Chester Cricket's New Home by George Selden

Author:George Selden [Selden, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SIX

Home Life—and Too Much, in Fact

And that afternoon, to the frisky delight of everyone who got caught in it, there was a brief shower—a downpour that lasted just long enough to rinse the day, what was left of it, and hang it out in the sunset to dry. Walter Water Snake and Simon Turtle barely noticed the rain. They were watery people and both of them enjoyed basking in either sunshine or shower. But not today. There was too much to talk about—plans to be laid—decisions taken. By twilight, they had made up their minds. Yet the stars found them still awake—too excited to sleep.

At sunup, after a fitful rest that lasted no more than a couple of hours, they both were awake and hard at work. Simon was busy, huffing and puffing, over and under and around his log, and Walt was dashing back and forth in the water, half out of sheer enthusiasm, but partly to clear debris away.

They both were so preoccupied that only by chance did Walt happen to look up and see on the bank—“Why, can this be? No, surely not. He went off yesterday to a cozy cottage, a lovely lair, a beautiful burrow. Oh no! But yes! It really is! It’s—”

“Hi, Walter,” said Chester, who was just too tired to be amused or angry or peeved, or anything else at Walter’s way of speaking.

Walt raced like a cutter across the pool. “What are you doing here?”

The cricket shrugged—but only one shoulder, things seemed so hopeless. “I don’t have any place else to go.” He glanced around—at the log, the pool. “What are you two doing? What’s all this stuff?”

“Why—why”—Walter Water Snake seemed at a loss for words, which was very unlike him—“we’re making boats!”

“Boats?”

“Aren’t we, Simon?” Walter demanded. “Making boats—”

“Oh, boats! To be sure!” the turtle agreed. “Comes over us every August, it does—this urge to build boats.”

“Look at this.” Walter nosed a piece of bark toward the bank. The pool’s surface was littered with chips of wood and bark. “This elegant sliver of bark is a boat.” He gentled it around and around, then out the channel that led to the brook, where the current took it. “And there she goes! Away down our own bucolic stream—but soon to be joined, after travels through numerous little towns, to the ever-flowing, majestic Connecticut River—and then—O grandeur!—with a whoosh and a rush and sploosh, the glory of Long Island Sound! Just think of it, Cricket! The poetry of it—the beauty! It makes the heart swell.”

“It makes the head ache, the way you describe it,” said Chester.

But Walter, whose mind was flying high, would not be stopped. “And along with toy boats when the fit is upon us, we make—we make”—he glanced around, discovered a chunk of floating wood, which didn’t look all that big to Chester, and slithered up on top of it—“we make boat boats!” And promptly capsized, which wasn’t a serious accident, for a water snake.

“Very impressive,” said Chester, when Walter came up, spluttering joyfully.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.