see it clearly

The Sky Parlor Of Whitefoot The Wood Mouse

By Thornton W. Burgess

Whitefoot the Wood Mouse chuckled to himself as he ran up a low alder and examined an old nest that had once belonged to Mrs. Redwing before she had moved over to the bulrushes on the edge of the Smiling Pool. He had seen that old nest times without number but he had never given it a thought until Grandfather Frog had said that if he were looking for a new home where no one would think to look for it he would move into the deserted house of someone else.

Now Whitefoot had always lived in a hollow tree or a hollow log and everyone knew it. So when Shadow the Weasel, who is a robber and worse, had started out to look for Whitefoot he had first examined all hollows in trees and every hollow log that he found. He had found Whitefoot's house while Whitefoot was out and then the latter did not dare go home again. So he had started out to build a new home.

Whitefoot picked some bits of stick and old dried leaves out of Mrs. Redwing's old nest. Then he curled himself up in a ball in the bottom just to see how it would feel. The Merry Little Breezes came along and saw him there. They didn't know that he was thinking of living there; they thought he had climbed up there just for fun. Gently they rocked the alder to and fro. In a few minutes Whitefoot was fast asleep.

When he awoke he couldn't think where he was. He was in a lovely soft bed and he was very, very comfortable. Suddenly he remembered. Once more he chuckled to himself. "This suits me," said he. "it is my sky parlor. Whoever will think of looking in a deserted nest of Mrs. Redwing for Whitefoot the Wood Mouse? I'll just put a roof on this and then I'll have the safest, coziest, snuggest house in the Green Forest."

Whitefoot peeped over the edge of the nest. When he was sure that no one was looking he scampered down to the ground. Then he became very busy. What do you think he was doing? Why he was collecting soft, dry grass and the lining from strips of bark and little sticks and leaves. It took him all day, and just as Old Mother West Wind started for home behind the Purple HIlls, Whitefoot sat down to eat his supper of berries and to rest. Hidden under the broad leaf of a skunk cabbage plant was his pile of grass and bark and sticks and leaves.

When all the little meadow people and forest folk who play by day had gone to bed, Whitefoot climbed the alder once more and this time he took up with him the grass he had gathered. Up and down, up and down the alder all night long ran Whitefoot. When jolly, round, red Mr. Sun threw off his nightcap the next morning and started to climb up in the blue sky, he looked down on the alder and smiled. Mrs. Redwing's old nest was still there but it had a roof. And still it looked like nothing but an old nest.

And inside, in the softest of beds, was a little round ball of soft fur fast asleep. It was Whitefoot the Wood Mouse in his new sky parlor.