Mother West Wind's ChildrenBurgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
General
Mother West Wind's Children
Burgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories, American
Now, what do you think is the name of this little bush? Why, it is the
witch hazel. And sometime when you fall down and bump yourself hard
grandma will go to the medicine closet and will bring out a bottle, and
from that bottle she will pour something on that little sore place and
it will make it feel better. Do you know what it is? It is the gift
of the witch hazel bush to little boys and big men to make them feel
better when they are hurt.
XII
WHY BOBBY COON WASHES HIS FOOD
Happy-Go-Lucky Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the Laughing Brook just as
round, red Mr. Sun popped up from behind the Purple Hills and Old
Mother West Wind turned all her Merry Little Breezes out to romp on the
Green Meadows.
Bobby Coon had been out all night. You see Bobby Coon is very apt to
get into mischief, and because usually it is safer to get into mischief
under cover of the darkness Bobby Coon prefers the night wherein to go
abroad. Not that Bobby Coon is really bad! Oh my, no! Everybody
likes Bobby Coon. But he can no more keep out of mischief than a duck
can keep out of water.
So Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the Laughing Brook and he was very
busy, very busy indeed. He was washing his breakfast. Really, it was
his dinner, for turning night into day just turns everything
topsy-turvy. So Bobby Coon eats dinner when most of the little meadow
people are eating breakfast.
This morning he was very busy washing a luscious ear of sweet corn just
in the milk. He dipped it in the water and with one little black paw
rubbed it thoroughly. Then he looked it over carefully before, with a
sigh of contentment, he sat down to put it in his empty little stomach.
When he had finished it to the last sweet, juicy kernel, he ambled
sleepily up the Lone Little Path to the big hollow chestnut tree where
he lives, and in its great hollow in a soft bed of leaves Bobby Coon
curled himself up in a tight little ball to sleep the long, bright day
away.
One of the Merry Little Breezes softly followed him. When he had
crawled into the hollow chestnut and only his funny, ringed tail hung
out, the Merry Little Breezes tweaked it sharply just for fun, and then
danced away down the Lone Little Path to join the other Merry Little
Breezes around the Smiling Pool.
"Oh! Grandfather Frog," cried a Merry Little Breeze, "tell us why it
is that Bobby Coon always washes his food. He never eats it where he
gets it or takes it home to his hollow in the big chestnut, but always
comes to the Laughing Brook to wash it. None of the other meadow
people do that."
Now Great-Grandfather Frog is counted very wise. He is very, very old
and he knows the history of all the tribes of little meadow people way
back to the time when the frogs ruled the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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