THE WELL IN THE WOOD

BOOKS BY
BERT LESTON TAYLOR

A PENNY WHISTLE
THE SO-CALLED HUMAN RACE
THE WELL IN THE WOOD

And others in a uniform collected
edition, to be ready later

New York: Alfred · A · Knopf

AND NOW VANISHED IN THE DEPTHS OF THE WELL.

The Well in the
Wood

by
Bert Leston Taylor

With illustrations by
F. Y. Cory

New York

1 9 2 2
Alfred · A · Knopf

COPYRIGHT, 1904, 1922, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.
Published, September, 1922
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

“THE BACILLUS DEDICATORY”

I had intended dedicating this little book to Mr. Henry B. Fuller, to whose friendship and criticism I owe much; but finally I decided it were wiser to refrain. The explanation of my change of mind is contained in the paragraph which follows:

“In this part of the world,” wrote Mr. Fuller, not long ago, “the bacillus dedicatory hardly survives within us up to middle age, but there is no denying that it is terribly active in most beginners, and that the ingenuous gratitude of these gives their established elders considerable cause for embarrassment. Have I written a successful story? Then I cast about for some well-known name, ‘higher up,’ with which to adorn thy fly-leaf and to ease my overpowering sense of obligation. The effort on the part of these various celebrities to elude my homage is the liveliest side of the literary game, and not the least instructive phase of unwritten literary history.”

THE STORIED ROADS OF FAIRYLAND

The dinner done, the lamp is lit,

And in its mellow glow we sit

And talk of matters, grave and gay,

That went to make another day.

Comes Little One, a book in hand,

With this request—nay, this command—

(For who’d gainsay the little sprite):

“Please—will you read to me to-night?”

Read to you, Little One? Why, yes.

What shall it be to-night? You guess

You’d like to hear about the bears—

Their bowls of porridge, beds and chairs?

Well, that you shall.... There! that tale’s done!

And now—you’d like another one?

To-morrow evening, Curly Head,

It’s “hass-pass seven!” Off to bed!

So each night another story:—

Wicked dwarfs and giants gory;

Dragons fierce and princes daring,

Forth to fame and fortune faring;

Wandering tots, with leaves for bed;

Houses made of gingerbread;

Witches bad and fairies good;

And all the wonders of the wood.

“I like the witches best,” says she

Who nightly nestles on my knee;

But why by them she sets such store

Psychologists must puzzle o’er.

Her likes are mine, and I agree

With all that she confides to me.

And thus we travel, hand in hand,

The storied roads of Fairyland.

Ah, Little One, when years have fled,

And left their silver on my head,

And when the dimming eyes of age

With difficulty scan the page,

Perchance I’ll turn the tables then;

Perchance I’ll put the question, when

I borrow of your better sight:

“Please—will you read to me to-night?”

CONTENTS

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

THE WELL IN THE WOOD

CHAPTER I
ENCHANTER’S NIGHTSHADE

“Colonel, you ’diculous dog, you’re so hot now you can hardly breathe. No; you needn’t bark. It’s too warm to play any more.”

Buddie was sitting on the fallen, mossy trunk of a cedar tree, just inside the edge of the wood, throwing little sticks for her dog Colonel to fetch. Being a young dog, Colonel wanted to play all day long, and he could not understand why Buddie should tire of throwing sticks when he never wearied of recovering them. So when she bent to tie her shoe-string he assumed that another stick was coming, and, yelping with delight, he crouched for the spring.

But Buddie, in bending over, had made a discovery that put an end to playing with sticks, for that day at least.

“Oh, what pretty flowers!” she cried; and she began to make a bouquet of some white blossoms that grew among the mosses of the fallen cedar.

Before you learn about this strange flower, Little One, I must tell you something of the small person who found it, and of the wood in which it grew.

“Buddie” was her every-day name. It is short and easy to say, especially if one is in a hurry, as Buddie’s mother always was. On Sundays her name was Ethel Elvira, which quite became a dress with a great deal of starch, a sash with a great deal of rustle and new shoes with a great deal of squeak.

Her home was a log house in the wild Northland, just where the pine-trees came down to peep into the mirror of a great lake. It was a lonely shore and not at all the kind that you, Little One, would like, for there was no sandy beach to dig in. Here and there were short stretches of gravel, but mostly it was black rock and deep water, which the sun never succeeded in warming. As far as one could see up and down the lake there was no other house, and the only blur on the wide sweep of dark blue water was the tattered sail of a restless Indian or the trailing smoke of a distant steamer.

In all the country round about there was only one road, and this kept so close to the lake—for fear, very likely, it would get lost—that there was just room between it and the water for the log house and a small back yard for the chickens. Across the road was a cleared space, sloping up over a little hill, in which grew potatoes, turnips and other vegetables that could stand a cold climate; for Buddie’s home was so far north that real winter lasted six months, and sometimes longer. There wasn’t any spring to speak of—without complaining—and nobody could tell when summer ended and autumn began.

Buddie had two brothers younger than herself. One was a wee tot who slept in a hammock near the kitchen stove, where the mother could keep the pot a-boiling and the cradle a-swinging at the same time; the other usually spent his time “helping father” to improve the road, which was in a sad way, or to hunt for the cows, which sometimes went deep into the wood to escape the tormenting flies.

As there was no other little girl to play with, Buddie had to amuse herself as best she could. One way was to turn the pages of a big, fine book of animal stories, a Christmas gift from a city friend of the family; and when all the pictures had been looked at for the hundredth time, she would call Colonel and ramble along the edge of the wood, in the hope of seeing some of the animals pictured in her book.

She never went more than a very little way into the wood.

“For if you do,” her mother would say, “the bears will eat you up.” So it was that the wood came to have a great fascination for her, as it would for you or me, Little One, if we could not go into it. A great many of us always wish to do what we are told not to do, which is very wrong, of course, and discourages the wise and patient people who write books on Ethics.

It was a wonderful wood, not at all like the wood in your favorite fairy tale. You can hardly realize, Little One, how far away it stretched—hundreds and hundreds of miles—away to the ice and snow of the far, far North. There were no roads, as in your fairy-tale wood, and no paths except a few old trails which had not been used for years, and over which the wild grasses and shrubs ran again. From the shore road you could see into it only a little way, because there were so many trees that had branches close to the ground, and such a tangle of old dead trees and thickly growing young ones. During the day, when the sunlight crept in through every crack, it was quite cheerful among the pines and firs and birches, and a great deal seemed to be going on there; but when night came on it grew dark and still, and the only speck of light for miles and miles came from the lamp in the log house window.

Rather a lonely place, one would say, for a little girl to grow up in. But Buddie never thought of that. She was always busy, and the days passed quickly enough. Colonel was a lively companion, if he was only a dog, and a yellow one at that; and he had one good quality which even a yellow dog can have—he was entirely devoted to his young mistress. If she wandered too far up or down the road, or seemed to be disregarding her mother’s command to keep out of the wood, he would take hold of her dress with his teeth and gently pull her back.

And now to return to the strange flower Buddie found. Pay attention, Little One: if it were not for the flower I should not be telling you this story.

Botanists call it Circæa Alpina, but you never could remember that. The other name for it is “Enchanter’s Nightshade,” which you may not forget so easily. It is a small plant, and the flower books do not say much about it; but I feel quite sure it must have originated on the Ææan Isle, where Circe the Enchantress lived, ever so many years ago. I think very likely Ulysses, whom you have read about or will read about some day, carried off a bouquet of it when he sailed away from the isle, and in the course of time the seeds reached our land. Anyhow, you must have guessed that there was some sort of enchantment in Buddie’s bouquet, even if I had not tried to explain; for no sooner had she fastened it under her hair-ribbon than Colonel exclaimed, in “really talk”:

“Who cares for flowers! Throw me a stick to fetch!”

CHAPTER II
ON THE WAY TO BEAVERTOWN

If a dog were to speak to you, Little One, in “really talk,” I dare say you would jump a foot—unless you happened to be sitting on a fallen tree at the time; then, very likely, you would do as Buddie did, jump to both feet.

“Why, Colonel!” she cried; “I didn’t know you could talk.”

“Indeed?” replied the Yellow Dog. “Well, I assure you I am an excellent talker, if you start me off on subjects in which I am interested. Like all persons that really have something to say, I need to be drawn out.”

Certainly he did not talk like a common dog, and he no longer looked like one. He held his head proudly, and his once dejected tail had an upward and aristocratic sweep. Could this be the same yellow dog that her father kicked around and accused of stealing eggs? Buddie rubbed her eyes and looked again. Yes; it was the same dog: around his neck was the rope collar with which she dragged him about.

Besides being an easy talker, Colonel seemed to be something of a mind-reader.

“It is a common belief,” he went on, “that all yellow dogs are good for is to kick around, or to put the blame on when eggs are missing. Now, I do not like eggs, and I do not know of a single yellow dog that does. It only goes to prove the old saying: Give a yellow dog a bad name and it will stick to him like a bur to his tail. But show me the yellow dog that is not the equal, in good manners, courage and intelligence, of any black or brown dog.”

Although Buddie lived a long way from any village, she had seen a great many dogs. They were mostly Indian curs, wolfish-looking creatures, and the greatest thieves in the world. Neglected by their owners, they foraged everywhere, often traveling miles in search of food, and eating almost anything they could chew. They were of all colors except yellow. Colonel was the only yellow dog Buddie had ever seen. And she was bound to admit that he was a much more agreeable dog than the ravenous creatures that came slinking around the log house every now and then, in the hope of picking up even so poor a meal as potato-parings or egg-shells.

“I say, give the yellow dog a show,” declared Colonel, sitting up on his haunches and making a grand flourish with his right forepaw. “Other dogs have shows, but you never hear of a yellow dog show. Let justice be done, though the sky falls.”

With his left forepaw he made another grand flourish, and paused for a reply. But all Buddie could think of was:

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be nice to have the sky fall.”

“Oh, that is just a figure of speech, like, Let justice be done,” said Colonel. “Nobody expects the sky to fall; though I dare say it would if justice were done.”

Buddie did not quite understand what was meant by a figure of speech, but, like many older persons, she was impressed by large words and an easy style of tossing them off; and it seemed to her that Colonel was a very superior person—if you could call a dog a person.

“If there are no more sticks to fetch,” said Colonel, dropping again on all fours, “I think I shall make a few calls on my friends in the wood.”

“Won’t you get lost?” asked Buddie, peering doubtfully into the dark grove of spruce and balsam-fir.

“Certainly not,” replied Colonel, tossing his head. “I very often go miles into the wood, for I can always nose my way back again. How would you like to pay a visit to my friend, the Laziest Beaver? We’ll be sure to find him at home.”

AND LED THE WAY INTO A THICKET

“The Laziest Beaver?” repeated Buddie, in surprise. “Are beavers lazy?” She had often heard her father say, when he had come home tired at twilight, that he had “worked like a beaver.”

“I have known a great many beavers in my time,” Colonel replied, “and I never knew one to do a stroke of work if he could get out of it. Indeed, Lazy as a Beaver, is a common expression in these parts. My friend, the Laziest Beaver, never worked in his life.”

“Well, let’s go to see him,” cried Buddie, happily. “Only, don’t go fast, as I can’t jump over things the way you can.”

“Never fear,” replied Colonel. “I shall show you the easiest paths. Besides, there is no hurry; we have all day before us.”

As he spoke he cleared a huge log with a graceful leap, and led the way into a thicket of young poplar trees.

Now, I am quite sure, Little One, that in going into the wood, Buddie did not mean to disobey her mother; she never before had done so. You are to believe, as I believe, that the bouquet of Enchanter’s Nightshade in her hair was to blame, just as it was the cause of everything else that happened to her that wonderful day.

At first Buddie had some trouble in following her guide, who slipped through the brush with an ease born of much practice. The little branches caught in her hair, and tried to poke out her eyes. But she soon learned to bend her head at the right moment and shield her eyes with her arms; and as they got deeper into the wood, where the proud pine-trees grew and the little bushes dared not intrude, walking became almost as easy as along a road.

“This friend of mine, the Laziest Beaver,” said Colonel, when Buddie stopped for a little rest, “is always going to do something, but never gets round to it. He’s been going to rebuild a dam for I don’t know how long, and he’s always talking about repairing his house, which fell down about his ears last summer. But he’d rather sit in the sun and tell stories and exchange news. He’s the greatest gossip in the woods—the crows are nothing to him—and every one that wants to find out anything goes straight to him.”

“Where does he live?” asked Buddie.

“Just a little way from here, at Beavertown. It used to be quite a village, but last year the beavers moved to a better place up the river. The Laziest Beaver was too lazy to follow them; so he lives all alone in his tumble-down house, by the side of his tumble-down dam, and lies out in the sun all day, and has just the laziest time in the world. Shall we move along?”

Their way now led downhill to the river, which, fortunately, it was not necessary to cross. A little distance up-stream a smaller river came in, and along the bank of this Colonel led the way to a meadow of tall wild grass.

This was Beavertown.

CHAPTER III
THE LAZIEST BEAVER

They found the Laziest Beaver at home—just as Colonel, the Yellow Dog, had promised—lying in the sun in front of his tumble-down dwelling, and fanning himself with lazy flaps of his broad tail. He nodded pleasantly as Colonel and Buddie approached, but made no attempt to rise for a more formal greeting.

“This is Buddie,” said the Yellow Dog, presenting her.

“Which Buddie?” asked the Laziest Beaver.

“Why, just Buddie.”

“I’ve heard of some Buddie, any Buddie, every Buddie and no Buddie, but I never heard of just Buddie before,” remarked the Laziest Beaver.

“She lives in the log house by the lake, where I stop,” Colonel explained.

“I’ve been meaning to get down to the lake on a visit,” said the Laziest Beaver, “but I can’t seem to find the time. There’s that dam to build, you know, and my house needs a few repairs.”

Remembering what Colonel had told her about the Laziest Beaver always talking of doing something but never getting around to do it, Buddie smiled, which was not at all polite. The Laziest Beaver noticed the smile, and changed the subject.

“What’s the news?” he asked, addressing the Yellow Dog.

“Carrying news to you would be carrying sweets to a beehive,” replied Colonel, with a bow. The Laziest Beaver was touched by the flattery, and smiled amiably.

“Well,” he said, “I do pick up a little news now and then. By the way, Bunny Cotton-Tayle was around here to-day. He is going up to The Well this afternoon to find the answer,” said the Laziest Beaver.

“What’s the answer?” asked Buddie, who thought it no more than polite to take part in the conversation.

“That’s just it,” replied the Laziest Beaver. “That’s what he’s going up to The Well to find out.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Buddie, much puzzled.

“She means,” said Colonel, “what is the answer to what?”

“I don’t know what the answer to what is, unless it is that,” said the Laziest Beaver. “You often hear people say, that’s what.”

“That is not the question,” objected Colonel.

“Then she should have asked, What’s the question? not, What’s the answer?” declared the Laziest Beaver, triumphantly.

“Question! Question!” cried the Yellow Dog.

“The question is,” said the Laziest Beaver, “why does a rabbit wabble his nose?”

“Oh, I wonder why he does!” cried Buddie. She had had a pet rabbit once upon a time, and she used to feed him long spears of grass, one after the other, and Bunny would take them in just as a printing press takes in rolls of paper—sitting perfectly still the while, and wabbling and wabbling and wabbling his nose.

“Doesn’t he know why himself?” she asked.

“Of course not. If he did he wouldn’t have to go up to The Well to find out, would he?”

“But how will he find out at The Well? Who will tell him?”

“Truth, of course. Doesn’t Truth lie at the bottom of a well?”

“I don’t know,” said Buddie. “We haven’t any well on our place; we get our water out of the lake.”

“It’s a very remarkable thing,” said the Yellow Dog, thoughtfully; “a very remarkable thing. Nobody knows why a rabbit has to wabble his nose.”

“There’s a song about it, isn’t there?” asked the Laziest Beaver. “I believe I’ve heard you sing it.”

“I believe I have sung it a few times,” answered Colonel, modestly, although he was extremely proud of his voice and never lost a chance to show it off.

“Sing it for us,” said the Laziest Beaver. “I haven’t heard any music for quite a while.”

“Oh, please do!” urged Buddie.

“Really, I am so hoarse,” began Colonel, apologetically.

“Oh, bark away!” said the Laziest Beaver. “We can stand it if you can.”

“Yes; do sing!” pleaded Buddie.

Thus encouraged, the Yellow Dog, who was really anxious to sing, cleared his throat with a preliminary,

Bow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow, Bow-wow,

and began, in a light and rather throaty, but, on the whole, pleasing voice:

“Why a peach or a plum has of seeds only one,

While a fig has a thousand, we know;

We know why a fire won’t burn in the sun,

And why you can’t boil melted snow;

We know why green peas—”

“Pleasant weather we are having,” remarked the Laziest Beaver to Buddie.

“Yes,” she answered absently, her attention on the song. She thought it kind of Colonel to sing, and extremely impolite of the Laziest Beaver to talk, especially as it was he that had asked for the music. Meanwhile the Yellow Dog, who had often sung in public, and so expected talking, kept on:

“We know why green peas make the best currant jell,

Why and wherefore the peanut-tree grows;

But, alack and alas! there is no one can tell

Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.”

“Our friend sings quite well, don’t you think so?” went on the Laziest Beaver.

“Yes,” replied Buddie, pleasantly, though inwardly vexed; and she nodded encouragement to the Yellow Dog, who just then burst into the chorus:

“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;

We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;

But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—

‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?’”

The Laziest Beaver hummed the chorus very much off the key and so loudly that Buddie scarcely could make out the words of it.

“I do wish people wouldn’t talk when some one is trying to sing,” she thought; and as Colonel began the second verse she got up and crossed over to where he was sitting, and paid no further attention to the Laziest Beaver.

“Now, every one knows where time goes when it flies,

And why a round robin is round;

Why moles are stone-blind, while potatoes have eyes,

Although they both live underground;

“Which side a worm turns on, and which side a lane;

And where the wind goes when it blows;—

But no one can tell—and we ask it in vain—

Why a rabbit should wabble his nose.

“We’ve whispered it so you could hear it for miles;

We’ve shouted it ‘under the rose’;

But alas and alack! only Echo calls back—

‘Oh—why—does—he—wabble—his—nose?

Wabble—his—nose,

His—no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ose?’”

By this time the Laziest Beaver, who picked up songs as quickly as gossip, had learned the words and the tune of the chorus; and when the Yellow Dog repeated it he joined in again—shouting the first line, whispering the second, and imitating Echo in the fourth. And so good was the imitation that Buddie found herself looking up and around for the voices in the air, which grew fainter and fainter and fainter, and at last died away in a long “no-o-o-o-o-o-o-se.”

WHICH GREW FAINTER AND FAINTER

Then, much to her surprise, she discovered that while she had been looking up and around, the Yellow Dog and the Laziest Beaver had vanished, and with them the tumble-down beaver house and the meadow and the little river. She was in the deep wood again, sitting on the fallen trunk of a great pine-tree, and watching a rabbit, who, apparently unconscious of her presence, was regarding himself in a small hand-glass, while he wabbled and wabbled and wabbled his nose.

CHAPTER IV
“WHY DOES A RABBIT WABBLE HIS NOSE?”

How Buddie came to be whisked away from Beavertown to a part of the wood that, so far as she could tell, she had never seen before, remains to this day a mystery.

“It was the echo,” she said, in telling me the tale; “you just couldn’t help looking up.” Certainly it must have been a remarkable echo; and although it does not explain the matter entirely to my satisfaction, it is as convincing as any explanation I can offer. But, to go on with the story:

The Rabbit continued to regard himself in his mirror, wabbling his nose the while, until Buddie wondered whether he intended to keep it up all day. But at last he dropped the glass, which was suspended on a cord about his neck, and remarked, with a little sigh:

“It’s no use. I can’t make it out.”

Buddie feared to move lest she send him scampering off; rabbits were such timid creatures—that is, all the rabbits she had ever come upon before. Still, she wished to talk with him about his funny nose; so she coughed softly to attract his attention. This is an old trick and usually succeeds. The Rabbit turned his head, saw Buddie and exclaimed hurriedly, with a friendly smile:

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear!”

Buddie laughed outright.

“The idea of being afraid of a rabbit!” said she.

“Why not?” demanded the Rabbit, in a tone of offended dignity. “Size isn’t everything.”

“But rabbits are such scary little things,” Buddie started to say, when the Rabbit interrupted her.

“I’m not afraid of anybody,” he declared with a little swagger. He emphasized the last word so significantly, and it sounded so like “any Buddie,” that Buddie hastened to say:

“I didn’t know rabbits were so brave. I thought—”

“Never mind what you thought,” said the Rabbit, curtly. “It doesn’t help matters a bit. Always speak twice before you think; then you won’t make mistakes. Nearly all mistakes are caused by hasty thinking. Didn’t you ever hear the expression, Bold as a rabbit?”

Buddie shook her head.

“I’ve heard about, Bold as a lion,” she replied.

The Rabbit sniffed.

“Lions? What are they?” he asked.

“I don’t believe there are any around here,” answered Buddie.

“I don’t believe there are, either,” said the Rabbit, with a self-satisfied smile. “But if there were I should teach them their place fast enough. The expression, Bold as a rabbit, is common enough—as common as, Wise as a goose, or, Silly as an owl, or, Fast as a snail, or, Sleepy as a weasel—and it’s a wonder you never heard it. Why, the word ‘hare-brained,’ or ‘rabbit-brained,’ means, bold to the point of recklessness.”

“Well,” thought Buddie, “if this isn’t the queerest place anybody ever got into. Dogs sing, beavers are lazy, and rabbits are bold as lions. Everything seems to be upside down. What next, I wonder? I suppose,” she said aloud, “your name is Mr. Bunny Cotton-Tayle.”

The Rabbit bowed.

“And your name?” he asked politely.

“Buddie—just Buddie.” She was afraid he might ask, “Which Buddie?” as the Laziest Beaver had asked.

The Rabbit again consulted his mirror, and inquired carelessly, as one inquires who does not expect information:

“You don’t happen to know, I suppose?”

“Why you wabble your nose?”

“Precisely.”

“No,” confessed Buddie. “And I think it’s funny you can’t tell.”

“I don’t see anything funny in it,” said the Rabbit.

“I mean strange.”

“Or strange. Why is a watermelon bald-headed, while a carrot has whiskers? Answer me that!”

“I don’t know,” Buddie again confessed.

“Did you ever ask a watermelon?”

“Of course not. That’s perfectly ’diculous. Who ever heard of a watermelon talking? But still,” Buddie added to herself, “if a rabbit can talk, why shouldn’t a watermelon?”

“Well, ask a watermelon sometime,” said the Rabbit; “or ask a carrot. Neither of them knows, any more than a dog knows when he’s hot.”

“I’m sure a dog knows when he’s hot,” objected Buddie.

“How do you know when you’re hot?” demanded the Rabbit, with a this-is-where-I-trip-you-up twinkle in his eye.

“Why, I get hot—I mean I get all sweaty and have to wipe my face and neck.”

“Exactly,” said the Rabbit. “You know when you’re hot because you sweat. But a dog doesn’t sweat and can’t sweat. There! What do you say to that?”

“If my dog Colonel were here,” said Buddie, “I’m sure he could tell me.”

“Couldn’t,” declared the Rabbit. “Told me so himself, many a time. Haven’t you noticed that on the hottest day a dog will race round and run after sticks and stones and go on like mad until he simply drops from exhaustion? Now, if he could tell when he was hot, as you can, he would stop long before he gave out. That sort of thing is very wearing on a dog. That’s why he doesn’t live longer.”

As Buddie had no suitable reply ready the Rabbit continued:

“No, Buddie—I believe you said your name was Buddie?” Buddie nodded. “It’s so like my own—Bunny. No, Buddie, there are some things about ourselves we can’t explain, just as there are some things that are perfectly clear. For instance, I know why I can not run very far in a straight line, but have to zigzag.”

“Do tell me!” cried Buddie, greatly interested.

“The reason is, my hindlegs are twice as long as my forelegs. After I run a little way my hindlegs overtake my forelegs, and if I were to keep on I should be going the other way, which would be extremely awkward, don’t you think?”

“I should think it would be,” murmured Buddie, to whom the explanation was by no means clear.

“Why, once when I started for home I was in such a hurry I forgot to zigzag, and before I realized it I was twice as far from home as when I set out. So when I am chasing a fox or a panther I have to make up in speed what I lose in ground. But as for this nose-wabbling,”—the Rabbit again consulted his pocket mirror and sighed deeply—“that gets me. I give it up. Even Doctor Goose, who knows everything—or almost everything—can’t explain that.”

“The Laziest Beaver said you were going up to The Well to find the answer,” remarked Buddie, who was very curious to find out what sort of well it was.

“Yes; I am going up to The Well,” replied the Rabbit. “But I am not the only one that wishes to learn something. The Guinea-Pig wants to know why his eyes fall out when you hold him up by the tail.”

“But a guinea-pig hasn’t any tail,” said Buddie, who had owned one, and was quite sure it didn’t have a sign of a tail.

“I don’t know what sort of guinea-pigs you are in the habit of associating with,” said the Rabbit; “but all of my acquaintance have tails, and good long ones. Why shouldn’t a guinea-pig have a tail? A guinea-hen has.”

“I don’t know why it shouldn’t, but I know it hasn’t,” Buddie persisted.

“Well, here comes the Guinea-Pig now,” said the Rabbit; “and if that isn’t a tail he’s wearing, I don’t know a tail when I see it.”

Buddie looked around and saw, almost at her feet, the dearest Guinea-Pig imaginable. She gave a cry of delight and stretched out her hand to caress it, just as she used to caress her own pet before it fell victim to a foraging fox.

Now, Buddie did not mean to do it, but it came about in this way: startled by her exclamation, the Guinea-Pig turned and made off; Buddie reached forward eagerly, caught him, and lifted him up—by the tail!

Instantly his eyes fell out.

“There! You’ve done it!” cried the Rabbit.

“I wish people wouldn’t pick me up by the tail,” sobbed the Guinea-Pig. He couldn’t weep, you see, because his eyes were out.

“Oh, you poor thing!” cried Buddie. And getting down on her hands and knees, she began hunting for the little creature’s eyes, which had rolled under the leaves.

CHAPTER V
THE GUINEA-PIG WHOSE EYES FELL OUT

“Really, I didn’t mean to pick you up by the tail,” said Buddie, turning over the leaves in search of the missing eyes.

“That’s what they all say,” sobbed the Guinea-Pig. “Can’t you find them? It never took so long before.”

“Here’s one! What a teeny little eye! And here’s the other! How do you put them back?” Buddie asked the Rabbit, who, mirror in hand, was again studying his nose.

“Ask the Guinea-Pig; they’re his eyes,” replied the Rabbit. “I have troubles of my own.”

Buddie took the Guinea-Pig in her lap.

“If I’m not doing it right you must tell me,” she said. “And do stop sobbing; it shakes your head so I can’t do a thing.”

“I can’t stop,” blubbered the Guinea-Pig. “If I don’t cry I have to sob.”

“Well, cry a little, then, for a change. You won’t shake so.”

“But I can’t cry,” wailed the unhappy Guinea-Pig. “My eyes are out. Oh! oh!”

He gave a little squeak, more of fright than of pain, for Buddie had grasped him so tightly that he couldn’t shake, and scarcely could breathe.

“There!” she exclaimed triumphantly, slipping back the eyes. “Now you’re all right, and I’ll never pick you up by the tail again, you dear, dear little thing!”

She stroked him affectionately, but the Guinea-Pig, instead of cheering up, wept like a baby. His brown eyes fairly streamed tears.

“Oh! oh!” he cried. “Everything’s upside down!”

“I know it, dearie,” said Buddie, soothingly. She was getting used to the topsy-turviness of the wood, and she was not the least surprised to hear the Guinea-Pig wail forth:

“You’re standing on your head! You’re standing on your head!”

“It only seems so to you,” Buddie replied. “You shouldn’t live in such a ’diculous wood, you know.”

“You’ve put his eyes in upside down, stupid!” said the Rabbit. “You ought to be more careful.”

“Dear! dear!” exclaimed Buddie, in dismay. “What’s to be done now?”

“Pick him up by the tail again,” was the brief advice.

“Oh! oh!” bawled the Guinea-Pig. “Must I go through all that again?”

“Don’t take on so,” soothed Buddie. “It’s for your own good. And we shan’t lose the eyes this time. We really shan’t.”

As gently as possible she lifted the Guinea-Pig by the tail, and when his eyes fell out she caught them in her hand.

“Be sure to put the right eye on the right side and the left eye on the left side,” said the Rabbit, “Otherwise he’ll be cross-eyed.”

“I wonder which is which,” said the puzzled Buddie. “They ought to be marked.”

“You know the old rule for telling the left one. It’s the one you pick up second.”

“I don’t see why,” said Buddie, who had never heard the old rule.

“If you pick up one, the other is left, isn’t it?”

“But does it matter which one you pick up first?”

“Certainly not. How stupid you are!”

“Well, I’ll try this one,” said Buddie.

“That’s right,” said the Rabbit.

“There! I do hope I haven’t made any mistake,” said Buddie, when the operation was over. “Goodness! What are you crying about now? Do your eyes pain you?” For the Guinea-Pig continued to weep as if his little heart were broken.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” said the Rabbit. “He’s that way nearly all the time. Tell her the story of your life, old fellow,” he suggested, patting his weeping friend on the shoulder.

“Yes, do!” encouraged Buddie. “It must be very sad,” she remarked to the Rabbit.

“Yes—when you’ve heard it for the first time,” he replied. “Come,”—to the Guinea-Pig,—“cheer up!”

“Perhaps if it’s so sad he may not want to tell us,” suggested Buddie, who was beginning to feel a bit tearful herself.

“Oh, he likes to talk about it,” said the Rabbit. “Everybody likes to talk about his own affairs. There’s my nose, for instance. Go on, old fellow. ‘I was born—’”

The Guinea-Pig dried his eyes with the back of his paw, sniffed once or twice and began:

“I was born in a large wire cage, in a doctor’s office, at the age of one.”

“How could you be?” Buddie interrupted. “You couldn’t be one year old when you were born, you know.”

“He means one second,” explained the Rabbit. “Don’t interrupt, or he’ll start bawling again.”

“Next door to us lived another family of guinea-pigs,” went on Brown Eyes. “There were two daughters—one of them the sweetest, dearest—”

Here the Guinea-Pig broke down, and it was some time before he was able to resume his story.

“One day some visitors came to the office, and the doctor took me out and exhibited me to them. ‘Is he old enough to kill?’ asked one of the visitors. ‘Just the right age and weight, two hundred and fifty grams,’ replied the doctor. And before I could realize the meaning of these dreadful words he seized a glittering instrument and plunged it into my body.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Buddie, horrified. A warning glance from the Rabbit checked further comment.