Rataplan | Page 9

and feeling very hungry and a bit chilly.
With a little shiver he feebly gathered himself together and crept closer to the warm side of his small prison.
There was a curious something inside this warm part of his prison, which kept up a continuous, methodical beating, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, but never stopping.
Keesa did not think much about it then. His tiny, flexible, little mouth was seeking instinctively for something to satisfy his hunger, and, having found it, he troubled himself no further about the little, throbbing sound that never stopped. He was too young then to know that it was the beating of his mother's heart; but as he grew older he learned to regard it as a very barometer for danger signals. He knew that whenever it began to beat quicker than usual his mother was scenting danger; and that when it throbbed very, very quickly the danger had come, and was causing his mother great anxiety on his account.
All this he learned as he grew larger, but at this time he was only a few days' old; a tiny, soft, helpless thing, only about an inch and a half in length; and all he could do was just stay quietly in his mother's pouch--where she had carefully put him as soon as he was born--rest against her heart, and drink as much as he could.
He stayed in this nice, warm place for several months, and his weight increased so gradually that his mother did not notice it.
After a time, however, he began to find pouch-life rather monotonous, and so, one day, he poked his funny, little head out of the pouch and had his first peep at the world.
It seemed to be a very pleasant world, but he had no idea before that his mother was so big, or that she could hop such tremendous distances.
When he looked up at her he saw two little paws above him hanging down in just the position that a dog puts his paws when begging. Above these little paws he saw a small, graceful head, long and somewhat oval, with outstanding ears, soft, gentle eyes, and a flexible mouth, with cleft lips which opened every now and then and showed white but savage teeth which looked as though they could bite very sharply when their owner liked.
Having scrutinized his mother from below, Keesa turned his attention downwards, and then noticed what extremely long hind legs she had, and that she was sitting on them and her tail in a very comfortable manner.
Glancing instinctively round, Keesa saw that it was a very pleasant country, and that there were a good many others like his mother, sitting or moving softly about with long leaps, one and all keeping a sharp lookout for danger while munching the tender leaves and grass.
Once having had this peep at the world, Keesa became very interested in it, and every day poked his little head out of the pouch and watched his mother's proceedings.
One day, when she let herself drop on her forepaws to nibble the nice, green grass, Keesa, on peeping out, found his own mouth close to the ground. Out of mere curiosity he tasted a little bit of the herbage, sniffing it very carefully, first of all, with his funny little nose, and behaving, unknown to himself, in the way that all kangaroos behave when they first begin to eat green food.
Having tasted the grass, Keesa found it extremely good, and the very next day, when his mother dropped on her forefeet to feed, his head came out of the pouch and down went his little mouth too.
But this time out went one of his little, short, front paws and rested on the earth. One quick movement, and, to his astonishment, he found himself really in the world. Just for a moment he felt so terribly frightened that he leaped straight back into the pouch again, and his little heart beat as fast as ever his mother's did in time of danger.
But the next moment curiosity got the better of him, and he was so proud of himself in being able to move about so nimbly that he was out of the pouch again, and this time, not feeling half so frightened, hopped and skipped about until even his mother looked at him with surprise.
From that time Keesa always jumped out of his mother's pouch and ran about while she was feeding. He felt perfectly safe now, because at the least sign of danger all he had to do was to hop back again, pull down his small head and hide it, and everything was all right.
But as time went on Keesa began to realize that although. Australia is such a beautiful country the life of a kangaroo is full of danger.
Some peculiar beings