CHAPTER XII DOCTOR MUSKRAT TELLS WHY SKUNKS ARE SO

 “Way back in the First-Off Beginning,” said Doctor Muskrat¹ impressively, “there was one of the Things-from-under-the-Earth who really wanted to be good——”

 

“The skunk²!” exclaimed Nibble³ Rabbit. “Wasn’t it?”

 

“Was it?” asked Stripes Skunk.

 

Doctor Muskrat didn’t answer right away. He sat there sleeking⁴ his whiskers with a clammy wet paw to hide a smile, and his little eyes were twinkling. “I was just wondering,” he went on at last, “whether they still tell this story in your family or whether you made up your mind on your own account.”

 

“On my own account,” owned Stripes truthfully. “I got awfully⁵ scared at what the little owls⁶ told me after you found out I’d been making trouble for Tad Coon. And I got to thinking. Then it seemed as if I just had to try how it would be to live so nice and peaceful—the way you want it.” He was squirming a pebble⁷ in his paw and squinting⁸ down his pointy nose, looking very much ashamed of himself.

 

“Ah,” cried Doctor Muskrat in a delighted voice. “That’s exactly the story of the First Skunk in the First-Off Beginning. He was bad—just as bad as all the other Things-from-under-the-Earth. He went running around, making all the trouble he could, while Mother Nature was away fixing up the other half of the world and this half all went wrong again. You remember, Nibble, how the sun and the wind and the rain didn’t take care of things the way she’d ordered them to, so winter came, and the plants hid in the earth and wouldn’t be eaten, and her very own new creatures got so terrible starvation hungry that some of them took to eating each other—like the wolves ate the cows.

 

“All the Things-from-under-the-Earth wore scales in the First-Off Beginning. When winter came most of them went right back under the earth and they stayed scaly⁹, and are to this very day. But some of them found it was so easy to Mother Nature’s poor starved new creatures they couldn’t bear to stop eating them. They didn’t bother picking their poor lean bones; they just ate the tender parts that weren’t so starvation thin—like brains. They drank blood, and it went to their heads, so at last they killed for the sheer fun of killing¹⁰.”

 

“Like Killer¹¹ the Weasel,” nodded Stripes knowingly.

 

“Like some of Mother Nature’s own creatures, the wildcats and the wolves,” said Doctor Muskrat. “And they didn’t care a bit who they were killing, either. If the Things-from-under-the-Earth came near they took after them. They took after the First Skunk whenever they came across him—you’d better believe he was scared! The ground was so frozen by that time that he couldn’t dig down into it. So he hid in a hollow tree, with nothing but his scales on, and he was terribly cold and miserable¹² and unhappy. And that was the first thing that set him to thinking.”

 

“Think of being in a windy tree with nothing but a clammy coat of scales on,” said Nibble, his teeth almost chattering¹³. “Sometimes it’s bad enough in the Pickery Things, and they surely keep the wind off.”

 

“Well, he didn’t suffer very long,” went on the old doctor. “The first thing Mother Nature said was, ‘Any one can have fur that wants it.’ Now she didn’t say ‘my own creatures,’ nor she didn’t say ‘except the Bad Ones’—she just said ‘any one.’ And there was the First Skunk in a nice warm suit of fur, looking like any of her own things, except that his earholes were so far over the sides of his head his ears came too low down—and so did those of all the Things-from-under-the-Earth; that’s one way you can always tell them. And he was so happy. He said to himself, ‘This is all I wanted,’ and he curled right up tight and fell fast asleep.

 

“But when he woke up he began to think again. And by this time he could think of several things he wanted. So he started out to find how he’d get them. And it didn’t take him long to discover that he got his fur because Mother Nature gave it to him; or to learn not to hunt her up where she was busy trying to put things in order in this half of the world again.

 

“She was fairly discouraged at the way the sun and the wind and the rain had spoiled it and disgusted at the way some of her creatures had been behaving—’specially the wolves, for eating the poor cows, you know. So the First Skunk didn’t dare to trouble her; he just sat there listening. And he thought and thought, until his head was tired, for the Things-from-under-the-Earth aren’t used to thinking. Perhaps that’s why they always stay Bad Ones——”

 

“It is!” Stripes interrupted. “It certainly is.” And his little low ears were so pricked¹⁴ up over the idea that he didn’t look snaky and sneaky any more, but just nice and pert and interested.

 

“Well, anyway,” continued Doctor Muskrat, “at last the First Skunk crept up close and whined¹⁵, ‘Won’t you have the earth fixed¹⁶ up the way it was before very long? I want to ask something before you’re all done.’

 

“‘I can’t do that,’ she answered sadly, ‘because it’s been lived, so it can’t be done over again. I’ll have to do the best I can with things as they are. But who are you?’ She didn’t know him at all because he was so different from the last time she’d seen him. But she knew right off from his ears that she’d never made him.

 

“‘I’m the skunk,’ he answered. ‘This is my new fur you gave me this morning!’ And then wasn’t she angry—angry with herself and angry with him! It was hard enough to have the sun and the rain and the wind be so careless that they let winter come, without having some of the Bad Ones stay up from under the earth to hunt her poor beasts all through it. If they had only scales on they couldn’t, but here was one with fur. Just because she was so hurried and flustered¹⁷ she hadn’t stopped to think what she’d been saying when she said ‘any one’ could have it.

 

“But the First Skunk didn’t know how she felt about it. He was so pert and proud because he’d been thinking a little. He said, ‘I like the way you want things. I want to be good and live up here in the sun with your own creatures instead of going back down under the Earth-that-is-common-to-all.’

 

“‘Well, be good, then,’ she snapped. She really didn’t believe him.

 

“‘But,’ he argued, ‘someone will have to show me how.’ You see her own creatures were all made good, and they had to learn how to be bad from the Bad Ones. A Bad One may want ever so much to be good, but he hasn’t any idea where to begin.

 

“She didn’t stop to think of that. She thought he was just making excuses, so she said, ‘You can stay up all winter now that you’ve got fur. I don’t see why you need anything else.’

 

“‘Because I’m so small and so slow it’s terribly scary for me now that your own beasts have taken to killing,’ he whimpered. ‘I don’t know how to run away.’

 

“‘Oho!’ Mother Nature was very sarcastic¹⁸, but he didn’t know enough to know it. ‘You Bad Ones taught them how. I should think you’d be proud over the way they’ve learned it. What else do you want, then?’

 

“‘Lots of things,’ answered the First Skunk more cheerfully. ‘Paws, for instance.’”

 

“Did they have feet?” Stripes Skunk interrupted again. “Snakes haven’t.”

 

“They had then,” replied Doctor Muskrat; “splay-footed, lizardy ones. The First Skunk wasn’t sure which he wanted, handy-paws like Tad Coon or paddy ones like the wolves, so he could run away from them. He left all that to Mother Nature. ‘Anyway you want to fix me,’ he said, ‘so I’m not always being chased and they can’t hold me if they do catch me.’

 

“Mother Nature just stared at that First Skunk. ‘Well, of all the impudence¹⁹!’ she exclaimed. ‘Of all the impudence! There you are, then!’

 

“And there he was, indeed! Only he had paddy-paws on in front, where he wanted the handy-ones, and Tad Coon’s paws behind, where he couldn’t run on them, and a long, hairy tail no tooth could hang on to, and that terrible scent²⁰ so no one could even want to try. You can imagine how that First Skunk felt!”

1 muskrat   

n.麝香鼠

参考例句：

• Muskrat fur almost equals beaver fur in quality.麝鼠皮在质量上几乎和海獭皮不相上下。
• I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice.我看到一只麝鼠从冰里面钻出来。

2 skunk   

n.臭鼬，黄鼠狼；v.使惨败，使得零分；烂醉如泥

参考例句：

• That was a rotten thing to do, you skunk!那种事做得太缺德了，你这卑鄙的家伙！
• The skunk gives off an unpleasant smell when attacked.受到攻击时臭鼬会发出一种难闻的气味。

3 nibble   

n.轻咬，啃；v.一点点地咬，慢慢啃，吹毛求疵

参考例句：

• Inflation began to nibble away at their savings.通货膨胀开始蚕食他们的存款。
• The birds cling to the wall and nibble at the brickwork.鸟儿们紧贴在墙上，啄着砖缝。

4 sleeking   

使…光滑而发亮( sleek的现在分词 )； 修光

参考例句：

5 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

6 owls   

n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• 'Clumsy fellows,'said I; 'they must still be drunk as owls.' “这些笨蛋，”我说，“他们大概还醉得像死猪一样。” 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛
• The great majority of barn owls are reared in captivity. 大多数仓鸮都是笼养的。 来自辞典例句

7 pebble   

n.卵石，小圆石

参考例句：

• The bird mistook the pebble for egg and tried to hatch it.这只鸟错把卵石当蛋，想去孵它。
• The pebble made a ripple on the surface of the lake.石子在湖面上激起一个涟漪。

8 squinting   

斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看

参考例句：

• "More company," he said, squinting in the sun. "那边来人了，"他在阳光中眨巴着眼睛说。
• Squinting against the morning sun, Faulcon examined the boy carefully. 对着早晨的太阳斜起眼睛，富尔康仔细地打量着那个年轻人。

9 scaly   

adj.鱼鳞状的；干燥粗糙的

参考例句：

• Reptiles possess a scaly,dry skin.爬行类具有覆盖着鳞片的干燥皮肤。
• The iron pipe is scaly with rust.铁管子因为生锈一片片剥落了。

10 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

11 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

12 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

13 chattering   

n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The teacher told the children to stop chattering in class. 老师叫孩子们在课堂上不要叽叽喳喳讲话。
• I was so cold that my teeth were chattering. 我冷得牙齿直打战。

14 pricked   

刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry. 厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• He was pricked by his conscience. 他受到良心的谴责。

15 whined   

v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨

参考例句：

• The dog whined at the door, asking to be let out. 狗在门前嚎叫着要出去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He whined and pouted when he did not get what he wanted. 他要是没得到想要的东西就会发牢骚、撅嘴。 来自辞典例句

16 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

17 flustered   

adj.慌张的；激动不安的v.使慌乱，使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The honking of horns flustered the boy. 汽车喇叭的叫声使男孩感到慌乱。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• She was so flustered that she forgot her reply. 她太紧张了，都忘记了该如何作答。 来自辞典例句

18 sarcastic   

adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的

参考例句：

• I squashed him with a sarcastic remark.我说了一句讽刺的话把他给镇住了。
• She poked fun at people's shortcomings with sarcastic remarks.她冷嘲热讽地拿别人的缺点开玩笑。

19 impudence   

n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼

参考例句：

• His impudence provoked her into slapping his face.他的粗暴让她气愤地给了他一耳光。
• What knocks me is his impudence.他的厚颜无耻使我感到吃惊。

20 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。