Read Online The Old Meadow by George Selden - Free Book Online Page A

and resolved that since we were saved we wouldn’t attack one another, and not eat each other, unless dangerously provoked.”
    â€œAnd J.J. broke the Truce!” hissed Walter. “He hit you without your hurting him first.”
    â€œI ’preciate your kind words,” said Ashley, “but maybe I hurt him in ways you don’t know.”
    â€œNo excuse! I’ve got the right to bite him now!”
    â€œYou leave that blue jay to me,” said the mockingbird sternly.
    â€œThen you are still going to stay?” muttered Dubber. “Despite J.J.”
    â€œWell, I reckon I’ll have to. For a while at least. Can’t leave Mr. Budd to his pitiful self, under threat of foreclosure—not after the way the good man’s taken care of me. In the middle of his own trouble, too. An’ J.J.”—Ashley looked at the weather vane—“we’ve got somethin’ between us that has to be settled.”
    A silence took over. And stayed. And stayed. Clouds had covered the meadow. The sky now shone like a cloudy pearl. A layer of dull light hovered over the world. But a mild brightness shone through. This strange misty silence was only interrupted by snores.
    â€œSo what’re we going to do?” said Chester.
    Walter lashed his tail, distractedly, every which way. It’s what snakes do when they’re all confused. Walter fortunately missed his own head by an inch. When a snake hits himself with himself, that’s a sign of real confusion. And also it can become a bad habit.
    â€œHow’d y’all decide on this Truce?”
    â€œWe got together—all of us—and had a debate—and decided on what we’d do.”
    â€œThen that’s what you’ve got to do now,” Ashley jumped from the stool to the stones in front of Mr. Budd’s first step. A patch of sunlight lingered there. “Get together. Decide. Did you vote on the Truce?”
    â€œYes, we did,” said Chester.

    â€œThen now y’all have to vote on how y’all will help Mr. Budd. Or let him sink.”
    â€œThe trouble is,” said Walter Water Snake, “not all the field folk will want to help. We’ve got some proud ones here who think Mr. Budd is just a human leftover.”
    â€œAshley”—Dubber Dog crept forward on his legs, flat down on the earth, the way a dog does when he wants a favor—“will you talk to everyone? You can persuade. You can sing —!”
    â€œOh, I’ll sing an’ I’ll talk”—Ashley tested his wing—“an’ I’ll fly, too. The good Lord willin’ an’ the creek don’t rise.”
    *   *   *
    The debate about Mr. Budd turned out to be the loudest, longest, and angriest gathering of animals ever held in the Old Meadow. That time when everyone decided to establish the Truce was an afternoon’s nap in comparison. The Truce debate had been held beside Simon’s Pool. And Henry Chipmunk got so excited he fell in the brook. No one wanted that to happen again—and least of all Henry, who only got fished out because Mr. Budd was walking around and heard this squeaky spluttering.
    Mr. Budd’s debate was held in Pasture Land, which was dry: an expanse of turf where the cows, in old times which no one remembered, had been put to browse. Also, there were tuffets around. It bordered on Beatrice Pheasant’s home, Tuffet Towers, and anyone who wanted to talk could mount a tuffet and make himself heard.
    And many did make themselves loudly heard during the Mr. Budd debate. The subject, of course, was Abner. That had been announced by animal, bird, and insect, too, for two days. The time—ripe morning. Eleven o’clock as human beings measured time. The big gold feeling, as field folk measured it. In an hour the sun would be right at the summit of heaven. There’d be no shadows at all. That was a scary, shivery