Dot and the Kangaroo

by Ethel C. Pedley

The good Kangaroo, seeing how happy these people were, and knowing that her life was quite safe, wanted to peep about Dot's home and see what it was like—for Kangaroos can't help being curious. So presently she quietly hopped off towards the cottage, and then a very strange thing happened. Just as the Kangaroo was wondering what the great iron tank by the kitchen door was meant for, there popped out of the open door a joey Kangaroo. Now, to human beings, all joey Kangaroos look alike, but amongst Kangaroos there are no two the same, and Dot's Kangaroo at once recognised in the little Joey her own baby Kangaroo. The Joey knew its mother directly, and, whilst Dot's Kangaroo was too astonished to move, and not being able to think, was trying to get at a conclusion why her Joey was coming out of a cottage door, the little Kangaroo, with a hop-skip-and-a-jump, had landed itself comfortably in the nice pouch Dot had just vacated.

Then Dot's mother, rejoicing over the safe return of her little girl, was not more happy than the Kangaroo with her Joey once more in her pouch. With big bounds she leapt towards Dot, and the little girl, suddenly looking round for her Kangaroo friend, clapped her hands with delight as she saw a little grey nose, a pair of tiny black paws, and the point of a black little tail, hanging out of the pouch that had carried her so often.

"Why!" exclaimed Dot's mother, "if she hasn't got the little Joey Jack brought me yesterday! He picked it up after a Kangaroo hunt some time ago."

"It's her Joey; her lost Joey!" cried Dot, running to the Kangaroo. "Oh, dear Kangaroo, I am so glad!" she said, "for now we are all happy; as happy as can be!" Dot hugged her Kangaroo, and kissed the little Joey, and they all three talked together, so that none of them understood what the others were saying, only that they were all much pleased and delighted.

"Wife" said Dot's father, "I'll tell you what's mighty queer, our little girl is talking away to those animals, and they're all understanding one another, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to treat Kangaroos as if they were human beings!"

"I expect," said his wife, "that their feelings are not much different from ours. See how that poor animal is rejoicing in getting back its little one, just as we are over having our little Dot again."

"To think of all the poor things I have killed," said Dot's father sadly, "I'll never do it again."

"No," said his wife, "we must try and get everyone to be kind to the bush creatures, and protect them all we can."

This book would never come to an end if it told all that passed that day. How Dot explained the wonderful power of the berries of understanding, and how she told the Kangaroos all that her parents wanted her to say on their behalf, and what kind things the Kangaroo said in return.

All day long the Kangaroo stayed near Dot's home, and the little girl persuaded her to eat bread, which she said was "most delicious, but one would get tired of it sooner than grass."