did you?” said Tucker. He was secretly a little put out that someone had thought of his plan before him. “Then why didn’t you do it?”

  “It won’t work,” said the cricket. “In the first place, if I started giving concerts again, somebody would probably try to catch me. I wouldn’t mind that, though. If living in a cage could save the meadow, I’d be glad to. But even if I wasn’t caught—if I stayed right here—people would come pouring in to listen. You remember how crowded it got in the subway station when I played. Well, they’d come in cars, they’d come on foot, and they’d trample down everything! We want to keep the meadow the way it is.”

  “Hmm,” mumbled Tucker Mouse. “I guess you’re right.”

  “What’s the next plan?” asked Bill Squirrel.

  Tucker looked at all the faces that were staring at him hopefully. He shifted from one foot to the other. “I can’t think of anything else. Right now.”

  Gloom spread among the animals. And whispers went back and forth: “No plan,” “No other plan,” “The mouse has no more plans.”

  Henry Chipmunk looked in Tucker’s eyes a moment and then glanced away. “We were—we were sort of—counting on you, Mr. Mouse. Chester told us how smart you were, and we thought—we thought—” But his voice broke. He put his two little front paws up to his own eyes and began to cry.

  “Now, now, Henry—don’t do that.” Chester Cricket patted the chipmunk on the back. He was so little that Henry could hardly feel it through his fur, but it helped, and the chipmunk stopped crying. “Tucker and Harry only got here today. They’ll think of something before too long. Why don’t all you folks go home now? And try not to worry—it’ll just take a little time.”

  Gradually the animals dispersed. As the chipmunks were turning to go, Emily said to Tucker and Harry, “Won’t you both please come and visit us some time? We live over in the west there—in the cellar of the old farm house.”

  “Delighted to,” said Harry Cat. Tucker said nothing.

  When everyone had left, Simon Turtle craned his head toward the mouse and said, “Don’t be too upset now. That Henry’s still a very young chipmunk. They’re an emotional breed, too. Always were.”

  Tucker Mouse shook his head. “That was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Worse than being trampled on in the subway. I never saw a chipmunk cry before.”

  “You never saw a chipmunk before!” said Harry Cat.

  “But it was the crying that got me, Harry,” said Tucker. He stamped his foot impatiently. And it was only himself that he was impatient with. “We’ve got to think of something, Harry! We’ve just got to!”

  “Now take it easy, Mousiekins.” Harry Cat put his paw on Tucker’s back—but gently this time. “We will.”

  FOUR

  Ellen

  The worried silence in which Harry, Tucker, Chester, and Simon Turtle were sitting was broken by a wild chattering in the elm tree above them. Bill Squirrel had returned to his branch, but now he began jumping around furiously as he shouted down at them, “Watch out! Here comes—”

  Before he could finish, the others saw what was coming; a huge Saint Bernard dog bounded over the top of the hill, paused, saw Harry Cat, and charged down on him like a locomotive. It was just at this moment that Tucker learned whether he could swim or not—because Harry, in his sudden fright, knocked his friend over into the brook. It turned out that Tucker could swim. He paddled, spluttering, back to the bank just in time to see Harry Cat, who had no escape, take a good claw at the tender nose of the Saint Bernard. The big dog reared back on his hind legs, and Harry—a neat piece of strategy—dashed right between them, up the hill, and up the tree trunk to the safety of a high branch. The dog ran back after him, barking with rage. Two or three times he jumped up as far as he could on the trunk of the elm, but fell back helpless. Harry was well out of reach.

  “Nice, peaceful meadow you’ve got here, Chester!” said Tucker Mouse, as he shook what water he could out of his fur.

  “That was awful!” said the cricket. “Ellen and the little kids don’t usually come over until the afternoon.”

  “Who’s Ellen?” said Tucker.

  “That’s her.” Chester pointed up to the top of the hill. A girl had appeared there. With her were four smaller children, two boys and two girls. “The little kids are Nancy, Anne, Jaspar, and John.”

  Up on the hill Ellen was scolding the Saint Bernard. “Stop that! Stop that barking, Ruff! Bad dog!—to chase the kitty like that.”

  “Bad dog! Bad dog!” One of the little boys joined in the scolding. He made a fist with his right hand, heaved back, and then socked the dog right in the jaw.

  “Wow!” said Tucker Mouse. “That little guy better watch what he’s doing!”

  “It’s all right,” said Chester. “The dog belongs to his family. He’s Jaspar. Ruff loves him.”

  Just as Chester had said, Ruff, the Saint Bernard, seemed to regard Jaspar’s sock as no more than a love pat. He leaned over and gave the boy such a sloppy, big kiss that it sent him rolling down the hill. Jaspar enjoyed his rolling, however, and helped it along, aiming himself right toward the bank of the pool.

  “Don’t you roll in that water, Jaspar!” shouted Ellen.

  Jaspar stopped himself on the very brink. He stood up and said glumly, “I never get to do nothin’!”

  “‘I never get to do anything,’” Ellen corrected him. “And you do so! You do everything you shouldn’t.” She looked up at Harry sitting on a branch of the tree. “Here, Kittykittykittykitty! Come down—I won’t let th
e big dog hurt you.”

  Harry miaowed to her. She didn’t understand, of course, but Tucker and Chester did. He was saying, “I think I’ll stay right here for a while, thank you.”

  “Let’s go down to the Special Place,” Ellen said to the smaller children. “That’ll give the kitty a chance to come down. Jaspar, you make sure Ruff stays with us.”

  “So stay with us!” Jaspar shouted at the dog. He lifted one ear and went “Boo!” inside it. But Ruff couldn’t be made angry. He barked happily at the teasing. With Ellen and the others he went off down the other side of the hill, away from the pool.

  Chester and Tucker climbed up the hill and reached the foot of the tree just as Harry was scrambling down. “Well, that was an invigorating experience!” said the cat.

  “What did the brute say while he was chasing you?” asked Tucker.

  “He didn’t say anything,” said Harry Cat. “He just barked. I think he’s lived around human beings so long he’s forgotten how to talk to other animals.”

  “Serves him right!” muttered Tucker.

  “You aren’t hurt, are you, Harry?” said Chester. “He isn’t a bad dog, really.”

  “No, I’m not hurt,” said Harry Cat. “And I know he isn’t a bad dog. He’s just doing what dogs in Connecticut do—which is chase cats. I think it’s awfully primitive, though. At least that girl liked me.”

  “She’s always wanted a cat,” said Chester. “Right over there is where she and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hadley, live.” From the top of the hill the animals could see across the road that ran beside the meadow in the east. Opposite them, on the other side, stood a white house with green trim.