XII. WHEN GREAT-GRANDFATHER SWIFT FIRST USED A CHIMNEY
OF all his feathered friends and neighbors there was none whom Peter Rabbit enjoyed watching more than he did Sooty the Chimney Swift. There were two very good reasons why Peter enjoyed watching Sooty. In the first place Sooty always appeared to be having the very best of good times, and you know it is always a pleasure to watch any one having a good time. Ol' Mistah Buzzard, sailing and sailing high in the sky with only an occasional movement of his great wings, always seemed to be enjoying himself, and so did Skimmer the Swallow, skimming just above the tall grass of the Green Meadows or wheeling gracefully high in the air. But neither these two nor any other bird ever seemed to Peter to be getting so much real fun out of flying as Sooty the Swift. Just to hear him shout as he raced with swiftly beating wings and then glided in a short half circle was enough to make you want to fly yourself, thought Peter.
The second reason why Peter enjoyed watching Sooty was that he was very much a bird of mystery, in spite of the fact that Peter saw him every day through the long summer. You know, we all enjoy anything that is mysterious. To Peter there was no end of mystery about Sooty the Swift. He was not like other birds. In the first place he hardly looked like a bird at all. His tail was so short that it was hardly worth calling a tail. His neck was so short that his head seemed a part of his body. And then in all the time he had known him, Peter never had seen Sooty still for a single instant. Ol' Mistah Buzzard would come down from high up in the blue, blue sky and sit for hours on a dead tree in the Green Forest or walk about on the ground. Skimmer the Swallow would sit on the branch of a tree, or on the very top of Farmer Brown's barn, and twitter sociably. But Sooty the Swift was always in the air. At least, he always was whenever Peter saw him.
Sometimes Peter used to wonder if Sooty slept in the air as Ducks sleep on the water. Of course, he didn't really think that he did, but never seeing him anywhere but in the air, he was ready to believe almost anything. Then one evening just at dusk, Peter happened to be over in the Old Orchard close by Farmer Brown's house, and he saw something that puzzled him more than ever. He saw Sooty the Swift right above the chimney on Farmer Brown's house. It seemed to Peter as if something happened to Sooty. He beat his wings in a queer way, but instead of flying on, he dropped right straight down, down, down, and disappeared. He had fallen down that chimney! Peter waited a long time, but Sooty didn't appear again, and finally Peter went home with the feeling that he never again would see Sooty.
But he did see him again. He saw him the very next day, flying and shouting and seemingly having just as good a time as ever. It was then that Peter's curiosity would no longer be denied. He headed straight for the Smiling Pool to consult Grandfather Frog.
"He'll know all about Sooty if anybody does," thought Peter and hurried as fast as he could, lipperty-lipperty-lip. Grandfather Frog was in his usual place on his big green lily-pad. One glance told Peter that Grandfather Frog was in the best of humor, so he wasted no time.
"Grandfather Frog," cried Peter before he was fairly on the bank of the Smiling Pool, "I saw something queer last night, and you are the only one I know of who can tell me what it meant, because you are the only one I know who knows all about everything."
Grandfather Frog smiled. It was a great, big, broad smile. It pleased him to have Peter say that he knew everything. "Chug-a-rum! Not everything, Peter! I don't know everything. Nobody does," said he. "But if I happen to know what you want, to know, I'll be glad to tell you. Now what is it that is on your mind?"
Peter at once plunged into his story. He told Grandfather Frog how much he enjoyed watching Sooty fly and how little he knew about Sooty. He wound up by telling how he had seen Sooty fall down that chimney and how surprised he had been to see Sooty about the next day as well and happy as ever. He called Sooty a Swallow, for that is what Peter thought that Sooty was. He always had thought so.
When Peter had finished, Grandfather Frog chuckled. It was a long, deep chuckle that seemed to come clear from his toes. When he had enjoyed his chuckle to his heart's content, he looked up at Peter and blinked his great goggly eyes.
"What would you say, Peter, if I should tell you that Sooty isn't a member of the Swallow family at all?" he asked.
"I'd believe you," replied Peter promptly, "but I never again would dare guess what family anybody belonged to from his looks."
"Well, Sooty isn't a Swallow at all," said Grandfather Frog slowly. "He is a Swift, which is another family altogether. Furthermore, he didn't fall down that chimney. No, Sir, he didn't fall down that chimney. He flew down, and he did it because he lives there. Now listen, and I'll tell you a story." Peter needed no second invitation. A story from Grandfather Frog is always one of Peter's greatest treats, as you know.
"Chug-a-rum!" began Grandfather Frog, as he always does. "When Old Mother Nature first peopled the Great World, she made each bird a little different from every other bird, and each animal a little different from every other animal. Then she turned them loose to make their way the best they could, and let them alone to test them and see how each would make the best of his advantages. Mr. Swift, the great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of Sooty, felt at first as if Old Mother Nature had forgotten to give him any advantages at all. He was homely. There wasn't so much as a single bright feather in his whole coat. He had a tail which might as well have been no tail at all, so far as he could see. He had tiny feet on which he couldn't walk at all, and with which it was all he could do to hang on to a twig when he wanted to rest. But when it came to wings, he wasn't long in discovering that in these he was blessed beyond most of his neighbors. Those wings certainly were made for speed. They were long and narrow, and they drove him through the air faster than his neighbors with broader wings could fly and with a great deal less effort. He could fly all day without getting tired, and he never was so happy as when darting about high in the air.
"Of course, it didn't take him long to find out that he could catch all kinds of flying insects, and so he had no trouble in filling his stomach while flying, for his mouth was very wide. 'It must be,' thought he, 'that Old Mother Nature expects me to live in the air. I wish I could sleep while I am flying, but I can't. I never feel comfortable sitting on a twig.'
"One day he discovered that he could do something that no other bird could do. By using his wings in a certain way he could drop right straight down without really falling. He practised this a great deal just for fun. Then one day as he was flying over a rocky place, he saw right under him a great hole that went straight down into the ground. It interested him. He wondered what it was like inside. The more he wondered, the more he wanted to find out. So one day, after many trials, he dropped straight down into the hole by means of that new way of flying he had discovered.
"He didn't go very far down, because it was so dark in there, and he was beginning to get a wee bit frightened. On his way up he brushed against the side of the rocky wall and without knowing why, he put out both feet and clung to it, folding his wings for a minute's rest. Then he found that by pressing his funny little tail, which ended in sharp spines, against the wall, he rested more comfortably than ever he had before in all his short life. He could cling to a rough wall very much easier than he could sit on a perch. After that he spent his nights in that hole and was happy.
"A long time later he was far from home when night was coming on, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to get there before dark. Looking down as he flew, he saw the hollow trunk of a great tree which had been broken off by the wind. Why not sleep in that? He circled over it two or three times and then dropped straight down inside. He liked it. He liked it better than he did the hole in the rocks. After that he made his home in a hollow tree.
"In course of time old King Eagle led the birds to a new part of the Great World which Old Mother Nature had been preparing for them to spend the summer in. Mr. Swift went with the others. But when he got there, he could find no hole in the ground and no hollow tree. But he found something else. He found the queer homes of men and on top of each a straight, tall thing quite like a hollow tree, only all black inside and made of what seemed like stone. Having no other place to go, he tried one of them. The next day he searched for a hollow tree but could find none, and so returned to that chimney, for that is what it was. So it was every day. After a little he began to like the chimney. It was easy to get in and out of. No one ever bothered him there. It was easy to cling to the wall of it. At last he decided to build a nest there. And from that day to this, the Swifts have lived in the chimneys on the houses of men. When you thought you saw Sooty fall, he was simply going home to spend the night," concluded Grandfather Frog.
"Thank you," replied Peter with a long sigh. "It's a funny world, isn't it, Grandfather Frog? The idea of living in a chimney! The very idea!"