Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

"Oh, he is gone; he just went behind that tree."

The children, in their eagerness, had not perceived how near they were to Dred. He had turned his face towards them, and was looking at them with a pleased expression, approaching to a smile.

"Do you want to see him?" he said. "Stop a few minutes."

He rose and scattered a train of corn between him and the thicket, and, sitting down on the ground, began making a low sound, resembling the call of the squirrel to its young. In a few moments Teddy and Fanny were in a tremor of eager excitement, as a pair of little bright eyes appeared among the leaves, and gradually their owner, a brisk little squirrel, came out and began rapidly filling its chops with the corn. Dred still continued, with his eyes fixed on the animal, to make the same noise. Very soon two others were seen following their comrade. The children laughed when they saw the headmost squirrel walk into Dred's hand, which he had laid upon the ground, the others soon following his example. Dred took them up, and, softly stroking them, they seemed to become entirely amenable to his will; and, to amuse the children, he let them go into his hunting-pouch to eat the corn that was there. After this, they seemed to make a rambling expedition over his whole person, investigating his pockets, hiding themselves in the bosom of his shirt, and seeming apparently perfectly fearless, and at home.

Fanny reached out her hand, timidly. "Won't they come to me?" she said.

"No, daughter," said Dred, with a smile, "they don't know you. In the new earth the enmity will be taken away, and then they'll come."

"I wonder what he means by the new earth!" said Fanny.

Dred seemed to feel a kind of pleasure in the admiration of the children, to which, perhaps, no one is wholly insensible. He proceeded, therefore, to show them some other of his accomplishments. The wood was resounding with the afternoon song of birds, and Dred suddenly began answering one of the songsters with an exact imitation of his note. The bird evidently heard it, and answered back with still more spirit; and thus an animated conversation was kept up for some time.

"You see," he said, "that I understand the speech of birds. After the great judgment, the elect shall talk with the birds and the beasts in the new earth. Every kind of bird has a different language, in which they show why men should magnify the Lord, and turn from their wickedness. But the sinners cannot hear it, because their ear is waxed gross."