Ant ventures

Maybe you think that after the kind words of Mr. Woodchuck, and the harmless way in which he just curled himself up and went to sleep, there was nothing more to be feared from him, but there was!

The snoring itself was pretty bad, but they could stand that. And the smell of the wet fur, that began to steam when he grew warm and snuggly as he slept, was pretty bad, but they could stand that too.

The real scary thing about it was that in his sleep he did something besides snore. He talked to himself, and made horrible, deep noises in his throat, and sometimes snoofed so suddenly that it made them jump. The whole log shook with the rain, wind, snoring, snoofing, and other noises, and trembled like the whole company.

All at once he wakened with such a start that they thought their last minutes had come this time. But after the big start that terrified them he was all right, and wakened the rest of the way more slowly and gently, though he still did a lot of short, muffled snoofings for a few minutes.

The rain and the wind died down meanwhile, and there were not quite all of those twenty-seven noises outside, so things really were much better.

“Hello, folks!” he said as he slowly and carefully uncurled himself. “How’s the weather? Any better?”

They all nodded, so he said, “Good! I hope I did not snore and make other noises. Did I?”

Well, to be honest, they all had to nod again, and they did.

“Now, that’s too bad,” he said. “It must have frightened you, and you shall have an explanation. You see, I had a fierce dream, and when I have a fierce dream I suppose I make fierce noises. This time I dreamed I was a Pirate with a capital P. Want to hear about it?”

Well, of course they had to nod again, and, to tell the truth, they were all curious to know what a Pirate was, for none of them had seen one. The Woodchuck was so kind too, for all his noises, that if they were careful to keep out from under him they were safe enough. He had them come as close to the center of the log near him as they could, and then, in as low and soft snoofly sort of voice as he could, he talked to them.

“I suppose dreams come to us because of things we have been thinking hard about in the daytime, or things that have happened to us out of the common. That’s why I dreamed my fierce dream, no doubt. Here’s the thing that made me dream:

“As far back as yesterday, I was off near a fine cornfield a good bit of a distance from here, where in the spring I nearly got caught once for eating some of the corn the farmer had just planted in the hills. My farthest entrance to Burrow Hall is near that field, and it was easy to get up there and find plenty to eat in those hills freshly planted. I had such a scare that time that not till yesterday did I have any more to do with that field than to run along the thickly tangled border of tall weeds once in awhile when I wished to go to another field. But yesterday the field was lying so quiet in the warm sunshine that I thought it quite safe to leave the tangled border and go into the thick rows of cornstalks. There is nothing that smells much better to me than the corn when the sun shines on it. Oh, my, but I like to take long whiffs of it!

“When I walked into the nice, long green hallways between the rows of corn, I was so happy I could have sung a song I used to sing years ago about ‘How Pleasant It Is in My Old Ground Home,’ but I kept perfectly quiet, for I knew it would not do to sing, as there might be men in that field. But I wandered slowly in and out of the rows, and felt the cool, green leaves of the corn brushing against my sides. I took the longest, deepest breaths I could, and the sweetness of the warm, ripe tassel blossoms on the top of the stalks came down to me and made me want to smell that sweetness forever. It made me drowsy too, and there was such a quiet, snuggly spot to curl up in on the sun-warmed ground close to a bunch of the thick stalks that I made myself forget about men and all things bad, and crawled into the smallest ball I could make of myself. The last I remembered was the good, clean, sweet perfume of the corn.

“I may have slept a long while, and I may have slept only a few minutes, but I could not tell. Yet all at once I was flying for my life through the rows of corn. I dodged here and there into other rows and then doubled back on my tracks to keep the man who was chasing me from knowing where I was. At last I was back in the friendly tangle of the weeds along the fence, and shivering with fright from head to tail. Through the weeds I could see the cornstalks moving where the man was rushing about hunting for me. Soon I saw him come out of the field and look all around.

“‘You old Pirate, you!’ he cried, shaking his fist toward the place where he thought I was hiding myself.

“Now that is the very worst name any good, innocent Woodchuck can be called. Do any of you know what it means?”

They all shook their heads.

“Neither do I,” said the Woodchuck. “That is, I don’t know much except that a Pirate is an awful thing. Once I saw pictures of a Pirate in a book two boys were reading in the farmer’s barn. They hid the book in the hay, and afterward part of it was under the corncrib where I strolled through, one day. The Pirate in the pictures was lean and dark and fierce-eyed, and he had knives, and a sword, and pistols, and a great black hat, and a black ship, and awful boots, and the worst lot of men like him on the ship, you ever saw. The words in the book were dreadful. I don’t know the meaning of them, but I am sure no good Woodchuck ever would want to say them and couldn’t invent such bad words if he tried. I saw a lot of things said about pieces of eight, about the Jolly Roger, about scuttling the ship, and about walking the plank. Anyway, I know from the farmer’s looks, and the way he shook his fist, that he could not have called me a worse name.

“That made me dream I was off on the big ocean in that black ship, and that I had that black hat, and looked mad as mad, and took my sword and waved it around my head, and hollered all those words I read in the book. Then all at once another ship came sailing along the ocean and fired a big cannon at me—bang, smash! Off I rolled into the ocean—ker-plunk, splash! Then I woke up, and glad was I to find I was not so awful a thing as a Pirate with a capital P, as they spelled him in the book. If that farmer had seen the picture of the Pirate and then looked at me, he would have seen at once there was no reason to call me such a thing—an innocent Woodchuck like myself who never carried a sword in my life, nor would think of such a thing!”

The whole company thought the same thing, and as the storm had stopped, and they could make the Woodchuck hear, they thanked him, not only for letting them stay, but for telling them his dream. It had been like a lecture, for a lecture teaches things, and they had learned what a Pirate is.

Then, stepping as carefully as they could on the nearest dry places, out they went from Hollow-Log Inn: Anthony Ant, the Crickets, the Thousand-legged Worms, the Daddy Long-legs; the little Bugs, the medium-sized Bugs, and big Bugs; the Toad, the Lizard, the green Snake, the draggled Moth, the Walking-Stick Insect, the Snail in a shell, the Snapping Beetle, the Berry Bug, the Katydid; the funny thing that might have been a Katydidn’t; the unpleasant, wiggly thing part Bug and part Worm; the Locust, the Slug, and goodness knows what else besides!