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CHAPTER III
A Mother

Time passed and all respectable bird-wives were sitting on their eggs and wearing a serious look in their eyes, while their husbands went hunting for flies or sang to them.

It was the same at the Reed-Warblers'. But there was no denying that the husband was sometimes a little tired and cross. Then he would reflect upon the easy time which the Eel husband had and the Frog husband and the Perch husband and all the others.

One evening he sat in the nest and sang:

Now spring is here, to God all praise!

 
Though in hard work I'm up to the eyes.
For billing and cooing I'd just seven days;
Now I've to flutter about after flies
For my little wife, who our eggs is hatching;
And don't those flies just take some catching!
And each chick will want food for the good of its voice.
Aha, I have every right to rejoice!
 

"If you're tired of it, why did you do it?" said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "You took pains enough to curry favour with me at first. How smart you used to look. I believe you're already beginning to lose your colouring."

"It's weary work," he said. "When a fellow has to go after flies like this, in all weathers, his wedding-finery soon wears out."

"I don't think you're singing as nicely as you did," said she.

"Really? Well, I can just as easily stop. It's for your sake that I pipe my tune. Besides, you can see for yourself that I'm only joking. I'm tremendously glad of the children. It will be an honour and a pleasure to me to stuff them till they burst. Perhaps we might have been satisfied with three."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she said.

"So I am, dear, because of the other two. But, as I don't know which two those are, it makes no difference."

She put on a very serious face. But he caught a fat fly that was passing, popped it into her mouth and struck up so pretty a trill that she fell quite in love with him again.

At that moment a deep sigh rose from the water under the bank.

"That came from a mother," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "I could hear that plainly."

"That's what it did," said a hoarse voice.

The Reed-Warblers peeped down and beheld a cray-fish, who sat in the mud staring with her stalked eyes.

"Dear me, is that you, Goody Cray-Fish?" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"It is indeed, dear madam," said the cray-fish. "It's myself and no other. I was just sitting down here in my dirt listening to what the quality were saying. Heavens, what a good time a fine lady like you enjoys, compared with another!"

"Every one has his burden," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "Believe me, it's no joke sitting here and perspiring."

The cray-fish crossed her eyes and folded her antennæ.

"Yes, you may well talk," said she. "How long does it last with you? Four or five weeks, I should say. But I have to go for six months with mine."

"Goodness gracious! But then you can move about."

"Oh," said Goody, "moving is always a rather slow matter for a cray-fish. And then you have only five eggs, ma'am, but I have two hundred."

"Dear me!" said the reed-warbler. "Then your poor husband has to slave to provide food for that enormous family."

"He? The monster!" replied the cray-fish. "He knows too much for that. I haven't so much as seen him since the wedding."

"Then you must have a huge, big nest for all those eggs," said the wife.

"It's easy to see that you don't know poor folks' circumstance, dear madam," said the cray-fish. "People of our class can't afford nests. No, I just have to drag the eggs about with me as best I may."

"Where are they, then, Goody Cray-Fish?"

"I carry them on my hind legs, lady. I have ten little hind legs, you see, besides my eight proper legs and my claws, which are very necessary to bite one's way through this wicked world with. And on each of my hind legs there is a heap of twenty eggs. That makes two hundred in all. I'll show them to you, if you like. The eggs are worth looking at."

So saying, the cray-fish turned over on her back and stuck out her tail as far as she could. And there the eggs were, just as she had said, on ten little back legs.

"That comes of having too many hind-legs," said the reed-warbler.

"For shame! To poke fun at the poor woman!" said his wife.

But the cray-fish slowly turned round again and said, quietly:

"Gentlemen are always so witty. We women understand one another better. And I shouldn't so much mind about the eggs, if it wasn't that one can't change one's clothes."

"Change your clothes?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Yes, ma'am … you change yours too, from time to time, I know. I have seen the feathers with my own eyes, floating on the water. And it goes so easily and quickly: a feather here, a feather there and it's done. But other people, who wear a stiff shirt, have to take it all off at once. And I can't do that, you see, as long as I am carrying the eggs about. Therefore, since I have been married, I change only once a year. Now one always grows a bit stouter, even though one is but a common woman; and so I feel pretty uncomfortable sometimes, I assure you."

Mrs. Reed-Warbler was greatly touched; and her husband began to sing, for he was afraid lest all this sadness should make the eggs melancholy and spoil the children's voices.

But, at that moment, the cray-fish screamed and struck out with her claws and carried on like a mad woman.

"Look!.. Ma'am … do look!.. There comes the monster!"

Mrs. Reed-Warbler leant so far over the edge of the nest that she would have plumped into the pond if her husband had not given her a good shove. But he had no time to scold her, for he was curious himself. They both stared down into the water.

And there, as she had said, came Goody Cray-Fish's husband slowly creeping up to her backwards.

"Good-day, mother," he said. "I'm going to change."

"Oh, are you?" she screamed. "Yes, that's just like you. You can run and change at any moment while your poor lawfully-wedded wife has to go about in her old clothes. You would do better to think of me and the children."

"Why should I, mother?" he replied, calmly. "What good would it do if I thought of you? And what need have I to meddle with women's work? What must be must be. Hold your tongue now, while it lasts, for this is no joke!"

Then the reed-warblers saw how he raised himself on his tail and split across the middle of his back. Then he bent and twisted and pulled off his coat over his head.

"That's that," he said, puffing and blowing. "Now for the trousers!"

Mrs. Reed-Warbler drew back her head, but immediately peeped down again. And the cray-fish stretched and wriggled until, with a one, two, three, the shell of his tail was shed as well.

Now he was quite naked and funny to look at and talked with a very faint voice:

"Good-bye, mother," he said. "Give the young ones my love, for they will be gone, I daresay, before I come back again. I am retiring for ten days or so and shall be at home to nobody."

"You monster!" yelled Goody. "Just look at him … now he'll creep into his hole and lie there idle. In ten days' time he'll come out again, in brand-new clothes, looking most awfully arrogant." She wrung her claws and glared terribly with her stalked eyes. "I should really like to crawl into the hole after him and bite him to death," she continued. "His life isn't worth twopence in his present condition. But I loved him once. And one is and remains just a silly woman."

"Yes, Goody Cray-Fish, and then you have the children," said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"That's true," she replied. "And, indeed, they are my only comfort. The dear little things, I feel as if I would love to eat them. You should just see, ma'am, how they hang on to my skirts during the first week. They are so fond of me that they simply can't leave me."

"How nice that is!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Yes. And afterwards I have no trouble with them at all. You may believe me or not, as you please, dear lady, but, as soon as they are a week old, they go into the world and look after themselves. It's in their blood. It has never been known in the pond for a twelve-day-old cray-fish to be a burden on his family. And then you're done with them; and that may be rather sad, but, of course, it's a relief as well: two hundred children like that, in a small household! But you shall see them, ma'am, when they come … I really have to control myself in order not to eat them, they're such dears!"

"Well, I'll tell you something, Goody Cray-Fish," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "When my young ones are out, you shall have the shells."

"Oh, how good of you, ma'am!" said the cray-fish. "You could not possibly do me a greater kindness. For I promise you I shall eat them. I eat as much chalk as I can get hold of against the time when I change my things, for that puts starch into the new shirt. But then, also, you must really promise me, ma'am, to look at my young ones. They are so sweet that, goodness knows, I should like to eat them…"

At that moment, a large carp appeared in the water, with a sad, weary face:

"You do eat them," he said.

"Oh!" yelled Goody, and went backwards into her hole and showed herself no more.

But Mrs. Reed-Warbler fainted on her five eggs and the carp swam on with his sad, weary face.

CHAPTER IV
The Water-Spider

Little Mrs. Reed-Warbler was not feeling very well.

She was nervous and tired from sitting on the eggs and she had just a touch of fever. She could not sleep at night, or else she dreamt of the cray-fish and the carp and the eel and screamed so loud that her husband nearly fell into the pond with fright.

"I wish we had gone somewhere else," she said. "Obviously, there's none but common people in this pond. Just think how upset I was about Goody Cray-Fish. Do you really believe she eats her children?"

Before he could reply, the eel stuck his head out of the mud and made his bow:

"Absolutely, madam," he said, "ab-so-lutely. That is to say, if she can get hold of them. They decamp as soon as they can, for they have an inkling, you know, of what's awaiting them. Children are cleverer than people think."

"But that's terrible," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Oh, well," said the eel, "one eats so many things from year's end to year's end! I don't condemn her for that. But, I admit, it doesn't look well amid all that show of affection… Hullo, there's the pike!.. Forgive me for retiring in the middle of this interesting conversation."

He was off.

And the pike appeared among the reeds with wide-open mouth and rows of sharp teeth and angry eyes.

"Oof!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Come down here and I'll eat you," said the pike, grinning with all his teeth.

"Please keep to your own element," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, indignantly.

"I eat everything," said the pike, "ev-e-ry-thing. I smell eel, I smell cray-fish, I smell carp. Where are they? Tell me at once, or I'll break your reed with one blow of my tail!"

The reed-warblers were silent for sheer terror. And the pike struck out with his tail and swam away. The blow was so powerful that the reeds sighed and swayed and the birds flew up with startled screams. But the reeds held and the nest remained where it was. Mrs. Reed-Warbler settled down again and her husband began to sing, so that no one should see how frightened he had been. Then she said:

"A nice place this!"

"You take things too much to heart," said he. "Life is the same everywhere; and we must be satisfied as long as we can get on well together. I am very much afraid that all this excitement will hurt the children's voices and then they will disgrace us at the autumn concert. Pull yourself together and control yourself!"

"It's easy for you to talk," she said. "And I know well enough what life is worth. My innocent little sister was eaten by an adder and my mother was caught by a hawk, just after she had taught us to fly. I myself had to travel in hot haste to Italy, last autumn, if I didn't want to die of hunger. Then you came; and I have already learnt that marriage is not an unmixed blessing. After all, one would be glad of peace just after the children are born. And then, of course, I think of what the children will grow up like in this murderers' den. Children take after others. And such examples as they see before them here! Really, it might end in their eating their parents!"

"Yes, why not, if they taste good?" asked a ladylike voice on the surface of the water.

Mrs. Reed-Warbler shrank back and hardly dared look down.

A little water-spider sat on the leaf of a water-lily and smoothed her fine velvet dress.

"You're looking very hard at me, Mrs. Reed-Warbler, but you won't eat me," she said. "I lie too heavy on the stomach. I am a bit poisonous … just poisonous enough, of course, and no more. Apart from that, I am really the most inoffensive woman in the water."

"And you say that one ought to eat one's parents?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Maybe that was a rather free way of talking to a bird," said the spider. "What suits one doesn't necessarily suit another. I only know that I ate my mother last year and a fine, fat, old lady she was."

"Sing to me, or I'll die!" screamed Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

Her husband sang. And, meanwhile, they looked down at the water-spider.

She plunged head foremost into the water. For a moment, she let her abdomen float on the surface of the pond and distended her spinnerets till they were full of air. Then the creature sank and shone like silver as she glided down to the bottom.

"That's very, very pretty," said the reed-warbler.

"Be quiet," said his wife and stared till she nearly strained her neck.

Deep down in a bush, the spider had spun a bell, which she filled with air. The bell was built of the finest yarn that she was able to supply and fastened on every side with strong, fine threads, so that it could not float away. And round about it was a big web for catching insects… Just now a water-mite was hanging in it and the spider took her into the bell and sucked her out.

"It's really remarkable," said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "She has a nest just as we have, hung up between the reeds. For all we know, she may sit on her eggs."

"Ask her," said the reed-warbler.

"I want first to get to the bottom of that story about her mother," said she, sternly.

Soon after, the spider came up again and sat on the leaf of the water-lily and smoothed herself out.

"You were looking down at me, weren't you?" she said. "Yes … I have quite a nice place, haven't I? A regular smart little parlour. You must know I am an animal that loves fresh air, like Mr. Reed-Warbler and yourself. And, as my business happens to lie in the water, it was easiest for me to arrange it this way. It's thoroughly cosy down there, I assure you. And, in the winter, I lock the door and sleep and snore the whole day long."

"Have you any eggs?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Rather!" said the spider. "I have everything that belongs to a well-regulated household. I have any number of eggs. As I lay them, by degrees, I hang them up in bundles from the ceiling of my parlour."

"Don't you hatch them?"

"No, dear lady. My heart is not so warm as that. And it's not necessary either. They come out nicely by themselves."

"Did your husband help you build the parlour?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"He had enough to do building for himself, the booby!" she said. "You needn't think I would have him in my parlour, He made himself a little room beside it; and then there was the tunnel between us and that was really more than enough."

"Was?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "Is he no longer with you, then?.. Oh, you mustn't take my question amiss, if it pains you. I find it so difficult to understand the domestic conditions of the lower classes… Perhaps you don't even know where he is?"

"Why, I should just think I did know!" replied the spider. "More or less. For I ate him last Wednesday."

"Goodness gracious me!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"He was in my way," said the spider. "I tumbled over him wherever I went. And what was I to do with him? So I ate him up; and a tough little brute he was!"

"She ate her husband on Wednesday and she ate her mother last year," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "Sing to me, or that terrible woman will be the death of me!"

But the reed-warbler himself was so frightened that he could not get out a note. And the spider did not care in the least.

"Yes … mother," she said. "That was only out of hunger. I didn't eat her alone, either. My brothers and sisters shared in the feast. We were famishing and there was nothing else to eat, for it was well in the autumn. Then mother came along, just in the nick of time, and so we ate her."

She jumped into the water again.

But Mrs. Reed-Warbler did not sleep a wink that night. She kept on whispering to herself:

"She ate her mother … she ate her husband on Wednesday…"

"Come, don't think about it," said the reed-warbler. "Why, your own mother was eaten by the hawk; and, if you eat me, it will be for love!"

"You ought to be ashamed to jest in such times as these," said she.

"I think all times are alike," he said. "Those we live in always seem the worst."

Then morning came and the sun shone and he sang to his little brown wife until she recovered her spirits.