"And," he added slyly enough, "don't grieve too long. Perhaps you will fall in love again."
Just then, however, he seemed to be suddenly mindful of his own family. For a distant shot was heard in the air. Everybody stopped eating, and listened, but nothing more was to be heard. The hunters were far off, although their presence anywhere within hearing was full of alarm.
"Remember what I say," the splendid traveler called back, for he was marshaling his flock.
Mrs. Grebe could scarcely comprehend what was going on, for it seemed but a second before all the beautiful geese were in the air again, flying low over the plain. They would elude the hunters. That she knew. But she wished the wise captain of them all could have stayed just a little longer to explain what he meant. How could she carry her young ones with her? And how build on the water?
But it is long practise that works out in perfection; and Mrs. Grebe was soon able to teach her babies to climb on her back and to perch there with their beaks buried in her soft feathers, and their little toes digging ahold of her. And she began pushing her nest farther and farther out into the water until it seemed scarcely to have any connection with the land at all. Alone, and fearing to leave her nest unguarded, to this day she covers it with sticks and straw, and when she turns the eggs over that she is hatching, she smears them with mud until they are very hard indeed to find. For she is the most suspicious of birds.
But if she was indebted to Mr. Wild Goose for his advice, he, on his part, felt that he had only drawn on his learning as a great traveler. Had he not seen the tropic swans with their young riding upon their shoulders? And he knew what it was for. So he was only a generous and observant bird when he made the suggestion.
Later that season, however, when a great prairie fire swept the region and burned everything to the very edges of the lakes, Mrs. Grebe was thankful indeed that she could carry her babies with her to the center of the lake, and there ride in safety with them while the reeds and the grasses blazed on the margin.
And of this she told Mr. Goose the year after, when he came back. He had helped better than he knew. But of her second marriage she said very little, and he did not embarrass her with questions.
Oh, yes, there is much that the great Wild Goose knows and he is not too proud to draw upon his wisdom when it is a matter of helping even such little stay-at-home people as Mrs. Grebe.