United States or Namibia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Bemis began to think he had been hasty when he half made up his mind to get a new housekeeper, feeling that burnt steak, weak coffee, and ragged wristbands were sure signs that Miss Bat's days of usefulness were over. Molly was singing the lullaby her mother used to sing to her, and her father listened to it silently till Boo was carried away too sleepy for anything but bed.
He came to the cave as the evening mist rose, and drew breath, and looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf, at the back of the cave, knew by his breathing that something was troubling her frog. 'What is it, Son? she said. 'Some bat's chatter of Shere Khan, he called back.
The children stood round the hole in a ring, looking at the creature they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were on long horns like a snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes; it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's.
Short, rotund, bald-headed, with projecting ears and the ugliness of a good-natured, merry satyr, Signor Cotoner, when summer came, always found refuge in the castle of some cardinal in the Roman Campagna. During the winter he was a familiar sight in the Corso, wrapped in his greenish mackintosh, the sleeves of which waved like a bat's wings.
The Child was squatting on the mossy turf and staring out, round-eyed, across the water. Suddenly he jumped, clapped both grimy little hands to his face, and piped a shrill "Oh!" A bat's wing had flittered past his nose so close that he might have caught it in his teeth if he had wanted to and been quick enough.
A week later, I think it was, Bat Masquerier telephoned to me to come to the Trefoil. 'It's your turn now, he said. 'I'm not asking Ollyett. Come to the stage-box. I went, and, as Bat's guest, was received as Royalty is not. We sat well back and looked out on the packed thousands.
It is the grotesque which scatters lavishly, in air, water, earth, fire, those myriads of intermediary creatures which we find all alive in the popular traditions of the Middle Ages; it is the grotesque which impels the ghastly antics of the witches' revels, which gives Satan his horns, his cloven foot and his bat's wings.
Bat's last act that day was to send a telegram care of the East-bound Limited to Senator Moyese. It read, "All local papers out highly gratulatory references your efforts to punish guilty parties." In the half light of mist and dawn, the Ranger ascended the Ridge trail. Life was at flood-tide. Thought focussed to one point of consciousness set on fire of its own rays.
An old chief came out of the gate, turned the corner, saw the Bat, and said: "The white chief says you tried to steal his squaw. His heart is cold toward our people. He will no longer trade with us. What have you done?" The Bat's set eyes gazed at the old man, and he made no reply, but stood leaning against the walls while the chief passed on. No one noticed him, and he did not move for hours.
When ther Primal Dark retreated, When ther deeps were undesigned, He with rule and level meted Habitation for mankind! I saw sick envy on Bat's face. 'Curse Nature, he muttered. 'She gets ahead of you every time. To think I forgot hymns and a harmonium! Then came the chorus: Hear ther truth our tongues are telling, Spread ther light from shore to shore Oh, be faithful! Oh, be truthful!