Chapter II: Part 2

However, he got home again at last, and the people were having tea in the dining room. But the first thing that Pedrito did was to go and look at himself in the mirror. Poor, poor Pedrito! He was the ugliest, most ridiculous bird on earth! Not a feather to his tail! His coat of down all ruffled and bleeding! Shivering with chills of fright all over! How could any self-respecting bird appear in society in such disarray?

Though he would have given almost anything in the world for his usual bread-and-milk that day, he flew off to a hollow eucalyptus tree he knew about, crawled in through a hole, and nestled down in the dark, still shivering with cold and drooping his head and wings in shame.

In the dining room, meantime, everybody was wondering where the parrot was. "Pedrito! Pedrito!" the children came calling to the door. "Pedrito! Papa, Pedrito. Nice papa! Papa for Pedrito!"

But Pedrito did not say a word. Pedrito did not stir. He just sat there in his hole, sullen, gloomy, and disconsolate. The children looked for him everywhere, but he did not appear. Everybody thought he had gotten lost, perhaps, or that some cat had eaten him; and the little ones began to cry.

So the days went by. And every day, at tea-time, the farmer's family remembered Pedrito and how he used to come and have tea with them. Poor Pedrito! Pedrito was dead! No one would ever see Pedrito again!

But Pedrito was not dead at all. He was just a proud bird; and would have been ashamed to let anybody see him without his tail. He waited in his hole till everybody went to bed; then he would come out, get something to eat, and return to his hiding place again. Each morning, just after daylight, and before anybody was up, he would go into the kitchen and look at himself in the mirror, getting more and more bad-tempered meanwhile because his feathers grew so slowly.

Until one afternoon, when the family had gathered in the dining room for tea as usual, who should come into the room but Pedrito! He walked in just as though nothing at all had happened, perched for a moment on a chair back, and then climbed up the tablecloth to get his bread-and-milk. The people just laughed and wept for joy, and clapped their hands especially to see what pretty feathers the bird had. "Pedrito! Why Pedrito! Where in the world have you been? What happened to you? And what pretty, pretty feathers!"

You see, they did not know that they were new feathers; and Pedrito, for his part, said not a word. He was not going to tell them anything about it. He just ate one piece of bread-and-milk after another. "Papa, Pedrito! Nice papa! Papa for Pedrito!" Of course, he said a few things like that. But otherwise, not a word.

That was why the farmer was very much surprised the next day when Pedrito flew down out of a tree top and alighted on his shoulder, chattering and chattering as though he had something very exciting on his mind. In two minutes, Pedrito told him all about it--how, in his joy at the nice weather, he had flown down to the Parana; how he had invited the jaguar to tea; and how the jaguar had deceived him and left his tail without a feather. "Without a feather, a single blessed feather!" the parrot repeated, in rage at such an indignity. And he ended by asking the farmer to go and shoot that jaguar.

It happened that they needed a new mat for the fireplace in the dining room, and the farmer was very glad to hear there was a jaguar in the neighborhood. He went into the house to get his gun, and then set out with Pedrito toward the river. They agreed that when Pedrito saw the jaguar he would begin to scream to attract the beast's attention. In that way the man could come up close and get a good shot with his gun.

And that is just what happened. Pedrito flew up to a tree top and began to talk as noisily as he could, meanwhile looking in all directions to see if the jaguar were about. Soon he heard some branches crackling under the tree on the ground; and peering down he saw the two green lights fixed upon him. "Nice day!" he began. "Nice papa! Papa for Pedrito! Your paw, Pedrito!"

The jaguar was very cross to see that this same parrot had come around again and with prettier feathers than before. "You will not get away this time!" he growled to himself, glaring up at Pedrito more fiercely than before.

"Closer! Closer! I'm deaf! I can't hear what you say!"

And Pedrito, as he had done the other time, came down first one branch and then another, talking all the time at the top of his voice:

"Papa for Pedrito! Nice papa! At the foot of this tree! Your paw, Pedrito! At the foot of this tree!"

The jaguar grew suspicious at these new words, and, rising part way on his hind legs, he growled:

"Who is that you are talking to? Why do you say I am at the foot of this tree!"

"Good day, Pedrito! Papa, papa for Pedrito!" answered the parrot; and he came down one more branch, and still another.

"Closer, closer!" growled the jaguar.

Pedrito could see that the farmer was stealing up very stealthily with his gun. And he was glad of that, for one more branch and he would be almost in the jaguar's claws.

"Papa, papa for Pedrito! Nice papa! Are you almost ready?" he called.

"Closer, closer," growled the jaguar, getting ready to spring.

"Your paw, Pedrito! He's ready to jump! Papa, Pedrito!"

And the jaguar, in fact, leaped into the air. But this time Pedrito was ready for him. He took lightly to his wings and flew up to the tree top far out of reach of the terrible claws. The farmer, meanwhile, had been taking careful aim; and just as the jaguar reached the ground, there was a loud report. Nine balls of lead as large as peas entered the heart of the jaguar, who gave one great roar and fell over dead.

Pedrito was chattering about in great glee; because now he could fly around in the forest without fear of being eaten; and his tail feathers would never be torn out again. The farmer, too, was happy; because a jaguar is very hard to find anyway; and the skin of this one made a very beautiful rug indeed.

When they got back home again, everybody learned why Pedrito had been away so long, and how he had hidden in the hollow tree to grow his feathers back again. And the children were very proud that their pet had trapped the jaguar so cleverly.

Thereafter there was a happy life in the farmer's home for a long, long time. But the parrot never forgot what the jaguar had tried to do to him. In the afternoon when tea was being served in the dining room, he would go over to the skin lying in front of the fireplace and invite the jaguar to have bread-and-milk with him: "Papa, nice papa! Papa for Pedrito! Papa for jaguar? Nice papa!"

And when everybody laughed, Pedrito would laugh too.

THE BLIND DOE

Once upon a time there was a deer--a doe--who gave birth to two little deers; and, as is very rare with such animals, the little deers were twins. However, a wildcat ate one of them; and the second, a female, had to live her childhood without a playmate.

She was such a beautiful little creature, nevertheless, that all the mother deers in the forest wished she belonged to them; and to show their affection they were always nipping gently at her ribs with their lips.

Every morning when the little deer got up out of bed, her mother would make her say the catechism which all deers learn when they are babies:

I. I must smell of each green leaf before I eat it; because some green leaves are poisonous.

II. I must stop and look carefully up and down the brook before I lower my head to drink; for otherwise an alligator may eat me.

III. I must lift my head every half hour and sniff carefully in all directions; otherwise a panther may steal up and catch me.

IV. I must look ahead of me when I am grazing in a meadow; otherwise a snake may bite me.

All good fawns learn this catechism by heart; and when this little deer could say it all by herself, her mother began to let her go away from home alone.

One afternoon in summer, when the fawn was wandering over the mountain side looking for the tenderest tufts of grass, she saw a tree with a hollow trunk in front of her. Inside it a number of small slate-colored bags were hanging.

"What in the world is that?" said the little deer to herself. She had never seen anything of just that kind! Now deers, like people, are inclined to be a bit disrespectful towards things they don't understand. Those puffy slate-colored bags seemed to her about the most ridiculous things there was on earth! So she butted them with all her might.

She now saw that she had made a great dent in the bags, which began to drip with drops of shining fluid. At the same time a swarm of reddish flies, with narrow waists, came out, buzzing around and walking about, over their broken nest.

The little deer edged nearer. Curiously, those red flies did not seem to mind at all! And what about that juicy-looking stuff? Carefully, gently, the fawn stretched out her head till she was able to touch one of the drops of fluid with the tip of her tongue.

What a surprise, what a wonderful surprise, for such a little, and such an inexperienced deer! She smacked her lips and licked her nose with her tongue, hurrying to lap up all the drops she could find. For they were honey, honey of the sweetest kind. And the red flies were bees! They did not sting because they had no stingers! There are bees like that, you know, in South America.

Not content with the few drops that were slowly oozing out of the cracks in the bags, the little deer now broke all the nests down and ate every bit of the honey in them; then, leaping and jumping with pride and delight, she hurried home to tell her mother all about it.

But the mother deer frowned severely:

"Look out for bees' nests, my child!" she exclaimed earnestly. "Honey is very good to eat; but it is dangerous to get at it. Keep away from all the nests you see!"

"But bees don't sting, mamma!" the little deer objected gleefully. "Hornets sting, and wasps sting; but bees, no!"

"That isn't so, my dear!" the mother answered. "You had good luck, that's all. Bees are quite as bad as wasps. Now mind me, child, or some day you'll be sorry."

"All right, mamma, I'll be careful," said the little deer.

But the first thing she did the very next morning was to take one of the paths that people had made over the mountains. She had figured out that, running along in the open, she could cover more ground and see the bees' nests better!

And at last the search of the little deer was successful. She came upon a nest of bees--as she thought--black ones this time, with yellow sashes about their belts; and many of them were walking over the outside of the nest. The nest, also, was of a different color, and much larger than the bags the little deer had found the day before. But such things made no difference to her. "If the nest is larger," she concluded simply, "the honey is probably sweeter and there's more of it!"

But then she suddenly remembered all that her mother had said. "Oh, mother is too afraid! All mothers are too afraid!" And she finished by giving a lusty butt at the nest.

In a second or two she had bitterly repented of her folly. The "bees" were ordinary bees and there were thousands of them. They rushed forth from the nest in a great swarm, settled all over the head, neck, and shoulders of the little deer, and even under her belly and on her tail. And they stung her all over, but worst of all about the eyes. There were more than ten stings to each eye!

The little deer, wild with pain and fright, began to run screaming away. She ran and ran. But finally she had to stop, because she could no longer see where she was going. Her eyes were all swollen; so swollen she could not open them. Trembling with fear and smarting with pain, she stopped where she was and began to cry piteously:

"Mamma!... Mamma!"

The mother deer was much worried when the afternoon wore on and her child did not come home; and at last she started out to look for her, following by smell, as deers can, the tracks of her little one over the hillsides. What was her despair when, finally, she heard the disobedient fawn weeping in the distance; and how much blacker her despair became when she found that the child was blind!

Slowly the two deers started home again, the fawn's nose resting on her mother's hip. And along the road all the old bucks and does came up to examine the little one's eyes and give their opinions as to a cure. The mother deer did not know what to do. She had no plasters nor poultices to soothe the pain in her child's eyes. She learned ultimately that across the mountains lived a man who was skillful with remedies. This man was a hunter, and traded in venison. But, from all reports, she concluded that he was quite a kind-hearted person.

Though the doe shivered at the thought of visiting a man who made his living on the slaughter of deer, she was willing to risk anything for her offspring. However, she had never met the man personally, and she thought it best to ask for a letter of introduction from the Anteater, who was supposed to be on very good terms with all the human kind.

It was night; and the panthers and wildcats were rampant through all the forest; but the mother deer did not wait an instant. She covered her little one carefully with branches so that no one could find her, and then made off toward the Anteater's house. She went so fast and so far that she was faint with fatigue when she arrived there; and once, on the road, she escaped only by merest chance from the fangs of a mountain lion.

The Anteater was one of the smaller members of his tribe--a yellow little fellow with a black cape thrown over his shoulders and reaching down to the waist, where it was tied under his belly with black strings.

Just how or why the Anteater became so friendly with the hunter, no one in the forest knew; but some day the truth will be known, doubtless.

At any rate, the poor doe arrived at the house where the Anteater lived.

"Tan! Tan! Tan!" she knocked, panting.

"Who's that?" answered the Anteater sleepily.

"It's me!" said the doe; though she corrected herself almost immediately, and said: "It is I--a deer, the mother of the twins!"

"I see," said the Anteater. "So it's you! Well, what do you want?"

"I want you to introduce me to the hunter. The fawn, my daughter, is blind!"

"You don't say so? That little fawn that everybody makes so much of? She's a dear little thing! I don't have to be asked twice to do a favor when that child is concerned! I'll introduce you gladly. But you won't need a letter. Just show the man this, and he'll do all you ask."

The Anteater rummaged around in the leaves for a while and at last stretched his tail out. On the tip of it was the head of a snake, completely dried, and with the poison fangs still in it.

"Thanks ever so much," exclaimed the doe. "But that man is a venison hunter! Do you think this is all I need?"

"Quite!" the Anteater averred.

"You are a very kind-hearted Anteater," the doe replied, her eyes filling with tears. But she did not prolong the conversation. It was getting to be very late, and she had to be at the hunter's lodge by daybreak.

She hurried back to her house and got the fawn, who still lay there weeping in her bed. Together they made their way toward the village where the hunter lived. They stole along very softly, keeping close to the walls of the houses, so that the dogs would not see nor hear them.

At the door of the hunter's cottage the mother knocked loudly:

"Tan! Tan! Tan!"

And the little deer knocked as loudly as she could.

"Ta! Ta! Ta!"

"Who's there?" a voice called from within.

"It's us," said the fawn.

"It's we," corrected the mother. "We are friends of the Anteater, and we have the snake's head!"

"I see," said the hunter opening the door. "What can I do for you?"

"My daughter, this little fawn here, is blind. Can you help her?"

And the mother deer told the whole story about her child and the bees.

"Hum!" said the man. "Just let me see what ails this nice young lady!"

Reentering the cottage, the hunter soon came back with a rather high stool, on which he set the fawn in such a manner that he could examine her eyes without bending over. Then he took out a big lens and began to look at the stings, while the mother deer stood by, holding a lantern around her neck so that the "doctor" could see better. For the sun had not yet risen.

"Oh, there's nothing to worry about," the hunter said to the fond parent, helping her little one out of the chair. "It's only a matter of time and care. Wrap her head up, and keep a bandage with this ointment across her eyes. Then keep her in the dark for twenty days. After that, have her wear these yellow glasses for a week or two; and by that time she will be all right."

"Thanks, many, many thanks," said the mother deer warmly and gratefully. "And now, sir, how much do I owe you?"

"Nothing at all, nothing at all, madam," the hunter replied with a smile. "But one thing more: look out for the dogs in the next house. A man lives there who keeps hounds especially for chasing deer."

At this news the mother deer and her child were so scared they hardly dared breathe; and as they went away they walked on tiptoe, and stopped every few feet. Even at that the dogs heard them and gave chase for nearly a mile into the forest. But the mother deer found a narrow path, opening into the bush where the blind fawn could run quite safely; and they made good their escape.

The little deer got well, just as the hunter had said she would; though the care and trouble it cost the mother to keep her fawn shut up for twenty long days inside a hollow tree, she only knew. Inside there you could not have seen your hand before your face! But at last, one morning, the mother deer brushed aside the branches she had woven across the hole in the tree so tightly as to keep out all light; and the fawn, now with the yellow glasses on her nose, came out into the broad day.

"Oh, I can see now, mamma, I can see all right!"

And the mother deer, to tell the truth, had to go and hide her head in a clump of bushes to conceal the tears of joy that came to her eyes when she saw her little one cured at last. In two weeks, the glasses were laid aside.

As time wore on, the fawn, though happy to be quite herself again, began to grow sad. She was anxious to repay the hunter for his kindness to her; and she could think of no possible way of doing it.

One day, however, an idea occurred to her. As she was trotting along the shore of a pond she came upon a feather which a blue heron had let fall there. "I wonder if that good man would like it?" she thought. And she picked it up.

Then, one night when it was raining hard and the dogs would probably be under cover, she started out for the hunter's cottage.

The man was reading in his bedroom, feeling quite cozy besides, for he had just completed a thatched roof for his cabin when the rain began. Now he was quite safe and dry out of reach of the storm.

"Tan! Tan! Tan!"

When he opened the door, the little deer, whom he had treated and of whom he had often thought since then, was standing there in the rain, with the heron's plume, all wet and drooping, in her mouth.

"Here is something I have brought for you," the fawn explained.

But the hunter began to laugh.

The little deer went off home in great shame and sorrow. She thought the man had laughed in ridicule of her poor gift! So thereafter she went looking for a better, bigger feather to give her benefactor; and this time she found some plumes that were truly splendid ones; and she was careful to keep them clean and dry.

Again she went back, one night, to the hunter's cabin; and this time he did not laugh. He was a courteous, polite man; and he understood that, the other time, he had hurt his little friend's feelings by laughing at her. Instead, he now invited her indoors, drew the high chair up to the table and gave her a saucerful of honey. Gobble, gobble! The little deer lapped the sweet up in mad delight.

From that time on, the two became great friends. The fawn spent a great deal of her time collecting heron plumes, which the man sold for a large sum of money. And every time she came in with a feather, the hunter gave her a jar of honey; and occasionally he offered her a cigar, which the little deer ate, but, of course, did not smoke. Smoking is bad even for deers.

Whole nights the two friends thus spent together, talking in front of the open fire, while the wind was howling outside; for the deer made her visits only in stormy weather when dogs would be sure not to be about. In a short time whenever the skies were dark and gave promise of a bad night, the hunter began to expect these visits. He would light a lamp, set a jar of honey on the table, take out a book and begin to read, waiting for the "Tan! Tan! Tan!" of the little deer, who remained his loyal friend all her life.

THE ALLIGATOR WAR

It was a very big river in a region of South America that had never been visited by white men; and in it lived many, many alligators--perhaps a hundred, perhaps a thousand. For dinner they ate fish, which they caught in the stream, and for supper they ate deer and other animals that came down to the water side to drink. On hot afternoons in summer they stretched out and sunned themselves on the bank. But they liked nights when the moon was shining best of all. Then they swam out into the river and sported and played, lashing the water to foam with their tails, while the spray ran off their beautiful skins in all the colors of the rainbow.

These alligators had lived quite happy lives for a long, long time. But at last one afternoon, when they were all sleeping on the sand, snoring and snoring, one alligator woke up and cocked his ears--the way alligators cock their ears. He listened and listened, and, to be sure, faintly, and from a great distance, came a sound: _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_

"Hey!" the alligator called to the alligator sleeping next to him, "Hey! Wake up! Danger!"

"Danger of what?" asked the other, opening his eyes sleepily, and getting up.

"I don't know!" replied the first alligator.

"That's a noise I never heard before. Listen!"

The other alligator listened: _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_

In great alarm the two alligators went calling up and down the river bank: "Danger! Danger!" And all their sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts woke up and began running this way and that with their tails curled up in the air. But the excitement did not serve to calm their fears. _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_ The noise was growing louder every moment; and at last, away off down the stream, they could see something moving along the surface of the river, leaving a trail of gray smoke behind it and beating the water on either side to foam: _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_

The alligators looked at each other in the greatest astonishment: "What on earth is that?"

But there was one old alligator, the wisest and most experienced of them all. He was so old that only two sound teeth were left in his jaws--one in the upper jaw and one in the lower jaw. Once, also, when he was a boy, fond of adventure, he had made a trip down the river all the way to the sea.

"I know what it is," said he. "It's a whale. Whales are big fish, they shoot water up through their noses, and it falls down on them behind."

At this news, the little alligators began to scream at the top of their lungs, "It's a whale! It's a whale! It's a whale!" and they made for the water intending to duck out of sight.

But the big alligator cuffed with his tail a little alligator that was screaming nearby with his mouth open wide. "Dry up!" said he. "There's nothing to be afraid of! I know all about whales! Whales are the afraidest people there are!" And the little alligators stopped their noise.

But they grew frightened again a moment afterwards. The gray smoke suddenly turned to an inky black, and the _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ was now so loud that all the alligators took to the water, with only their eyes and the tips of their noses showing at the surface.

_Cho-ash-h-h!_ _Cho-ash-h-h!_ _Cho-ash-h-h!_ The strange monster came rapidly up the stream. The alligators saw it go crashing past them, belching great clouds of smoke from the middle of its back, and splashing into the water heavily with the big revolving things it had on either side.

It was a steamer, the first steamer that had ever made its way up the Parana. _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ It seemed to be getting further away again. _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_ It had disappeared from view.

One by one, the alligators climbed up out of the water onto the bank again. They were all quite cross with the old alligator who had told them wrongly that it was a whale.

"It was not a whale!" they shouted in his ear--for he was rather hard of hearing. "Well, what was it that just went by?"

The old alligator then explained that it was a steamboat full of fire; and that the alligators would all die if the boat continued to go up and down the river.

The other alligators only laughed, however. Why would the alligators die if the boat kept going up and down the river? It had passed by without so much as speaking to them! That old alligator didn't really know so much as he pretended to! And since they were very hungry they all went fishing in the stream. But alas! There was not a fish to be found! The steamboat had frightened every single one of them away.

"Well, what did I tell you?" said the old alligator. "You see: we haven't anything left to eat! All the fish have been frightened away! However--let's just wait till tomorrow. Perhaps the boat won't come back again. In that case, the fish will get over their fright and come back so that we can eat them." But the next day, the steamboat came crashing by again on its way back down the river, spouting black smoke as it had done before, and setting the whole river boiling with its paddle wheels.

"Well!" exclaimed the alligators. "What do you think of that? The boat came yesterday. The boat came today. The boat will come tomorrow. The fish will stay away; and nothing will come down here at night to drink. We are done for!"

But an idea occurred to one of the brighter alligators: "Let's dam the river!" he proposed. "The steamboat won't be able to climb a dam!"

"That's the talk! That's the talk! A dam! A dam! Let's build a dam!" And the alligators all made for the shore as fast as they could.

They went up into the woods along the bank and began to cut down trees of the hardest wood they could find--walnut and mahogany, mostly. They felled more than ten thousand of them altogether, sawing the trunks through with the kind of saw that alligators have on the tops of their tails. They dragged the trees down into the water and stood them up about a yard apart, all the way across the river, driving the pointed ends deep into the mud and weaving the branches together. No steamboat, big or little, would ever be able to pass that dam! No one would frighten the fish away again! They would have a good dinner the following day and every day! And since it was late at night by the time the dam was done, they all fell sound asleep on the river bank.

_Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chug!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Chush!_ _Cho-ash-h-h-h!_ _Cho-ash-h-h-h!_ _Cho-ash-h-h-h!_

They were still asleep, the next day, when the boat came up; but the alligators barely opened their eyes and then tried to go to sleep again. What did they care about the boat? It could make all the noise it wanted, but it would never get by the dam!

And that is what happened. Soon the noise from the boat stopped. The men who were steering on the bridge took out their spy-glasses and began to study the strange obstruction that had been thrown up across the river. Finally a small boat was sent to look into it more closely. Only then did the alligators get up from where they were sleeping, run down into the water, and swim out behind the dam, where they lay floating and looking downstream between the piles. They could not help laughing, nevertheless, at the joke they had played on the steamboat!

The small boat came up, and the men in it saw how the alligators had made a dam across the river. They went back to the steamer, but soon after, came rowing up toward the dam again.

"Hey, you, alligators!"

"What can we do for you?" answered the alligators, sticking their heads through between the piles in the dam.

"That dam is in our way!" said the men.

"Tell us something we don't know!" answered the alligators.

"But we can't get by!"

"I'll say so!"

"Well, take the old thing out of the way!"

"Nosireesir!"

The men in the boat talked it over for a while and then they called:

"Alligators!"

"What can we do for you?"

"Will you take the dam away?"

"No!"

"No?"

"No!"

"Very well! See you later!"

"The later the better," said the alligators.

The rowboat went back to the steamer, while the alligators, as happy as could be, clapped their tails as loud as they could on the water. No boat could ever get by that dam, and drive the fish away again!

But the next day the steamboat returned; and when the alligators looked at it, they could not say a word from their surprise: it was not the same boat at all, but a larger one, painted gray like a mouse! How many steamboats were there, anyway? And this one probably would want to pass the dam! Well, just let it try! No, sir! No steamboat, little or big, would ever get through that dam!

"They shall not pass!" said the alligators, each taking up his station behind the piles in the dam.

The new boat, like the other one, stopped some distance below the dam; and again a little boat came rowing toward them. This time there were eight sailors in it, with one officer. The officer shouted:

"Hey, you, alligators!"

"What's the matter?" answered the alligators.

"Going to get that dam out of there?"

"No!"

"No?"

"No!"

"Very well!" said the officer. "In that case, we shall have to shoot it down!"

"Shoot it up if you want to!" said the alligators.

And the boat returned to the steamer.

But now, this mouse-gray steamboat was not an ordinary steamboat: it was a warship, with armor plate and terribly powerful guns. The old alligator who had made the trip to the river mouth suddenly remembered, and just in time to shout to the other alligators: "Duck for your lives! Duck! She's going to shoot! Keep down deep under water."

The alligators dived all at the same time, and headed for the shore, where they halted, keeping all their bodies out of sight except for their noses and their eyes. A great cloud of flame and smoke burst from the vessel's side, followed by a deafening report. An immense solid shot hurtled through the air and struck the dam exactly in the middle. Two or three tree trunks were cut away into splinters and drifted off downstream. Another shot, a third, and finally a fourth, each tearing a great hole in the dam. Finally the piles were entirely destroyed; not a tree, not a splinter, not a piece of bark, was left; and the alligators, still sitting with their eyes and noses just out of water, saw the warship come steaming by and blowing its whistle in derision at them.

Then the alligators came out on the bank and held a council of war. "Our dam was not strong enough," said they; "we must make a new and much thicker one."

So they worked again all that afternoon and night, cutting down the very biggest trees they could find, and making a much better dam than they had built before. When the gunboat appeared the next day, they were sleeping soundly and had to hurry to get behind the piles of the dam by the time the rowboat arrived there.

"Hey, alligators!" called the same officer.

"See who's here again!" said the alligators, jeeringly.

"Get that new dam out of there!"

"Never in the world!"

"Well, we'll blow it up, the way we did the other!"

"Blaze away, and good luck to you!"

You see, the alligators talked so big because they were sure the dam they had made this time would hold up against the most terrible cannon balls in the world. And the sailors must have thought so, too; for after they had fired the first shot a tremendous explosion occurred in the dam. The gunboat was using shells, which burst among the timbers of the dam and broke the thickest trees into tiny, tiny bits. A second shell exploded right near the first, and a third near the second. So the shots went all along the dam, each tearing away a long strip of it till nothing, nothing, nothing was left. Again the warship came steaming by, closer in toward shore on this occasion, so that the sailors could make fun of the alligators by putting their hands to their mouths and holloing.

"So that's it!" said the alligators, climbing up out of the water. "We must all die, because the steamboats will keep coming and going, up and down, and leaving us not a fish in the world to eat!"

The littlest alligators were already whimpering; for they had had no dinner for three days; and it was a crowd of very sad alligators that gathered on the river shore to hear what the old alligator now had to say.

"We have only one hope left," he began. "We must go and see the Sturgeon! When I was a boy, I took that trip down to the sea along with him. He liked the salt water better than I did, and went quite a way out into the ocean. There he saw a sea fight between two of these boats; and he brought home a torpedo that had failed to explode. Suppose we go and ask him to give it to us. It is true the Sturgeon has never liked us alligators; but I got along with him pretty well myself. He is a good fellow, at bottom, and surely he will not want to see us all starve!"

The fact was that some years before an alligator had eaten one of the Sturgeon's favorite grandchildren; and for that reason the Sturgeon had refused ever since to call on the alligators or receive visits from them. Nevertheless, the alligators now trouped off in a body to the big cave under the bank of the river where they knew the Sturgeon stayed, with his torpedo beside him. There are sturgeons as much as six feet long, you know, and this one with the torpedo was of that kind.

"Mr. Sturgeon! Mr. Sturgeon!" called the alligators at the entrance of the cave. No one of them dared go in, you see, on account of that matter of the sturgeon's grandchild.

"Who is it?" answered the Sturgeon.

"We're the alligators," the latter replied in a chorus.

"I have nothing to do with alligators," grumbled the Sturgeon crossly.

But now the old alligator with the two teeth stepped forward and said:

"Why, hello, Sturgy. Don't you remember Ally, your old friend that took that trip down the river, when we were boys?"

"Well, well! Where have you been keeping yourself all these years," said the Sturgeon, surprised and pleased to hear his old friend's voice. "Sorry I didn't know it was you! How goes it? What can I do for you?"

"We've come to ask you for that torpedo you found, remember? You see, there's a warship keeps coming up and down our river scaring all the fish away. She's a whopper, I'll tell you, armor plate, guns, the whole thing! We made one dam and she knocked it down. We made another and she blew it up. The fish have all gone away and we haven't had a bite to eat in near onto a week. Now you give us your torpedo and we'll do the rest!"

The Sturgeon sat thinking for a long time, scratching his chin with one of his fins. At last he answered:

"As for the torpedo, all right! You can have it in spite of what you did to my eldest son's first-born. But there's one trouble: who knows how to work the thing?"

The alligators were all silent. Not one of them had ever seen a torpedo.

"Well," said the Sturgeon, proudly, "I can see I'll have to go with you myself. I've lived next to that torpedo a long time. I know all about torpedoes."

The first task was to bring the torpedo down to the dam. The alligators got into line, the one behind taking in his mouth the tail of the one in front. When the line was formed it was fully a quarter of a mile long. The Sturgeon pushed the torpedo out into the current, and got under it so as to hold it up near the top of the water on his back. Then he took the tail of the last alligator in his teeth, and gave the signal to go ahead. The Sturgeon kept the torpedo afloat, while the alligators towed him along. In this way they went so fast that a wide wake followed on after the torpedo; and by the next morning they were back at the place where the dam was made.

As the little alligators who had stayed at home reported, the warship had already gone by upstream. But this pleased the others all the more. Now they would build a new dam, stronger than ever before, and catch the steamer in a trap, so that it would never get home again.

They worked all that day and all the next night, making a thick, almost solid dike, with barely enough room between the piles for the alligators to stick their heads through. They had just finished when the gunboat came into view.

Again the rowboat approached with the eight men and their officer. The alligators crowded behind the dam in great excitement, moving their paws to hold their own with the current; for this time, they were downstream.

"Hey, alligators!" called the officer.

"Well?" answered the alligators.

"Still another dam?"

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again!"

"Get that dam out of there!"

"No, sir!"

"You won't?"

"We won't!"

"Very well! Now you alligators just listen! If you won't be reasonable, we are going to knock this dam down, too. But to save you the trouble of building a fourth, we are going to shoot every blessed alligator around here. Yes, every single last alligator, women and children, big ones, little ones, fat ones, lean ones, and even that old codger sitting there with only two teeth left in his jaws!"

The old alligator understood that the officer was trying to insult him with that reference to his two teeth, and he answered:

"Young man, what you say is true. I have only two teeth left, not counting one or two others that are broken off. But do you know what those two teeth are going to eat for dinner?" As he said this the old alligator opened his mouth wide, wide, wide.

"Well, what are they going to eat?" asked one of the sailors.

"A little dude of a naval officer I see in a boat over there!"--and the old alligator dived under water and disappeared from view.

Meantime the Sturgeon had brought the torpedo to the very center of the dam, where four alligators were holding it fast to the river bottom waiting for orders to bring it up to the top of the water. The other alligators had gathered along the shore, with their noses and eyes alone in sight as usual.

The rowboat went back to the ship. When he saw the men climbing aboard, the Sturgeon went down to his torpedo.

Suddenly there was a loud detonation. The warship had begun firing, and the first shell struck and exploded in the middle of the dam. A great gap opened in it.

"Now! Now!" called the Sturgeon sharply, on seeing that there was room for the torpedo to go through. "Let her go! Let her go!"

As the torpedo came to the surface, the Sturgeon steered it to the opening in the dam, took aim hurriedly with one eye closed, and pulled at the trigger of the torpedo with his teeth. The propeller of the torpedo began to revolve, and it started off upstream toward the gunboat.

And it was high time. At that instant a second shot exploded in the dam, tearing away another large section.

From the wake the torpedo left behind it in the water the men on the vessel saw the danger they were in, but it was too late to do anything about it. The torpedo struck the ship in the middle, and went off.

You can never guess the terrible noise that torpedo made. It blew the warship into fifteen thousand million pieces, tossing guns, and smokestacks, and shells and rowboats--everything, hundreds and hundreds of yards away.

The alligators all screamed with triumph and made as fast as they could for the dam. Down through the opening bits of wood came floating, with a number of sailors swimming as hard as they could for the shore. As the men passed through, the alligators put their paws to their mouths and holloed, as the men had done to them three days before. They decided not to eat a single one of the sailors, though some of them deserved it without a doubt. Except that when a man dressed in a blue uniform with gold braid came by, the old alligator jumped into the water off the dam, and snap! snap! ate him in two mouthfuls.

"Who was that man?" asked an ignorant young alligator, who never learned his lessons in school and never knew what was going on.

"It's the officer of the boat," answered the Sturgeon. "My old friend, Ally, said he was going to eat him, and eaten him he has!"

The alligators tore down the rest of the dam, because they knew that no boats would be coming by that way again.

The Sturgeon, who had quite fallen in love with the gold lace of the officer, asked that it be given him in payment for the use of his torpedo. The alligators said he might have it for the trouble of picking it out of the old alligator's mouth, where it had caught on the two teeth. They gave him also the officer's belt and sword. The Sturgeon put the belt on just behind his front fins, and buckled the sword to it. Thus togged out, he swam up and down for more than an hour in front of the assembled alligators, who admired his beautiful spotted skin as something almost as pretty as the coral snake's, and who opened their mouths wide at the splendor of his uniform. Finally they escorted him in honor back to his cave under the river bank, thanking him over and over again, and giving him three cheers as they went off.

When they returned to their usual place they found the fish had already returned. The next day another steamboat came by; but the alligators did not care, because the fish were getting used to it by this time and seemed not to be afraid. Since then the boats have been going back and forth all the time, carrying oranges. And the alligators open their eyes when they hear the _chug! chug! chug!_ of a steamboat and laugh at the thought of how scared they were the first time, and of how they sank the warship.

But no warship has ever gone up the river since the old alligator ate the officer.

HOW THE FLAMINGOES GOT THEIR STOCKINGS

Once the snakes decided that they would give a costume ball; and to make the affair a truly brilliant one they sent invitations to the frogs, the toads, the alligators and the fish.

The fish replied that since they had no legs they would not be able to do much dancing; whereupon, as a special courtesy to them, the ball was held on the shore of the Parana. The fish swam up to the very beach and sat looking on with their heads out of water. When anything pleased them they splashed with their tails.

To make as good an appearance as possible, the alligators put necklaces of bananas around their throats; and they came to the ball smoking big Paraguay cigars. The toads stuck fish scales all over their bodies; and when they walked, they moved their forelegs out and in as though they were swimming. They strutted up and down the beach with very glum, determined faces; and the fish kept calling to them, making fun of their scales. The frogs were satisfied to leave their smooth green skins just as they were; but they bathed themselves in perfume and walked on their hind legs. Besides, each one carried a lightning bug, which waved to and fro like a lantern, at the end of a string in the frog's hand.

But the best costumes of all were worn by the snakes. All of them, without exception, had dancing gowns of the color of their skins. There were red snakes, and brown snakes, and pink snakes, and yellow snakes--each with a garment of tulle to match. The _yarara_, who is a kind of rattler, came in a single-piece robe of gray tulle with brick-colored stripes--for that is the way the _yarara_ dresses even when he is not going to a ball. The coral snakes were prettier still. They draped themselves in a gauze of reds, whites and blacks; and when they danced, they wound themselves round and round like corkscrews, rising on the tips of their tails, coiling and uncoiling, balancing this way and that. They were the most graceful and beautiful of all the snakes, and the guests applauded them wildly.

The flamingoes were the only ones who seemed not to be having a good time. Stupid birds that they were, they had not thought of any costumes at all. They came with the plain white legs they had at that time and the thick, twisted bills they have even now. Naturally they were envious of all the gowns they saw, but most of all, of the fancy dress of the coral snakes. Every time one of these went by them, courtesying, pirouetting, balancing, the flamingoes writhed with jealousy. For no one, meanwhile, was asking them to dance.

"I know what we must do," said one of the flamingoes at last. "We must go and get some stockings for our legs--pink, black and white like the coral snakes themselves--then they will all fall in love with us!"

The whole flock of them took wing immediately and flew across the river to a village nearby. They went to the store and knocked:

"Tan! Tan! Tan!"

"Who is it?" called the storekeeper.

"We're the flamingoes. We have come to get some stockings--pink, black, and white."

"Are you crazy?" the storekeeper answered. "I keep stockings for people, not for silly birds. Besides, stockings of such colors! You won't find any in town, either!"

The flamingoes went on to another store:

"Tan! Tan! Tan! We are looking for stockings--pink, black and white. Have you any?"

"Pink, black and white stockings! Don't you know decent people don't wear such things? You must be crazy! Who are you, anyway?"

"We are the flamingoes," the flamingoes replied.

"In that case you are silly flamingoes! Better go somewhere else!"

They went to still a third store:

"Tan! Tan! Pink, black and white stockings! Got any?"

"Pink, black and white nonsense!" called the storekeeper. "Only birds with big noses like yours could ask for such a thing. Don't make tracks on my floor!"

And the man swept them into the street with a broom.

So the flamingoes went from store to store, and everywhere people called them silly, stupid birds.

However, an owl, a mischievous _tatu_, who had just been down to the river to get some water, and had heard all about the ball and the flamingoes, met them on his way back and thought he would have some fun with them.

"Good evening, good evening, flamingoes," he said, making a deep bow, though, of course, it was just to ridicule the foolish birds. "I know what you are looking for. I doubt if you can get any such stockings in town. You might find them in Buenos Aires; but you would have to order them by mail. My sister-in-law, the barn owl, has stockings like that, however. Why don't you go around and see her? She can give you her own and borrow others from her family."

"Thanks! Thanks, ever so much!" said the flamingoes; and they flew off to the cellar of a barn where the barn owl lived.

"Tan! Tan! Good evening, Mrs. Owl," they said. "A relation of yours, Mr. Tatu, advised us to call on you. Tonight, as you know, the snakes are giving a costume ball, and we have no costumes. If you could lend us your pink, black and white stockings, the coral snakes would be sure to fall in love with us!"

"Pleased to accommodate you," said the barn owl. "Will you wait just a moment?"

She flew away and was gone some time. When she came back she had the stockings with her. But they were not real stockings. They were nothing but skins from coral snakes which the owl had caught and eaten during the previous days.

"Perhaps these will do," she remarked. "But if you wear them at the ball, I advise you to do strictly as I say: dance all night long, and don't stop a moment. For if you do, you will get into trouble, I assure you!"

The flamingoes listened to what she said; but, stupidly, did not try to guess what she could have meant by such counsel. They saw no danger in the pretty stockings. Delightedly they doubled up their claws like fists, stuck them through the snakeskins, which were like so many long rubber tubes, and flew back as quickly as they could to the ball.