Free The Third Book of the Dun Cow: Peace at the Last by Walter Wangerin Jr. Page B

but they look like apple pips that might be eaten.
    Pertelote descends and takes strength from her Creatures’ familiar smells. The bandy-tiffs between the Weasel and the Raven amuse her. And the Brothers Mice have ever, ever been her consolation.
    One more day on Wachanga’s road, and then it is the night again.
    Everyone ready? Think you can stay awake for chapter two? Mice? Okay, babes and brothers, let’s go.
    So, the Snake was just tickled to be shed of old fat Mizz Possum. Freedom! Freedom, (as my Double-U buddy might say) by Gaw!
    And what did the Snake do with his freedom?
    He wound through the tree roots. He crawled the highways and the byways until he came upon Sir Little Tiny Mouse sitting on a mushroom.
    Well: the sly Snake raised up his head and grinned down on Sir Mouse and hissed, “Glad to make your acquaintance.” And he hissed, “What do you think of our winter? A bit chilly, wouldn’t you say?”
    Sir Mouse, of course, lived in a hole. “Chilly above,” he said, “but warm below.”
    “Indeed, indeed,” Snake hissed quite civilly. “But I see an icicle as long as a sword hanging over your door-hole. What’ll you do when it drops? Tell you what, friend. Let me live with you and block the door with the folds of my body. What do you say to that?”
    Sir Mouse set himself to frowning, trying to think about swords and icicles.
    The Snake interrupted his efforts. “I got fire in my belly,” he hissed, “hot enough for both of us.” And he blew a little smoke to prove it. “All I ask in return,” he hissed, “is for the consideration of a little food now and then. Bring me Beetles. Bring me Grubs. Bring me little eggs, and I’ll heat our home—like an oven.”
    Now, Mice are persons of virtue, isn’t that right, my little bros?
    So Sir Mouse said, “No, no—go off and get your own food,” thinking he would run to warn all the Beetles and all the Birds he knew.
    Snake started to rattle his tail. He made a scurrilous sound. “Scares you,” he hissed, “doesn’t it?”
    To tell the truth, it did scare Sir Mouse a bit—just a bit. He looked at his hole, but there was no hiding where Snakes can crawl as well as Mice. He looked up a tree but, you know, Snakes climb trees.
    The Snake opened his mouth. Two fangs flipped out, dripping fire.
    Oh, Sir Mouse busted out of there as fast as he could run.
    And if Snake hasn’t caught him, well, he’s running still.
    Goodnight. Goodnight. Tomorrow is another night.
    “Wait,” says Wodenstag.
    “Hush,” says Pertelote. “It’ll come out right in the end.”
    Indeed, tomorrow would be another night, but the Brothers Mice don’t sleep until tomorrow comes.
    At noonday Wachanga brings the Animals to the side of a river, wide, fine, frozen and swept smooth.
    The Otters and Mrs. Cobb (not Mr. Cobb) and Twill and Hopsacking (not Ferric) and even a Hen or two sport themselves by scooting and skidding over the ice.
    John Wesley is no fool, certainly not like his frivolous Mad House cousins. He stands back beside Pertelote, rubbing his chin and wondering what might be troubling Pertelote.
    The Weasel says, “Stupid story.”
    “What, John? What did you say?”
    “Is hot coals what does burns through Possums’ pockets. And Snakes doesn’t swallows fires.”
    “Give the Raven his due,” says Pertelote. “He can make up what he wants. And he does know how to tell a tale.”
    “Why-come a Crow gots to talk about John Double-U’s talkings!”
    John goes off in a terrible huff.
    But it isn’t Kangi Sapa’s fiction that weighs on Pertelote’s soul. It’s the Cow—and her mood is bleak again.
Pertelote, tu Gallina:
    Gallinae albae filius…
    In these last days Wachanga has herself gone silent. Perhaps Pertelote has been begging too persistently for more information. Why the clouds? What’s in the clouds? If it’s a home, then what is this home? Haven’t the Ancestors offered any other detail? What are we in for? What’s ahead of us?
    The