Green Forest Stories, Thornton W. Burgess [ebook reader color screen .TXT] 📗

inside his house. Of course it didn’t hurt him any, for he landed on his soft bed.

“Whooo-hoo-hoo, whooo-hoo!” came that terrible sound again, and Whitefoot shook until his little teeth rattled. At least, that is the way it seemed to him. It was the voice of Hooty the Owl, and Whitefoot knew that Hooty was sitting on the top of that very stub. He was, so to speak, on the roof of Whitefoot’s house.

Now in all the Green Forest there is no sound that strikes terror to the hearts of the little people of feathers and fur equal to the hunting call of Hooty the Owl. Hooty knows this. No one knows it better than he does. That is why he uses it. He knows that many of the little people are asleep, safely hidden away. He knows that it would be quite useless for him to simply look for them. He would starve before he could find a dinner in that way. But he knows that anyone wakened from sleep in great fright is sure to move, and if they do this they are almost equally sure to make some little sound. His ears are so wonderful that they can catch the faintest sound and tell exactly where it comes from. So he uses that terrible hunting cry to frighten the little people and make them move.

Now Whitefoot knew that he was safe. Hooty couldn’t possibly get at him, even should he find out that he was in there. There was nothing to fear, but just the same, Whitefoot shivered and shook and jumped almost out of his skin every time that Hooty hooted. He just couldn’t help it.

“He can’t get me. I know he can’t get me. I’m perfectly safe. I’m just as safe as if he were miles away. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It is silly to be afraid. Probably Hooty doesn’t even know I am inside here. Even if he does, it doesn’t really matter.” Whitefoot said these things to himself over and over again. Then Hooty would send out that fierce, terrible hunting call and Whitefoot would jump and shake just as before.

After awhile all was still. Gradually Whitefoot stopped trembling. He guessed that Hooty had flown away. Still he remained right where he was for a very long time. He didn’t intend to foolishly take any chances. So he waited and waited and waited.

At last he was sure that Hooty had left. Once more he climbed up to his little round doorway and there he waited some time before poking even his nose outside. Then, just as he had made up his mind to go out, that terrible sound rang out again, and just as before he tumbled heels over head down on his bed.

Whitefoot didn’t go out that night at all. It was a moonlight night and just the kind of a night to be out. Instead Whitefoot lay in his little bed and shivered and shook, for all through that long night every once in a while Hooty the Owl would hoot from the top of that stub.

XXIV Whitefoot the Wood Mouse Is Unhappy

Unhappiness without a cause you never, never find;
It may be in the stomach, or it may be in the mind.

Whitefoot

Whitefoot the Wood Mouse should have been happy, but he wasn’t. Winter had gone and sweet Mistress Spring had brought joy to all the Green Forest. Everyone was happy, Whitefoot no less so than his neighbors at first. Up from the Sunny South came the feathered friends and at once began planning new homes. Twitterings and songs filled the air. Joy was everywhere. Food became plentiful, and Whitefoot became sleek and fat. That is, he became as fat as a lively Wood Mouse ever does become. None of his enemies had discovered his new home, and he had little to worry about.

But by and by Whitefoot began to feel less joyous. Day by day he grew more and more unhappy. He no longer took pleasure in his fine home. He began to wander about for no particular reason. He wandered much farther from home than he had ever been in the habit of doing. At times he would sit and listen, but what he was listening for he didn’t know. “There is something the matter with me, and I don’t know what it is,” said Whitefoot to himself forlornly. “It can’t be anything I have eaten. I have nothing to worry about. Yet there is something wrong with me. I’m losing my appetite. Nothing tastes good any more. I want something, but I don’t know what it is I want.”

He tried to tell his troubles to his nearest neighbor, Timmy the Flying Squirrel, but Timmy was too busy to listen. When Peter Rabbit happened along, Whitefoot tried to tell him. But Peter himself was too happy and too eager to learn all the news in the Green Forest to listen. No one had any interest in Whitefoot’s troubles. Everyone was too busy with his own affairs.

So day by day Whitefoot the Wood Mouse grew more and more unhappy, and when the dusk of early evening came creeping through the Green Forest, he sat about and moped instead of running about and playing as he had been in the habit of doing. The beautiful song of Melody the Wood Thrush somehow filled him with sadness instead of with the joy he had always felt before. The very happiness of those about him seemed to make him more unhappy.

Once he almost decided to go hunt for another home, but somehow he couldn’t get interested even in this. He did start out, but he had not gone far before he had forgotten all about what he had started for. Always he had loved to run about and climb and jump for the pure pleasure of it, but now he no longer did these things. He was unhappy, was Whitefoot. Yes, sir, he was unhappy; and