Chapter Three

I stopped talking. Young and old were spread around the meadow. I brought a bowl of tea to my lips and drank.
         “Aylee I don’t know how you manage this story telling business without drinking the river dry.” She chuckled.
         “That’s cause I at least have more strength in me than a soggy leaf. Don’t know how you manage to keep fur and flank together with no food in-between. I’d swear you get by on tea and fresh air.” She tossed back a pawful of toasted squash seeds.
          “I’d eat if I could get to the table before you.” The interruption had broken the spell being cast by the mid-day sun.
          “Wait, the story's not done yet. What happeneded? How’d you beat the captain and get out?” It was a young weasel that had spoken up, Tobin was his name.
          “Well now young master Tobin, I will get to that, but I think I shall let Aylee talk for a while. I’ll just go to see how Miss Alice is getting on with the lunch preparations.” The smell of baking bread and roasting trout was heavenly as it drifted across the meadow. For some reason the assembled listeners shifted uneasily. Snatches of conversation reached my ears as I pulled myself up by my staff.
           “...and that was two seasons ago when she passed...”
           “...confused but he gets all the details of the war right...” Aylee looked at me for a moment, but then there was only darkness.
           I was slumped halfway to the ground. The strong arms of a weasel held me up. Good old Tobin, when he was young he... Oh dear.
            “Upsadaisy.” Tobin had me back on my paws leaning on my staff. “You shouldn’t try to stand up so fast after sitting so long.” He looked nervously down at his paws. The young weasel, Reesh, was at his side.
            “Reesh, did I ever tell you that you’re the very image of your father at your age?” There was a sigh of relief from the crowd. “Now run along and see to it that the Good wife Crawford hasn’t scorched my porridge to the bottom of the pot like she did last summer.” He ran off laughing.  
            “Wake up Goody Crawfowd! Don’t burn a porridge or Grandpa Fox is gonna spank you good with his stick an make you eat your own veggies. Then you turn black from the stick an green from the veggies an hop round like a frog!” Reesh did the species justice hopping about and “Galummmp!”-ing like a bull frog.
            I took up a seat on the piles of tent cloth. For a while nothing happened.
            “Well?” I asked Aylee.
            “Well what?” She looked at me with some concern.
            “He means it’s your turn to tell what happened!” It was a young fisher who had spoken this time, and with much theatrics.
             “Oh of course,” she trotted easily over to the stone where I had sat. “I must be getting old.” For a moment her face fell.
             “Nonsense. You’re just as sharp as ever.”