STORY SIX
MOTHER WOLF DECIDES TO ADOPT WASHER
Sneaky returned home and entered the den with every appearance of being greatly pleased with himself. He licked his chops, smiled at the cubs, and said a pleasant word of of greeting to Mother Wolf. Indeed, he was so polite and agreeable that Washer wondered if something had happened to change his disposition for good; but Mother Wolf was not at all deceived. She understood that Sneaky had some important news on his mind that he was anxious to get off.
After a while, when the little ones were outside of the den playing, she humored him with a smile, and said: “Why don’t you tell me now, Sneaky? You’ve been dying to get it off your mind. Now’s a good time.”
“What do you mean my dear?” he asked, opening one eye, and looking as surprised and innocent as a baby.
“Don’t put on that innocent air,” protested his mate impatiently. “I’ve lived long enough with you to know when important news is bothering you. Now out with it!”
Sneaky yawned dreadfully long, and stretched his limbs in the most deliberate manner. He knew that Mother Wolf was as impatient to hear the news as he was to tell it. So he did not propose to humor her right away.
“You surprise me, my dear,” he said finally. “What news do you speak of? I’m not a carrier of tales like Grayback the Weasel or Mr. Fox. I wouldn’t stoop to such things.”
Mother Wolf laughed so hard that she had to hold her sides with both front paws. There was no way to tease Sneaky equal to that of laughing at his serious remarks. In a few minutes his face grew red and his ears lay back, and all the innocent expression vanished from his eyes.
“I don’t see anything to laugh at,” he growled. “Why don’t you tell me what it is, and I’ll join you if it’s worth a laugh. It’s very ill-mannered of any one to laugh alone in company!”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” replied Mother Wolf, wiping her eyes. “But”—regarding him slyly out of the corner of her eyes—“I didn’t know you were company, Sneaky. Are you?”
“Never mind such foolish questions!” was the quick retort. “What were you laughing at—me?”
“Why, no, Sneaky, not at you. I wouldn’t do such a thing. But I was laughing at what you had on your mind.”
“What had I on my mind?”
“The news that Black Wolf sent to me.”
Sneaky was a little taken back by this remark, for he hadn’t mentioned any message from Black Wolf.
“How do you know I’ve been to see Black Wolf?” he asked after a pause.
“You said you we’re going. Didn’t you expect me to believe you? Surely you haven’t begun fibbing to me at your time of life, have you, Sneaky?”
“No, of course not,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean that. Yes, I’ve been to see Black Wolf.”
“And he sent a message with you for me?”
“Well, now that you speak of it I remember he did,” replied Sneaky, squatting down on his haunches.
“Then why didn’t you say so at first?” snapped Mother Wolf. “Why did you pretend surprise, and try to look so innocent? I knew all the time you had a message for me, and it was because you were trying so hard to look innocent that made me laugh. Sneaky, you’re not a good actor. I wouldn’t try it again if I were you.”
His pride was wounded at this denial of all talent for acting, and Sneaky dropped his nose down between his paws and looked very crestfallen. “I suppose,” he grumbled, “you think you know so much you could tell me what Black Wolf’s message is.”
Mother Wolf paused before him and looked silently into his eyes before she spoke again. Then she nodded her head. “I think I could almost guess it.”
“Then it isn’t necessary for me to tell you,” replied Sneaky, thinking he had cornered her this time.
“Black Wolf was very much surprised and disgusted when you told him I was to bring Little Brother into the pack,” she went on, ignoring his remark, “and of course you didn’t help matters any by telling my side of the story. You didn’t tell Black Wolf how I had brought Little Brother up as my own child until I loved him as much as any of the cubs. You didn’t tell him that from the first you wanted to kill him, and that you were anxious to get rid of him, and turn him loose in the woods so the whole pack could hunt him. You didn’t tell him that he had been with us for so long that he was more Wolf than Raccoon, and that his own people would not accept him, and if we abandoned him he would be without any family or friends. Oh, no you didn’t explain any of these things to Black Wolf!”
“But, my dear, how could you expect me in a few minutes to tell all that?” protested Sneaky. “Black Wolf was very tired and surly, and he didn’t want to talk to me at all. If I hadn’t taken a present to him he would have turned me out without listening.”
Mother Wolf nodded. “I can quite understand that, Sneaky. He’s bothered to death by settling the quarrels of the pack. It’s not all pleasure in being a leader.”
“I should think not. It’s a terribly responsible position, and I know if I were leader I’d have my time well occupied.”
“Yes, I think you would. You wouldn’t have time to be interfering with home matters so much. It must be great to be the mate of the leader of the pack.”
Sneaky raised his head and flashed an angry glance at Mother Wolf, for her words recalled something unpleasant to the memory. When a young Wolf, with eyes always smiling and laughing, and hair long and curly as the silk of the corn tassel, Mother Wolf was the envy of every hunter of the pack, and Black Wolf had cast envious eyes upon her before he had been chosen leader. Sneaky recalled also that he had deceived Black Wolf by telling him one day that Mother Wolf had promised to be his mate, although no such promise had then been made. He wondered if Mother Wolf had ever found out his little deception, and if Black Wolf suspected anything. This doubt had given him many unpleasant moments.
His wandering thoughts were suddenly recalled to the present by Mother Wolf. “Black Wolf told you,” she said quietly, “that if I brought Little Brother to the pack council he’d refuse to receive him as a member. Isn’t that what he said?”
“Yes,” admited Sneaky, “and he said something more. If you bring Little Brother before him, he’ll order the whole pack to pounce on him and kill him.”
“He said that!” exclaimed Mother Wolf in alarm. “Black Wolf sent that message to me.”
“Yes,” replied Sneaky, smiling. “Now if you love Little Brother you will keep him away from the pack council. You’d better turn him loose and let him return to his own people.”
Mother Wolf was silent a moment. Then she raised her head, and said defiantly: “No, I’ll never do that. His own people would reject him. I’ve brought him up, and I’ll always be a mother to him unless he turns against me, and even then I shall continue to love him.”
She stopped before adding her final challenge. “And, listen, Sneaky, I shall take him before the pack council, and if Black Wolf orders the pack to pounce on him they’ll have to fight me first.”
Sneaky was so troubled by this that he had nothing to say. In the next story Washer shows the cubs a trick.
STORY SEVEN
WASHER LEARNS HE IS NOT A WOLF
Washer the Raccoon had been hunting with his Wolf brothers in the woods around their cave den. This was a part of their education. Mother Wolf would take them for a walk some distance from the cave, and teach them to pick up the scent of other animals on the wind. Sometimes it would be Browny the Muskrat or Sleepy the Opossum and again that of White Tail the Deer or Puma the Mountain Lion who had wandered away from their natural haunts.
Whatever animal it was they scented, Mother Wolf would caution them to follow it carefully, sneaking through the bushes with padded feet so as not to break a twig. She herself would remain behind so that all the responsibility of the hunt would be on her children.
In the early days of these lessons, Washer was the quickest to learn, and the quickest to follow the scent. He was older than his Wolf Brothers, and this accounted for his quickness. He could run faster than any of them, although his legs were shorter, and could climb up embankments and rocks without losing his foothold.
“Well done, Little Brother,” Mother Wolf would say proudly when he had out-distanced all his brothers. “Some day you will be a mighty hunter. Who knows but you may be leader of the pack yet.”
Now Mother Wolf loved the stray little orphan so much that she was blind to many things that she should have thought of. For one thing no raccoon was ever as large as a wolf, as strong, nor as fleet of foot. It was because Washer had the start in life that he seemed bigger and quicker of mind than her own children.
As the days and weeks passed, the Wolf cubs grew amazingly. They caught up to Washer, and then surpassed him in size. Their legs grew long and slender, and one day in a race Washer was left behind in spite of all that he could do. It was the first race with the cubs he had ever lost.
“Hi! What’s the matter, Little Brother?” the cubs called to him. “You’re lazy today!”
“Yes, maybe I am,” replied Washer, but he had an uneasy feeling that it was something more than laziness. His shorter legs could go as fast as his brother’s, but they could not cover so much ground.
The next day it was the same. They had all started on a scamper for the brook, with Washer in the lead at the beginning, but long before they reached the water the raccoon was behind.
“Lazy again, Little Brother!” they laughed when he came up to them.
“No, I couldn’t run any faster,” Washer replied truthfully. “You’ve got longer legs than mine, and I can’t keep up with you.”
“So they are longer,” replied the cubs, looking at their own long legs.
“And you have stronger teeth and jaws than I have,” continued Washer. “You grow much faster. I don’t seem to grow at all any more.”
“Oh, your time will come,” they answered, not wishing to offend him.
They continued to play together as formerly, but Washer always had to be given a head start in a race. Then one day another thing surprised them. They were tearing at their food when Washer found that he could no longer hold his own in this battle. The cubs had more powerful jaws than he, and they jerked the food away from him and gobbled it up.
“I didn’t get half my share,” Washer grumbled.
“Why not? Can’t you help yourself?”
Washer was silent. The truth was beginning to dawn upon him that he was different from his brothers. They were fleeter of foot and stronger of jaws. They could also jump longer distances, taking gullies and ravines in leaps that carried them clear across. Washer had to run around or climb down and then up the ravines.
“Little Brother, you can’t keep up with us any more,” the cubs said one day more in sadness than in boastfulness. “How’ll you join the hunt with us when we become members of the pack?”
“Listen, brothers,” Washer said, “I cannot run as fast as you, nor fight as fiercely for my food, but there is one thing I can do that will surprise you. I can go where none of you can follow.”
They laughed at this challenge, and told him to show them the trick. “We’ll follow you,” they said. “You can’t lose us.”
“All right! Follow me!”
Washer had found out that his sharp little claws were perfectly adapted to tree climbing, and that his Wolf brothers could not get up a tree higher than the lowest branches which they might reach by jumping. He had tried climbing trees and found that it came as easy to him as running.
There was a big cedar tree near the brook, and after looking up it he started to climb the trunk. It was so easy for him that he went up it almost as quickly as Bobby Gray Squirrel could. His Wolf brothers sat down on their haunches in a circle around the tree and watched him in amazement.
Washer reached the first branches, and ran out on one big one. “Look out, Little Brother, or you’ll fall!” they shouted. “Be careful!”
Washer smiled and showed his teeth. “Oh, this is nothing! I’ll climb to the top!”
He ran back to the trunk, and began climbing higher. Up and up he went until his little body was lost among the foliage.
“He’s lost!” exclaimed the Wolf cubs below. “Something’s happened to him! I can’t see him!”
But Washer, having reached the top-most branch of the tree, bit off a twig and threw it down at them. “Here I am!” he cried. “Now follow me up here!”
The Wolf cubs immediately accepted the challenge. They started for the tree and began pawing at it They jumped and leaped up the trunk, and tried in every way to climb it. Their failure was so ludicrous that Washer laughed heartily, encouraging them with loud words.
But no wolf can climb a tree, and the cubs soon stopped their efforts. Once more they squatted around in a circle and looked up at Washer.
“Will you teach me to climb?” asked one after another.
Washer considered a moment, and then said: “It’s something that can’t be taught brothers. If I could I would, but no wolf can ever climb a tree.”
They were so surprised and amazed at the exploit of their Little Brother in climbing a tree that they surrounded him all the way home and pestered him with all sorts of questions. When they reached the den they demanded of Mother Wolf the reason why they could not climb a tree like Little Brother. Mother Wolf was both sad and pleased.
“I can’t tell you,” she replied, “why a wolf cannot climb a tree. But he simply can’t any more than he can fly like a bird. Little Brother is a Raccoon, you know, and—”
“What’s a Raccoon? Isn’t he a wolf?”
“No, dears, Little Brother isn’t a wolf.”
All the cubs looked in surprise at Washer. He was not like them. He wasn’t a Wolf. In the next story Washer finds one of his people treed by the cubs.
STORY EIGHT
THE CUBS TREE A STRANGER
Thereafter there was a different feeling between the Wolf cubs and Washer the Raccoon. The former could not help feeling that Washer was an outsider, and while they tried to conceal their feelings they were not entirely successful. He was not only not their real brother, but he was a different kind of an animal—not a wolf at all.
One day when they were down by the brook, Washer plucked a rich, juicy root to eat, for there had not been enough meat to go around that day, and Washer was hungry.
“What are you going to do with that, Little Brother?” one of the cubs asked, watching him carry the root away in his mouth.
“Why, eat it, of course,” was the reply.
“What a funny thing to eat! I never ate a root before.”
It was a fact that wolves never liked roots or leaves, while raccoons frequently eat both. Washer felt a little embarrassed, but he carried the root to the brook and dipped it in. The Wolf cubs followed him.
“What are you doing that for?” added another, as the raccoon continued to dip the root in the water.
“Washing it, of course, before eating it,” was the reply.
Once more there was surprise and curiosity on the faces of the cubs. Washer had unintentionally betrayed a trick of all his ancestors. The raccoons nearly always dipped and washed their food in water before eating it. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to do it, but it was not until he saw the look of wonder in the eyes of his playmates that he realized this little act indicated once more what a wide difference there was between them.
“Do all raccoons wash their food before eating it,” continued one of the cubs.
Washer nodded his head and began daintily chewing the soft root. The cubs bit at the other end of it, but they saw nothing in it to appeal to their taste.
“What funny creatures raccoons must be, Little Brother!”
Washer was a little annoyed and angered by this remark, for he was a raccoon, and he wasn’t going to have his people ridiculed.
“They climb trees,” continued the speaker, “and wash their food before eating it. Isn’t it funny, brothers!”
They all set up a laugh, which increased Washer’s anger. “They’re no funnier than Wolves,” he blurted out suddenly. “You hunt in packs as if afraid, and sneak upon your victims instead of fighting them face to face. I thing that cowardly. Now raccoons don’t do that.”
“We didn’t mean to offend you, Little Brother,” replied the first cub, seeing Washer’s anger. “Next to being a wolf we’d rather be raccoons. Yes, indeed!”
The others repeated this until Washer felt sorry for his show of anger. Still he was quite sad, for he began to realize that he could not always be with his little brothers. The day would come when he would have to leave them. They were growing so big and so rough in their play that many times he had to retire and look on. Then, too, they were beginning to take long hunting trips through the woods, and he could not keep up with them. Sneaky in particular took delight in running him out of breath, and then laughing at him.
“Listen, Brothers,” he said, turning sorrowfully upon them, “I am a raccoon and you are wolves. Some day you will have to hunt without me. Then I shall return to my own people, for it isn’t right that a raccoon should live with wolves. But I shall always have a tender feeling for you in my heart, and shall always remember you.”
“No we won’t hunt without you,” interrupted one of the cubs. “You can’t leave us. You’re our Little Brother, and you’ll always be that!”
Washer was greatly pleased by this show of affection for it made him very sad to think of leaving the only home he had lived in since a small baby; but right down in his heart he knew that he would some day leave them and go back to his own people.
Washer had only a dim remembrance of his own real brothers. The accident on the river when he was carried over the falls seemed so long ago that it was more like a dream now than anything else. He couldn’t even remember what his mother looked like, and as for his brothers they were only tiny baby raccoons then and now they had grown up he would not recognize them.
A few days after this conversation, the Wolf cubs were playing near the brook when one of them suddenly raised his nose in the air and began sniffing. The others immediately stopped their play and sniffed the air also.
“What is it?” asked Washer.
“I smell something good,” replied the first wolf. “It’s over this way.”
“Then we’ll go around the other way and head him off,” said another cub.
Washer knew their method of hunting an animal they had once winded. They would spread out in a wide circle, and creep upon him from all directions. Sneaky had taught them this trick, and when they hunted together in this way it was hard for anything to escape them. No matter which way the hunted animal went he was pretty sure to run into one of the pack.
Washer had caught the odor on the wind, but he was not sure just what kind of an animal it came from. The smell seemed familiar, and yet he could not place it. It annoyed and puzzled him. Was his memory growing short?
He decided to follow the cubs in the chase and for a time he managed to keep up with them; but when they finally caught sight of their prey they broke from the cover of the bushes and ran in full tilt after him. Washer was quickly left behind.
In a short time he could tell by their howls that they had run their victim to earth. They were yelping and howling, but not entirely with pleasure.
“What’s the matter?” Washer asked himself. “Have they stalked Buster the Bear or Loup the Lynx? I must hurry and see.”
He ran as fast as his short legs would permit, and in a few minutes he came out into an opening in the woods. In the center of this was a small tree, around which the Wolf cubs were circling wildly, leaping up as high as they could every now and then, but always falling short of their mark.
Washer came up, panting and gasping; “What is it, Brothers?” he called. “Where is it?”
“Up the tree!” shouted one of the cubs. “We can’t reach him, but you can Little Brother. You can climb the tree and drive him down. Now I know we’ll always need you when we go hunting. Hurry up and drive him out of the tree!”
Washer saw a dark, fuzzy ball high among the branches of the small tree. He could not make it out at first, but there was something familiar about it, and the odor!—why, he knew that odor! He had always known it!
But he stopped suddenly and glanced up at the pair of frightened eyes looking down at the wolves. He gave a gasp and shudder. It was a raccoon the cubs had treed—one of his own people. How could he betray him to the greedy cubs, and if he didn’t what would his wolf brothers think of him? In the next story you will read about what Washer did for the raccoon.