I Love Animal Stories. Aesop

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      PRICKLY PORKY THE PORCUPINE. An independent fellow with a thousand little spears in his coat.

      “Gracious!” exclaimed Peter.

      “Why don't you look where you are going,” grunted Prickly Porky. Plainly he was rather peevish. “It wouldn't be my fault if you had a few of my little spears sticking in you this very minute, and it would serve you right.” He waddled along a few steps, then began talking again. “I don't see why Old Mother Nature sent for me this morning,” he grumbled. “I hate a long walk.”

      Peter pricked up his long ears. “I know!” he cried. “You're going to school, Prickly Porky. You're a Rodent, and we are going to learn all about you this morning.”

      “I'm not a Rodent; I'm a Porcupine,” grunted Prickly Porky indignantly.

      “You're a Rodent just the same. You've got big gnawing teeth, and any one with that kind of teeth is a Rodent,” retorted Peter. Then at a sudden thought a funny look passed over his face. “Why, that means that you and I are related in a way,” he added.

      “Don't believe it,” grunted Prickly Porky, still shuffling along. “Don't believe it. Don't want to be related to anybody as heedless as you. What is this school, anyway? Don't want to go to school. Know all I want to know. Know how to get all I want to eat and how to make everybody get out of my way and leave me alone, and that's enough to know.” He rattled the thousand little spears hidden in his coat, and Peter shivered at the sound. It was a most unpleasant sound.

      “Well, some folks do like to be stupid,” snapped Peter and hurried on, lipperty-lipperty-lip, while Prickly Porky slowly shuffled and rattled along behind.

      All the others were there when Peter arrived. Prickly Porky wasn't even in sight. Old Mother Nature wasted no time. She has too much to do ever to waste time. She called the school to order at once.

      “Yesterday,” she began, “I told you about two little haymakers of the high mountains of the Far West. Who were they, Peter Rabbit?”

      “Little Chief Hare, called the Pika or Cony, and Stubtail the Mountain Beaver or Sewellel,” replied Peter with great promptness.

      “Right,” said Old Mother Nature. “Now I am going to tell you of one of my little plowmen who also lives in the Far West but prefers the great plains to the high mountains, though he is sometimes found in the latter. He is Grubby the Gopher, a member of the same order the rest of you belong to, but of a family quite his own. He is properly called the Pocket Gopher, and way down in the Southeast, where he is also found, he is called a Salamander, though what for I haven't the least idea.”

      “Does he have pockets in his cheeks like mine?” asked Striped Chipmunk eagerly.

      “He has pockets in his cheeks, and that is why he is called Pocket Gopher,” replied Old Mother Nature; “but they are not at all like yours, Striped Chipmunk. Yours are on the inside of your cheeks, but his are on the outside.”

      “How funny!” exclaimed Striped Chipmunk.

      “Your pockets are small compared with those of Grubby,” continued Old Mother Nature. “One of his covers almost the whole side of his head back to his short neck, and it is lined with fur, and remember he has two of them. Grubby uses these for carrying food and never for carrying out earth when he is digging a tunnel, as some folks think he does. He stuffs them full with his front feet and empties them by pressing them from the back with his feet. The Gopher family is quite large and the members range in size from the size of Danny Meadow Mouse to that of Robber the Rat, only these bigger members are stouter and heavier than Robber. Some are reddish-brown and some are gray. But whatever his size and wherever he is found, Grubby's habits are the same.”