The Tale of Solomon Owl, Arthur Scott Bailey [first color ebook reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Arthur Scott Bailey
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The Sleet Storm
It was winter. And for several days a strong south wind had swept up Pleasant Valley. That—as Solomon Owl knew very well—that meant a thaw was coming. He was not sorry, because the weather had been bitterly cold.
Well, the thaw came. And the weather grew so warm that Solomon Owl could stay out all night without once feeling chilled. He found the change so agreeable that he strayed further from home than was his custom. Indeed, he was far away on the other side of Blue Mountain at midnight, when it began to rain.
[pg 101]Now, that was not quite so pleasant. But still Solomon did not mind greatly. It was not until later that he began to feel alarmed, when he noticed that flying did not seem so easy as usual.
Solomon had grown heavy all at once—and goodness knows it was not because he had overeaten, for food was scarce at that season of the year. Moreover, Solomon's wings were strangely stiff. When he moved them they crackled.
“It must be my joints,” he said to himself. “I'm afraid this wetting has given me rheumatism.” So he started home at once—though it was only midnight. But the further he went, the worse he felt—and the harder it was to fly.
“I'll have to rest a while,” he said to himself at last. So he alighted on a limb; for he was more tired than he had ever been in all his life.
[pg 102]But he soon felt so much better that he was ready to start on again. And then, to his dismay, Solomon Owl found that he could hardly stir. The moment he left his perch he floundered down upon the ground. And though he tried his hardest, he couldn't reach the tree again.
The rain was still beating down steadily. And Solomon began to think it a bad night to be out. What was worse, the weather was fast turning cold.
“I'm afraid I'll have to stay in bed a week after this,” he groaned. “If I sit here long, as wet as I am, while the thaw turns into a freeze, I shall certainly be ill.”
Now, if it hadn't been for the rain, Solomon Owl would have had no trouble at all. Or if it hadn't been for the freezing cold he would have been in no difficulty. Though he didn't know it, his trouble was simply this: The rain froze upon him as
[pg 103]fast as it fell, covering him with a coating of ice. It was no wonder that he felt strangely heavy—no wonder that he couldn't fly.
There he crouched on the ground, while the rain and sleet beat upon him. And the only comforting thought that entered his head was that on so stormy a night Tommy Fox and Fatty Coon would be snug and warm in their beds. They wouldn't go out in such weather.
And Solomon Owl wished that he, too, had stayed at home that night.
From midnight until almost dawn Solomon Owl sat there. Now and then he tried to fly. But it was no use. He could scarcely raise himself off the ground.
At last he decided he would have to walk home. Fortunately, a hard crust covered the soft snow. So Solomon started off on his long journey.
[pg 104]Flying, Solomon could have covered the distance in a few minutes. But he was a slow walker. By the time he reached his home among the hemlocks the sun was shining brightly—for the rain had stopped before daybreak.
Solomon wondered how he would ever succeed in reaching his doorway, high up in the hollow tree. He gazed helplessly upward. And as he sat there mournfully the bright sunshine melted the ice that bound his wings. After a time he discovered that he could move freely once more. And then he rose quickly in the air and in a twinkling he had disappeared into the darkness of his home—that darkness which to him was always so pleasant.
[pg 105]A Pair Of Red-Heads
In the woods there was hardly one of Solomon Owl's neighbors that couldn't point out the big hemlock tree where he lived. And mischievous fellows like Reddy Woodpecker sometimes annoyed Solomon a good deal by rapping loudly on his door. When he thrust his head angrily out of his house and blinked in the sunlight, his tormentors would skip away and laugh. They laughed because they knew that they had awakened Solomon Owl. And they dodged out of his reach because he was always ill-tempered when anybody disturbed his rest in the daytime.
[pg 106]Solomon Owl did not mind so very much so long as that trick was not played on him too often. But after a time it became one of Reddy Woodpecker's favorite sports. Not only once, but several times a day did he go to the hemlock grove to hammer upon Solomon's hollow tree. And each time that he brought Solomon Owl to his door Reddy Woodpecker laughed more loudly than ever before.
Once Solomon forgot to take off his nightcap (though he wore it in the daytime, it really was a nightcap). And Reddy Woodpecker was so amused that he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“What's the joke?” asked Solomon Owl in his deep, rumbling voice. He tried to look very severe. But it is hard to look any way except funny with a nightcap on one's head.
[pg 107]As luck had it, Jasper Jay came hurrying up just then. He had heard Reddy Woodpecker's laughter. And if there was a joke he wanted to enjoy it, too.
Jasper Jay, alighting in a small hemlock near Reddy Woodpecker, asked the same question that Solomon Owl had just put to his rude caller.
“What's the joke?” inquired Jasper Jay.
Reddy could not speak. He was rocking back and forth upon a limb, choking and gasping for breath. But he managed to point to the big tree where Solomon Owl lived.
And when Jasper looked, and saw Solomon's great, round, pale, questioning face, all tied up in a red nightcap, he began to scream.
[pg 108]They were no ordinary screams—those shrieks of Jasper Jay's. That blue-coated rascal was the noisiest of all the feathered folk in Pleasant Valley. And now he fairly made the woods echo with his hoarse cries.
“This is the funniest sight I've ever seen!” Jasper Jay said at last, to nobody in particular. “I declare, there's a pair of them!”
At that, Reddy Woodpecker suddenly stopped laughing.
“A pair of what?” he asked.
“A pair of red-heads, of course!” Jasper Jay replied. “You've a red cap—and so has he!” Jasper pointed at Solomon Owl (a very rude thing to do!).
Then two things happened all at once. Solomon Owl snatched off his red night-cap—which he had quite forgotten. And Reddy Woodpecker dashed at Jasper Jay. He couldn't pull off his red cap, for it grew right on his head.
[pg 109]“So that's what you're laughing at, is it?” he cried angrily. And then nobody laughed any more—that is, nobody but Solomon Owl.
Solomon was so pleased by the fight that followed between Jasper Jay and Reddy Woodpecker that his deep, rumbling laughter could be heard for half an hour—even if it was midday. “Wha-wha! Whoo-ah!” The sound reached the ears of Farmer Green, who was just crossing a neighboring field, on his way home to dinner.
“Well, well!” he exclaimed. “I wonder what's happened to that old owl! Something must have tickled him—for I never heard an owl laugh in broad daylight before.”
[pg 110]At Home In The Haystack
After what happened when he came to his door without remembering to take off his red nightcap, Solomon Owl hoped that Reddy Woodpecker would stop teasing him.
But it was not so. Having once viewed Solomon's red cap, Reddy Woodpecker wanted to see it some more. So he came again and again and knocked on Solomon's door.
[pg 111]Solomon Owl, however, remembered each time to remove his nightcap before sticking his head out. And it might be said that neither of them was exactly pleased. For Reddy Woodpecker was disappointed; and Solomon Owl was angry.
Not a day passed that Reddy Woodpecker didn't disturb Solomon's rest at least a dozen times. Perhaps if Solomon had just kept still inside his house Reddy would have grown tired of bothering him. But Solomon Owl—for all he looked so wise—never thought of that.
But he saw before a great while that he would have to make a change of some sort—if he wanted to enjoy a good, quiet sleep again.
For a long time Solomon Owl pondered. It was a great puzzle—to know just how to outwit Reddy Woodpecker. And Solomon almost despaired of finding a way out of the difficulty. But at last an idea came to him, all in a flash. He would take his daytime naps somewhere else!
[pg 112]Solomon spent several nights looking for a good place to pass his days. And in the end he decided on the meadow. It would be convenient, he thought, when he was hunting meadow mice at dawn, if he could stay right there, without bothering to go into the woods to sleep.
Since there were no trees in the meadow, but only a few scrubby bushes along the stone wall, one might naturally make the mistake of thinking that there could not possibly be a nook of any kind that would suit Solomon Owl, who could never sleep soundly unless his bedroom was quite dark.
But there was one hiding place that Solomon liked almost as well as his home in the hollow hemlock. And that was Farmer Green's haystack. He burrowed into one side of it and made himself a snug chamber, which was as dark as a pocket—and ever so much quieter. What pleased Solomon most, however, was this: Nobody knew about that new retreat except himself.
[pg 113]Even if Reddy Woodpecker should succeed in finding it, he never could disturb Solomon by drumming upon the haystack. If Reddy tried that trick, his bill would merely sink noiselessly into the hay.
So Solomon Owl at last had
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