Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories

by Thornton W. Burgess

"Oh, Grandfather Frog, why is it that Jimmy Skunk never hurries?" they panted.

"Chug-a-rum!" replied Grandfather Frog in his deepest, gruffest voice. "Chug-a-rum! Probably because he has learned better."

"Oh!" said one of the Merry Little Breezes, in a rather faint, disappointed sort of voice. Just then he spied a fat, foolish, green fly and blew it right over to Grandfather Frog, who snapped it up in a flash. Right away all the Merry Little Breezes began to hunt for foolish green flies and blow them over to Grandfather Frog, until he didn't have room for another one inside his white and yellow waistcoat. Indeed the legs of the last one he tried to swallow stuck out of one corner of his big mouth.

"Chug-a-rum!" said Grandfather Frog, trying very hard to get those legs out of sight. "Chug-a-rum! I always like to do something for those who do something for me, and I suppose now that I ought to tell you why it is that Jimmy Skunk never hurries. I would, if Peter Rabbit were here. If I tell you the story, Peter will be sure to hear of it, and then he will give me no peace until I tell it to him, and I don't like to tell stories twice."

"But he is here!" cried one of the Little Breezes. "He's right over behind that little clump of tall grass."

"Humph! I thought he wasn't very far away," grunted Grandfather Frog, with a twinkle in his great, goggly eyes.

Peter crept out of his hiding-place, looking rather shamefaced and very foolish. Then the Merry Little Breezes settled themselves on the lily-pads in a big circle around Grandfather Frog, and Peter sat down as close to the edge of the bank of the Smiling Pool as he dared to get. After what seemed to them a very long time, Grandfather Frog swallowed the legs of the last foolish green fly, opened his big mouth, and began:

"Of course you all know that long, long ago, when the world was young, things were very different from what they are now, very different indeed. The great-great-ever-so-great grandfather of Jimmy Skunk was slimmer and trimmer than Jimmy is. He was more like his cousins, Mr. Weasel and Mr. Mink. He was just as quick moving as they were. Yes, Sir, Mr. Skunk was very lively on his feet. He had to be to keep out of the way of his big neighbors, for in those days he didn't have any means of protecting himself, as Jimmy has now. He was dressed all in black. You know it wasn't until Old Mother Nature found out that he was taking advantage of that black suit to get into mischief on dark nights that she gave him white stripes, so that the darker the night, the harder it would be for him to keep from being seen.

"Now Mr. Skunk was very smart and shrewd, oh, very! When the hard times came, which made so many changes in the lives of the people who lived in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows, Mr. Skunk was very quick to see that unless he could think of some way to protect himself, it was only a matter of time when he would furnish a dinner for one of his fierce big neighbors, and of course Mr. Skunk had no desire to do that. It was then that he asked Old Mother Nature to give him a bag of perfume so strong that it would make everybody ill but himself. Mother Nature thought it all over, and then she did, but she made him promise that he would never use it unless he was in great danger.

"Mr. Skunk had to try his new defence only once or twice before his enemies took the greatest care to let him alone. He found that he no longer had to run for a safe hiding-place when he met Mr. Wolf or Mr. Lynx or Mr. Panther. They just snarled at him and passed without offering to touch him. So Mr. Skunk grew very independent and went where he pleased when he pleased. And, because he no longer had to run from his enemies, he got out of the habit of running. Then he made a discovery. He watched those of his neighbors who were forever hurrying about looking for food, hurrying because all the time there was great fear upon them that an enemy might be near, hurrying because each was fearful that his neighbor would get more than he. It wasn't long before Mr. Skunk saw that in their hurry they overlooked a great deal. In fact, by just following after them slowly, he found all he wanted to eat.