Mother West Wind "Where" StoriesBurgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
General
Mother West Wind "Where" Stories
Burgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
Animals -- Juvenile fiction
"'As I live, that must be their home!' exclaimed he. 'That place is
alive with them. What a place to fill one's stomach! I never was on the
ground in my life, but the next time I'm hungry, I'm going to see what
the ground is like. I won't have to stay on it long to get my dinner
here.'
"Grandfather Flicker was as good as his word. When he was ready for
another meal, he flew down to that ant hill. He found that when he
plunged his bill into it, the ants fairly poured out to see what was
happening, and all he had to do was to thrust out his long sticky tongue
and lick them up. Never in all his life before had he filled his stomach
so easily. After that, instead of wasting time hunting for worms and
insects in the trees where he could find only one at a time, Grandfather
Flicker kept his eyes open for ant hills on the ground. He taught his
children to do the same thing. That was the beginning of the change of
habits with the Flickers. Ever since we have spent more and more time on
the ground, so that now we feel quite at home there. We still get some
of our food in the trees by way of variety, and we make our homes there,
but a good big part of our food we get just as I am doing now."
With this Yellow-Wing once more plunged his bill into the ant hill and
licked up a dozen ants who had come rushing out to see what was going
on. And so once more the curiosity of Peter Rabbit was satisfied, and he
had learned something.
V
WHERE LITTLE CHIEF LEARNED TO MAKE HAY
No one in all the Great World thinks more of the present and less of the
future than does careless, happy-go-lucky Peter Rabbit. Everybody who
knows Peter at all knows that Peter doesn't waste any time worrying over
what may happen in a day that may never be. So Peter isn't thrifty as
are Happy Jack Squirrel and Chatterer the Red Squirrel and Whitefoot the
Wood Mouse and Paddy the Beaver and Striped Chipmunk.
"I've got enough to eat today, and enough is enough, so what is the use
of working when I don't have to?" says Peter. "I don't believe in
working today so that I won't have to work tomorrow, because when
tomorrow comes there may be no need of working, and then I would feel
that I had wasted all this good time today." No, Peter isn't the least
bit thrifty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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