Pond and Stream Part 1

Pond and Stream.

by Arthur Ransome.

I

ABOUT THE BOOK

This is a book about the things that are jolly and wet: streams, and ponds, and ditches, and all the things that swim and wriggle in them. I wonder if you like them as much as they are liked by the Imp and the Elf? You know all about the Imp and the Elf, do you not? Those two small jolly children, who live in a little grey house in a green garden, and know the country and all the things in it, almost as well as they know each other? The Imp and the Elf love everything that is wet. They paddle in the streams, and build dams, and make waterfalls, and harbours, and sail boats, and do all the other things that every sensible person wants to do. And they love all the fishy people who live in the water, and the beasts that crawl in the mud, and the birds that hop from stone to stone in the stream.

At home they keep a big gla.s.s tank on one of the bookcases in the study. And that is the aquarium. It is a kind of indoor watery home for the people whom they meet when they mess about in the duck-pond, or the becks that trickle down the valley. You know what a beck is? The Imp and the Elf are north country children, and they would not understand you if you called the beck a stream.

I will tell you about some of the guests who come to stay with us, and live in the watery tank. But they must be talked about at the end of the book. For just now I want to tell you about the ponds and streams from which they come, and the things that have happened to us there, and all the other things that you will want to know, and the things the Imp and the Elf, who are sitting side by side in my big chair, say must be told to you.

II

THE DUCK POND

The Duck Pond is far away at the other side of the village. We walk a mile down over the fields, till we come to the village, and then we go through a little cl.u.s.ter of grey houses, past the tavern with the the picture of the prancing Blue Unicorn hanging out over the door, past the little grey church with the red tiled roof, past the farmyard by the smith's, where there is always a large sized piebald pig grunting in the yard, and out again into the fields. And then, on the left hand side of the road, we come to three stacks, a horse trough, and a piece of commonland.

The common is rough and untidy, with clumps of gorse and thistles and nettles. There is usually a spotty pony chewing the gra.s.s, and a goat with naughty looking horns and a grey beard. A tiny donkey with an enormous voice is tethered to a stake in the ground. There is a crowd of geese, who throw out their long necks in vicious curves, and hiss at strangers and sometimes frighten them. They do not hiss at us. Perhaps they know that we would not be very frightened if they did. The Elf likes this last part of the walk, because she loves to imagine she is a goosegirl in a fairy tale, who drives geese, until she meets a n.o.ble Prince, who finds out that really she is a Princess all the time. Some days the Imp is quite ready to pretend to be the Prince, and act the whole story. But other days he is in a precious hurry to get to the pond, and the poor Elf has to be a goosegirl without a Prince, and that is a poor business. She soon tires of it, and runs after us across the common.

Long before we reach the pond, we hear the quaack, quaack of the ducks, and see them waddling along with their bodies very near the ground by the muddy edges of the water, flopping hurriedly first on one leg and then on the other. When we get near them we can see that as they lift their feet they turn their toes in in a manner that shows they have not been at all properly brought up.

But then without warning they throw themselves forward along the water, and swim, looking, suddenly, quite graceful. Everything looks quite graceful in its proper place, and almost everything looks silly when it is anywhere else. Even swans, who are the most beautiful of all birds in the water, look as ungainly as can be when they walk along the ground. And if you put a fish, who swims beautifully in the pool, out on the dry land, he just flops and dies, and that is not a pretty sight at all.

The duck pond is very big and round. One bank of it is covered with dark trees that overhang and make green pictures of themselves in the water when the wind is still. And partly under the trees, and partly at one side of them, the bank is high and over-hanging and sandy, and in the sand there are little holes where the sandmartins have their nests. The sandmartins are rather like swallows, only instead of building clay nests under the roof edges of a house, they bore holes with their beaks in banks of earth, and make their nests inside them. A very, very long time ago, we used to do just like them, burrowing into the ground, making a pa.s.sage with a cave at the end of it, and living there under the earth. There are some of these old homes of ours still left in some parts of the country. The Imp and the Elf are fond of the sandmartins, because they are always in a hurry like themselves. It is fine to see them fly swift and low over the pond, and flutter at the mouth of the hole, and then vanish into it, like mice into a crevice in the wall.

But the birds who matter most of the Duck Pond People, are, of course, the Ducks. There are brown ducks, and white ducks, and speckly ducks, and broods of golden ducklings, that the Elf is fond of watching. The little ducklings waddle about just like their mothers, opening and shutting their dirty yellow flat bills that are always far too large for their bodies. They look like bundles of grey fluff, with crooked legs and waggly necks.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Often we lie flat on the green gra.s.s by the side of the pond, when the sun is high and hot, and white clouds and a blue sky are reflected in the water of the pond. We lie lazily and watch the ducks swimming about, looking for their food. We see them plunge in from the flat shelving mud, and swim out like a mottled fleet of boats. They move their heads to this side and to that, and suddenly plunge them down into the water, into the rotting leaves and mud that lie at the bottom of the pond. And then, as they swing their head up again, we see that something is going down inside. And sometimes when the thing is big, a young and lively frog, or a wriggling worm, we see it hanging out of the duck's bill, waiting to be flung about, and gulped at, until, at last, it goes politely down.

Ducks swim just like men in canoes, striking out first on one side and then on the other, as if someone inside the duck were driving her along with strokes of a paddle. As we lie on the bank, we can watch the strong neat stroke, and see how the feet turn up to be drawn back ready to strike out again, just as a good oarsman feathers his oars. The really most amazing thing about a duck, though, is to see it when it comes out of the water. You would think it would be wet. But no, it looks quite neat and dry, though it has only just come from swimming and diving its head in the muddy pond. The Imp and the Elf always used to be puzzled at that. And their old nurse had a habit of saying to them:--"Why, to scold you is like pouring water on a duck's back; it does no manner of good." And one day they said to me, "Why does it do no manner of good to pour water on a duck's back?" I did not know then, so we hunted in a wise book and there was the reason, and when we watched a duck a little more carefully than usual we saw the book told the truth. The ducks keep oil in a hidden place in their tails, and oil their feathers with it. That is what they do when they preen themselves. That is how they manage to be always dry. For water will not stay on anything that is oiled, and really, it is just as if the ducks made their feathers into mackintoshes against the wet.

All the time that we are resting after the walk and watching the ducks, we are keeping a look out for other of the Pond People; and pretty soon we are sure to see some of them. The pond is full of floating weed, the tiny round-leaved duckweed, floating in green patches even in the middle of the pond, and the dainty white crowfoot, near the banks. There is more duckweed than anything else, and sometimes it is like a green carpet floating on the water. As we lie on the bank, we see a sudden movement in the duckweed, and something pushes its way up through the weed, like a stick that has been held down at the bottom, and then loosed of a sudden, so that it leaps up to the surface of the water. The whole length of the Imp wriggles with excitement. It may be a frog, or it may be a newt. There never was such a pond as this for frogs, and we can nearly always find a newt, if we want to see one.

Early in the year, about March, when we come over the common to the pond, the Imp carries an empty jampot, with a piece of string fastened round the rim of it, and looped over so as to make a convenient handle. The Elf carries a little net, made of a loop of strong wire, with the ends of it forced into a hollow bamboo, and a circle of coa.r.s.e white muslin st.i.tched to the metal ring.

As soon as we are well on the common, the Imp runs on ahead, and long before we catch him up we hear him shouting by the edge of the pond, "Here it is. Here! Here!" And we find him pointing eagerly to a big ma.s.s of pale brownish jelly lying in the water.

Big frogs lie about in the shallows, and flop off into the deeper parts of the pond, as soon as our shadows are thrown across the water. It is at this time of the year that the frogs do their croaking. As the Elf says, "they are just like the birds, and sing when they have their little ones by them." For that great ma.s.s of jelly is made up, though you would not think it, of hundreds of little black eggs, each in a jelly coat, and each with a chance of growing up into a healthy young froglet.

When we have poked the net under the jelly, and after a little struggling scooped some of it out on the bank, we can see the black dots that are eggs quite plainly. The stuff is so slippery and hard to hold that we can see that even the birds and water things must find it difficult to manage. We rather think that the jelly helps a little in keeping the tiny black eggs from being gobbled before they have had time to grow up. But in spite of its slippery sloppiness, we get a little of it inside the jampot, and when we have dipped the jampot in the pond to give the eggs some water, and dropped in a wisp of weed, that loses its wispiness as soon as it can float again, we set off on our way home, planning all sorts of things for little frogs, and making frog tales. Frog tales, the Elf says, are best in summer, "they make you feel so cool." But they are not at all bad in the spring when the Imp holds the jampot up so that we can all see in, and wonder which black spot holds the young frog prince, and which the frog esquire.

If we liked, of course, we could come day after day to the pond, and watch the eggs change and grow in the water. We sometimes do this; but it is so much easier to watch them at home, that we take some of the jelly away in the jampot every year, and put it into a big bell jar set upside down, with sand in the bottom of it, and plenty of water and green weed.

After a day or two the little black spots in the jelly become fish-shaped, and give little wriggles from time to time, and at last come out and away from the jelly, small wrigglers, that swim about, and fasten under the weed in waggling rows.

The wriggler has a great deal to do yet before turning into a frog. The tail part of him becomes clearer, like a black thread with a fine web at either side of it, and the head of him becomes fatter and rounded, like a black pea, and we can see feathery things hanging out from behind it, which are called gills. Until it grows lungs of its own, like any respectable frog, the wriggling, black-headed creature breathes with these. The tail grows bigger and bigger from day to day, and flaps like anything, driving the little black tadpole (for that is what we call it) through the water in the bell jar, as if it were a little boat, swimming under water, with a busy paddle behind.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

One day, about this time, when we are looking at the tadpoles in the jar, where it stands on the long bookcase in the study, the Imp says, "I say, Ogre, isn't it time we saw the blood moving?"

And then I bring a little microscope, all bright gilt, out of its case in the cupboard. We catch one of the little tadpoles, and lay it on a slip of gla.s.s, and look at it down the long tube of the microscope. The tail of it looks huge instead of tiny, and all over it, inside it, we can see little pale blobs running to and fro; and those are the tadpole's blood. The blobs look like wee fishes swimming in narrow ca.n.a.ls all over the tadpole's tail.

When the Elf has looked as well as the Imp, we let it slip back from the slip of gla.s.s into the bowl, and see it flap away, as merrily as before.

The tadpole grows fast now, and soon two little hindlegs sprout out, and the forelegs follow them, and the little creature looks like a frog with a tail, and a very big tail at that. And then the tail begins to shrink, and every day the tadpole is more like a frog, and more like a frog, until, at last, the tail goes altogether, and there in the bell jar is a baby froglet, who is quite ready to crawl out of the water on a floating piece of cork, and begin life as a land and water gentleman instead of a mere fish.

That is the way the frog young ones grow up. Their mother does not bother about them at all. They have to do everything for themselves. And they do it very energetically. So that as soon as they begin to turn into frogs, we take them back to the pond and let them go; for if we kept them we should soon have them hopping all over the house. A house is no place for a little wet frog. He wants a pond or a muddy brook, and plenty of duckweed to hide under.

The duckweed in the pond is stirred by other things besides frogs, as I have told you already. The Elf and the Imp would be very angry with me, if I did not tell you all about the newts.

For they are the most exciting of all the watery things that are not simple fishes. They are like water lizards, or like tiny water dragons, with four legs and a waving tail.

The Imp has a very particular admiration for the he-newts, and a fairy story to explain how it is that they dress in more gorgeous colours than their wives. Here is the story: Once upon a time there were two brown newts who lived in a pond. One was a he, and the other was a she, and neither of them knew which was which, or who ought to obey orders. So they swam about, and presently poked their noses up through the water-weed, and explained their difficulty to a gay old Kingfisher, who was sitting in his rainbow cloak on a bough that hung over the water. They both asked the question at once. Only one of them asked about a dozen times, and went on asking, and the other asked just once very angrily, and then said nothing more. So the Kingfisher, who was clever, knew which was which. "Why, you are the he," said the Kingfisher to the angry one, and he took a brilliant feather from his breast and gently stroked the newt from his head to his tail.

And then a queer thing happened. A fiery crest appeared all along its back, and its body became emerald and spotted gold; and the little she-newt clapped her hands to see her handsome husband, and now she always does exactly what he tells her. That is all.

Well, you know, in a way that story is true, for the he-newt does really wear those vivid colours and that fiery crest along its back for just one season in the year. He wears them when he is making love to his little brown lady. He makes love gallantly-- fighting his rivals like the n.o.ble little water dragon that he is.

Newts are not any more easy to keep at home in a bowl than little frogs. They grow up from eggs, just like tadpoles, only instead of losing their tails and changing into frogs they keep their tails to swim with, and remain newts. They are not easy to keep because they are very clever at climbing. Once we did catch two of the brown lady newts, and the Imp fell splosh into the duckweed just as he was reaching out trying to catch a he. He caught the he all right, but then we had to go home best foot first, for the Imp was a lump of muddy wetness. He chattered all the way home all the same, and as soon as he had changed his clothes we all worked together, rigging up the old tadpoles bell jar with a fresh sandy bottom, and good clear water, and a floating island of cork, and a lot of duckweed. Then we emptied the jam pot full of newts into the bowl, and saw them swim gaily about examining their new home. We left them and had our tea.

When we came back we looked at them again, and saw a very beautiful thing. Two of the newts had shed their skins. You know how sometimes, walking on the moor, we come across snakeskins, like hollow transparent snakes, when we can be sure that an adder has pa.s.sed that way and left his old coat behind, and slipped gaily off in brighter clothes. Well, that was exactly what the newts had done. There were the newts swimming about, and there were their old skins, like pale, grey films, floating in the water. We could even see the shapes of their tiny feet and hands in the transparent filminesses.

That was all very well, but next morning, as I was getting ready to come down to breakfast, there was a shriek and clatter on the stairs, and presently the Imp, very red, came b.u.mping in at my door to say that all the newts had vanished from the bowl, and that the housemaid had just met one as she was coming downstairs with a can of water. She had stepped over the newt on the edge of the landing, had seen it, and dropped the water-can over and over down the stairs. Would I please come? The Imp held out his pocket handkerchief with something wriggling in it. "You have got it?" I said. "Yes," said the Imp solemnly, looking back towards the door, "but don't let her know." We ran down over the bedraggled stair carpet and saw the water-can under the coat-stand, and the housemaid crying on a chair, explaining how she had seen an evil thing with four legs to it sitting on the landing. The cook was watching her, with arms akimbo, saying "Ah, me," and "Poor dear,"

now and again.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We ran on into the study, where we found the Elf feeling under the bookcases and tables, looking everywhere for the lost guests.

We never saw the others again. But we took the one the Imp had caught back to the pond, and, as we put it in, made a vow not to keep newts again. They are the most escapable things we have ever tried to keep. Besides, they look jollier in the pond, and are probably very much happier. As the Elf said, "We should try to think how we should like it if other things collected us." It certainly would not be pleasant to be bottled up in muddy water for the little newts to see. It is far best to leave them alone, and, when we want to see them, to come quietly over the common to the edge of the pond, when we may easily see half-a-dozen water-dragons run out from the soft mud, and swim, with quick, hasty flaps of their tails, and jerky paddlings of their arms and legs, out into the depths of the pool.

When we lean out over the pond and take a handful or a netful of the duckweed, and pull it to pieces on the bank, we find some of the most daintily-shaped snails fastened among the ma.s.s of tiny pale stems. The Imp and the Elf always think that they are like very wee snakes, coiled round on themselves in little flat coils.

And really they are just the same shape as those stone snails that were once alive, that grown-up people call ammonites. There is a fairy story about those stone snails that shows how other people beside the Imp and the Elf have thought them like serpents. Up in the north country there was an abbey by the sea, and in the abbey a saint lived called Hilda. And all the countryside was made dangerous for foot pa.s.sengers by crowds of poisonous snakes. The folk of the country asked the saint to help them; for they could not walk abroad without fear of being bitten. They could not let their children out alone, because of the deadly things. So the saint summoned all the serpents to the abbey and, standing on the abbey steps, she turned them into stone, and as they stiffened they coiled up in flat circles like the little snails we find among the duckweed stems. That is the story, but we know now that these stones that they find are really snails that lived thousands of years ago, and have gradually been changed into stone. The duckweed snails are fine things for keeping water clear and pure, and the Imp and the Elf always have a few of them in their aquarium to prevent the water from growing green and stagnant and unhealthy. But you shall hear all about that in the last chapter of the book.

These round snails are very small, but the duck-pond is full of living things even smaller than they. When we scoop a jampot full of water out of it, and hold it up to the light we can often see wee round emerald b.a.l.l.s rolling round the pot. They are so small that we can only see them if we look very carefully, "I should not think there can be any things smaller than those," said the Elf one hot afternoon as she blinked at the jampot in the sunlight. But there are. Why, even inside those wee round rolling b.a.l.l.s there are tinier b.a.l.l.s rolling and moving round, and these are quite alive, too. And, far, far smaller than these, there are little things in the pond, so little that we really cannot see them at all unless we put them under a microscope. The Duck Pond is like a little world of its own with ducks for giants, and newts for dragons, and all the tiny folk and the little snails for ordinary citizens.

But though so many of the ordinary citizens are so small, it is quite easy to grow rather fond of them. We hardly ever leave the Pond without the Imp or the Elf saying beggingly, "Let's wait till we see just one more water boatman." And then, of course, we wait, and crane our necks over the pond, and take no heed of the quacking of the ducks, or even of the splash of a young frog as he flops into into the water. All our six eyes and our three heads see nothing and think of nothing except the thing we want.

And when we see him, what do you think he is? A little dark beetle with a pale ring round him, shaped like a tiny boat, comes up to the surface for air, and waits a moment, and then goes quickly off again, this way and that, rowing himself with two of his legs that are stronger than the others, and stick straight out from his body, like oars from a boat. He is the water boatman, and somehow he is so brisk and jolly that we think he must get more fun out of the pond than any other of the pond citizens. And that is why we always want to see him last, before we walk off over the parched common, and leave the quacking of the ducks to grow fainter and fainter behind us. We like to think of the water boatman cheerily rowing about and diving among the reflections of the trees. He is a fine person to invent stories about during the walk home.

III

STREAM AND DITCH