FINNY-FOOT

I. THE WATER PUPPY

FINNY-FOOT first opened his round, wondering eyes on a world of sun-kissed waves, deep blue beneath a deep blue sky.

The waves slapped in white foam against the rocks, and the sky foamed with white wind clouds. The rocks were slippery with sea-weed, and shone as sleek as the wet brown fur of the seals. Finny-Foot’s woolly white coat, which is what Harbor Seal babies always wear their first spring, made him look like just another of the fat white balls of foam that the April wind tossed up and down the yellow sand of the beach. But the gray gulls flying over-head knew, and called to one another to see the new water puppy.

His parents, like the aunts and uncles and grandfather of the little colony, wore gray, like the ocean on a dull day, with spots of darker gray. But the new young cousins were all white like Finny-Foot.

In the beginning, while Mother Nature was still trying first one kind of animal, and then another, to see which made the best pattern, these water puppies had lived on land, and had outside ears like any other dog, and four short legs on which to carry their fat, furry bodies. Then their great-great-ever-so-great grand-parents had decided to live on the rocks of the harbors up and down the sea-shore, where it would be easier to catch the fish on which they lived. Of course then Mother Nature changed their legs to “flippers” or fin-feet, so that it would be easier for them to swim. That is why seals look so much like fish, with their fore flippers for fins and their hind ones held together like a tail.

They bark like dogs, though, and those finny-looking fore-feet help them to crawl about on land, as well as swim. Of course now that they have become water animals, their ears are all covered with fur, so that you might think they didn’t have any ears at all. But they can hear a fish swim by, for all that.

At first Finny-Foot cried when he was hungry, in a voice almost like that of a human baby, and was nursed like any other puppy. Then he learned to eat the tender young sea salmon that his mother caught for him,—and the clams and scallops that she found and shelled for him. It was a pleasant life. He had nothing to do but tumble about with the other seal babies, or lie watching the gulls that circled back and forth with the big, salt-smelling waves, singing in their hoarse voices that sounded so like rusty hinges, and watching for fish they might grab.

One day, too, the whole sky seemed covered with a mammoth flock of ducks, (Surf Scoters), who were going to Alaska for the summer, where they would not find it so crowded when their young were hatched. For hours the V-shaped flocks swept Northward in a gray-black cloud, while the air rang with their musical whistle. Finny-Foot stared, his puppy-like eyes round with wonder, but at last they all disappeared into the blue distance. There must have been hundreds and thousands and millions of them. How he wished he, too, might travel and see the world beyond those rocks! He little dreamed how soon his wish was to come true, nor in what an amazing fashion.

His mother kept his oily fur sleek and shining, so that he could slide through the water easily, and he had no trouble at all about learning to swim. Soon he could catch a tiny fish in his jaws, if he swam after it fast enough, and his fur turned gray in leopard-like spots.

One day, though, these happy, quiet times came to a sudden end. At first the only thing he noticed was a row of half a dozen long black fins cutting through the waves, far out at sea. Swiftly the black fins came nearer, then an up-toss of their heads showed the circling gulls a row of mammoth jaws, armed with the most murderous-looking teeth. It was a band of killer whales, and at the sight, every seal on the rocks started swimming for shore as fast as he could go.

Finny-Foot’s mother towed him with her when his strength gave out, and so great was her fright that she never stopped till she had him far up on the sandy beach, where the whales could not follow. Those of their colony who were not swift enough got caught, and were devoured by the fish-shaped monsters who were not fish, and whose ugly black sides bore white patches that glistened in the sun. Each one had a fin on the middle of his back that stuck straight up, so that you could see it a long way off. It was that that had given them warning.

All afternoon they waited on the beach. Then at last the row of black fins headed out to sea, and it was deemed safe by Grandfather Seal to return to the rocks and fish for supper. And to hear them barking under the moon that night, watching the white foam blowing down the beach in the wind, no one would have known the bloody fate that they had so narrowly escaped.

She never stopped till she had him on the sandy beach.

But the killer whales came back next day, and this time took them so nearly by surprise that there was not time to swim to shore, and those who could not scramble to the highest point of the highest rock were swallowed whole. How they huddled together upon that high rock, while the killers swam around and around them watching to see if one of them would not fall off into the water where they could reach them! Finny-Foot’s mother tucked him into a crevice and stood over him. No use for his father, and the other fathers, even to put up a fight against the killers. They wouldn’t have had a chance in the world. But once more the whales swam back to sea, and this time they did not return; for they, too, were on their way to Alaska, where they hoped to catch the fur seals as they migrated Southward.

One day that summer, when Finny-Foot’s mother and her neighbors felt quite sure there were no killers about, (Grandfather had been watching the sea all day with his big, round eyes), they decided to have a picnic, and explore some rocks further out in Monterey Harbor, where the painted boats of the fishermen pass.

It proved to be a wonderful fishing-ground. Finny-Foot, forgetting his mother’s command to stay close by her side, swam out to the dories, his round eyes bulging with wonder at the way they pulled up their netfuls of fish. Then he saw a big salmon that he wanted to catch.

The fish made a sudden dive, and Finny-Foot, taking a deep breath, dove after him. The next thing he knew, he was all tangled up in something. Then he was lifted straight into the air, in the midst of a netful of wriggling, flapping fish.

“Father!” cried a black-eyed little boy. “See what I’ve caught! Oo!—May I have it?”