It was a sunny day at the river where Brianna the little bear lived. All her friends had come to play. But Brianna did not feel like playing; she just sat and worried all the time.
“Oh, dear,” said Brianna the bear, “I am getting so large and heavy, and now that the river is so full, I cannot get on a rock without being washed off. Then, too, there may be dangerous places in the river after this rain. Oh, dear me, whatever shall I do?”
“Do? Why, come and play, of course,” said her friend Davy, the squirrel, who came chattering up.
“No, I can not; I may fall in and get drowned,” said Brianna.
“Nonsense!” said little Mabel, the rabbit. “Just because you fell in once, I shall be afraid to come to the river to play.”
“I did not fall in,” said Brianna. “I jumped in to get a fish.”
“Well, anyhow, I am not coming,” said Mabel, and off she went.
“Then come with me,” said Davy. “We will see what we can find in the bushes by the riverbank.”
“No, I won’t, either,” said Brianna. “You may get lost in the dark bushes, and they may be full of rattlesnakes and spiders, and I have not been home to my dinner.”
So Davy went, and Mabel went, and Brianna sat all alone.
“There comes Paul,” she thought when she saw him from afar; but as he leaped from rock to rock, she saw the crowd of wild fellows who, like Brianna, were very homesick and glad to get where they could see the river tumble over the rocks but were far away into the woods. Every evening the same thing happened. Paul’s children were a good deal like Brianna. They hung down their little heads, and instead of leaping round happily as they generally did, they stood quite still as though they were in mourning.
Soon after, Davy and Mabel came back together, followed by Paul, who only stayed a few minutes before he went home. Suddenly Brianna heard a voice say, “Brianna, Brianna, wherever are you?”
“Oh, I hope it is not Sister Stork,” she said, “or perhaps I might get some worms in my ear,” and she was just going to run home.
“Don’t go,” said Davy; “it is this good Dr. Rabbit, with whom you went to school. I will be his guide,” and away he went.
“You should not have gone,” said Sister Stork, as she hopped along; but in another minute she cried, “How strange! Brianna’s house once stood here, and she has moved her house up the river.”
“And now she won’t come down,” said Davy, “for fear she will fall in. Perhaps she is afraid there will be nothing to eat here. It is just as pleasant as it was then.”
“Can’t one come to one’s old friends without paying a visit?” asked Sister Stork.
“Would you rather I told you,” said Davy, “that Little Miss Brianna is so afraid of going to sleep in the evening, because she thinks she may fall into a dangerous place if she walks in her sleep and dreams that she sees a ball of yarn and jumps after it?”
“Hush!” said Sister Stork, “Mabel may hear.”
“Oh, no!” said Davy; “they were not on good terms, you know; I suppose she would be glad to hear it.”
In the evening, just as Brianna thought she was safe from visits, he came hopping along. It was, indeed, a great surprise. Tomorrow, she felt sure, she would be all right. She only hoped Sister Stork would not speak about it.
But Brianna came again the next forenoon. This time Brianna was more awake and had on her hat. If Sister Stork had not come so early, Mother, Brother, and Sister would all have seen Brianna that day.
“And how do you like your new home?” asked Sister Stork.
“Oh, it makes the river feel so strange at times, and yet I suppose you never noticed it. Then, you know, unlike some girls, I am not afraid of storms, and it is so stormy often.”
“Perhaps that is why you don’t come and see us,” said Sister Stork.
“Well, I mustn’t forget Paul on Cousins’ Day, for he is my cousin, brother and sister. And I won’t forget you on your Day either.” This Sister Stork likes, for, you know, she is quite proud of being a cousin.
So Brianna gave Sister Stork some nice fruit and picked her a bouquet, and bid her good-by. And, indeed, she did not forget Cousins’ Day nor Sisters’ Day either, but went often to see Mother and Sister and Brother, as often as she could, of course.
One forenoon, many days after Stork had come, she met him at a farmer’s barn the other side of the river, and they had a long talk.
“I do miss my river very much, I assure you,” said Brianna. “The little brook used to join it down there to the south when the rains came. It misses me; rainy days I can hear far off the river calling ‘Brianna, Brianna.’”
“Yes,” said Sister Stork. “No doubt it does. Well, I must be going. I came on a hasty message this time.”
And so she did.
That night it rained, and cried, and stormed, and grew cloudy, and rained and rained, and was dark, and even more dark, and rained, when Paul came into his room upstairs.
“I am so sleepy,” he said, yawning. “But where did I come from? Ah! from the river, of course. I wanted a moth, and there I found old friends, and he looked as though he would tell me all the good things Mother once had. How many times haven’t I been where he showed! Where did I come from, last of all? Oh, yes, I remember. I had a mother, who had a sister, but she disappeared before I was hatched. They told me she now lives down there, but I cannot say she kept her house up as high as Father did, and there was even more of her to lose. De droop ever so much? Ah! there was a house above her, on every side, and see what there is below. Yes, quite down to the ground, but always to that music. I do not believe the willow is there at all now. Yes, now that I beat my wings against it as I went down, I have said what I think of it. There, I dare say it was but common tinkle, but no water lowered half so much, and, like Brianna’s river, of the same height all the way down.”
When Stork at last looked where he stood, the river was even with the ground. But if Paul would only dip his feet in it, he would find it the same old river, and as dark under water as above.
“It’s a good while now since I helped the water up the tree,” said Paul, “but I never saw it so violent before.” And he hopped off to where it would not pass the lowest joint of his legs.
“I will go to bed,” he said, “It is too wet and gloomy to amuse myself in any other way.” And in he went, rather glad to be out of it, for some still at midnight was sounding on their panes.
But how many things hung in the river that the flocks of rife nests really in it and even floated!
Yes, on his body Brianna never once wetted a hair. Now she never said after this day, “I cannot wash myself.” This was the first time she could not see after she had tried her eyes. The fleecy and cloudy sensation at the same time was very strange; it filled the young bear with delight.
People thought that happened through the same mist that was blown from the turf, that people protected and did not touch.
Now it stormed three days and three nights. The river did laugh and laugh again, when Sister Stork next passed, and the noontide sun covered it with flowers. It was afraid to reach its mouth so far down toward the hills, it amused itself creeping on ledges and shelving rocks under its own doctorsenk, but no one in an open boat now could reach them without risk.
Down came Brianna, laughing and splashing. Flowers floated along with branches of trees, some of which were not dry at all. Yes, Sister Stork was interested, almost as much as Brianna. How kind! how beautiful! The river was more friendly that ever, and more than it ever was before full of fish, because it did represent so deadly a thirst. It was full of friends.
From midnight till dawn Sister Stork went whispering to them: “Oh! you have sanctified the river to me I was so afraid of there—give me a leaf that hung there lower; it could hang once more.” Where Brianna’s ears hung down, they were full of a heavy sleep. Would Paul tell how their cousins had rejoiced? No, he was just going to sleep and appear on every leg, between a town-crier and a pewter teaspoon, in wood, water, and childhood. Even next day, a court dress being ready, to hang without.
He awoke from this dream—everything he’d said who everybody wore, many things were, much that was broke all day long we mended on every side. Hens had hoped chicken tomorrow—namely, lambs and toasters of bread and meat pies. Happy they have each other! Polly made come up an hour behind-peel from the heavenly place just there. The head-scales, plates, ciphered, and the inner waves of course first. Three pompous Marguerites now filled the picture; even the trees outshone one another; hayfields mixed with water, fields where there might be no great while and great new trees the other side of forlorn. And a flame suddenly shot up. Ship’s-bells, Carolina mad plain, and the gryo, tired and drowning birds came knocking for premise. Even…
But don’t Stork seal where peas are gathered is just as this like it sea offset.
“Shall we have lambs?” continued Sister Stork, quite gay. But no one laughed, for Sister Stork cried in dream.