Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/463

[1913 his snaky neck close to the ground, lifted his wide gray-and-white wings, and charged.

“Before Young Grumpy had time even to wonder if he had been imprudent or not, the hard elbow of one of those wings caught him a blow on the ear, and knocked him head over heels. At the same time, it swept him to one side; and the gander rushed on, straight over the spot where he had been sitting.

“Young Grumpy picked himself up, startled and shaken. The thing had been so unexpected! He would have rather liked to run away. But he was too angry and too obstinate. He just sat up on his haunches again, intending to make another and more successful attack as soon as his head stopped buzzing.

“The gander, meanwhile, was surprised also. He could not understand how his enemy had got out of the way so quickly. He stared around, and then, turning his one eye skyward, as if he thought Young Grumpy might have gone that way, he trumpeted a loud honka-honka-honk-kah.

“For some reason, this strange cry broke Young Grumpy’s nerve. He scuttled for his hole, his jet black heels kicking up the straws behind him. As soon as he began to run, of course the gander saw him, and swept after him with a ferocious hiss. But Young Grumpy had got the start. He dived into his hole just as the gander brought up against the fence.

“Now the moment he found himself inside his burrow, all Young Grumpy’s courage returned. He wheeled and stuck his head out again, as much as to say, ‘Now come on if you dare!’

“The gander came on, promptly,—so promptly, in fact, that the lightning stroke of his heavy bill knocked Young Grumpy far back into the hole again.

“In a great rage, the gander darted his head into the hole. Chattering with indignation, Young Grumpy set his long teeth into that intruding bill, and tried to pull it farther in. The gander, much taken aback at this turn of affairs tried to pull it out again. For perhaps half a minute, it was a very good tug of war. Then the superior weight and strength of the great bird, with all the advantage of his beating wings, suddenly triumphed, and Young Grumpy, too pig-headed to let go his hold, was jerked forth once more into the open.

“The next moment, another blow from one of those mighty wing-elbows all but stunned him,