The Tale of Solomon Owl, Arthur Scott Bailey [first color ebook reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Arthur Scott Bailey
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But they were all disappointed. However, they enjoyed the sight of Solomon hurling himself against tree-trunks. And the louder he groaned, the more people gathered around him.
[pg 056]Cured At Last
“How do you feel now?” Aunt Polly Woodchuck asked Solomon Owl, when he had come back to her house after a week's absence.
“No better!” he groaned. “I still have pains. But they seem to have moved and scattered all over me.”
“Good!” she exclaimed with a smile. “You are much better, though you didn't know it. The wishbone is broken. You broke it by flying against the trees. And you ought not to have any more trouble. But let me examine you!” she said, prodding him in the waistcoat once more.
[pg 057]“This is odd!” she continued a bit later. “I can feel the wishbone more plainly than ever.”
“That's my own wishbone!” Solomon cried indignantly. “I've grown so thin through not eating that it's a wonder you can't feel my backbone, too.”
Aunt Polly Woodchuck looked surprised.
“Perhaps you're right!” said she. “Not having a wishbone of my own, I forgot that you had one.”
A look of disgust came over Solomon Owl's face.
“You're a very poor doctor,” he told her. “Here you've kept me from eating for a whole week—and I don't believe it was necessary at all!”
“Well, you're better, aren't you?” she asked him.
[pg 058]“I shall be as soon as I have a good meal,” replied Solomon Owl, hopefully.
“You ought not to eat anything for another week,” Aunt Polly told him solemnly.
“Nonsense!” he cried.
“I'm a doctor; and I ought to know best,” she insisted.
But Solomon Owl hooted rudely.
“I'll never come to you for advice any more,” he declared. “I firmly believe that my whole trouble was simply that I've been eating too sparingly. And I shall take good care to see that it doesn't happen again.”
No one had ever spoken to Aunt Polly in quite that fashion—though old Mr. Crow had complained one time that she had cured him too quickly. But she did not lose her temper, in spite of Solomon's jeers.
[pg 059]“You'll be back here again the very next time you're ill,” she remarked. “And if you continue to swallow your food whole——”
But Solomon Owl did not even wait to hear what she said. He was so impolite that he flew away while she was talking. And since it was then almost dark, and a good time to look for field mice, he began his night's hunting right there in Farmer Green's pasture.
By morning Solomon was so plump that Aunt Polly Woodchuck would have had a good deal of trouble finding his wishbone. But since he did not visit her again, she had no further chance to prod him in the waistcoat.
Afterward, Solomon heard a bit of gossip that annoyed him. A friend of his reported that Aunt Polly Woodchuck was going about and telling everybody how she had saved Solomon's life.
[pg 060]“Mice!” he exclaimed (he often said that when some would have said “Rats!”). “There's not a word of truth in her claim. And if people in this neighborhood keep on taking her advice and her catnip tea they're going to be sorry some day. For they'll be really ill the first thing they know. And then what will they do?”
[pg 061]Benjamin Bat
Solomon Owl was by no means the only night-prowler in Pleasant Valley. He had neighbors that chose to sleep in the daytime, so they might roam through the woods and fields after dark. One of these was Benjamin Bat. And furthermore, he was the color of night itself.
[pg 062]Now, Benjamin Bat was an odd chap. When he was still he liked to hang by his feet, upside down. And when he was flying he sailed about in a zigzag, helter-skelter fashion. He went in so many different directions, turning this way and that, one could never tell where he was going. One might say that his life was just one continual dodge—when he wasn't resting with his heels where his head ought to be.
A good many of Benjamin Bat's friends said he certainly must be crazy, because he didn't do as they did. But that never made the slightest difference in Benjamin Bat's habits. He continued to zigzag through life—and hang by his heels—just the same. Perhaps he thought that all other people were crazy because they didn't do likewise.
Benjamin often dodged across Solomon Owl's path, when Solomon was hunting for field mice. And since Benjamin was the least bit like a mouse himself—except for his wings—there was a time, once, when Solomon tried to catch him.
But Solomon Owl soon found that chasing Benjamin Bat made him dizzy. If Benjamin hadn't been used to hanging head downward, maybe he would have been dizzy, too.
[pg 063]Though the two often saw each other, Benjamin Bat never seemed to care to stop for a chat with Solomon Owl. One night, however, Benjamin actually called to Solomon and asked his advice. He was in trouble. And he knew that Solomon Owl was supposed by some to be the wisest old fellow for miles around.
It was almost morning. And Solomon Owl was hurrying home, because a terrible storm had arisen. The lightning was flashing, and peals of thunder crashed through the woods. Big drops of rain were already pattering down. But Solomon Owl did not care, for he had almost reached his house in the hollow hemlock near the foot of Blue Mountain.
[pg 064]It was different with Benjamin Bat. That night he had strayed a long distance from his home in Cedar Swamp. And he didn't know what to do. “I want to get under cover, somewhere,” he told Solomon Owl. “You don't know of a good place near-by, do you, where I can get out of the storm and take a nap?”
“Why, yes!” answered Solomon Owl. “Come right along to my house and spend the day with me!”
But Benjamin Bat did not like the suggestion at all.
“I'm afraid I might crowd, you,” he said. He was thinking of the time when Solomon Owl had chased him. And sleeping in Solomon Owl's house seemed far from a safe thing to do.
Solomon was wise enough to guess what was going on inside Benjamin's head.
[pg 065]“Come along!” he said. “We'll both be asleep before we know it. I'm sorry I can't offer you something to eat. But I haven't a morsel of food in my house. No doubt, though, you've just had a good meal. I ate seven mice to-night. And I certainly couldn't eat anything more.”
When Solomon Owl told him that, Benjamin Bat thought perhaps there was no danger, after all. And since the rain was falling harder and harder every moment, he thanked Solomon and said he would be glad to accent his invitation.
“Follow me, then!” said Solomon Owl. And he led the way to his home in the hemlock.
For once, Benjamin Bat flew in a fairly straight line, though he did a little dodging, because he couldn't help it.
There was more room inside Solomon's house than Benjamin Bat had supposed. While Benjamin was looking about and telling Solomon that he had a fine home, his host quickly made a bed of leaves in one corner of the room—there was only one room, of course.
[pg 066]“That's for you!” said Solomon Owl. “I always sleep on the other side of the house.” And without waiting even to make sure that his guest was comfortable, Solomon Owl lay down and began to snore—for he was very sleepy.
It was so cozy there that Benjamin Bat was glad, already, that he had accepted Solomon's invitation.
[pg 067]The Lucky Guest
In the middle of the day Solomon Owl happened to awake. He was sorry that he hadn't slept until sunset, because he was very hungry. Knowing that it was light outside his hollow tree, he didn't want to leave home to find something to eat.
Then, suddenly, he remembered that he had brought Benjamin Bat to his house early that morning, so Benjamin might escape the storm.... Why not eat Benjamin Bat?
As soon as the thought occurred to him, Solomon Owl liked it. And he moved stealthily over to the bed of leaves he had made for his guest just before daybreak.
[pg 068]But Benjamin Bat was not there. Though Solomon looked in every nook and cranny of his one-room house, he did not find him.
“He must have left as soon as it stopped raining,” said Solomon Owl to himself. “He might at least have waited to thank me for giving him a day's lodging. It's the last time I'll ever bring any worthless vagabond into my house. And I ought to have known better than to have anything to do with a crazy person like Benjamin Bat.”
Anybody can see that Solomon Owl was displeased. But it was not at all astonishing, if one stops to remember how hungry he was, and that he had expected to enjoy a good meal without the trouble of going away from home to get it.
[pg 069]Solomon Owl went to the door of his house and looked out. The sun was shining so brightly that after blinking in his doorway for a few minutes he decided that he would go to bed again and try to sleep until dusk. He never liked bright days. “They're so dismal!” he used to say. “Give me a good, dark night and I'm happy, for there's nothing more cheering than gloom.”
In spite of the pangs of hunger that gnawed inside him, Solomon at last succeeded in falling asleep once more. And he dreamed
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