After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much
to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.
***************
The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal-etiquette to dwell
on possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he dropped the
subject.
**********************
The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette
forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one's
friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.
***********************
"They say,
'_Why_ can't fellows be allowed to do what they like _when_ they like
and _as_ they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and
watching them all the time and making remarks and poetry and things
about them? What _nonsense_ it all is!' That's what the ducks say."
************
Conversation was impossible for a long time; and when
it was slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of conversation
that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not
mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows
on the table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into
Society himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the
things that didn't really matter. (We know of course that he was
wrong, and took too narrow a view; because they do matter very much,
though it would take too long to explain why.)
********************
No animal,according to the rules of animal etiquette, is ever expected to do
anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the
off-season of winter. All are sleepy--some actually asleep. All are
weather-bound, more or less; and all are resting from arduous days and
nights, during which every muscle in them has been severely tested,
and every energy kept at full stretch.
**********************************
The Wild Wood is pretty well populated by now; with all
the usual lot, good, bad, and indifferent--I name no names. It takes
all sorts to make a world.
********************************
He saw clearly how plain and simple--how narrow, even--it all
was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special
value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all
want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back
on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there;
the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down
there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was
good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all
his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could
always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.
*********************************
Independence is all very well, but we animals never allow our friends to make fools
of themselves beyond a certain limit; and that limit you've reached.
********************************
For this is the last best gift
that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has
revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the
awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and
pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives
of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should
be happy and light-hearted as before.
*********************************
Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one
by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the _table-d'hote_ shrink
pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets
taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, _en
pension_, until the next year's full re-opening, cannot help being
somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager
discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in
the stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to
be querulous. Why this craving for change? Why not stay on quietly here,
like us, and be jolly? You don't know this hotel out of the season, and
what fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the whole
interesting year out. All very true, no doubt, the others always reply;
we quite envy you--and some other year perhaps--but just now we have
engagements--and there's the bus at the door--our time is up! So they
depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful. The
Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and, whoever
went, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air,
and feeling some of its influence in his bones.
*******************************************
"If people would be more careful," said a field-mouse rather stiffly,
"and look where they're going, people wouldn't hurt themselves--and
forget themselves.
*************************************
He seemed tired, and the Rat let him rest
unquestioned, understanding something of what was in his thoughts;
knowing, too, the value all animals attach at times to mere silent
companionship, when the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks time
******************************
Take the adventure,
heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! 'Tis but a
banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are
out of the old life and into the new! Then some day, some day long
hence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has been drained and
the play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with a
store of goodly memories for company. You can easily overtake me on
the road, for you are young, and I am ageing and go softly. I will
linger, and look back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eager
and light-hearted, with all the South in your face!"
****************************
"tell me all. The worst is
over. I am an animal again. I can bear it."
**************************
The Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to
check his statements or to criticise in an unfriendly spirit, rather
let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to
the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-
time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and
the raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much
as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?
**************************
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