The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell & Maurice Sendak

Author:Randall Jarrell & Maurice Sendak [Jarrell, Randall & Sendak, Maurice]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062050885
Amazon: 0062059041
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1997-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

THE LYNX

& THE BEAR BRING HOME A BOY

Once for a day and two nights it stormed, stormed terribly; on the morning of the second day the clouds and the wind and the rain were gone, and the washed sky was full of sunlight. The lynx stood in the meadow and watched the hunter and the mermaid go away from him along the path that went up into the wood—the path was strewn with leaves and broken branches. Then he went down to the beach through the meadow, moving in great bounds; at the edge of the sand he stopped and shook from his fur, in a little shining cloud, the raindrops of the meadow-grass.

The beach’s dark sand was all streaked and spotted with foam. He trotted along it, occasionally sniffing at the seaweed and driftwood—there were big soaked logs, even—that the storm had washed up to the edge of the grass. Farther along there was a dead seal, and the lynx went over to it and touched it with his paw.

When he came to the river, there was a lifeboat stranded at its edge: inside the boat something was crying.

The lynx went up, put his paws on the edge, and looked over. A woman was lying at the other end, half in and half out of the water that filled the bottom of the boat. She did not move, but the little boy who was huddled against her stopped crying, held out his hand to the lynx, and said hopefully: "Kitty! Kitty!”

The lynx trotted to the boy’s end of the boat; the boy reached out to him and patted him on the head and the lynx purred. "Nice kitty! nice kitty!” said the boy. But in a minute the lynx drew away, his clear face clouding. Then all at once his eyes changed, and he started back up the beach.

When he got to the house he bounded in eagerly, but there was no one except the bear. The lynx went over and rubbed his head against him, but the bear didn’t wake.

The lynx meowed, and tried to open the bear’s eyes; and when that didn’t work, he quite gently hit the bear on the nose. The bear’s paws twitched. When the lynx hit him again, he put his paw over his head; at last he opened his eyes and staggered to his feet. The lynx ran to the door—but when the bear just stood there, the lynx came back, rubbed his head against him, and started off eagerly. This time the bear went too.

As they trotted along the beach the bear looked as dark and heavy and hulking as the soaked logs they went by, but his eyes shone; the lynx’s trips almost always ended in something good to eat. But this one ended in a stranded boat. The lynx put his paws on the edge and looked over; the bear stood on his hind legs and looked over.

The little boy was huddled against the woman, fast asleep.

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