Fred Marcellino - The Trumpet of the Swan

HarperCollins Children’s Books

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First published in the USA by Harper Row, Publishers, Inc., New York, 1970

First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton Children’s Books Ltd, 1970

This ebook edition first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2015

Text copyright © E.B. White, 1970

Illustration copyright © Fred Marcellino, 2000

E.B. White and Fred Marcellino assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Ebook Edition © MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780008139438

Version: 2016-08-26

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

1 Sam

2 The Pond

3 A Visitor

4 The Cygnets

5 Louis

6 Off to Montana

7 School Days

8 Love

9 The Trumpet

10 Money Trouble

11 Camp Kookooskoos

12 A Rescue

13 End of Summer

14 Boston

15 A Night at the Ritz

16 Philadelphia

17 Serena

18 Freedom

19 A Talk about Money

20 Billings

21 The Greening Spring

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About the Author

About the Illustrator

Other Books By

About the Publisher

WALKING BACK to camp through the swamp, Sam wondered whether to tell his father what he had seen.

“I know one thing,” he said to himself. “I’m going back to that little pond again tomorrow. And I’d like to go alone. If I tell my father what I saw today, he will want to go with me. I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.”

Sam was eleven. His last name was Beaver. He was strong for his age and had black hair and dark eyes like an Indian. Sam walked like an Indian, too, putting one foot straight in front of the other and making very little noise. The swamp through which he was travelling was a wild place—there was no trail, and it was boggy underfoot, which made walking difficult. Every four or five minutes Sam took his compass out of his pocket and checked his course to make sure he was headed in a westerly direction. Canada is a big place. Much of it is wilderness. To get lost in the woods and swamps of western Canada would be a serious matter.

As he trudged on, the boy’s mind was full of the wonder of what he had seen. Not many people in the world have seen the nest of a Trumpeter Swan. Sam had found one on the lonely pond on this day in spring. He had seen the two great white birds with their long white necks and black bills. Nothing he had ever seen before in all his life had made him feel quite the way he felt, on that wild little pond, in the presence of those two enormous swans. They were so much bigger than any bird he had ever seen before. The nest was big, too—a mound of sticks and grasses. The female was sitting on eggs; the male glided slowly back and forth, guarding her.

When Sam reached camp, tired and hungry, he found his father frying a couple of fish for lunch.

“Where have you been?” asked Mr. Beaver.

“Exploring,” replied Sam. “I walked over to a pond about a mile and a half from here. It’s the one we see from the air as we’re coming in. It isn’t much of a place—nowhere near as big as this lake we’re on.”

“Did you see anything over there?” asked his father.

“Well,” said Sam, “it’s a swampy pond with a lot of reeds and cattails. I don’t think it would be any good for fishing. And it’s hard to get to—you have to cross a swamp.”

“See anything?” repeated Mr. Beaver.

“I saw a muskrat,” said Sam, “and a few Red-winged Blackbirds.”

Mr. Beaver looked up from the wood stove, where the fish were sizzling in a pan.

“Sam,” he said, “I know you like to go exploring. But don’t forget—these woods and marshes are not like the country around home in Montana. If you ever go over to that pond again, be careful you don’t get lost. I don’t like you crossing swamps. They’re treacherous. You could step into a soggy place and get bogged down, and there wouldn’t be anybody to pull you out.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Sam. He knew perfectly well he would be going back to the pond where the swans were. And he had no intention of getting lost in the woods. He felt relieved that he had not told his father about seeing the swans, but he felt queer about it, too. Sam was not a sly boy, but he was odd in one respect: he liked to keep things to himself. And he liked being alone, particularly when he was in the woods. He enjoyed the life on his father’s cattle ranch in the Sweet Grass country in Montana. He loved his mother. He loved Duke, his cow pony. He loved riding the range. He loved watching the guests who came to board at the Beaver’s ranch every summer.

But the thing he enjoyed most in life was these camping trips in Canada with his father. Mrs. Beaver didn’t care for the woods, so she seldom went along—it was usually just Sam and Mr. Beaver. They would motor to the border and cross into Canada. There Mr. Beaver would hire a bush pilot to fly them to the lake where his camp was, for a few days of fishing and loafing and exploring. Mr. Beaver did most of the fishing and loafing. Sam did the exploring. And then the pilot would return to take them out. His name was Shorty. They would hear the sound of his motor and run out and wave and watch him glide down on to the lake and taxi his plane in to the dock. These were the pleasantest days of Sam’s life, these days in the woods, far, far from everywhere—no automobiles, no roads, no people, no noise, no school, no homework, no problems, except the problem of getting lost. And, of course, the problem of what to be when he grew up. Every boy has that problem.