Writings from the New Yorker 1925-1976 by E. B. White Page A

the day a Raccoon ate a Fresh-Water Mussel that the lid blew off.
    â€œYou can’t do that to a Mussel!” screamed an Eagle.
    â€œWhy not?” asked the Raccoon, who had acted on impulse.
    â€œBecause it’s unkind and because I have an arrangement with Fresh-Water Mussels,” said the Eagle.
    â€œNever heard of it,” said the Raccoon.
    â€œWell, lay off Fresh-Water Mussels! Who strikes a Fresh-Water Mussel strikes me!” screamed the Eagle. “Death to Raccoons!”
    â€œO.K.,” said the Raccoon, “death to Eagles!”
    â€œThis concerns me,” said the Bear. “Raccoons are my little brothers. Who strikes a Raccoon strikes me. Death to the people who strike Raccoons!”
    â€œO.K.,” cried the Eagles, who were immediately joined by the Lions, “death to Raccoons and Bears!”
    In almost no time, the Bears and the Eagles and the Lions tangled, and were joined by Water Beetles, Chipmunks, Moles, Luna Moths, Porcupines, Jackals, Ladybugs, Sloths, Barn Swallows, and Whirling Mice. It was a mess. The Eagles and the Bears were the only ones that had real power, and they fixed everything quick. For the next three or four million years, the jungle was silent and relaxed. Only the sound of the wind disturbed it—and the small whirring noise in some of the radio sets abandoned by the dead Bears.
    SNOWSTORMS
    12/22/51
    THERE WAS A FLURRY OF SNOW one morning recently—a sudden gaiety and white charm at breakfast time, the snow descending prettily across roof and wall. The moment we saw this cheerful sight, this unexpected bonus, our mind rocketed back to a time in childhood, a morning unforgettable because of snow. The snow that day arrived in blizzard force; at eight o’clock the fire siren, muffled by the blast, wailed the “No School Today” signal, and we retired in ecstasy to a warm attic room and to Meccano. The thing we remember is the coziness, the child’s sense of a protective screen having been quickly drawn between him and his rather frightening world. This feeling was perfectly reproduced for us the other morning. For about five minutes, the snow seemed quite capable of insulating us from all harm, from every trouble, from evil itself, and we were again in the warm, safe attic with a straightforward problem in mechanical engineering.
    The Russians are trying, with their curtain, to draw the protective screen and make it snow forever in the world, for their special benefit. They long for the sense of security that circumstances and their own stubbornness have denied them. A childish surrender to unreality, the curtain not only does not shut out evil, it is evil. The curtain is not merely the screen that makes it impossible for the West to relax its arms, it is itself the core of Russian armament. It is poison gas in political form.
    There ought to be a healthy debate going on today—a debate between capitalism and socialism, between individualism and statism. The curtain has prevented this debate from taking place, and although there is plenty of talk in the forum, we are really stuck with the fact of having no discussion. The Russians do not qualify as debaters, because they have boxed their argument, sealed their people, and turned out the house lights. In consequence, the delegates to the United Nations stand around and talk about peace and disarmament—subjects on which there is no real difference of opinion. (Everybody loves peace by the terms of the contract, and nobody can risk disarming under the conditions created by the curtain.)
    An interesting experiment would be to place the curtain itself on the agenda. It is not a secondary matter, to be buried in committee; it is the big thing. The U. N. cannot much longer pretend that questions can be genuinely discussed under Russia’s terms—with all ideas being halted at the border, with writers being instructed how to write, with radio being jammed. Such