And the fatherless ones were immediately discovered to view, for Mrs. Grebe moved ever so slightly and six tiny little Grebes twittered and chirped at her feet.
The sight was very moving, and the doughty old warrior commanded himself sufficiently to ask the particulars.
"Yes," the dainty little lady Grebe said. "We were a devoted pair, my husband and I. You know the Grebes, how they are like to die of broken heart if one or the other is killed. They're like the cooing dove, you know, very devoted. But my dear, beautiful mate was shot before my very eyes. Yes, the bullet was meant for me, because it is the mother Grebe's beautiful breast feathers that they are after. But it was he who was killed. We both dived, but when I came up from under the water after going as far as I could, I looked in vain for him. Men in a boat were reaching out for something, and it was my own mate they were lifting up from the water. When they saw it was not the mother bird, they threw his body back into the lake. After a while it sank and I knew that it was all hopeless."
Mr. Goose knew not what to say. But before he could even begin to express his feelings, the gentle Grebe added to her account of woes the fact that her first brood of the season had all perished, too.
"These little fellows are but just hatched," she went on. "They will never know their dear father; but what happened to the first brood of the season is the worst. We were, as you know, far south of here. Another lake where we go for the winter. No one knew that in that lake dwelt the worst of snapping turtles. But such was the fact. In one month our brood of dear little chicks was, every one of them, seized while swimming and dragged under by the great turtles!"
Then, like so many people who have suffered as much, Mrs. Grebe began to apologize for telling her woes.
"It is only because you are so very traveled and wise, Mr. Goose, that I tell you all my afflictions. Nothing, of course, can amend the loss of my dear mate. But how I am to protect my children from all my enemies I cannot say. I am sorely troubled."
Mr. Goose all this time had only pretended to eat, for he was too much interested and too deeply concerned to do aught but attend to Mrs. Grebe's sad plight.
He thought for a long moment, and then said that he would give her two pieces of advice, but that she must wait a few moments until he had thought over his many observations and experiences.
"True," he said, "I have seen many ways of caring for children. And you are without assistance. Now my nest is built in almost inaccessible places, and Mrs. Goose has few enemies in the water to fear. Our chicks are too large to be pulled under the water by turtles, and our nest is too well defended by the sentry goose for us to fear the fox or the wolf. But you, poor Mrs. Grebe, you are indeed sorely put to it. You must do two things. First, I am sure, you must build farther out from the shore; and, second, you must take your children with you on your back when they first venture over the pond.