Hollow Tree Nights and Days

by Albert Bigelow Paine

Once upon a time Mr. Dog came over to the Hollow Tree to spend the evening with the 'Coon and 'Possum and the Old Black Crow, and pretty soon other Deep Woods people dropped in, and everybody was passing the time of day and feeling comfortable and happy in the good society of those present. They talked about the weather, and how it seemed to be a dry spring, and Mr. Rabbit said his garden was suffering, and Mr. Turtle said he had never seen the Wide Blue Water so low at this season for a hundred and nine or ten years. He couldn't remember just which it was, but it was the year that Father Storm Turtle, who lives up in the Big West Hills, and makes the thunder, was laid up with misery in his shoulder, and Mother Storm had to run the thunder-works, and tend to sick folks, too. Most people, Mr. Turtle said, believed that good, loud thunder helps to shake the rain out of the clouds, and very likely it was so, for the next spring, when Father Storm got well, he gave them enough of it, and it rained so that the Wide Blue Water came up into the Big Deep Woods as far as the Hollow Tree, which wasn't a Hollow Tree then, but a good, sound oak only about four hundred years old,—his Uncle Tom Turtle, who lived up by the Forks, having been just about that old himself when it came up as a sapling.[5]

When Mr. Turtle got through, none of the Hollow Tree people said anything at all, at first, for whenever Mr. Turtle mentioned how old he was, and the great ages of many of his family, it seemed to them too wonderful for words. But by and by Mr. Dog said that Mr. Turtle was very likely right about the thunder making the rain, for he had heard Mr. Man explain that the reason it was so dry this year was because there was a great war going on, on the other side of the world, with big guns roaring all day and night, and that the terrible jar and noise of those guns kept it raining there steadily, so there was no rain left for this side. Mr. Dog supposed that Father Storm Turtle could not get up a noise big enough to beat that war noise, and had about given up trying.

Then Mr. Rabbit asked why Mr. Man's people wanted to have war and fire those big guns at each other, which must be very dangerous and very apt to kill people, besides causing floods in one place and drought in another, which was bad for everybody concerned.

Mr. Dog said Mr. Man himself didn't know why all those Mr. Man's over there wanted to have a war. Mr. Dog had heard Mr. Man say that those people over there didn't know themselves what it was all about, and that they were killing each other every day by the thousand with those big guns, and losing all their property, for no reason at all that anybody could think of, except, perhaps, to take each other's country, which probably wouldn't be worth much now, whoever got it. Mr. Dog said that, of course, Mr. Man's people were very smart in many ways, but that as nearly as he could find out they had always been very silly about wars, and had fought many of them, for no good reason, instead of being wise like the Deep Woods people, who only fight to get something to eat, or sometimes when there are rivals at a time of courtship. Mr. Dog said his own people were more like Mr. Man's, probably from association, and that more than once at Great Corners he had been set upon by a perfectly strange Mr. Dog, without cause; but even then it was generally a single-handed affair and soon over, except once, when he believed every Mr. Dog in Great Corners took a hand for a few minutes, though nobody was hurt and everybody seemed to feel better for the exercise.

Mr. Dog went on to say that he seldom enjoyed these occasions, and lately had stayed in Mr. Man's car while they were at Great Corners and talked earnestly to any strange dog that came around looking for war.

Then Mr. 'Coon, who hadn't said a word so far, but had just been smoking and thinking, seemed to wake up out of deep reflection, and said:

"I know something about war. I thought of making one, once, and afterwards I saw one."

Then everybody looked at Mr. 'Coon, who is usually rather quiet, and asked him to please tell about those wars—nothing could be more interesting, just now, than to hear about them.

So Mr. 'Coon filled his pipe up fresh, and told them.