Mother West Wind 'When' Stories

Chapter 3

PETER RABBIT and Mrs. Grouse are very good friends. In fact they are the best of friends. For one thing they are very near neighbors. Once in a great while Mrs. Grouse comes to the dear Old Briar-patch and walks along Peter's private little paths. However, that isn't often. But up in the bramble tangle on the edge of the Green Forest they spend a great deal of time together. You see, they both fear the same enemies, and so they have a great deal to talk over, and each is always ready to help the other.

When winter comes Peter is sometimes rather lonely. You see, a lot of his feathered friends fly away to the warm, sunny Southland to spend the winter. Other friends, Johnny Chuck and Striped Chipmunk and Grandfather Frog for instance, retire and sleep all through the cold weather. Peter cannot understand what they do it for, but they do. So Peter has very few to gossip with after Jack Frost arrives. But he can always count on Mrs. Grouse. No matter how hard Jack Frost pinches, or how bitter the breath of rough Brother North Wind, somewhere in the Green Forest Mrs. Grouse is bravely doing her best to get enough to eat, and Peter knows that if he looks for her he will find her.

There was one thing about Mrs. Grouse that puzzled Peter for a long time, and this was the difference between the footprints she made in the soft damp earth after a rain in the summer and the prints she made in the snow. The first time he noticed those prints in the snow, he actually didn't know who had made them. You know how very, very curious Peter is. He followed those queer footprints, and when he found that they led right straight into the bramble tangle, he just didn't know what to think. He sat down on the edge of the bramble tangle and scratched his long right ear with his long left hind foot. When Peter does this it is a sign that he is very much puzzled about something.

"Good morning, Peter Rabbit. You seem to have something on your mind," said a voice from the middle of the bramble tangle.

Peter gave a little start of surprise. Then he hopped into the bramble tangle along one of the little paths he had cut there. "Good morning, Mrs. Grouse," he replied. "I have got something on my mind. I have been following some strange tracks, and I don't know what to make of them." He pointed at one of them as he spoke.

"Oh," replied Mrs. Grouse in a tone of great surprise. "I made those with my snowshoes. I supposed you knew."

"Snowshoes! What are snow-shoes?" asked Peter, looking more puzzled than ever.

Very proudly Mrs. Grouse held out one foot for Peter to look at. Instead of the slim smooth toes he often had admired Peter saw that the bottom of each was covered for its whole length with queer-looking, horny little points that prevented the foot from sinking way down in the snow as it would have done without them. This made it very easy for Mrs. Grouse to get about on the snow instead of having to wade through it.

"My!" exclaimed Peter. "How perfectly splendid! Where did you get them?"

"Oh," replied Mrs. Grouse with pride in her voice, "they have been in the family a great many years. They were given to my great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather by Old Mother Nature."

"Tell me about it. Do please tell me about it," begged Peter, who had not had a story since Grandfather Frog went to sleep for the winter.

Mrs. Grouse fluffed out her feathers and settled herself comfortably. "There isn't much to tell," she began, "but all the same our family always has been rather proud of the way we came by our snowshoes. It all happened a great while ago."

"Way back in the time that Grandfather Frog tells about, when the world was young?" interrupted Peter.

Mrs. Grouse nodded and went on. "Great-grandfather Grouse lived very comfortably in those days, even when the hard times came and so many took to killing their neighbors because food was scarce. He always managed to get enough to eat because he didn't believe in being fussy. When he couldn't get what he wanted, he took what he could get and was thankful. When he couldn't find grasshoppers or crickets or bugs of any kind, or chestnuts or beechnuts or berries that he liked, he ate such berries as he could find, whether he liked them or not; and when he couldn't find berries or seeds, he ate the buds of trees. So one way or another he managed to pick up a living and to keep out of the way of his enemies, for he was just as smart as they were. You know, in those days there were no hunters with dreadful guns.

"So Grandfather Grouse managed to get along without really suffering until the coming of the first snow. That first snow was hard on everybody, but it was particularly hard on Grandfather Grouse. His slim toes cut right through. They wouldn't hold him up at all. Of course he spent as much time as possible up in the trees, but when he wanted to get low-hanging berries on the bushes, the kind that stay on all winter, you know, he just had to stand on the ground and reach up for them. Then, too, his feet were intended for walking and running rather than for perching in trees, and it made his toes ache dreadfully to have to cling to the branch of a tree too long. I know just how it felt because I have had to do it when Reddy Fox has been hunting for me.

"But Grandfather Grouse made the best of a bad matter and didn't say a word, not a word. He waded around in the snow as best he could, but it was dreadfully tiresome. He couldn't take more than a few steps without stopping to rest. And this wasn't all; the snow made his feet ache with the cold. He had to keep drawing first one foot and then the other up to warm them in his feathers.

"Now Grandfather Grouse had sharp eyes, and he knew how to use them. He had to, to keep out of danger. He watched the other little people, and he soon saw that those with big feet, feet that were big for the size of their bodies, didn't sink in like those with small, slim feet. For the first time in his life he began to wish that Old Mother Nature had made him different. He wished that he had broad feet. Yes, Sir, he wished just that. Then a thought popped into his head. Perhaps the snow wasn't going to last forever. Perhaps it would go away and never come again. Then he wouldn't want broad feet, but just the kind of feet he already had. He sighed. Then he tried to smile bravely.

"'I guess,' said he, talking out loud to himself, for he thought he was quite alone, 'I guess the thing to do is to stop worrying about the things I haven't got and make the most of the blessings I have got,' and he started to wade through the snow for some berries just ahead.

"Now Old Mother Nature happened to be passing, and she overheard Grandfather Grouse. 'I wish that every one felt as you do.' said she. 'It would make things a great deal easier for me. But what is it that you wish you had?'" Grandfather Grouse felt both pleased and a little ashamed-ashamed that he should even seem to be dissatisfied. At first he tried to pretend that everything really was all right, but after a little urging he told Old Mother Nature all about his troubles since the coming of the snow. She listened and looked thoughtful. Then she told Grandfather Grouse to be patient and perhaps things would not be so bad as they seemed. Somehow Grandfather Grouse felt better after that, and when he went to bed for the night in a big hemlock-tree he was almost cheerful.

"The next morning when he flew down to get his breakfast, he had the greatest surprise of his life. Instead of sinking way down into the snow, he sank hardly at all. He could get about with the greatest ease. He didn't know what to make of it until he happened to look down at his feet and then he saw-"

"That he had snowshoes!" interrupted Peter Rabbit, dancing about in great excitement.

"Just so," replied Mrs. Grouse. "He had snowshoes just like the ones I have now. When spring came, Old Mother Nature came around and took them away, because he no longer had need of them; but when the next winter came, she returned them to him. She called them the reward of patience. And ever since that long-ago day our family has had snowshoes in the winter. I really don't know how we would get along without them."

"I don't know how you would," replied Peter Rabbit. "Isn't it splendid how Old Mother Nature seems to know just what everybody needs?"

And with that Peter started for the dear Old Briar-patch to tell little Mrs. Peter all about the snowshoes of Mrs. Grouse.