“Mother Nature got about half the earth in fine working order. Then she gave the rain and the wind orders and went down south, over the Far Horizon to look after the other half.
“Right away the wicked little raindrops went to playing in the brooks and leading them into no end of mischief. And the winds went up and played tag with each other on the mountain-tops. And the Sun got curious to know what Mother Nature was doing with the other half of the earth, because that was coming out all different, so he kept edging farther and farther south until by and by, he wasn’t paying any attention to the north half at all. And things went awfully wrong in the north half.
“Awfully wrong! The plants down in the brook bottoms cried: ‘We’re drowning! We’re drowning! If the wind and the sun don’t do their part we won’t be eaten.’ So they turned themselves into bulrushes and all kinds of tough, stringy things that can stand wet feet, but nothing in the world can eat them. And the plants on the higher lands cried: ‘We’re strangling! We haven’t had a drink in ever so long, and our backs are so stiff from standing still we’ll never be able to play again. If the rain and the wind don’t do their part we won’t be eaten!’ So they hid down in their roots under the Earth-that-is-common-to-all, most discouraged, and left only their skeletons standing. And the beasts starved. Especially the poor cows. But the wolves kept very fat. Only they weren’t telling any one how they managed it.
“And Mother Nature was almost through down south and getting ready to come north again. So the Sun hurried back to get busy. And the rain poured to make up for lost time, and the winds rushed down from the mountain tops, but their fingers were all cold, so they made things worse than ever. And the beasts were all cold, ’specially the cows.” Chirp stopped to stretch his wing.
“Please go on, Mr. Chirp,” pleaded Nibble. He was so excited and impatient! “Please get to the part about the wolves!”
“I will,” promised Chirp Sparrow. “Only these birds must settle down and be quiet. They get me all fluttered.” For every sparrow on the haystack was coming down close to the hole in the bottom where Nibble Rabbit was sitting. No one wanted to miss hearing about it.
“Well, Mother Nature came back,” Chirp went on. “And, my, but wasn’t she angry! Just wasn’t she? She said to the rain: ‘I don’t believe you’ve rained a drop since I’ve been gone or you wouldn’t be carrying on at this rate. Do you call this a shower? It’s a flood—and it’s perfectly disgraceful.’ Then she turned to the wind. ‘Do you think I don’t know where you’ve been?’ she scolded. ‘I can feel how cold your fingers are. Look how you’ve ruffled up the fur on my poor chilly beasts there!’ And she snapped at the Sun: ‘You needn’t look so good. Stop smiling and listen to me. Do you think I didn’t know where you were? Peeking right over my shoulder. You nearly burned a hole in the back of my neck when I was finishing up that last armadillo. You three have made a pretty mess of things. And I did so want one world where there wasn’t any winter!’ She nearly sat down and cried over it all, she was so disappointed.
“But, of course she hadn’t time. She had to put things back in order. First she coaxed the plants to begin growing again. Then she called the beasts so she could look them all over and see what she could do for them.
“And the cows came crawling up, as slow, as slow, with their poor bones all sticking out—but the wolves were fat as butter.
“And the cows said, ‘We’ve been so starvation hungry that we’ve worn our teeth right off.’ And so they had. And their teeth are still worn off, right to this day.