The Burgess Animal Book for ChildrenBurgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
General
The Burgess Animal Book for Children
Burgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
Animal behavior -- Juvenile literature; Zoology -- Juvenile literature
“Seeing Black Pussy over here yesterday, and knowing that to-day's
lesson was to be about Yowler, I couldn't get cats out of my mind
all day yesterday,” began Jumper. “Black Pussy doesn't worry me,
but I must confess that if there is any one I fear, it is Yowler
the Bob Cat. Just thinking about him make me nervous. The more
I tried not to think about him, the more I did think about him,
and the more I thought about him, the more nervous I got. Then
just before dark, on the bank of the Laughing Brook, I found some
tracks in the mud. Those tracks were almost round, and that fact
was enough to tell me who had made them. They were Yowler's
footprints, and they hadn't been made very long.
“Of course, seeing those footprints made me more nervous than ever,
and every time I saw a leaf move I jumped inside. My heart felt
as if it were up in my throat most of the time. I had a feeling
that Yowler wasn't far away. I hate that Cat! I hate the way he
hunts! He goes sneaking about, without making a sound, or else he
lies in wait, ready to spring without warning on the first one who
happens along. A fellow never knows where to watch out for Yowler.
“I spent nearly all night sitting under a little hemlock tree with
branches very close to the ground. I sat there because I didn't
dare do anything else. As long as I stayed there I felt reasonably
safe, because Yowler would have to find me, and to do that he would
have to cross an open place where I could see him. I knew that if
I went roaming about I might walk right into his clutches.
“It was lucky I had sense enough to stay there. You know the moon
was very bright last night. It made that open place in front of
where I was hiding almost as light as day. Once I closed my eyes
for just a minute. When I opened them, there was Yowler sneaking
across that open place. Where he had come from, I don't know. He
hadn't made a sound. Not a leaf rustled under his big feet. Right
in the middle of that open place, where the moonlight was brightest,
he stopped to listen, and I simply held my breath.”
“Tell us how he looked,” prompted Old Mother Nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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