One bright morning in a lush green forest, I, Freddy the Fox, stood staring at something with a puzzled expression on my face. Do you know what it was? No? Then I will tell you. It was a wide river all swollen and rushing from the heavy rains of the day before, and I wanted* to cross it to get to my home on the opposite bank. Farther up the river, a big tree had been blown down the night before in a great wind and had lodged in a thick clump of willows on the bank.
“That is what I will do,” I cried, happy at last. Quickly I ran to where the tree lay, and soon had cut off a number of its branches so that the trunk was bare. I then set off back down the river, and there set to work to put my plan into action. Two sticks that I found lying about fastened together with some bits of bark formed a swing, and I fixed this under one end of the trunk. Then I made a sort of crane from the other stick, and over this I ran the other piece of wood, a long one that I had cut off, so that it formed a sort of seesaw. I then fixed a branch at the end of the seesaw, and had now got my ferryboat all ready.
When I got into it, the end in the middle of the river shot down, and I caught hold of the long stick and “pushed” it down into the bank till the other end shot up high in the air. The swing now dropped down into the second part of the hole, and, swinging myself to the end, I threw myself up and over till I fell on the bank.
“Ha! ha! My cleverness has done it,” I cried, as soon as I could speak. “Now I will have a good breakfast.” So I looked for some mushrooms I had seen on my way, but there were none to be found. At last I said, “If I had some butter I would boil them, but without butter I will not touch them.”
A little farther on I found Topsy the greedy goat munching away at some bushes.
“Have you any butter to spare, Topsy?” I asked.
“No; but I have leaves and bark.”
“I won’t have them,” I said, and went on.
Soon I met Puff-Puff the Parsons’ pony. I asked him the same question and got the same answer, and so, too, did all the animals I met. At last I came upon Oriole the oriole sitting singing in a tree, and I said, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Oriole, sitting there singing while all the animals are suffering from hunger?”
“I did not know they were,” said Oriole, stopping his song. “What is the matter? What can I do for them?”
“They could all do with a little butter, but they can’t get it,” I said, for I thought he might perhaps be able.
“But nobody can give what he has not got,” cried Oriole.
“Perhaps not,” I replied; “but to fly over the land and see all that is happening is one thing, and to hear it told you is quite another. Just think what you would have done had you heard somebody say that all the animals were starving for want of something to eat. Surely you would have helped them if you could. I know I would,” and saying this, off I walked.
“But the river is right between us,” were the first words Oriole said when he came to me an hour afterwards.
“Dare I know that you have come to help the animals?” I asked.
“That is why I am come,” he said. “But how?”
“That I do not yet know,” I replied. “I could think better if I had something.”
“I have plenty of insects and wild fruit mixed, at least a pint of it. It is a distance off to carry it, so I put it in a little flat basket, I do not know exactly why,” said he.
“He, he! I will build you a bridge over the river. We can do it with my help.”
All this while he had forgotten what they call a cord that he had hung round his neck, and with the end of this I fastened one end to a branch of an oak well away from the river. The other end I took with some stones under the water to the place further up the river where my tree made a swing, and by throwing it across made it fast to a strong branch. Half an hour later Oriole said, “Now I am all the way across.”
Then he handed me the basket with the food, and off he flew with my cord round his neck.
When it was getting dusk that evening all the animals were gathered together on the bank of the river waiting for the answer to the trouble they had shared with each other. They had not long to wait, for although Oriole did not half like doing it after all he had to go through, he at last flew over the woodcry to tell them that help was coming. The animals had all gathered together some little distance off on the bank, for they were afraid of falling into the water and were giving their remonstrance loudly.
At last Oriole got up on the top of a tree and said, “I have brought the food,Topsy, for you,” said he, and dropped it in front of her. “You can divide it among the others.”
“You never told us you would take food over the river,” was the reply. So saying, Topsy gobbled it all up herself.
Now the other animals were very angry, and so was Oriole with Topsy, but they were even more angry with him for having brought the food.
“I brought the food,” he cried, “even if I was only a bird.”
“Yes; but you let yourself be deceived,” was the reply of the animals. “We think that his friendship to you and yours to him has caused this. I am afraid, Oriole, that your song will never cheer me again,” so saying, Oriole waved his wing as we bless others, flapped them, and flew away.