Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
And when the boys would go fishing on the wharf, Alcatraz would go,
too, and he would stow away the fishes in his pouch as fast as the
boys could catch them. But if they caught a bagre fish, he would turn
his head the other way and then run away home just as fast as his
splay feet would take him.
And when the men drew the net on the beach Alcatraz would splash
around inside the net, catching whatever he could, and having a great
deal of fun in his clumsy pelican fashion. Then he would run along the
street with the boys, squawking and flapping his wings and thinking
that he was just like the rest of them. And if you ever go to
Mazatlan, ask for Dr. Rogers, and he will show you the way to
Ygnacio's cabin on the street they call Libertad. And there in the
front yard, in a general scramble of dogs, goats, and little Indian
boys, you will see Señor Alcatraz romping and squabbling like the best
of them. And you will know which he is by the broken wing and the red
sack under his throat. But if you say "Bagre" to him, he will run
under the doorstep and hide his face till you go away.
II.--THE LITTLE BLUE FOX.
Once there was a little blue fox, and his name was Eichkao, and he was
a thief. So he built his house down deep among the rocks under the
moss on the Mist Island, and his little fox children used to stay down
among the rocks. There they would gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, whenever
they heard anybody walking over their heads. Eichkao and his fox wife
used to run all round over the rocks to find something for them to
eat, and whenever Eichkao saw anybody coming he would go clin-n-n-g,
cling-g-g, and his voice was high and sharp, just like the voice of a
buzz saw.
One day he walked out on the rocks over the water and began to talk to
the black sea parrot, whose name is Epatka, and who sits erect on his
carelessly built nest with one egg in it, and wears a great big bill
made of red sealing wax. He has a long white quill pen stuck over each
ear, and over his face is a white mask, so that nobody can know what
kind of a face he has, and all you can see behind the mask is a pair
of little foolish twinkling white glass eyes. What the two said to
each other I don't know, but they did not talk very long, for in a few
minutes when I came back to his house among the rocks Eichkao was
gone, and there lay out on the bank a bill made of red sealing wax, a
white mask, and two little white quill pens. There were a few bones
and claws and some feathers, but they did not seem to belong to
anything in particular, and the little foxes in the rocks went gurgle,
gurgle, gurgle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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