"It is really very good of you all," she said, "to take compa.s.sion upon my loneliness. Before I came to this cottage I lived in a large town, where I had many friends, and I find the change very great, and the life here very solitary. Indeed, if it were not for my dear little Toto, I should lead quite the life of a hermit."

"What is a hermit?" asked the bear, who had an inquiring mind, and liked to know the meaning of words.

"It is a crab," said the parrot. "I have often seen them in the West Indies. They get into the sh.e.l.ls of other crabs, and drive the owners out. A wretched set!"

"Oh, dear!" cried the grandmother. "That is not at all the kind of hermit I mean. A hermit in this country is a man who lives quite alone, without any companions, in some uninhabited region, such as a wood or a lonely hillside."

"Is it?" exclaimed the bear and the squirrel at the same moment. "Why, then, we know one."

"Certainly," the squirrel went on; "Old Baldhead must be a hermit, of course. He lives alone, and in an uninhabited region; that is, what _you_ would call uninhabited, I suppose."

"How very interesting! Where does he live?" asked Toto. "Who is he?

How is it that I have never seen him?"

"Oh, he lives quite at the other end of the wood!" replied the squirrel; "some ten miles or more from here. You have never been so far, my dear boy, and Old Baldhead isn't likely to come into our part of the wood. He paid us one visit several years ago, and that was enough for him, eh, Bruin?"

"Humph! I think so!" said Bruin, smiling grimly. "He seemed quite satisfied, I thought."

"Tell us about his visit!" cried Toto eagerly. "I have never heard anything about him, and I know it must be funny, or you would not chuckle so, Bruin."

"Well," said the bear, "there isn't much to tell, but you shall hear all I know. _I_ call that hermit, if that is his name, a very impudent fellow. Just fancy this, will you? One evening, late in the autumn, about three years ago, I was coming home from a long ramble, very tired and hungry. I had left a particularly nice comb of honey and some other little things in my cave, all ready for supper, for I knew when I started that I should be late, and I was looking forward to a very comfortable evening.

"Well, when I came to the door of my cave, what should I see but an old man with a long gray beard, sitting on the ground eating my honey!" Here the bear looked around with a deeply injured air, and there was a general murmur of sympathy.

"Your course was obvious!" said the racc.o.o.n. "Why didn't you eat him, stupid?"

"Hush!" whispered the wood-pigeon softly. "You must not say things like that, c.o.o.n! you will frighten the old lady." And indeed, the grandmother seemed much discomposed by the racc.o.o.n's suggestion.

"Wouldn't have been polite!" replied Bruin. "My own house, you know, and all that. Besides," he added in an undertone, with an apprehensive glance at the grandmother, "he was old, and probably very--"

"Ahem!" said Toto in a warning voice.

"Oh, certainly not!" said the bear hastily, "not upon any account. I was about to make the same remark myself. A--where was I?"

"The old man was eating your honey," said the woodchuck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I only stood up on my hind legs."]

"Of course!" replied Bruin. "So, though I would not have hurt him _for the world_" (with another glance towards the grandmother), "I thought there would be no harm in frightening him a little. Accordingly, I first made a great noise among the bushes, snapping the twigs and rustling the leaves at a great rate. He stopped eating, and looked and listened, listened and looked; didn't seem to like it much, I thought.

Then, when he was pretty thoroughly roused, I came slowly forward, and planted myself directly in front of the cave."

"Dear me!" cried the grandmother. "How very dreadful! poor old man!"

"Well now, ma'am!" said Bruin appealingly, "he had no right to steal my honey; now had he? And I didn't hurt a hair of his head," he continued. "I only stood up on my hind-legs and waved my fore-paws round and round like a windmill, and roared."

A general burst of merriment greeted this statement, from all except the grandmother, who shuddered in sympathy with the unfortunate hermit.

"Well?" asked Toto, "and what did he do then?"

"Why," said Bruin, "he crouched down in a little heap on the ground, and squeezed himself against the wall of the cave, evidently expecting me to rush upon him and tear him to pieces; I sat down in front of him and looked at him for a few minutes; then, when I thought he had had about enough, I walked past him into the cave, and then he ran away. He has never made me another visit."

"No," said the squirrel; "he went home to his own cave at the other end of the wood, and built a barricade round it, and didn't put his nose out of doors for a week after. I have a cousin who lives in that neighborhood, and he told me about it."

"Have you ever been over there?" asked Toto.

"Yes, indeed!" replied the squirrel, "hundreds of times. I often go over to spend the day with my cousin, and we amuse ourselves by dropping nuts on the hermit's head as he sits in front of his cave. I know few things more amusing," he continued, turning to the grandmother, "than dropping nuts on a bald head. You can make bets as to how high they will go on the rebound. Have you ever tried it, ma'am? sitting in a tree, you know."

"Never!" replied the grandmother with much dignity. "In my youth it was not the custom for gentlewomen to sit in trees for any purpose; and if it had been, I trust I should have had more respect for age and infirmity than to amuse myself in the manner you suggest."

The squirrel was somewhat abashed at this, and scratched his ear to hide his embarra.s.sment.

The pause which ensued gave the racc.o.o.n an opportunity for which he had been waiting. He addressed the grandmother in his most honeyed accents:--

"Our ways, dear madam," he said, "are necessarily very different from yours. There must be much in our woodland life that seems rough, and possibly even savage, to a person of refinement and culture like yourself. While we roam about in the untutored forest" ("Hear! hear!"

interrupted the squirrel. "'Untutored forest' is good!"), "you remain in the elegant atmosphere of your polished home. While we fare hardly, s.n.a.t.c.hing a precarious and scanty subsistence from roots and herbs, you, lapped in intellectual and highly cultivated leisure, while away the hours by manufacturing gingerbread and--a--jam." The racc.o.o.n here waved his tail, and gave Toto a look whose craftiness cannot be described in words.

Toto took the hint. "Dear me!" he cried. "Of course! how stupid of me!

Grandmother, is there any gingerbread in the house? My friends have never tasted any, and I should like to give them some of yours."

"Certainly, my dear boy," said the good old lady; "by all means. I have just made some this afternoon. Bring a good plateful, and bring a pot of raspberry jam, too. Perhaps Mr. c.o.o.n would like a little of that."

Mr. c.o.o.n _did_ like a little of that. In fact, Mr. c.o.o.n would have liked the whole pot, and would have taken it, too, if it had not been for Toto, who declared that it must be share and share alike. He gave them each a spoon, and let them help themselves in turn, observing the strictest impartiality.

The feast seemed to be highly enjoyed by all.

"Well, Bruin, how do you like jam?" asked Toto.

"Very much, very much indeed!" replied the bear. "Something like honey, isn't it, only entirely different? What kind of creatures make it? b.u.t.terflies?"

"Lady makes it herself, stupid!" muttered the woodchuck, who was out of temper, having just tried to get a spoonful out of turn, and failed. "Didn't you hear her say so? b.u.t.terflies never make anything except b.u.t.ter."

The little squirrel sat nibbling his gingerbread in a state of great satisfaction. "Who's to tell the story next time?" he asked presently.

"Parrot," answered the racc.o.o.n, with his mouth full of jam. "Parrot promised ever so long ago to tell us a story about Africa. Didn't you, Polly?"

The parrot drew herself up with an air of offended dignity. "The gentlemen of my acquaintance, Mr. c.o.o.n," she said, "call me Miss Mary.

I am 'Polly' to a few intimates only."

"Oh, indeed!" said the racc.o.o.n. "I beg your pardon, Miss Mary. No offence, I trust?"

Miss Mary unbent a little, and condescended to explain. "My real name,"

she said, "is Chamchamchamchamkickeryboo; but, not understanding the subtleties of our African languages, I do not expect you to p.r.o.nounce that. 'Miss Mary' will do very well; though," she added, "I _have_ been called Princess in happier days."

"When was that?" inquired Toto. "Tell us about it, Miss Mary."

"No, no!" interrupted the bear. "No more stories to-night. It is too late. We must be getting home, or the owls will be after us."

"To-morrow, then," cried Toto. "Will you all come to-morrow? Then we will hear the parrot's story."