CHAPTER IIITHE LAZIEST BEAVER
They found the Laziest Beaver at home—just as Colonel, the Yellow Dog, had promised—lying in the sun in front of his tumble-down dwelling, and fanning himself with lazy flaps of his broad tail. He nodded pleasantly as Colonel and Buddie approached, but made no attempt to rise for a more formal greeting.
“This is Buddie,” said the Yellow Dog, presenting her.
“Which Buddie?” asked the Laziest Beaver.
“Why, just Buddie.”
“I’ve heard ofsomeBuddie,anyBuddie,everyBuddie andnoBuddie, but I never heard ofjustBuddie before,” remarked the Laziest Beaver.
“She lives in the log house by the lake, where I stop,” Colonel explained.
“I’ve been meaning to get down to the lake on a visit,” said the Laziest Beaver, “but I can’t seem to find the time. There’s that dam to build, you know, and my house needs a few repairs.”
Talking with the Laziest Beaver
Remembering what Colonel had told her about the Laziest Beaver always talking of doing something but never getting around to do it, Buddie smiled, which was not at all polite. The Laziest Beaver noticed the smile, and changed the subject.
“What’s the news?” he asked, addressing the Yellow Dog.
“Carrying news to you would be carrying sweets to a beehive,” replied Colonel, with a bow. The Laziest Beaver was touched by the flattery, and smiled amiably.
“Well,” he said, “I do pick up a little news now and then. By the way, Bunny Cotton-Tayle was around here to-day. He is going up to The Well this afternoon to find the answer,” said the Laziest Beaver.
“What’s the answer?” asked Buddie, who thought it no more than polite to take part in the conversation.
“That’s just it,” replied the Laziest Beaver. “That’s what he’s going up to The Well to find out.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Buddie, much puzzled.
“She means,” said Colonel, “what is the answer to what?”
“I don’t know what the answer towhatis,unless it isthat,” said the Laziest Beaver. “You often hear people say,that’s what.”
“Thatis not the question,” objected Colonel.
“Then she should have asked, What’s thequestion? not, What’s theanswer?” declared the Laziest Beaver, triumphantly.
“Question! Question!” cried the Yellow Dog.
“The question is,” said the Laziest Beaver, “why does a rabbit wabble his nose?”
“Oh, I wonder why he does!” cried Buddie. She had had a pet rabbit once upon a time, and she used to feed him long spears of grass, one after the other, and Bunny would take them in just as a printing press takes in rolls of paper—sitting perfectly still the while, and wabbling and wabbling and wabbling his nose.
“Doesn’t he know why himself?” she asked.
“Of course not. If he did he wouldn’t have to go up to The Well to find out, would he?”
“But how will he find out at The Well? Who will tell him?”
“Truth, of course. Doesn’t Truth lie at the bottom of a well?”
“I don’t know,” said Buddie. “We haven’t any well on our place; we get our water out of the lake.”
“It’s a very remarkable thing,” said the Yellow Dog, thoughtfully; “a very remarkable thing. Nobody knows why a rabbit has to wabble his nose.”
“There’s a song about it, isn’t there?” asked the Laziest Beaver. “I believe I’ve heard you sing it.”
“I believe Ihavesung it a few times,” answered Colonel, modestly, although he was extremely proud of his voice and never lost a chance to show it off.
“Sing it for us,” said the Laziest Beaver. “I haven’t heard any music for quite a while.”
“Oh, please do!” urged Buddie.
“Really, I am so hoarse,” began Colonel, apologetically.
“Oh, bark away!” said the Laziest Beaver. “We can stand it if you can.”
“Yes;dosing!” pleaded Buddie.
Thus encouraged, the Yellow Dog, who was really anxious to sing, cleared his throat with a preliminary,
Bow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow, Bow-wow,
Bow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow, Bow-wow,
Bow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow, Bow-wow,
and began, in a light and rather throaty, but, on the whole, pleasing voice:
“Why a peach or a plum has of seeds only one,While a fig has a thousand, we know;We know why a fire won’t burn in the sun,And why you can’t boil melted snow;We know why green peas—”
“Why a peach or a plum has of seeds only one,While a fig has a thousand, we know;We know why a fire won’t burn in the sun,And why you can’t boil melted snow;We know why green peas—”
“Why a peach or a plum has of seeds only one,
While a fig has a thousand, we know;
We know why a fire won’t burn in the sun,
And why you can’t boil melted snow;
We know why green peas—”
“Pleasant weather we are having,” remarked the Laziest Beaver to Buddie.
“Yes,” she answered absently, her attention on the song. She thought it kind of Colonel to sing, and extremely impolite of the Laziest Beaver to talk, especially as it was he that had asked for the music. Meanwhile the Yellow Dog, who had often sung in public, and so expected talking, kept on:
“We know why green peas make the best currant jell,Why and wherefore the peanut-tree grows;But, alack and alas! there is no one can tellWhy a rabbit should wabble his nose.”
“We know why green peas make the best currant jell,Why and wherefore the peanut-tree grows;But, alack and alas! there is no one can tellWhy a rabbit should wabble his nose.”
“We know why green peas make the best currant jell,
Why and wherefore the peanut-tree grows;
But, alack and alas! there is no one can tell
Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.”
“Our friend sings quite well, don’t you think so?” went on the Laziest Beaver.
“Yes,” replied Buddie, pleasantly, though inwardly vexed; and she nodded encouragement to the Yellow Dog, who just then burst into the chorus:
“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?’”
“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?’”
“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;
We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;
But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—
‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?’”
The Laziest Beaver hummed the chorus very much off the key and so loudly that Buddie scarcely could make out the words of it.
“I do wish people wouldn’t talk when some one is trying to sing,” she thought; and as Colonel began the second verse she got up and crossed over to where he was sitting, and paid no further attention to the Laziest Beaver.
“Now, every one knows where time goes when it flies,And why a round robin is round;Why moles are stone-blind, while potatoes have eyes,Although they both live underground;“Which side a worm turns on, and which side a lane;And where the wind goes when it blows;—But no one can tell—and we ask it in vain—Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?Wabble—his—nose,His—no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ose?’”
“Now, every one knows where time goes when it flies,And why a round robin is round;Why moles are stone-blind, while potatoes have eyes,Although they both live underground;“Which side a worm turns on, and which side a lane;And where the wind goes when it blows;—But no one can tell—and we ask it in vain—Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?Wabble—his—nose,His—no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ose?’”
“Now, every one knows where time goes when it flies,And why a round robin is round;Why moles are stone-blind, while potatoes have eyes,Although they both live underground;
“Now, every one knows where time goes when it flies,
And why a round robin is round;
Why moles are stone-blind, while potatoes have eyes,
Although they both live underground;
“Which side a worm turns on, and which side a lane;And where the wind goes when it blows;—But no one can tell—and we ask it in vain—Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.
“Which side a worm turns on, and which side a lane;
And where the wind goes when it blows;—
But no one can tell—and we ask it in vain—
Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.
“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?Wabble—his—nose,His—no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ose?’”
“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;
We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;
But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—
‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?
Wabble—his—nose,
His—no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ose?’”
By this time the Laziest Beaver, who picked up songs as quickly as gossip, had learned the words and the tune of the chorus; and when the Yellow Dog repeated it he joined in again—shouting the first line, whispering the second, and imitating Echo in the fourth. And so good was the imitation that Buddie found herself looking up and around for the voices in the air, which grew fainter and fainter and fainter, and at last died away in a long “no-o-o-o-o-o-o-se.”
WHICH GREW FAINTER AND FAINTER
WHICH GREW FAINTER AND FAINTER
WHICH GREW FAINTER AND FAINTER
Then, much to her surprise, she discovered that while she had been looking up and around, the Yellow Dog and the Laziest Beaver had vanished, and with them the tumble-down beaver house and the meadow and the little river. She was in the deep wood again, sitting on the fallen trunk of a great pine-tree, and watching a rabbit, who, apparently unconscious of her presence, was regarding himself in a small hand-glass, while he wabbled and wabbled and wabbled his nose.