Читать книгу Mystery in the Windflower Wood - Flora Klickmann - Страница 3

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It began like this, and--as everyone in the Wind-Flower Wood agreed--it really was rather mysterious. Mrs. Song-Thrush put the children to bed at the usual time, in their nest in the holly bush, just as the sun was disappearing behind the opposite hill.

They had only moved into the holly bush that spring. The previous year they had lived in an old apple tree. But it had been a very cold season. The snow had come down on her as she sat on the nest, because the leaves had not yet opened on the apple tree, and there was nothing to shelter her but a very little bit of ivy trimming. Also, it had been rather too public up there at first, while the branches around her were bare. So, she had decided to move lower down, in the wood.

“The Hollies,” a most convenient place, was to let. It seemed exactly what the Thrushes needed, with its evergreen leaves making a splendid sort of umbrella over the nest. The only drawback was the fact that it was close to the Ferny Path that went down hill, right through the middle of the wood. But, as Mr. Song-Thrush pointed out, it was a very thick bush, with sharp prickles on every leaf; and these would not only keep inquisitive neighbours from poking their noses into the Thrushes’ affairs, but passers-by would not be anxious to scratch themselves by meddling with the bush.

So they decided to take it.

When they moved in, they found everything most cosy and convenient--plenty of leaves to hide them, and good stout branches to hold up the nest.

They felt they were very fortunate in having secured “The Hollies” before the Blackbirds had got it. They had seen Mrs. Blackbird hopping all about the premises, upstairs and down, evidently with a view to taking it. Therefore the Thrushes had hurriedly brought along a few twigs and moss, and some feathers from the farmyard, and started their nest; because they knew that the Blackbirds would then go further off and find another place to live in. They are like the Thrushes, very exclusive, and prefer to have a tree or bush to themselves.

This was how the Thrushes came to live at “The Hollies.”

Well--as I was saying--the young Thrushes went to bed one evening as usual. In a few minutes mother settled down, with her wings spread over them to keep them warm all night; while father perched on the branch of a beech tree close by. As soon as the sun had disappeared, and taken the golden sunset with it, the family went to sleep, with their heads tucked under their wings.

And everything seemed just as it always was.

But--it wasn’t!

For when the sun arrived back next morning and woke up Mr. Thrush--whose duty it was to arouse the birds and start their Dawn-Concert with his famous “Wake-up Song”--the poor bewildered father couldn’t find his wife and family!

He was positively certain he had left them in a beautiful nest, in a lovely holly bush, when he went to sleep over night. Whereas now--there wasn’t any holly bush!

At first he felt sure he must still be asleep and dreaming; but next minute he heard Mrs. Thrush calling him. She sounded as though she were down below him somewhere. Peering through the beech leaves, there he saw her--nest and children and all--flat on the ground! Quite close to the path, too! Such a dangerous spot to have chosen!

“How on earth did you get down there?” he asked, gazing in astonishment from his high-up perch, and wondering again if he were really awake.

“That’s what I want to know!” she said. “I thought the wind was very high last night. We seemed to sway about much more than usual, and once there was a big bump. But I didn’t worry about it, because I knew the children couldn’t fall out while I was there. And Eric had been so restless, I didn’t want to wake him up again to find out what had happened. But it’s plain enough now that we’re on the ground.”

“But what have you done with the holly bush?” he inquired anxiously.

“For goodness sake, don’t keep on asking ridiculous questions.” Mrs. Thrush was rather put out, as you can well believe. It isn’t a trifling matter to find your house has entirely vanished in the night. “Of course I’ve done nothing with it,” she continued. “And it would be more useful if you looked around for it. Better still, fetched the policeman. I can’t possibly leave the children alone down here on the ground.”

Mr. Thrush was so bewildered that he forgot all about the Wake-up Song. As the result, all the Little People in the Wind-Flower Wood overslept that morning. When at last they did wake up, they wondered what had happened to Mr. Thrush, and several came along kindly to inquire if he had caught a cold or had a sore throat, as he hadn’t sung a note that morning.

When they arrived at the place where “The Hollies” used to be and found Mrs. Thrush on the ground, loud were the squawks and whistles of surprise. Each caller was quite sure he or she knew exactly how it happened, and what had become of the holly bush. And everyone was in the midst of giving heaps of good advice and telling Mrs. Thrush what she ought to do--when Mr. Thrush returned with Police-Constable Crow. The neighbours immediately retired to the trees close by, taking care to be near enough to hear every single word.

The first thing P.C. Crow did was to question everybody. But though the neighbours seemed so wise before he came, they really knew nothing at all when he questioned them, and evidently had no more ideas than the Thrushes had as to how or why the bush had gone travelling in this unexpected manner.

Even Bunny, the rabbit with the silky ears, who had a very comfortable burrow under an adjoining rock, couldn’t give any information about the affair, because he had been out all night at a big supper-party one of his friends had given in the garden of the Flower-Patch House, which is higher up the hill, and just above the Wind-Flower Wood. He told Policeman Crow that the young carrots and lettuces up there were simply delicious. They had intended to nibble the carnation tops for dessert. But unfortunately the gardener had put netting all over them that very day, for which they were extremely sorry, of course. Still, they made up for it with young cabbages.

But Mr. Crow wasn’t interested either in carnations or cabbages just then, though he did inquire how the green peas were getting on, and he too seemed sorry when he heard that they also were netted now. He changed the subject, however, because of course his business at the moment was to discover what had become of Mr. Thrush’s desirable villa residence known as “The Hollies.” Therefore he insisted on searching “Bunny’s Burrow,” in case the rabbit had stolen the property. But no sign of the holly bush could he find.

Then he routed out the owl, who lived in the Hollow Oak across the way. But the owl, when questioned, said he had been away from home all night, hunting mice by the big barn. So he wasn’t any help. In any case he didn’t intend to be! for he much objected to being wakened in the daytime; and he said so in a very hooty manner.

But Policeman Crow didn’t let a little noise like that upset him; and he wasn’t going to stand any nonsense either. So he proceeded to search every nook and crannie of the “Owls Hollow” in the oak tree to make sure that the Thrushes’ happy home wasn’t hidden up there. In fact, he searched the place so thoroughly, and stirred up such heaps of dead leaves and twigs and pieces of bark and other bits of household furniture, that it was hours before Mr. Owl got his bedroom to rights again, and fit for a gentleman to sleep in.

Which only shows that it isn’t wise to hoot at a Policeman!

“As nobody seems able to give any information which will help me to arrest the stolen property, I must write down full particulars,” Mr. Policeman Crow said. Getting out his notebook, he started first to question Mr. Thrush.

I should explain that Mr. Crow and Mr. Thrush had never been very good friends. The Policeman had such a harsh voice, it quite got on Mr. Thrush’s nerves. Mr. Thrush was so extremely musical, and had such a highly cultured voice. Why, he could sing a dozen different songs at one recital, and all in the same breath, so to speak. And the worst of it was, the Crows thought they had magnificent voices too. And the more Mr. Thrush sang, the more noise did the Crow family make in the tree tops. Till at last Mr. Thrush offered to lend them a little hair-oil to see if it would improve their throats.

Mrs. Crow, too, had made some very personal remarks about Mrs. Thrush’s dress. Said she should be ashamed to go about like Mrs. Thrush did, in nothing better than that dowdy brown tweed coat and skirt. She (Mrs. Crow) always wore the richest black satin, even when getting breakfast in the morning.

Naturally, the two families hadn’t been over-friendly after this. But now Mr. Policeman Crow was the important person, and he meant Mr. Thrush to understand this.

“What name?” He began his questions in a loud voice, as though he had never seen or heard of these birds before.

“Thrush” was, of course, the reply he got.

“I see; Brush,” he said, and licked his pencil in order to get it to work properly.

“Not Brush. I said Thrush--it’s a T, not a B.”

“Who said you were a bee, may I ask?” said P.C. Crow severely. “Don’t try to be funny. I quite understand now that the name begins with a T, as I happen to be exceptionally intelligent. But in future kindly remember to be more accurate and perfectly clear in your statements, and say ’T for Treacle Tart, not B for Boiled Bacon; T for Toasted Tomatoes, not B for Braised Beef; T for Turnip Tops, not B for Baked Beans’--and then people may perhaps know what you are talking about. Always express yourself in simple, straightforward language when you are in the hands of the police, or, let me tell you, there may be trouble, my good man!”

He spelt it carefully to himself as he wrote it down--“T-H-R-U----” then he looked up: “Do you spell it with an S or a C, as you are so particular about the spelling?”

Mr. Thrush really wanted to smash the policeman’s helmet for him by this time, but he controlled his feelings, as he didn’t want to upset the children, and merely explained that they spelt it “T-H-R-U-S-H.”

“I see,” replied Mr. Crow, writing it down.

“No, it isn’t a C!” Mr. Thrush was nearly boiling over with annoyance. “I told you we spelt it with an S for Sauce, not C for Cheek; S for Singing, not C for Croaking. You’ve got C on the brain, man. We aren’t all crows you know.”

The listening neighbours were enjoying all this immensely, especially as none of them loved the policeman or his family. Indeed the blackbirds began to applaud.

Here Mrs. Thrush interrupted the conversation, because it looked as though they would be arguing all day, at this rate. And she wanted to find her house.

“Policeman Crow means that he knows exactly how to spell our name, dear. He’s written it quite correctly in his book.”

“Of course I write correctly,” the policeman replied. “And I must insist on SILENCE while I make my notes”--glaring round at the audience in the surrounding trees.

No one so much as twittered!

His pencil scratched away for a moment. Then he asked: “Any wife?”

“Yes, there’s me,” said Mrs. Thrush.

“I see”--writing down as he repeated it--“one wife named ‘ME’.”

“Oh, dear, that’s not my name,” said poor Mrs. Thrush, but he went on with his questions:

“How many children?”

“Three,” said Mrs. Thrush. “Eric, Adelaide and Ellen.” (She was determined he should get their names correctly.) “There used to be four; but unfortunately Gerald fell out of the nest. So there isn’t any Gerald now. Eric is rather delicate, takes cold easily. But I rub his chest each night with wild strawberry juice. That’s what makes him so red. It isn’t fever or anything infectious.”

“I see”--carefully writing again--“three children: Eric, Laid-an Egg, and Fell-in-Wild-Strawberry Juice. So there aren’t any children now.”

“Oh! That’s all wrong,” said Mrs. Thrush.

“Of course it’s all wrong!” said the policeman. “Children ought not to be allowed to fall into wild strawberry juice like that. It would be bad enough if they were tame strawberries. But WILD ones--why you never know what might happen. It’s such a dreadful waste of strawberries too! Now then, next question: What’s your address?”

“The Hollies,” Mr. Thrush told him, for poor Mrs. Thrush was nearly weeping.

“The Hollies? Whereabouts is it?”

“Unfortunately we don’t know! That’s all the trouble.”

“You don’t know where you live?” exclaimed P.C. Crow. “Then how can you live at ‘The Hollies’ if you don’t know where it is?”

“Yes, we do live there, only you see we’ve no idea where the holly bush is.”

“I don’t see!” said the policeman severely. “It’s puffeckly absurd to tell me that you live where you don’t, and you don’t know where you do live, and the house that you live in isn’t anywhere! I really can’t have my valuable time wasted in listening to such nonsense!”

“But everything you’ve written in your notebook is wrong,” said Mr. Thrush, who was fast getting into a temper. “In your notes you ought to have everything quite right.”

“Then if everything is quite right, why did you fetch me? I was told that there was something wrong here. Then, when I leave my early breakfast, which I was really enjoying in that newly-ploughed field, and hurry down here to inquire into it, you tell me that I must put down ‘Everything quite right’ in my notebook. Let me tell you this, Mr. Brush--no, I mean Thrush--I know someone who isn’t quite right, and that is the individual who says he lives in a home that isn’t anywhere, and he doesn’t know where it is when he does live there. I shall go back at once to the police station and report this case--after I’ve seen if those wretched rooks have left me any breakfast, and I don’t suppose they have.”

Mr. Thrush opened his beak to say something in reply, as Policeman Crow shut up his notebook with an important snap, but at that moment, someone among the neighbours who were perched on the trees all around, called out:

“Mrs. Thrush; Mrs. Thrush; your baby’s lost!”

Mrs. Thrush turned round to look at her nest, which was still on the ground, of course. Eric and Ellen were there, just as she had left them, with their little beaks open, waiting for father and mother to pop something in.

But Adelaide’s place was empty!