Part 4

It was beautiful there in the woods at night. When the stars twinkled overhead and the soft wind rustled in the tree-tops the little ones frisked and frolicked. They hid under the shadowy bushes or jumped hither and thither to snap at the fluttering moths. But on stormy evenings they plodded on in the rain, their wet fur drooping. With their noses close to the ground they hunted till they found a few mouthfuls to eat. Then back to the cosy hollow for a longer nap, after licking their pink hands clean and washing their white faces, just as kittens do.

One night, in autumn, the old mother opossum felt the nip of frost in the air. Then she knew that the persimmons were ready to be eaten. Away through the woods she hurried, with the young ones trotting after her. Past the marsh and over the blackberry hills she led the way to a thicket of trees tangled with wild grapevines. There above on the branches the round little persimmons were shining yellow in the moonlight.

Up the trees eleven of the babies scrambled hungrily, and, hanging by their tails, stuffed the fruit into their wide mouths. Ah! but wasn’t it delicious! Better than anything they had ever tasted before in all their short lives! Then the biggest baby, who had stopped to gobble ripe grapes, heard them munching so greedily. One look sent him clambering after the others. He was sorry enough that he had wasted any time eating wild grapes.

Night after night, till the persimmons were gone, the opossums hurried away to the thicket, and ate and ate till they could eat no longer. They grew so fat that they puffed and panted when trotting home again in the gray light of frosty dawn.

As the weather grew colder the opossums roamed farther through the woods in search of food. Once in a while one of them found a pawpaw-tree. Then from far and near opossums gathered under the low wide-spreading branches to feast on the banana-shaped fruit. That was the last good dinner that the little fellows had for many weeks.

Soon the ground was frozen hard over the juicy roots. All the fruit left in the woods hung wrinkled and frost-bitten. The worms and toads crawled into their holes for the winter. The beetles disappeared, and the spiders curled up in their hiding-places to sleep through the cold weather. Most of the birds flew away south.

One by one each little opossum wandered off by himself, and made a nest in a cosy hole or a snug hollow stump. There he drowsed away the days, and often slept through the nights without stirring out. Now and then one of them caught a mouse or dug up a frozen root to nibble. Sometimes they tore rotten logs apart to get at the torpid grubs within. The biggest baby found a heap of nuts hidden away under a stone by a thrifty chipmunk.

In the beginning of the winter the little opossums were so fat that they could live three or four weeks without eating or drinking. When the cold winds blew, and the snow fell silently, they cuddled down in their warm nests and slept the time away. But many a night they woke up hungry. And every day their round furry bodies were a little thinner, till at last spring melted the snow and ice everywhere.

There was plenty to eat by that time, with all the green things growing. The little creatures of the woods and ponds were waking to new life. There were buds to nibble and beetles to catch. There was many a nest of birds’ eggs, too, and broods of tender young field-mice squeaking in the grass. There were frogs croaking in the marsh, and berries were ripening in the fields.

The twelve little opossums were grown up now, and knew how to take care of themselves. Their mother had another family of babies in her furry pocket. Sometimes she met her other children roaming beside the marsh to catch frogs. One evening they saw, just as plain as anything, a little pointed nose and two twinkling bright eyes peeping over the edge of her pocket.

THE MANATEE

“THE ONE THAT EATS GRASS IN THE SEA”

“The old mother manatee held him close to her.” Page 19.]

THE ONE THAT EATS GRASS IN THE SEA

DOWN among the lily-leaves, under the river, the baby manatee was being rocked to sleep on his mother’s breast. He looked like a roly-poly fish, with a puffy dog-face. He was covered all over from his broad tail to his round head with thick and wrinkly gray skin. His tiny eyes were shut, and his flippers were folded together as he slept.

The old mother manatee held him close to her, bending her short flippers, which were really her arms. The fingers at the ends of her hands were so hidden under the skin that they looked as if covered with mittens. She was balancing herself on the end of her tail, and swaying gently to and fro in the water.

The baby’s nap did not last very long. One of the annoying things about being a manatee and living under water was the trouble in breathing. Every two or three minutes the mother flapped her tail and rose to the top of the river to breathe. That always woke the baby. He opened his eyes, blinking in the bright sunlight.

All around him the water sparkled and dimpled in the sunshine. Here and there dragon-flies glittered as they skimmed over the ripples. Butterflies were fluttering over the golden centres of the floating lilies. Graceful reeds bordered the shore. The juicy grass, that manatees love to eat, grew green, trailing underneath. Far up above it all the summer sky was blue.

The baby manatee did not seem to care for all these beautiful sights. Very likely he could not see well above water, and he did not enjoy the dry, warm feeling of the air. His sense of smell must have been too dull to notice the fragrance of the lilies or the spicy scent from the swamp. Creatures living under water do not use their noses much.

But the little manatee could hear the least soft plop of a leaf falling in the river. The sudden splash of a frog’s jump made him squirm and twist in terror. He wriggled out of his mother’s hold, and sank down, down, down, with the bubbles eddying over his roly-poly body.

Of course he was not afraid, for he could swim as soon as he was born. He paddled with his tail and flapped with his flippers as he went swimming around over the clean white sand of the river-bottom. At first he could not steer very well, and so he bumped into the stems of the lily-plants and tangled his flippers among the roots of the reeds.

Through the pale green of the water all around him he caught sight of his father and big brother. They were creeping about on their flippers and tails, while they munched the weeds and grasses. When they stretched out their heads, toward a bite of something, each one grasped the food between two horny pads in the front of his jaw, tore it free, and then chewed it with his few grinding teeth in the back. Their faces looked like monstrous caterpillars sucking and chewing.

The baby champed his small jaws and sucked with his split upper lip as he watched. The sight of them eating made him so hungry that he wanted his mother to come and feed him with her milk. Manatees are mammals that live in shallow water. Of all the animals in the sea and salt rivers manatees are the only ones that eat only grass and weeds. All other sea-mammals, and fishes, too, eat living creatures.

Sometimes the baby manatee had great fun in rolling over and over on the sand and pebbles at the bottom of the river. The old ones liked to scratch and clean their wrinkled skins by plunging and scraping over the gravel. It was easy enough for them to roll, because they were so round and had no legs to get in the way.

After the tumbling he followed the others as they went paddling to the top of the river. There he twitched apart his lip-lobes and blew, spouting up spray and water. Then, drawing in a long breath, he closed the stoppers in his nostrils and floated down to the sandy bottom to sleep or eat again.

All summer the manatees lived there in the pleasant river. On misty mornings sometimes they swam up to a mud flat, and crawled out to take a nap in the soft warm slime. Out in the air they could sleep and breathe at the same time, without waking up every few minutes. When the baby was tired of staying still he slid down the slippery bank—splash!—into the water.

His splashing sent a snake wriggling away through the swamp. The crabs on the sand below went scuttling wildly hither and thither to escape the flapping of his tail. Fishes darted out-stream, and mussels closed their shells to keep out the stirred-up gravel. The frogs sitting in the mud turned their round eyes to look at the funny little fellow with the wrinkled dark skin.

Away he paddled to the bottom and tried to munch the water-grasses. His few teeth were cutting through his gums by this time, and he was hungry for something besides milk. The green leaves tasted so salty and stringy that he did not like them at first. It was easier to suck warm, rich milk, without needing to chew and chew till his jaws really ached.