“It is to mix the dead vegetable matter thoroughly with the earth so that the roots of the plants may get it easily,” explained Old Mother Nature. “By making those tunnels in every direction and bringing up the earth below to the surface, Grubby Gopher does the same thing. That is why I call him my little plowman. He loosens up the hard, packed earth and mixes the vegetable matter with it and so makes it easy for seeds to sprout and plants to grow.”
“Then he must be one of the farmer's best friends,” spoke up Happy Jack Squirrel.
Old Mother Nature shook her head. “He has been in the past,” said she. “He has done a wonderful work in helping make the land fit for farming. But where land is being farmed he is a dreadful pest, I am sorry to say. You see he eats the crops the farmer tries to raise, and the new mounds he is all the time throwing up bury a lot of the young plants, and in the meadows make it very hard to use a mowing machine for cutting hay. Then Grubby gets into young orchards and cuts off all the tender roots of young trees. This kills them. You see he is fond of tender roots, seeds, stems of grass and grain, and is never happier than when he can find a field of potatoes.
“Being such a worker, he has to have a great deal to eat. Then, too, he stores away a great deal for winter, for he doesn't sleep in winter as Johnny Chuck does. He even tunnels about under the snow. Sometimes he fills these little snow tunnels with the earth he brings up from below, and when the snow melts it leaves queer little earth ridges to show where the tunnels were.
“Grubby is very neat in his habits and keeps his home and himself very clean. During the day he leaves one of his mounds open for a little while to let in fresh air. But it is only for a little while. Then he closes it again. He doesn't dare leave it open very long, for fear Shadow the Weasel or a certain big Snake called the Gopher Snake will find it and come in after him. Digger the Badger is the only one of his enemies who can dig fast enough to dig him out, but at night, when he likes to come out for a little air or to cut grain and grass, he must always watch for Hooty the Owl. Old Man Coyote and members of the Hawk family are always looking for him by day, so you see he has plenty of enemies, like the rest of you.
“He got the name Gopher because that comes from a word meaning honeycomb, and Grubby's tunnels go in every direction until the ground is like honeycomb. He isn't a bit social and has rather a mean disposition. He is always ready to fight. On the plains he has done a great deal to make the soil fine and rich, as I have already told you, but on hillsides he does a great deal of harm. The water runs down his tunnels and washes away the soil. Because of this and the damage he does to crops, man is his greatest enemy. But man has furnished him with new and splendid foods easy to get, and so Grubby's family increases faster than it used to, in spite of traps and poison. Hello! See who's here! It is about time.”
There was a shuffling and rattling and grunting, and Prickly Porky climbed up on an old stump, looking very peevish and much out of sorts. He had come to school much against his will.
Chapter XI
A Fellow With a Thousand Spears
“There,” said Old Mother Nature, pointing to Prickly Porky the Porcupine, “is next to the largest member of your order, which is?”
“Order of Rodents,” piped up Striped Chipmunk.
“He is not only next to the largest, but is the stupidest,” continued Old Mother Nature. “At least that is what people say of him, though I suspect he isn't as stupid as he sometimes seems. Anyway, he manages to keep well fed and escape his enemies, which is more than can be said for some others who are supposed to have quick wits.”
“Escaping his enemies is no credit to him. They are only too glad to keep out of his way; he doesn't have to fear anybody,” said Chatterer the Red Squirrel to his cousin, Happy Jack.
His remark didn't escape the keen ears of Old Mother Nature. “Are you sure about that?” she demanded. “Now there's Pekan the Fisher-”
She was interrupted by a great rattling on the old stump. Everybody turned to look. There was Prickly Porky backing down as fast as he could, which wasn't fast at all, and rattling his thousand little spears as he did so. It was really very funny. Everybody had to laugh, even Old Mother Nature. You see, it was plain that he was in a great hurry, yet every movement was slow and clumsy.
“Well, Prickly Porky, what does this mean? Where are you going?” demanded Old Mother Nature.
Prickly Porky turned his dull-looking eyes towards her, and in them was a troubled, worried look. “Where's Pekan the Fisher?” he asked, and his voice shook a little with something very much like fear.
Old Mother Nature understood instantly. When she had said, “Now there's Pekan the Fisher,” Prickly Porky had waited to hear no more. He had instantly thought that she meant that Pekan was right there somewhere. “It's all right, Prickly Porky,” said she. “Pekan isn't anywhere around here, so climb back on that stump and don't worry. Had you waited for me to finish, you would have saved yourself a fright. Chatterer had just said that you didn't have to fear anybody and I was starting to explain that he was wrong, that despite your thousand little spears you have reason to fear Pekan the Fisher.”
Prickly Porky shivered and this made the thousand little spears in his coat rattle. It was such a surprising thing to see Prickly Porky actually afraid that the other little folks almost doubted their own eyes. “Are you quite sure that Pekan isn't anywhere around?” asked Prickly Porky, and his voice still shook.
“Quite sure,” replied Old Mother Nature. “If he were I wouldn't allow him to hurt you. You ought to know that. Now sit up so that every one can get a good look at you.”
Prickly Porky sat up, and the others gathered around the foot of the stump to look at him. “He certainly is no beauty,” murmured Happy Jack Squirrel.
Happy Jack was quite right. He was anything but handsome. The truth is he was the homeliest, clumsiest-looking fellow in all the Green Forest. He was a little bigger than Bobby Coon and his body was thick and heavy-looking. His back humped up like an arch. His head was rather small for the size of his body, short and rather round. His neck was even shorter. His eyes were small and very dull. It was plain that he couldn't see far, or clearly unless what he was looking at was close at hand. His ears were small and nearly hidden in hair. His front teeth, the gnawing teeth which showed him to be a Rodent, were very large and bright orange. His legs were short and stout. He had four toes on each front foot and five on each hind foot, and these were armed with quite long, stout claws.
But the queerest thing and the most interesting thing about Prickly Porky was his coat. Not one among the other little people of the Green Forest has a coat anything like his. Most of them have a soft, short under fur protected and more or less hidden by longer, coarser hair. Prickly Porky had the long coarse hair and on his back it was very long and coarse, brownish-black in color up to the tips, which were white. Under this long hair was some soft woolly fur, but what that long hair hid chiefly was an array of wicked-looking little spears called quills. They were white to the tips, which were dark and very, very sharply pointed. All down the sides were tiny barbs, so small as hardly to be seen, but there just the same. On his head the quills were about an inch long, but on his back they were four inches long, becoming shorter towards the tail. The latter was rather short, stout, and covered with short quills.
As he sat there on that old stump some of Prickly Porky's little spears could be seen peeping out from the long hair on his back, but they didn't look particularly dangerous. Peter Rabbit suddenly made a discovery. “Why!” he exclaimed. “He hasn't any little spears on the under side of him!”
“I wondered who would be the first to notice that,” said Old Mother Nature. “No, Prickly Porky hasn't any little spears underneath, and Pekan the Fisher has found that out. He knows that if he can turn Prickly Porky on his back he can kill him without much danger from those little spears, and he has learned how to do that very thing. That is why Prickly Porky is afraid of him. Now, Prickly Porky, climb