Read Online The Tale of Applebeck Orchard by Susan Albert - Free Book Online Page A

of leafy green bushes, Max could see a swathe of clear blue sky, so bright it made him blink. But that wasn’t all that made him blink, for the walls of this round room were whitewashed, like the walls you have seen in art galleries, and on them hung some very fine water color landscapes, along with beautifully detailed studies of small animals—rabbits, voles, frogs, badgers, foxes—all tastefully framed.
    Max stared at the paintings, feeling his pulses quicken. He had never seen such beautiful objects in his entire life. The landscapes glowed with the emerald green of grass and tree and the silver-blue of lake and the scarlet and gold of flowers, and the animal studies—remarkably clever and perceptive—were done with infinite attention to the intricacies of ears and whiskers. The only pictures Max had seen that he liked as much as these were the ones drawn by Miss Potter, in her little book about the rats at Hill Top Farm, which had been much admired by the team of cats who helped get rid of the rats. But these—
    “Oh, my,” Max breathed, looking from one painting to another and feeling as if they were all just too beautiful and amazing for any other words. “Oh, oh, my.”
    “You like them?” asked the ferret, at his shoulder. Standing on his haunches, he was about half a head taller than Max. “They’re mine, of course, but if you don’t like them, don’t say you do. I can’t abide hypocrisy.”
    “Oh, I like them,” Max whispered. “I do, very much.” And then, almost incredulously, “You don’t mean to say that you painted them?”
    “I certainly did,” said the ferret, sounding put out. “What do you think all that is over there?” And with an impatient wave of his paw, he gestured toward an alcove that Max had not yet noticed, containing an easel and a table with paint pots and brushes. An artist’s smock was draped over a stool, and an artist’s beret hung on the easel.
    “I’m sorry,” Max said humbly, finding all of a sudden that his view of the ferret had altered. This couldn’t be the same ferret who was so wild and unmanageable that his owner had decided that training him was impossible—or could it? “I never would have thought.”
    “No,” said the ferret, giving him a measuring look. “I don’t suppose you would.” He put his head to one side, studying Max. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever had your picture painted, either. Have you?”
    Max was so taken aback by the question that he almost swallowed his tongue.
    Tabitha cleared her throat. “About that footpath,” she began.
    With a sigh, the ferret turned away from Max. “Tea first,” he said. “I always have tea when I wake up in the morning.” He scowled at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Although I have to say that I’m not usually awakened so early. And I am not accustomed to entertaining company at this hour—in fact, I am not accustomed to entertaining company at all.” To Tabitha, he said, “You seem to be in charge. Come and lend a paw, will you? I shall have to see whether there are enough cups to go around.”
    While Fritz is rummaging for cups and Tabitha is measuring out the tea and Max is still absorbed in the ferret’s art and Crumpet and Rascal are waiting patiently for everyone to get back together again, I will tell you the ferret’s story. I am sure you’re wondering how an animal with a fine talent for landscapes and portraits found himself under a bank beside Wilfin Beck, especially since we know that there are no ferrets in the Land Between the Lakes.
    That is, there are no wild ferrets. Fritz himself was no wilding. In fact, he was quite a civilized ferret, and the true story of his life is nothing at all like the tale the village animals have heard. Before coming to the Lakes, the ferret had belonged to a cultured London gentleman who, like many owners of ferrets (Queen Elizabeth I, for example), took Fritz everywhere he went, to concerts, gala balls and dinners, museums and art