III
White Sox Learns Many Things

When White Sox and the fawns returned from the brook where the dwarf willows grew, he was full of a new subject that he could not understand, and of course he wanted his mother to explain it.

“Mother,” he said, “the water in the brook was very clear this morning. When I bent my head to take a drink, I saw the picture of my antlers. They are not so big and strong as those of the caribou fawns. There is one little fellow here—much younger than I—whose upright branches are longer than mine.”[1]

“Very likely he’ll need his horns more than you will,” said Mother Reindeer.

“Not if I become a caribou, mother; and I do so want to stay here and have a good time all my life,” pleaded White Sox. Then he looked at her curiously and said, “Mother, the caribou all seem to have better antlers than the reindeer. You are like the caribou; your coat is of the same color when you stand in the deep moss and hide your white ankles. But your antlers—”

“Well, what’s the matter with them?” she asked, when her son paused.

“I don’t know, mother,” he answered. “Something seems to be wrong with them. You have twenty-two points still covered with velvet, but the points are soft. They curve inward. I don’t think they would be of much use in a fight.”

“Neither do I,” said Mother Reindeer, “but I am not expecting to get into a fight. I lost a set of beautiful antlers when you were born. Mothers usually lose their horns at such times. The big herd was kept on the shores of a lagoon near the beach while my new set was growing. Mosquitoes were very thick at that place. I had to keep shaking my head from side to side to beat off the pests. That constant striking of my growing horns caused them to curve inward at the ends.”

“The leader of the caribou has a fine set of antlers,” White Sox told her. “I counted forty-seven points, all peeled and sharpened for service. Will mine ever be like his, mother?”

“Don’t worry, my son,” said Mother Reindeer, kindly. “You’ll grow a new set of antlers each year. I’ve grown and cast fifteen sets. No two of them were alike.”

Mother Reindeer knew that the size and shape of antlers and the number of their points all depended on the summer range. If she and White Sox were to adopt the wild life of the caribou, their antlers would be as large and strong as those of their wild cousins. But she was too wise to tell this to her son before he had learned his first lessons.

Away he skipped. If he could not match the caribou fawns in antlers, he could equal them in fleetness. My, how he could run! Mother Reindeer watched him now, and she thought that his white stockings looked for all the world like a streak of snow above the moss. She knew, too, that his cousins envied him those white stockings, and she hoped that he would have sense enough not to become vain of them.

When the second night came, White Sox was very tired and sleepy. But his wild cousins would not let him rest in peace. Just about midnight they decided to move to the next ridge. They were no sooner comfortably settled there than the leader ordered them all to another place. When daylight came, White Sox complained to his mother about this frequent moving.

“Mother, do our wild cousins never rest and sleep?” he asked. “I’ve lost more sleep these two nights than during all the past month. And tell me, please, mother, why do they eat the poor, short dry moss on the top of the ridges and knob hills, when there is much better grazing in the valleys?”

But Mother Reindeer answered only with a shake of her wise head. She knew perfectly well that White Sox might forget the things she told him, but he would always remember the things he found out for himself.

While White Sox waited for her to speak, he saw her turn her head to the right, then to the left, just as the caribou were always doing—looking for trouble.

“Mother, you’ve caught their nervous habit,” he said. “It’s the only thing about our cousins that I don’t like. Well, if I can’t get enough sleep here, I’m surely going to have enough to eat. I’m not going to punish myself by adopting foolish caribou habits. There’ll be some good moss in that little valley down there. I’m going to have it for my breakfast.”

Away he went. Mother Reindeer followed him quickly. Sure enough, as they crossed a patch where dwarf willows grew they came upon some of the finest moss. Um! it made their mouths water. But do you think White Sox had that moss for his breakfast? No, indeed!

Mother Reindeer shook her head. “You come right up to this other knoll at once,” she ordered, sternly. “The restless habits of your wild cousins are not foolish styles, as you’ll soon find out. Come right along, now, and pay attention to what I say. Your father once called my ear buttons a ‘foolish female style,’ but he changed his mind about it when the herders clamped buttons on his own ears.”

White Sox followed his mother up the slope to the little knoll. He did not like it one bit, but he dared not disobey her. They had barely reached the high ground when they heard the frightened squawkings of a flock of ptarmigan, which rose like a cloud out of another patch of low arctic willows a few hundred yards from the spot where they had crossed the little valley.

“Look, look!” exclaimed White Sox, becoming excited. “I never saw so many ptarmigan before. I believe there are as many as there are reindeer in our big herd.”

But Mother Reindeer was looking this way and that, this way and that, looking and listening, just as the caribou did.

“Mother!” shouted White Sox, suddenly, “look at our wild cousins on that other ridge! See how scared they are! Ptarmigan can’t hurt them.”

“Keep quiet, my son!” commanded his mother. “That squawking of the ptarmigan is a danger signal. There’s a hungry fox among the willows who wanted to make his breakfast off a fat ptarmigan, or else it is—”

“What, mother?”

White Sox had crept close to her side; but he also was looking this way and that, this way and that.

“It may be a wolf,” said Mother Reindeer.

“A wolf!” repeated White Sox, in a whisper.

“If it were a herder looking for us, we should see his head and shoulders above the willows. It must be that a wolf has scented us from afar.”

Mother Reindeer was right. But it was not one wolf. Hardly had she said the words when three big gray wolves left the willows by a small ravine that ended near the herd of frightened caribou.

But the caribou could not see the wolves. White Sox forgot everything except the fact that his cousins were in danger. He must warn them instantly.

Before his mother could stop him, he had given out three piercing bleats, “He-awk! he-awk! he-awk!”

The very next instant a big black wolf came out of the willows. It was followed by a gray one. They started up the slope toward him and his mother.