On a bright sunny day, a pleasant little family of raccoons were sitting on their door-step. This was not their real name, for raccoons do not use last names, but it is what all the other little animals called this family, because they always behaved in a very kind and good little neighbourly way. And so all the animals liked to get together in their woods and fields to have a merry time.
There were many differences among the animals, it is true. Some were quite large and some were very small; some ate at one time and some at another; and some were quite lazy, while others were very ambitious. Yet all lived happily together, and helped one another in times of trouble.
“I say! I say!” called out one little raccoon to the others, who seemed too busy in watching a circus performance of the Crow family, which was just taking place before their eyes, as they sat on the green grass, “I should like to take a walk with one of the other raccoons before this circus is over. Will you go with me, brother or sister?” he said, turning to one another.
“Let us wait a little while and see how the clown and the Tame-Squirrel get on with their tricks,” answered one of the others.
“Perhaps they won’t seem quite so much like the Cornfield-Squirrel after a while,” replied Rocky, who liked to be contradictious.
“Mebbe not,” said the eldest sister, thoughtfully. “But we won’t be able to look at them if we wait much longer.”
At this moment a cousin passed. “Come on! Come on!” said he. “Don’t you want to see the blue cornflour plant carried off by the Crow curator? It can scarcely stand before them.”
This brought them to the front once more.
“I don’t think I have ever seen blue cornflour,” said Rocky. “Do you think it has anything to eat that tastes good?”
“I don’t believe it has,” said the eldest sister, rather contemptuously. “But I will go along with you, if you would like me to, Rocky.”
“Shouldn’t the rest of the family like to go?” he asked.
“No,” they said, one and all. “We think it is a great deal pleasanter here, where we can see everything that goes on. They will come back soon enough, I suppose.”
Rocky, therefore, set out only with his eldest sister, and after they had gone together some distance along the path in Raccoon Hollow, they came to a field in which the most lovely flowers were growing, and which were also covered with ripening fruits.
“Really, I did not expect to find anything so beautiful here,” said Rocky.
“Weren’t you born and raised in Raccoon Hollow? It cannot be so very far off, then,” asked his sister, somewhat reproachfully.
“But I should like to go over there,” said Rocky. “I know the river so well, and should be afraid of being lost every moment.”
“I don’t believe it is more than five or six miles across those fields,” said his sister. “Half of that distance, I suppose. And the others will surely come to meet us, if we are half afraid of getting lost.”
So they both set out; but how strange it looked, dressed in its rich green Sunday clothes.
[Illustration: HOW STRANGE!]
“I will pick some grasshoppers and other fruits here,” said Rocky, “while you go on ahead and make yourself better acquainted with the place.”
“But I would like to eat grasshoppers here too,” said his sister.
“Well, there are plenty to be found,” said Rocky, devotedly.
“Come,” said his sister. “Then I will not go until you have joined me in a short breakfast.”
As soon as this was finished they went on together, and just in time to meet their cousin, who was coming towards them at this moment, and who asked where they were bound.
“We are going to see what we can see,” said Rocky.
“And you?” asked his sister.
“Yes, and I also,” replied he. “Aren’t you afraid to go so far without the others?” he continued, when they had first asked each other the usual questions.
“Yes, yes,” said Rocky, “and that’s what I am afraid of. I think it might do us no possible harm to go a little farther on, to see what is beyond that green vale.”
When they were pretty near it, however, Rocky begged even more pressingly. And when they had reached the little stream that beckoned so tenderly over the flowers, and which looked so beautiful, they both jumped over it so eagerly, that in a moment they were not only over the stream, but they were likewise in the arms of the eager water-nymphs.
“Help! Help!” cried both.
Now it just happened that a wise old yellow toad, who lived near there, was taking a pleasant little morning nap in front of his door. So he jumped out at once, and very conveniently touched with his little legs the heads of our little cousins, who could not otherwise get down again. Or, at least, much more easily get out again than without it.
“Cousin-in-law, are you up so soon?” he asked, when he saw what had befallen them. “I think you had better go home with me for a little while, had you not.”
Yes, they both thought that they had better do so.
On their way home, however, Rocky’s sister began to feel nervous.
“I Think I should like my brother to come near me,” she said shortly. “Will you ask him to pay you a visit?”
Rocky sighed. “Oh, I hate to leave you,” said he, of course.
“Cousin,” said the old yellow toad, and that so along with his left-front-foot-that he did not even have to step, or lift it up again.