“I mean,” replied Mrs. Whitefoot, in a most decided way, “that it is a
very good house for winter, but it won't do at all for summer. That
is, it won't do for me. In the first place it is so high up that if we
should have babies, I would worry all the time for fear the darlings
would have a bad fall. Besides, I don't like an inside house for summer.
I think, Whitefoot, we must look around and find a new home.”
As she spoke Mrs. Whitefoot was already starting down the stub.
Whitefoot followed.
“All right, my dear, all right,” said he meekly. “You know best. This
seems to me like a very fine home, but of course, if you don't like it
we'll look for another.”
Mrs. Whitefoot said nothing, but led the way down the tree with
Whitefoot meekly following. Then began a patient search all about. Mrs.
Whitefoot appeared to know just what she wanted and turned up her nose
at several places Whitefoot thought would make fine homes. She hardly
glanced at a fine hollow log Whitefoot found. She merely poked her nose
in at a splendid hole beneath the roots of an old stump. Whitefoot
began to grow tired from running about and climbing stumps and trees and
bushes.
He stopped to rest and lost sight of Mrs. Whitefoot. A moment later he
heard her calling excitedly. When he found her, she was up in a small
tree, sitting on the edge of an old nest a few feet above the ground.
It was a nest that had once belonged to Melody the Wood Thrush. Mrs.
Whitefoot was sitting on the edge of it, and her bright eyes snapped
with excitement and pleasure.
“I've found it!” she cried. “I've found it! It is just what I have been
looking for.”
“Found what?” Whitefoot asked. “I don't see anything but an old nest of
Melody's.”
“I've found the home we've been looking for, stupid,” retorted Mrs.
Whitefoot.
Still Whitefoot stared. “I don't see any house,” said he.
Mrs. Whitefoot stamped her feet impatiently. “Right here, stupid,” said
she. “This old nest will make us the finest and safest home that ever
was. No one will ever think of looking for us here. We must get busy at
once and fix it up.”
Even then Whitefoot didn't understand. Always he had lived either in a
hole in the ground, or in a hollow stump or tree. How they were to live
in that old nest he couldn't see at all.
CHAPTER XXIX: Making Over An Old House
A home is always what you make it.
With love there you will ne'er forsake it.
--Whitefoot.
Whitefoot climbed up to the old nest of Melody the Wood Thrush over the
edge of which little Mrs. Whitefoot was looking down at him. It took
Whitefoot hardly a moment to get up there, for the nest was only a few
feet above the ground in a young tree, and you know Whitefoot is a very
good climber.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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