Welcome back to Vegas. Lisa Martin and Dave Vellante here with theCUBE live on the Venetian Expo Hall floor, talking all things AWS re-invent 2022. This is the first full day of coverage. It is jam-packed here. People are back. They are ready to hear all of the new innovations from AWS. Dave, how is it feel to be back yet again in Vegas? Yeah, Vegas, I think it's my 10th time in Vegas this year, so whatever. That's fine. This year alone. You must have a favorite steak restaurant then. There's several in Vegas. Actually, the restaurants in Vegas are actually really good. They are good. They used to be terrible, but I'll tell you, but my favorite, the place that closed, yeah, closed. In between where we are in the wind and the Venetian. Anyway. Was it cut? No, I forget what the name of it was. It was like a Greek steak place. Anyway. No, I'm hungry. We were at Pure Accelerate a couple years ago. Yes, we were. That's right. Pure was the first to do that. And then they made the acquisition of Portworx, which was pretty prescient, given the containers have been going through the roof. So I'm sort of excited to have these guys on and talk about that. We're going to unpack all of this. We've got one of our alumni back with us, Ben Kat Ramakrishnan, VP of Product, Portworx by Pure Storage. And Dan Kogan joins us for the first time, VP of Product Management and Product Marketing, FlashArray at Pure Storage. Guys, welcome to the program. Thank you. Thanks for having us. What's your favorite steak restaurant in Vegas? There's last day, I said there's a lot of good restaurants. There's a lot of good steak restaurants in Vegas. I like SDK. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. Which one? SDK. Where's that? It's, I think, in Cosmopolitan. Ooh. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's one of the Weston, too. That's pretty good. I'm an herbs and rye guy. Have you ever been there? No. Herbs and rye is off strip, but it's fantastic. It's kind of like a local's joint. Have to dig through all of this great stuff today and then check that out. Talk to me. This is our first day, obviously, first main day. I want to get both of your perspectives, Dan. We'll start with you since you're closest to me. What are, how are you finding this year's events so far? Obviously, tons of people. Busy. Busy, yeah. It is old times. It's a bit bigger, right? Last re-invent I was at was 2019. Right before everything shut down and it was probably half the size of this, which is a different trend than I feel like most other tech conferences have gone where they've come back, but a little bit smaller. Re-invent seems to be the IT show. It really does. Venkat, are you finding the same in terms of what you're experiencing so far on day one of the event? Yeah, I mean, it's this tremendous excitement. Overall, I think it's good to be back. Very good crowd, great turnout, a lot of excitement around some of the new offerings. We've announced the book traffic has been pretty good and just the quality of the conversations, the customer meetings have been really good. There's very interesting use cases shaping up and customers really looking to solve real large scale problems. Yeah, it's been a phenomenal first day. Venkat, talk a little bit about, and then we'll get to you, Dan, as well. The relationship that Portworx by Peer Storage has with AWS, maybe some joint customers. Yeah, so we, definitely, we have been a partner of AWS for quite some time, right? Earlier this year, we signed what is called a strategic investment letter with AWS where we kind of put some giant effort together like to better integrate our products, plus, you know, kind of get in front of our customers more together and educate them on how they can deploy and build vision critical apps on, you know, EKS and EKS anywhere and outpost. So that partnership has grown a lot over the last year. We have a lot of significant mutual customer wins together, both on the public cloud on EKS, as well as on EKS anywhere, right? And there are some exciting use cases around Edge and like, you know, Edge deployments and, you know, like different levels of Edge and as well with the EKS anywhere. And there are pretty good wins on the outpost as well. So that partnership, I think, is kind of like growing across, not just we started over the one product line. Now our Portworx backup as a service is also available on EKS and, you know, along with Portworx data services. So it is also expanded across the product lines as well. And then, Dan, you want to elaborate a bit on AWS plus Peer? Yeah, it's for kind of what called the core Peer business or the traditional Peer business. Dave mentioned Cloud Block Store is kind of where things started and we're seeing that move and evolve from predominantly being a DR site and kind of story into now more and more production applications being lifted and shifted and running now natively in AWS on our storage software. And then we have a new product called Peer Fusion which is our storage as code automation product essentially takes you from moving, moving and managing of individual arrays. Now, obfuscates of the fleet level allows you to build a very cloud like back end and consume storage as code, very, very similar to how you do with AWS with an EBS. That product is built in AWS. So it's a SaaS product built in AWS really allowing you to turn your traditional Peer storage into an AWS like experience. What changed with Cloud Block Store? Because if I recall, am I right that you basically did it on S3 originally? S3 is a big, it's a number of components. And you had a high performance EC2 instances on top of lower cost object store. Is that still the case? That's still the architecture. Yeah, at least for AWS. It's a different architecture in Azure where we leverage their disk storage more but in AWS we're just based on essentially that back end. And then what's the experience when you go from say on-prem to AWS to sort of a cross cloud? Yeah, very simple. It's our replication technology built in. So our sync rep, our recent rep, our active cluster technology is essentially allowing you to move the data really, really seamlessly there. And then again, back to Fusion now being that kind of master control plane. You can have availability zones running Cloud Block Store instances in AWS. You can be running your own availability zones in your data centers, wherever those may happen to be. And that's kind of a unification layer across it all. And it looks the same to the customer. To the customer looks the same. At the end of the day, it's what the customer sees is the purity operating system. We have flash array proprietary hardware on-premises. We have AWS's hardware that we run it on here. But to the customer, it's just the flash array. That's a data super cloud actually. Yeah, the data super cloud. I agree. It spans multiple clouds. Multiple clouds on-premises. It abstracts all the complexity of the underlying muck and the primitives and presents a common experience. Yeah, and it's the same APIs, same management, console. Yeah, awesome. Everything's the same. Yeah, see, it's real. It's a thing. On containers, I have a question. So we're in this environment. Everybody wants to be more efficient. What's happening with containers? Is there, the intersection of containers and serverless, right? You think about all the things you have to do to run containers in VMs, configure everything, configure the memory, et cetera. And then serverless simplifies all that. I guess K-native in between or I guess Fargate. What are you seeing with customers between stateless apps, stateful apps, and how it all relates to containers? Yeah, it's a great question, right? I think one of the things that what we are seeing is that as people run more and more workloads in the cloud, right? There's this huge movement towards being the ability to bring these applications to run anywhere, right? Not just in one public cloud, but in the data centers and sometimes the edge clouds. So there's a lot of portability requirements for applications, right? I mean, just today morning, I was having breakfast with a customer who is a big AWS customer, but has to go into an on-prem air gap deployment for one of their large customers and is kind of replatforming some other apps into containers and Kubernetes because it makes it so much easier for them to deploy. So there is no longer the debate of is it stateless or is it stateful. It's pretty much all applications are moving to containers, right? And in that, you see people are building on Kubernetes and containers is because they wanted multi-cloud portability for the applications. Now, the other big aspect is cost, right? You can significantly, you know, like lower cost by running with Kubernetes and porkworks and by on the public cloud or on a private cloud, right?  You're not over provisioning your infrastructure.  So customers are better able to manage costs, right? The serverless play in here though, right? Because if I'm running serverless, I'm not paying for the compute the whole time, right? But then stateless and stateful come into play. Serverless has a place, but it is more for like, you know, quick event-driven, you know, the stateless apps, stuff that needs to happen. The serverless has a place. But majority of the applications have need compute and more compute to run because there's like, you know, ton of processing you have to do.  Those are not typically good serverless apps, right? Serverless apps do definitely have a place. There's a whole bunch of, you know, minor code snippets or events. You need to process every now and then to make some decisions. In that, yeah, you'll see serverless. But majority of the apps are still, you know, requiring a lot of compute and scaling the compute and scaling storage requirements all the time. Well, Venka was talking about with cost. That is probably our biggest tailwind from a cloud adoption standpoint. They initially, for on-premises vendors like your storage or historically on-premises vendors, the move to the cloud was a concern, right? And that we're going out of the data center business. We're going all in on the cloud where you can do that's kind of why we got ahead of that with Cloud Block Store. But as customers have matured in their adoption of cloud and actually moved more applications, they're becoming much more aware of the costs. And so anywhere you can help them save money seems to drive adoption. So they see that on the Kubernetes side, on our side, just by adding in things that we do really well, data reduction, thin provisioning, low cost snaps, those kind of things, massive cost savings. And so it's actually brought a lot of customers who thought they weren't going to be using, you know, our storage moving forward back into the fold. What are some of so cost savings, great huge business outcomes potentially for customers? But what are some of the barriers that you're helping customers to overcome on the storage side? And also in terms of moving applications to Kubernetes, what are some of those barriers that could help us? Yeah, I mean, I can ask you, simply from a core flash array side, it's enabling migration of applications without having to refactor them entirely, right? That's Kubernetes side is when they think about changing their applications and building them, we'll call quote unquote more cloud native, but there are a lot of customers that can't or won't or just aren't doing that, but they want to run those applications in the cloud. So the movement is easier back to your data super cloud kind of comment and then also eliminating this high cost associated with it. I'm kind of not a huge fan of the whole repatriation narrative. You know, you look at the numbers and it's like, yeah, there's some going on. But the one use case that looks like it's actually valid is I'm going to test in the cloud and I'm going to deploy on-prem. Now, I don't know if that's even called repatriation, but I'm looking for, I'm looking to help the repatriation narrative because but that's a real thing, right? It's more than repatriation, right? It's more about the ability to run your app, right? It's not just even test, right? I mean, like you're going to have different kinds of governance and compliance and regulatory requirements of to run your apps in different kinds of cloud environments, right? Certain regions may not have all of the compliance and regulatory requirements implemented in that cloud provider, right?  So now you can take that app and run in an infrastructure that allows you to deliver with under those requirements as well, right? So that portability is the major driver than repatriation, right? And you would do that for latency reasons. For latency and, you know, like, yeah. Or data sovereignty. Data sovereignty, right? I mean, yeah. Availability of your application and data just in that region, right? Okay, so if the capability is not there in the cloud region, you come in and say, hey, we can do that on-prem or in a colo and get you what you need to comply to your edicts. Yeah, or potentially moves to a different cloud provider, right? It's just a lot more control that you're providing to our customer at the end of the day. What's that move like? I mean, now you're moving data and everybody's going to complain about egress fees. Well, you shouldn't be, I think it's more of a one-time move. Like, you're probably not going to be moving data between cloud providers regularly, but if for whatever reasons you decide that I'm going to stop running an X cloud and I'm going to move to this cloud, what's the most seamless way to do that? So a customer might say, okay, that certification is not going to be available in this region or Gov cloud or whatever for a year. I need this now. Yeah, or various commercials, whatever it might be. And I'm going to make the call now one-way door and I'm going to keep it on-prem or, you know. And then worry about it down the road. Okay, makes sense. Dan, I'm going to talk to you about the sustainability element there because it's increasingly becoming a priority for organizations in every industry where they need to work with companies that really have established sustainability programs. What are some of the factors that you talk with customers about as they have choice in all flash arrays between current competitors, where? Yeah, I mean, we've leaned very heavily into that from a marketing standpoint recently because it has become so top of mind for so many customers, but at the end of the day, sustainability was built into the core of the purity operating system and flash array, back before it was flash array, right, in our early generation of products. The things that drive that sustainability of high density, high data reduction, small footprint, we needed to build that for peer to exist as a company. And we're maybe kind of the last all-flash vendor standing that came ground up all-flash, not just the disc vendor that's refactored, right? And so that sort of engineering from the ground up that's deeply, deeply into our software has a huge sustainability payout now. And we see that and that message is really, really resonating with customers. I haven't thought about that in a while. You actually are. I don't think there's any other, nobody else made it through the knothole. And you guys hit escape velocity and then some. We hit escape velocity and it hasn't slowed down, right? I could, earnings will be tomorrow, but the last many quarters have been pretty good. Yeah, we follow you pretty closely. I mean, there was one little thing in the pandemic and then boom, it's just kept frankincense, so. So at the end of the day though, right? We needed that level to be economically viable as a flash vendor going against disc. And now that's really paying off in a sustainability equation as well because we consume so much less footprint, power, cooling, all those factors.  We've had no major delays and disruptions, but the TCO argument's real. Like, at the end of the day, when you look at the cost of running on pure, it's very, very compelling. Adam Salipski made the statement, if you're looking to tighten your belt, the cloud is the place to do it. Yeah, okay, I buy that, but maybe. Maybe not. So again, we are seeing cloud customers that, you know, traditional pure data center customers that a few years ago said, we're moving these applications into the cloud. You know, it's been great working with you. We love pure, we'll have some on-prem footprint, but most of everything we're going to do is in the cloud. Those customers are coming back to us to keep running in the cloud. Because again, when you start to factor in things like then provisioning, data reduction, those don't exist in the cloud, so. So it's not repatriation. It's not repatriation. We want pure in the cloud. Correct, we want your software, so that's why we built CBS. And we're seeing that come all the way through. There's another cost savings is on the, you know, with what we are doing with Kubernetes and containers and Portrait Data Services, right? So when we run Portrait Data Services, typically where customers spend a lot of money in running the cloud managed services, right? Where, you know, there's obviously a sprawl of those, right, and then they end up spending a lot of hidden costs.   Significant. You know, significant savings. Yeah, the operational things he's talking about too. We, my Fusion engineering team is one of his largest customers from Fort Worth Data Services because we don't have DBAs on that team. Which is developers, but they need databases. They need to run those databases. We turn to PDS. This is why he pays my bills. And that's why you guys have to come back because we're out of time. But I do have one final question for each of you. Same question. We'll start with you, Dan. Then Ben Cap will go to you. Billboard. Billboard or a bumper sticker? Say, we'll say, they're going to put a billboard on Caster Street in Mountain View near the headquarters. About Pure, what does it say? The best container for containers. Ben Cap, Portworx, what's your bumper sticker? Well, I would just have one big billboard that goes and says, got BX for the question mark, right? And let people start thinking about, what is BX? I love that. Got Portworx, beautiful. You've got a side career in marketing, I can tell. I think they moved him out of its engineering. I see. We really appreciate you joining us on the program this afternoon, talking about Pure, Portworx, AWS, really compelling stories about how you're helping customers really make big decisions and save considerable costs. We appreciate your insights. Awesome, great. Thanks for having us. Thanks, guys. Thank you. For our guests and for Dave Vellante, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live enterprise and emerging tech coverage.


Yeah, he intimidates people. He starts fights when he doesn't really need to. He seems to care very little about a lot of their, you know, feelings and stuff. He mocks them, he talks down to them.  Be joking in a close space. Love joking. The People Hubbell workforce said they'd nail him to a wall and cut his balls off if he caused problems. You said Hubbell didn't tell you anything in jail. I lied. This guy's been working for counterfeiters. You just paid for a room with counterfeit cash. It's two chicks making out. No, no, no, I don't think he's saying it's a bad thing. That's just actually, yay.


CHAPTER X of MOTHER WESTWIN'S CHILDREN Old grandfather Frog sat on his big green lily-pad in the smiling pool, dreaming of the days when the world was young and the frogs ruled the world. His hands were folded across his white and yellow waistcoat. Round red smiling Mr. Sun sent down his warmest rays on the back of grandfather Frog's green coat. Very early that morning, Old Mother Westwind, hurrying down from the purple hills on her way to help the white sailed ships across the great ocean, had stopped long enough to blow three or four fat, foolish green flies over to the big lily-pad. And they were now safely inside the white and yellow waistcoat. A thousand little tadpoles, the great, great grandchildren of grandfather Frog, were playing in the smiling pool. And every once in a while, wriggling up to the big lily-pad to look with awe at grandfather Frog, and wonder if they would ever be as handsome and big and wise as he. And still old grandfather Frog sat, dreaming and dreaming of the days when all the frogs had tails and ruled the world. Presently Billy Meek came hopping and skipping down the laughing book. Sometimes he swam a little way, and sometimes he ran a little way along the bank. And sometimes he jumped from stone to stone. Billy Meek was feeling very good, very good indeed.  He had hidden two more away for dinner and a snug little hole no one knew of but himself. Now he had nothing to do but get into mischief. You can always depend upon Billy Meek to get into mischief. He just can't help it. So Billy Meek came hopping and skipping down the laughing book to the smiling pool. Then he stopped as still as the rock he was standing on and peeped through the bullrushes. Billy Meek is very cautious, very cautious indeed. He always looks well before he shows himself that nothing may surprise him. So Billy Meek looked all over the smiling pool in the grassy banks. He saw the sunbeams dancing on the water. He saw the tadpoles having such a good time in the smiling pool. He saw the merry little breezes kissing the buttercups and daisies on the bank. And he saw old grandfather Frog with his hands folded across his white and yellow esket, sitting on the green lily pad, dreaming of the days when the world was young. Then Billy Meek took a long breath, a very long breath, and dived into the smiling pool. Now Billy Meek can swim very fast, very fast indeed. For a little way he can swim even faster than Mr. Trout, and he can stay underwater a long time. Straight across the smiling pool, with not even the tip of his nose out of water, swam Billy Meek. The thousand little tadpoles saw him coming and fled in all directions to bury themselves in the mud at the bottom of the smiling pool. For when he thinks no one is looking, Billy Meek sometimes gobbles up a fat tadpole for breakfast. Straight across the smiling pool swam Billy Meek toward the big green lily pad where grandfather Frog sat, dreaming of the days when the world was young. When he was right under the big green lily pad, he suddenly kicked up hard with his hind feet. Up went the big green lily pad, and of course, up went grandfather Frog, up and over, flat on his back, with a great splash into the smiling pool. Now grandfather Frog's mouth is very big. Indeed, no one else has so big a mouth, unless it be his cousin, old Mr. Toad. And when grandfather Frog went over flat on his back, splash in the smiling pool, his mouth was wide open. You see, he was so surprised, he forgot to close it. So, of course, grandfather Frog swallowed a great deal of water, and he choked and spluttered and swam around in foolish little circles, trying to find himself. Finally, he climbed out on his big green lily pad. Chug a rum, said grandfather Frog, and looked this way, and looked that way. Then he gave a funny hop, and turned about in the opposite direction, and looked this way, and looked that way.  Chug a rum, said grandfather Frog. It is very strange. I must have fallen asleep and had a bad dream. Then he once more settled himself comfortably on the big green lily pad, folded his hands across his white and yellow esket, and seemed to be dreaming again.  No indeed. They were very much awake, and they saw all that was going on in the smiling pool. Great grandfather Frog was just pretending. You may fool him once, but grandfather Frog has lived so long that he has become very wise. And though Billy Mink is very smart, it takes someone a great deal smarter than Billy Mink to fool grandfather Frog twice in the same way. Billy Mink hiding behind the big rock had laughed and laughed till he had to hold his sides, when grandfather Frog had choked and spluttered and hopped about on the big lily pad, trying to find out what it all meant. He thought it such a good joke that he couldn't keep it to himself. So when he saw little Joe Otter coming to try his slippery slide, he swam across to tell him all about it. Little Joe Otter laughed and laughed until he had to hold his sides. Then they both swam back to hide behind the big rock to watch until grandfather Frog should forget all about it, and they could play the trick over again. Now out of the corner of one of his big, ugly eyes, grandfather Frog had seen Billy Mink and little Joe Otter with their heads close together, laughing and holding their sides. And he saw them swim over behind the big rock. Very soon one of the Mary Little Breezes danced over to see if grandfather Frog had really gone to sleep. Grandfather Frog didn't move, not the teeniest, weeniest bit, but he whispered something to the Mary Little Breeze, and the Mary Little Breeze flew away, shaking with laughter, to where the other Mary Little Breezes were playing with the buttercups and daisies. Then all the Mary Little Breezes clapped their hands and laughed too. They left the buttercups and daisies and began to play tag across the smiling pool. Now right on the edge of the big rock lay a big stick. Pretty soon the Mary Little Breezes danced over to the big rock, and then suddenly all together they gave the big stick a push. Off it went, and then such a splashing and squealing as there was behind the big rock. In a few moments little Joe Otter crept out beside his slippery slide and slipped away holding on to his head. And sneaking through the bullrushes, so as not to be seen, crawled Billy Mink back towards his home on the laughing book. Billy Mink wasn't laughing now. Oh no, he was limping and he was holding on to his head. Little Joe Otter and Billy Mink had been sitting right underneath the big stick. Chug a rum, said grandfather Frog, and held on to his sides and opened his mouth very wide in a noiseless laugh, for grandfather Frog never makes a sound when he laughs. Chug a rum, said grandfather Frog, once more. Then he folded his hands across his white and yellow wesket, and began again to dream of the days when the frogs had long tails and ruled the world. CHAPTER XI. THE DISAPPOINTED BUSCH. Way down beside the laughing book grew a little bush. It looked a whole lot like other little bushes all around it, but really it was quite different, as you shall see. When in the spring warm jolly round Mr. Sun brought back the birds and set them singing. When the little flowers popped their heads out of the ground to have a look around, then all the little bushes put out their green leaves. This little bush of which I am telling you put out its green leaves with the rest. The little leaves grew bigger and bigger on all the little bushes. By and by on some of the other little bushes, little brown buds began to appear and grow and grow. Then on more and more of the little bushes, the little brown buds came and grew and grew.  The little bush felt very sad indeed. Pretty soon all the little brown buds on the other little brown bushes burst their brown coats, and then all the little bushes were covered with little flowers. Some were white and some were yellow and some were pink, and the air was filled with the sweet odor of all the little flowers. It brought the bees from far, far away to gather the honey, and all the little bushes were very happy indeed.  But it bravely kept on growing and growing and growing. Its little leaves grew bigger and bigger and bigger, and it tried its best not to mind because it had no little flowers. Then one by one and two by two and three by three, and finally in whole showers, the little flowers of all the other little bushes fell off, and they looked very much like the little bush of which I am telling you, so that the little bush no longer felt sad. All summer long all the little bushes grew and grew and grew. The birds came and built their nests among them. Peter Rabbit and his brothers and sisters scampered under them. The butterflies flew over them. By and by came the fall, and with the fall came Jack Frost. He went about among the little bushes, pinching the leaves. Then the little green leaves turned to brown and red and yellow, and pretty soon they fluttered down to the ground, the merry little breezes blew them about, and all the little bushes were bare. They had no leaves at all to cover their little naked brown limbs. The little bush of which I am telling you lost its leaves with the rest. But all the summer long this little bush had been growing some of those little brown buds which the other bushes had had in the spring. And now when all the other little bushes had lost all the green leaves and had nothing at all upon their little brown twigs, behold, one beautiful day the little bush of which I am telling you was covered with gold. For each little brown bud had burst its little brown coat, and there was a beautiful little yellow flower.  They covered the little bush from top to bottom. Then the little bush felt very happy indeed, for it was the only bush which had any flowers. And everyone who passed that way stopped to look at it and to praise it. Colder grew the weather and colder. Johnny Chuck tucked himself away to sleep all winter. Grandfather Frog went deep deep down in the mud not to come out again until spring.  But they left behind them tiny little packages, one for every little flower that had been on the bush. All winter long these little packages clung to the little bush. In the spring when the little leaves burst forth in all the little bushes, these little packages on the little bush of which I am telling you grew and grew and grew. While the other little bushes had a lot of little flowers as they had had the year before, these little brown packages on the little bush of which I am telling you kept on growing. And they comforted the little bush because it felt that it really had something worthwhile. All the summer long the little brown packages grew and grew until they looked like little nuts.  Then these little brown nuts, one bright autumn day, suddenly popped open. And out of each one flew two brown, shiny little seeds. You never saw such a popping and a snapping and a jumping. Pop, pop, snap, snap, hippity hop they went, faster than the corn pops in the corn popper. Ready Fox, who always is suspicious, thought someone was shooting at him. Down on the ground fell the little brown shining seeds and tucked themselves into the warm earth under the warm leaves, there to stay all winter long.  When the little bush looked down and saw all these little green children popping out of the ground it was very happy indeed for it knew that it would no longer be lonely. It no longer felt bad when all the other bushes were covered with flowers for it knew that by and by when all the other little bushes had lost all their leaves and all their flowers then would come its turn and it knew that for a whole year its little brown children would be held safe on its branches. Now what do you think is the name of this little bush? Why it is the witch hazel and sometimes when you fall down and bump yourself hard Grandma will go to the medicine closet and will bring out a bottle and from that bottle she will pour something on that little sore place and it will make it feel better. Do you know what it is? It is the gift of the witch hazel bush to little boys and big men to make them feel better when they are hurt. End of chapter 11. Chapter 12 of Mother Westwind's Children This Lubrivox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Mother Westwind's Children by Thornton W. Burgess. Chapter 12. Why Bobby Coon Washes His Food Happy-go-lucky Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the laughing book just as round red Mr. Sun popped up from behind the purple hills and Old Mother Westwind turned all her merry little breezes out to romp on the green meadows. Bobby Coon had been out all night. You see Bobby Coon is very apt to get into mischief and because usually it is safer to get into mischief under cover of the darkness Bobby Coon prefers the night wherein to go abroad. Not that Bobby Coon is really bad. No mind, no. Everybody likes Bobby Coon. But he can no more keep out of mischief than a duck and keep out of water. So Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the laughing book and he was very busy very busy indeed. He was washing his breakfast. Really it was his dinner for turning night into day just turns everything topsy-turvy. So Bobby Coon eats dinner when most of the little meadow people are eating breakfast. This morning he was very busy washing a luscious ear of sweet corn just in the milk. He dipped it in the water and with one little black paw rubbed it thoroughly. Then he looked it over carefully before with a sigh of contentment he sat down to put it in his empty little stomach. When he had finished it to the last sweet juicy kernel he ambled sleepily up the lone little path to the big hollow chestnut tree where he lives. And in its great hollow in a soft bed of leaves Bobby Coon curled himself up in a tight little ball to sleep the long bright day away. One of the merry little breezes softly followed him.  Oh, grandfather frog cried a merry little breeze. Tell us why it is that Bobby Coon always washes his food. He never eats it where he gets it or takes it home to his hollow in the big chestnut but always comes to the laughing book to wash it. None of the other meadow people do that. Now great grandfather frog is counted very wise. He is very very old and he knows the history of all the tribes of the little meadow people way back to the time when the frogs ruled the world. When the merry little breeze asked him why Bobby Coon always washes his food grandfather frog stopped to snap up a particularly fat foolish green fly that came his way. Then while all the merry little breezes gathered around him he settled himself on his big green lily pad and began. Once upon a time when the world was young old king bear ruled in the green forest. Of course old mother nature who was even more beautiful then than she is now was the real ruler but she let old king bear think he ruled so long as he ruled wisely. All the little green forest folk and all the little people of the green meadows used to take presence of food to old king bear so that he never had to hunt for things to eat. He grew fatter and fatter and fatter until it seemed as if his skin must burst and the fatter he grew the lazier he grew.  Then he leaped into the air so far that when he came down it was with a great splash in the smiling pool. But as he swam back to his big lily pad the leg of a foolish green fly could be seen sticking out of one corner of his big mouth and he settled himself with a sigh of great contentment. Old king bear continued grandfather frog just as if there had been no interruption. Grew fatter and lazier every day and like a great many other fat and lazy people who have nothing to do for themselves but are always weighted on by others he grew shorter and shorter in temper and harder and harder to please. Now perhaps you don't know it but the bear family and the coon family are very closely related. In fact they are second cousins. Old Mr. Coon, Bobbie Coon's father with a thousand greats tacked on before, was young then and he was very very proud of being related to old king bear. He began to pass some of his old playfellows on the green meadows without seeing them. He spent a great deal of time brushing his coat and combing his whiskers and caring for his big ringed tail. He held his head very high and he put on such airs that pretty soon he could see no one at all but members of his own family and of the royal family of bear. Now as old king bear grew fat and lazy he grew fussy so that he was no longer content to take everything brought him but picked out the choices portions for himself and left the rest. Mr. Coon took charge of all the things brought his tribute to old king bear and of course where there were so many goodies left he got all he wanted without working.  Pretty soon he began to pick out the best things for himself and hide them before old king bear saw them. When old king bear was asleep he would go get them and stuff himself like a greedy pig. And because he was stealing and wanted no one to see him he always ate his stolen feasts at night. Now old mother nature is as you all know very very wise. Oh very wise indeed. One of the first laws she made when the world was young is that every living thing shall work for what it has and the harder it works the stronger it shall grow.  First she proclaimed that old king bear should be king no longer and no more need the little folks of the green forest and the little people of the green meadows bring him tribute. Now when old mother nature made this proclamation old king bear was fast asleep. It was just on the edge of winter and he had picked out a nice warm cave with a great pile of leaves for a bed. Old mother nature peeped in at him. He was snoring and probably dreaming of more good things to eat. If he is to be king no longer there is no use in waking him now said old mother nature to herself.  He shall sleep until gentle sister south wind comes in the spring to kiss away the snow and ice. Then he shall awaken with a lean stomach and a great appetite and there shall be none to feed him. Now old mother nature always has a warm heart and she was very fond of Bobby Coon's grandfather a thousand times removed. So when she saw what a selfish glutton and thief he had become she decided to put him to sleep just as she had old king bear. But first she would teach Mr. Coon that stolen food is not the sweetest. So old mother nature found some tender juicy corn just in the milk which Mr. Coon had stolen from old king bear. Then she went down on the green meadows where the wild mustard grows and gathering a lot of this she rubbed the juice into the corn and then put it back where Mr. Coon had left it. Now I have told you that it was night when Mr. Coon had his stolen feasts for he wanted no one to see him. So no one was there when he took a great bite of the tender juicy corn old mother nature had put back for him. Being greedy and a glutton he swallowed the first mouthful before he had fairly tasted it and took a second. And then such a time as there was on the edge of the green forest Mr. Coon rolled over and over with both of his forepaws clasped over his stomach and groaned and groaned and groaned. He had rubbed his eyes and of course had got mustard into them and could not see. He waked up all the little green forest folk who sleep through the night as good people should and they all gathered around to see what was the matter with Mr. Coon. Finally old mother nature came to his relief and brought him some water. Then she led him to his home in the great hollow in the big chestnut tree and when she had seen him curled up in a tight little ball among the dry leaves she put him into the long sleep as she had old King Bear. In the spring when gentle sister Southwind kissed away all the snow and ice old King Bear who was King no longer and Mr. Coon awoke and both were very thin and both were very hungry. Oh very very hungry indeed. Old King Bear who was King no longer wasn't the least might fussy about what he had to eat but ate gladly any food he could find. But Mr. Coon remembered the burning of his stomach and mouth and could not forget it. So whenever he found anything to eat he first took it to the laughing book or the smiling pool and washed it very carefully lest there be some mustard on it. And ever since that long ago time when the world was young the Coon family has remembered that experience of Mr. Coon who was second cousin to old King Bear and that is why Bobby Coon washes his food travels about at night and sleeps all winter concluded grandfather frog fixing his great goggle eyes on a foolish green fly headed his way. Oh thank you thank you grandfather frog cried the merry little breezes as they danced away over the green meadows but one of them slipped back long enough to get behind the foolish green fly and blow him right up to grandfather frog's big lily pad. Chogorom said grandfather frog smacking his lips. End of chapter 12. Chapter 13 of Mother Westwind's Children This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Mother Westwind's Children by Thornton W. Burgess. Chapter 13 The Merry Little Breezes Have a Busy Day Old Mother Westwind came down from the purple hills in the shadowy coolness of the early morning before even jolly round red Mr. Sun had thrown off his rosy coverlives for his daily climb up through the blue sky.  Then Old Mother Westwind kissed them all around and hurried away to hunt for a rain cloud which had gone astray. The Merry Little Breezes watched her go. Then they played hide and seek until jolly round red Mr. Sun had climbed out of bed and was smiling down on the green meadows. Pretty soon along came Peter Rabbit, liberty, liberty, lip. Hello, Peter Rabbit, shouted the Merry Little Breezes. Come play with us. Can't, said Peter Rabbit. I have to go find some tender young carrots for my breakfast. And away he hurried, liberty, liberty, lip. In a few minutes Jimmy Scott came in sight and he seemed to be almost hurrying along the crooked little path down the hill. The Merry Little Breezes danced over to meet him. Hello, Jimmy Scott, they cried. Come play with us. Jimmy Scott shook his head. Can't, said he. I have to go look for some beetles for my breakfast. And off he went looking under every old stick and pulling over every stone not too big for his strength. The Merry Little Breezes watched him for a few minutes and then raced over to the laughing brook. There they found Billy Meek stealing softly down towards the smiling pool. Oh, Billy Meek, come play with us. Begged the Merry Little Breezes. Can't, said Billy Meek. I have to catch a trout for grandfather Meek's breakfast. And he crept on towards the smiling pool. Just then along came Bumble the Bee. Now Bumble the Bee is a lazy fellow who always makes a great fuss as if he was the busiest and most important fellow in the world. Good morning, Bumble, cried the Merry Little Breezes. Come play with us. Bzz, bzz, bzz, grumbled Bumble the Bee. Can't, for I have to get a sack of honey. And off he hurried to the nearest dandelion. Then the Merry Little Breezes hunted up Johnny Chuck. But Johnny Chuck was busy, too busy to play. Bobby Coon was asleep, for he had been out all night. Reddy Fox also was asleep. Striped chipmunk was in such a hurry to fill the pockets in his cheeks that he could hardly stop to say good morning. Happy Jack Squirrel just flirted his big tail and rushed away as if he had many important things to attend to. Finally the Merry Little Breezes gave it up and sat down among the buttercups and daisies to talk it over. Everyone seemed to have something to do. Everyone but themselves. It was such a busy world that sun shiny morning. Pretty soon one of the Merry Little Breezes hopped up very suddenly and began the maddest little dance among the buttercups. As we haven't anything to do for ourselves, let's do something for somebody else, he shouted. Up jumped all the little breezes, clapping their hands. Oh, let's, they shouted. Way over across the green meadows they could see two long ears above the nodding daisies. There's Peter Rabbit, cried one. Let's help him find those tender young carrots. No sooner proposed than off they all raced to see who could reach Peter first. Peter was sitting up very straight looking this way and looking that way for some tender young carrots, but not one had he found and his stomach was empty. The Merry Little Breezes stopped just long enough to tickle his long ears and pull his whiskers. Then away they raced, scattering in all directions to see who could first find a tender young carrot for Peter Rabbit. By and by when one of them did find a field of tender young carrots, he rushed off, taking the smell of them with him to tickle the nose of Peter Rabbit. Peter wriggled his nose, his funny little nose, very fast when it was tickled with the smell of tender young carrots and the Merry Little Breeze left to see him. Come on, Peter Rabbit, for this is my busy day, he cried. Peter Rabbit didn't have to be invited twice. Away he went, lippity lippity lipp, as fast as his long legs could take him after the Merry Little Breeze. And presently they came to the field of tender young carrots. Oh, thank you, Merry Little Breeze, cried Peter Rabbit, and straight way began to eat his breakfast.  At once the Little Breeze remembered Jimmy Skunk, who was hunting for beetles for his breakfast. All rushed the Little Breeze in merry whirls that made the grasses sway and bend and the daisies nod. When after a long, long hunt he found Jimmy Skunk, Jimmy was very much out of sorts. In fact, Jimmy Skunk was positively cross. You see, he hadn't had any breakfast, for hunt as he would he couldn't find a single beetle.  In fact, he said some things not at all nice to the Merry Little Breeze. But the Merry Little Breeze just laughed. The more he laughed, the crosser Jimmy Skunk grew. And the crosser Jimmy Skunk grew, the more the Merry Little Breeze laughed.  You see, it is very hard, very hard indeed, and very foolish to remain cross when someone else is perfectly good-natured. Suddenly the Merry Little Breeze danced up to Jimmy Skunk and whispered in his right ear. Then he danced around and whispered in his left ear.  Where, Little Breeze? Where, he begged.  For you know, Jimmy Skunk seldom hurries. When they came to the big flat stone, Jimmy Skunk grasped it with both hands and pulled and pulled. Up came the stone so suddenly that Jimmy Skunk fell over flat on his back. When he had scrambled to his feet, there were beetles and beetles running in every direction to find a place to hide. Thank you, thank you, Little Breeze, shouted Jimmy Skunk as he started to catch beetles for his breakfast. And the Little Breeze laughed happily as he danced away to join the other Merry Little Breezes on the Green Meadows. There he found them very, very busy, very busy indeed, so busy that they could hardly find time to nod to him. What do you think they were doing? They were toting gold. Yes, sir, toting gold. And this is how it happened. While the first Little Breeze was showing Peter Rabbit the field of tinder young carrots, and while the second Little Breeze was leading Jimmy Skunk to the flat stone and the beetles, the other Merry Little Breezes had found Bumble the Bee.  And they found him grumbling as he buzzed with a great deal of fuss from one flower to another. What's the matter, Bumble? cried the Merry Little Breezes. Matter enough, grumbled Bumble the Bee. I've got to make a sack of honey, and if that isn't enough, Old Mother Nature has ordered me to carry a sack of gold from each flower I visit to the next flower I visit. If I don't, I can get no honey. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Grumbled Bumble the Bee. The Merry Little Breezes looked at the million little flowers on the green meadows, each waiting a sack of gold to give and a sack of gold to receive. Then they looked at each other and shouted happily, for they too would now be able to cry, busy, busy, busy. From flower to flower they hurried, each with a bag of gold over his shoulder. Wherever they left a bag, they took a bag, and all the little flowers nodded happily to see the Merry Little Breezes at work. Jolly, round, red Mr. Sun climbed higher and higher and higher in the blue sky, where he can look down and see all things great and small. His smile was broader than ever as he watched the hurrying, scurrying little breezes working instead of playing. Yet after all it was a kind of play, for they danced from flower to flower and ran races across bear places where no flowers grew. By and by the Merry Little Breezes met Peter Rabbit. Now Peter Rabbit had made a good breakfast of tender young carrots, so he felt very good, very good indeed. Hi, shouted Peter Rabbit, come play with me. Can't, cried the Merry Little Breezes altogether. We have work to do.  Down the crooked little path onto the green meadows came Jimmy Skunk. Ho! shouted Jimmy Skunk as soon as he saw the Little Breezes. Come play with me. Can't, cried the Little Breezes, for we are busy, busy, busy, and they laughed happily. When they reached the laughing book they found Billy Mink curled up in a round ball, fast asleep. It isn't often that Billy Mink is caught napping, but he had had a good breakfast of trout, he had found no one to play with, and, as he never works and the day was so bright and warm, he had first looked for a place where he thought no one would find him, and had then curled himself up to sleep. One of the Little Breezes laid down the bag of gold he was carrying, and creeping ever so softly over to Billy Mink began to tickle one of Billy's ears with a straw. At first Billy Mink didn't open his eyes, but rubbed his ear with a little black hand. Finally he jumped to his feet wide awake and ready to fight whoever was bothering him. But all he saw was a laughing Little Breeze running away with a bag of gold on his back. So all day long till Old Mother Westwind came with her big bag to carry them to their home behind the Purple Hills, the Merry Little Breezes hurried this way and that way over the Green Meadows. No wee flower was too tiny to give and receive its share of gold, and not one was overlooked by the Merry Little Breezes. Old Mother Nature, who knows everything, heard of the busy day of the Merry Little Breezes. Nobody knows how she heard of it. Perhaps Jolly Round Red Mr. Sun told her. Perhaps, but never mind. You can't fool Old Mother Nature anyway, and it's of no use to try. So Old Mother Nature visited the Green Meadows to see for herself. And when she found how the Merry Little Breezes had distributed the gold, she was so pleased that straightway she announced to all the world that thenceforth and for all time the Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother Westwind should have charge of the distribution of the gold of the flowers on the Green Meadows, which they have to this day. And since that day the Merry Little Breezes have been merrier than ever, for they have found that it is not nearly so much fun to play all the time, but that to work for some good in the world is the greatest fun of all. So every year when the gold of the flowers, which some people do not know is gold at all but call pollen, is ready, you will find the Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother Westwind very, very busy among the flowers on the Green Meadows. And this is the happiest time of all. End of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 of Mother Westwind's Children. This Lubrivox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Laurie Ann Walden. Mother Westwind's Children by Thornton W. Burgess. Chapter 14. Why Hootie the Owl does not play on the Green Meadows. The Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother Westwind were having a good night game of tag down on the Green Meadows. They were having such a jolly time while they waited for Old Mother Westwind and her big bag to take them to their home behind the Purple Hills. Jolly, round, red Mr. Sun, had already put his nightcap on. Black shadows crept softly out from the Purple Hills onto the Green Meadows. The Merry Little Breezes grew sleepy, almost too sleepy to play, for Old Mother Westwind was very, very late. Farther and farther and farther out onto the Green Meadows crept the black shadows. Suddenly one seemed to separate from the others. Softly, oh, so softly, yet swiftly, it floated over towards the Merry Little Breezes. One of them happened to look up and saw it coming. It was the same Little Breeze who one time stayed out all night. When he looked up and saw this seeming shadow moving so swiftly, he knew that it was no shadow at all. Here comes Hootie the Owl, cried the Little Breeze. Then all the Merry Little Breezes stopped their game of tag to look at Hootie the Owl. It is seldom they have a chance to see him, for usually Hootie the Owl does not come out on the Green Meadows until after the Merry Little Breezes are snugly tucked in bed behind the Purple Hills. Perhaps Hootie the Owl will tell us why it is that he never comes out to play with us, said one of the Little Breezes. But just as Hootie the Owl floated over to them, up came Old Mother Westwind, and she was in a great hurry, for she was late and she was tired. She had had a busy day, a very busy day indeed, hunting for a rain cloud which had gone astray. So now she just opened her big bag and tumbled all the Merry Little Breezes into it as fast as she could, without giving them so much as a chance to say good evening to Hootie the Owl. Then she took them off home behind the Purple Hills. Of course the Merry Little Breezes were disappointed, very much disappointed, but they were also very sleepy, for they had played hard all day. Never mind, said one of them drowsily. Tomorrow we'll ask great-grandfather Frog why it is that Hootie the Owl never comes out to play with us on the Green Meadows. He'll know. The next morning, Old Mother Westwind was late in coming down from the Purple Hills. When she finally did turn the Merry Little Breezes out of her big bag onto the Green Meadows, jolly, round, red Mr. Sun was already quite high in the blue sky. The Merry Little Breezes waited just long enough to say goodbye to Old Mother Westwind and then started a mad race to see who could reach the smiling pool first. There they found great-grandfather Frog sitting on his big green lily pad as usual. He was very contented with the world was grandfather Frog, for fat green flies had been more foolish than usual that morning, and already he had all that he could safely tuck inside his white and yellow escut. Good morning, grandfather Frog, shouted the Merry Little Breezes. Will you tell us why it is that Hootie the Owl never comes out to play with us on the Green Meadows? Chug a rum, said great-grandfather Frog gruffly. How should I know? You see, grandfather Frog likes to be teased a little. Oh, but you do know, for you are so old and so very wise, cried the Merry Little Breezes altogether. Grandfather Frog smiled, for he likes to be thought very wise, and also he was feeling very good, very good indeed that morning. Chug a rum, said grandfather Frog.  The Merry Little Breezes sighed, for it is the hardest thing in the world for them to keep perfectly still, unless they are asleep. But they promised that they would, and when they had settled down, each one in the heart of a great white water lily, grandfather Frog began. Once upon a time, when the world was young, Hootie the Owl's grandfather a thousand times removed used to fly about in daylight with the other birds. He was very big and very strong and very fierce was Mr. Owl. He had great big claws and a hooked bill just as Hootie the Owl has now, and he was afraid of nothing and nobody. Now when people are very big and very strong and afraid of nothing and nobody, they are very apt to care for nothing and nobody but themselves. So it was with Mr. Owl. Whatever he saw that he wanted, he took, no matter to whom it belonged, for there was no one to stop him. As I have already told you, Mr. Owl was very big and very strong and very fierce, and he was a very great glutton. It took a great many little birds and little animals to satisfy his appetite, but he didn't stop there. No, sir, he didn't stop there.  Every day he grew more savage. Finally no one smaller than himself dared stir on the green meadows when he was around. The little birds no longer sang. The field mice children no longer played among the meadow grasses. Those were sad days, very sad days indeed on the green meadows, said grandfather Frog with a sigh. At last old mother Nature came to visit the green meadows, and she soon saw what a terrible state things were in. No one came to meet her, for you see no one dared to show himself for fear of fierce old Mr. Owl. Now I have told you that Mr. Owl was afraid of nothing and nobody, but this is not quite true, for he was afraid, very much afraid, of old mother Nature. When he saw her coming he was sitting on top of a tall dead stump, and he at once tried to look very meek and very innocent. Old mother Nature wasted no time. Where are all my little meadow people and why did they not come to give me greeting, demanded old mother Nature, of Mr. Owl. Mr. Owl bowed very low. I'm sure I don't know, I think they must all be taking a nap, said he. Now you can't fool old mother Nature, and it's of no use to try.  She just looked at Mr. Owl, and she looked at the feathers and fur scattered about the foot of the dead stump. Mr. Owl stood first on one foot, and then on the other. He tried to look old mother Nature in the face, but he couldn't. You see, Mr. Owl had a guilty conscience, and a guilty conscience never looks anyone straight in the face. He did wish that mother Nature would say something did Mr. Owl, but she didn't. She just looked and looked and looked and looked straight at Mr. Owl. The longer she looked, the uneasier he got, and the faster he shifted from one foot to the other. Finally, he shifted so fast that he seemed to be dancing on top of the old stump.  With old mother Nature there, they felt sure that no harm could come to them. Then they began to laugh at the funny side of fierce old Mr. Owl, hopping from one foot to the other, on top of the old dead stump. It was the first laugh on the green meadows for a long, long, long time. Of course Mr. Owl saw them laughing at him, but he could think of nothing but the sharp eyes of old mother Nature boring straight through him, and he danced faster than ever. The faster he danced, the funnier he looked, and the funnier he looked, the harder the little meadow people laughed. Finally, old mother Nature slowly raised a hand and pointed a long forefinger at Mr. Owl.  From now on your eyes shall become so tender that they cannot stand the light of day, so that hereafter you shall fly about, only after round, red Mr. Sun has gone to bed behind the purple hills. No more shall my little people who play on the green meadows all the day long have caused to fear you, for no more shall you see to do them harm. When she ceased speaking, all the little meadow people gave a great shout, for they knew that it would be even as Mother Nature had said. Then began such a frolic as the green meadows had not known for many a long day. But Mr. Owl flew slowly and with difficulty over to the darkest part of the deep wood, for the light hurt his eyes dreadfully, and he could hardly see. And as he flew, the little birds flew around him in a great cloud and plucked out his feathers and tormented him, for he could not see to harm them. Grandfather Frog paused and looked dreamily across the smiling pool.  One more foolish green fly had disappeared inside the white and yellow wesket. Chug a rum, said Grandfather Frog. Those were sad days, sad days indeed, for Mr. Owl. He couldn't hunt for his meals by day for the light to blinded him. At night he could see but little in the darkness, so he got little to eat and he grew thinner and thinner and thinner, until he was but a shadow of his former self. He was always hungry, was Mr. Owl, always hungry. No one was afraid of him now, for it was the easiest thing in the world to keep out of his way. At last, Old Mother Nature came again to visit the green meadows and the green forest. Far, far in the darkest part of the deep wood she found Mr. Owl. When she saw how very thin and how very, very miserable he was, her heart was moved to pity, for Old Mother Nature loves all her subjects, even the worst of them. All the fierceness was gone from Mr. Owl. He was so weak that he just sat huddled in the thickest part of the great pine. You see, he had been able to catch very little to eat. Mr. Owl, said Old Mother Nature, gently, you now know something of the misery and the suffering which you have caused others, and I think you have been punished enough. No more may you fly abroad over the green meadows while the day is bright, for still is the fear of you in the hearts of all my little meadow people. But hereafter you shall not find it so difficult to get enough to eat.  Your ears shall grow large, larger than the ears of any of the little forest or meadow people, so that you can hear the very least sound.  And from that day it was even so. Mr. Owl's eyes grew big and bigger until he could see as well in the dusk as he used to see in the full light of day. His ears grew large and larger until his hearing became so keen that he could hear the least rustle even at a long distance. And when he flew he made no sound but floated like a great shadow. The little meadow people no longer feared him by day, but when the shadows began to creep out from the purple hills each night and they heard his voice, they felt all the old fear of him. If they were wise they did not stir, but if they were foolish and so much as shivered Mr. Owl was sure to hear them and silently pounce upon them. So once more Mr. Owl grew strong and fierce, but only at night had anyone call us to fear him, and then only the foolish and timid.  Thank you, thank you grandfather frog, crowd the merry little breezes, springing up from the white water lilies and stretching themselves. We'll bring you the first foolish green fly we can find. Then away they rushed to hunt for it. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Mother Westwind's Children This Librivox recording is in the public domain recorded by Laurie Ann Walden Mother Westwind's Children by Thornton W. Burgess Chapter 15 Danny Meadowmouse Learns to Laugh Danny Meadowmouse sat on his doorstep and sulked. The merry little breezes of old Mother Westwind ran past one after another and pointing their fingers at him, cried, Fie Danny Meadowmouse, better go inside the house.  Pretty soon, along the lone little path, came Peter Rabbit. Peter Rabbit looked at Danny Meadowmouse.  Cry, Danny, cry. Danny Meadowmouse began to snivel. He cried softly to himself as Peter Rabbit hopped off down the lone little path. Soon along came Ready Fox, he saw Danny Meadowmouse sitting on his doorstep crying all by himself.   Boo! cried Ready Fox. It frightened Danny Meadowmouse. He jumped almost out of his skin and ran into the house crying at the top of his voice. Ha, ha, ha! laughed Ready Fox. Danny, Danny, crying Dan, boo-hoo-hoo'd and off he ran. Then Ready Fox chased his tail all the way down the lone little path onto the green meadows. By and by Danny Meadowmouse came out again and sat on his doorstep. He had stopped crying but he looked very unhappy and cross and sulky.  Come play with me, called Danny Meadowmouse.  Don't want to, said striped chipmunk, sticking his tongue in his cheek. Cry, baby Danny, never will be a manny. Run to Mama, Danny dear, and she will wipe away your tear. Striped chipmunk hopped and skipped out of sight and Danny Meadowmouse began to cry again because striped chipmunk would not play with him. It was true, dreadfully true. Danny Meadowmouse was a cry baby and no one wanted to play with him. If he stubbed his toe, he cried. If striped chipmunk beat him in a race, he cried. If the merry little breezes pulled his whiskers just in fun, he cried. It had come to such a pass that all the little Meadowpeople delighted to tease him just to make him cry. Nowhere on all the green Meadows was there such a cry baby as Danny Meadowmouse. So Danny sat on his doorstep and cried because no one would play with him and he was lonely. The more he thought how lonely he was, the more he cried. Presently along came old Mr. Toad. Now Mr. Toad looks very grumpy and out of sorts, but that is because you do not know old Mr. Toad. When he reached the house of Danny Meadowmouse, he stopped right in front of Danny. He put his right hand behind his right ear and listened. Then he put his left hand behind his left ear and listened some more. Finally he put both hands on his hips and began to laugh. Now Mr. Toad's mouth is very big indeed and when he opens it to laugh, he opens it very wide indeed.  By and by Danny Meadowmouse stopped crying long enough to say to Mr. Toad, What are you laughing for Mr. Toad? Mr. Toad stopped laughing long enough to reply. I'm laughing Danny Meadowmouse because you are crying at me. What are you crying for? I'm crying said Danny Meadowmouse because you are laughing at me.  What's all this about? Demanded someone right behind them. It was Jimmy Skunk. It's a new kind of game, said old Mr. Toad. Danny Meadowmouse is trying to see if he can cry longer than I can laugh.  Jimmy Skunk looked at him for just a minute and he looked so funny that Jimmy Skunk began to laugh too. Now a good honest laugh is like hooping cough. It is catching. The first thing Danny Meadowmouse knew his tears would not come. It's a fact Danny Meadowmouse had run short of tears. The next thing he knew he wasn't crying at all. He was laughing. Yes sir he actually was laughing. He tried to cry but it was of no use at all. He just had to laugh. The more he laughed the harder old Mr. Toad laughed. And the harder Mr. Toad laughed the funnier he looked. Pretty soon all three of them Danny Meadowmouse, old Mr. Toad and Jimmy Skunk were holding their sides and rolling over and over in the grass. They were laughing so hard. By and by Mr. Toad stopped laughing. Dear me, dear me, this will never do. Said Mr. Toad. I must get busy in my garden.  So if you'll excuse me I'll hurry along to get them out of my garden. Mr. Toad started down the lone little path. After a few hops he paused and turned around. Danny Meadowmouse, said old Mr. Toad, an honest laugh is like sunshine. It brightens the whole world. Don't forget it. Jimmy Skunk remembered that he had started out to find some beetles so still chuckling he started for the crooked little path up the hill. Danny Meadowmouse, once more alone, sat down on his doorstep. His sides were sore he had laughed so hard and somehow the whole world had changed. The grass seemed greener than he had ever seen it before. The sunshine was brighter and the songs of the birds were sweeter. Altogether it was a very nice world a very nice world indeed to live in. Somehow he felt as if he never wanted to cry again. Pretty soon along came the merry little breezes again chasing butterflies.  For just a little minute Danny Meadowmouse wanted to cry. Then he remembered old Mr. Toad and instead began to laugh. The merry little breezes didn't know just what to make of it. They stopped chasing butterflies and crowded around Danny Meadowmouse. They began to tease him. They pulled his whiskers and rumbled his hair. The more they teased the more Danny Meadowmouse laughed. When they found that Danny Meadowmouse really wasn't going to cry they stopped teasing and invited him to come play with them in the long meadow grass. Such a good frolic as they did have. When it was over Danny Meadowmouse once more sat down on his doorstep to rest. Hopping and skipping back up the lone middle path came Stripe Chipmunk. When he saw Danny Meadowmouse he stuck his tongue in his cheek and cried.  Instead of crying Danny Meadowmouse began to laugh. Stripe Chipmunk stopped and took his tongue out of his cheek. Then he began to laugh too. Do you want me to play with you? Asked Stripe Chipmunk suddenly. Of course Danny did. And soon they were having the merriest kind of a game of hide and seek. Right in the midst of it Danny Meadowmouse caught his left foot in a root and twisted his ankle. My how it did hurt. In spite of himself tears did come into his eyes but he winked them back and bravely began to laugh.  And all the time Danny Meadowmouse laughed until pretty soon he forgot that his foot ached at all. When Peter Rabbit came jumping along up the lone little path he began to shout as soon as he saw Danny Meadowmouse.  Then we'll all come round to see how big a baby you can be. Cry Danny cry. But Danny didn't cry. Mine no. He laughed instead. Peter Rabbit was so surprised that he stopped to see what had come over Danny Meadowmouse. When he saw the bandaged foot and heard how Danny had twisted his ankle Peter Rabbit sat right down on the doorstep beside Danny Meadowmouse and told him how sorry he was. For happy go lucky Peter Rabbit is very tender hearted. Then he told Danny all about the wonderful things he had seen in his travels and of all the scrapes he had gotten into. When Peter Rabbit finally started off home Danny Meadowmouse still sat on his doorstep but no longer was he lonely. He watched Old Mother Westwind trying to gather her merry little breezes into her big bag to take to their home behind the purple hills. And he laughed right out when he saw her catch the last mischievous little breeze and tumble him heels overhead in with the others. Old Mr. Toad was right just exactly right thought Danny Meadowmouse as he rocked to and fro on his doorstep. It is much better oh very much better to laugh than to cry. And since that day when Danny Meadowmouse learned to laugh no one has had a chance to point a finger at him and call him a cry baby. Instead everyone has learned to love merry little Danny Meadowmouse and now they call him Laughing Dan. End of Chapter 15 End of Mother Westwind's Children by Thornton W. Burgess


Now, we will discuss the second type of communication strategies, that is compensatory strategies. We have already discussed avoidance strategies and now we are going to discuss compensatory strategies. These both types avoidance and compensatory, they are a part of communication strategies. Compensation strategies are communication strategies used by learners to compensate for limitations in their language, compensate for these strategies actually enable learners to fill in the gap or how to cope up for the missing information, missing knowledge that is there when they are using language for the purpose of communication. We have seen that avoidance is one type of strategy where in terms of feeling problems with regard to syntactic, phonological, lexical or some complexity in a topic which actually provides a communicator or a person who is communicating second language to come up with different ways to solve the communication problems and keep on avoiding or use avoidance as a strategy. Now we have compensation strategy where if some information is missing or deficit of information is there when you are using a language for communication then you follow certain strategies which compensate for the deficit or the lack of information that is there. So, it is more like bridging the gap or filling in with the help of these strategies you sort of fill in those areas with certain techniques. Different kinds of learners have preferences for different kinds of learning strategies. So again, there are multiple ways, multiple strategies through which different learners can benefit and can have smooth communication or you can say communication with this which is an effective communication. Now broadly there are 11 compensation strategies that a learner can use to overcome the communication problem. So, let's discuss each one of them separately.  So number one is circumlocution that means describing or exemplifying the target object of action. For example, the thing you open bottles for cockscrew so exemplifying or you can say you use a phrase that moves around an idea with multiple words when maybe fewer words can be used to describe the idea so your phrase actually runs in a circle. Now this is one strategy where you feel if you do not have the information you use that as a compensatory strategy. Then you have use of all purpose words that is extending a general empty lexical item to context where specific words are lacking for example the overuse of thing stuff what do you call it thingy so you have basically use of all purpose words and they are basically empty lexical item to context. Then we have foreignizing. Now foreignizing is also a compensatory strategy which means using first language word by adjusting it to second language phonology with the second language pronunciation and or morphology which means adding to it a second language suffix so second language suffix is used then we have approximate approximation now approximation means using an alternative term which expresses the meaning of the target lexical item as closely as possible so using a term which actually conveys or meaning which is quite close or you can say as closely as possible to the target lexical item such as ship for sailboat. Then we have non-linguistic signals now non-linguistic signals include mind gesture facial expressions or sound imitation then we have word coinage that is creating a non-existing L2 second language word based on a supposed rule for example to give you an example in our context Pakistani context you would coin a word and you would say bouquet instead of books bouquet or email so that is a creating of a non-existing L2 word. Then we have code switching this is another strategy which is used the reason that this is used it's more like switching code which basically means using a first language word with first language pronunciation or a third language word with third language pronunciation while speaking second language. Then we have prefabricated patterns that is using memorized phrases which are basically used for tourist survival where you have just can you help me please tell me the name of the road or they are just memorized stock phrases so these these are also fabricated pattern that are used as compensatory strategy. Then we have literal translation that is translating literally a lexical item idiom compound word or structure from first language to second language. Then we have stalling or time-gaining strategy now this strategy means using fillers or hesitation devices to fill pauses and to gain time to think for example well now let's see as a matter of fact etc we also have appeal for help as a compensatory strategy that means asking for some assistance or aid from the interlocutor either directly such as what do you mean or indirectly rising intonation pause eye contact puzzled expression. So these are the compensatory strategies that we have just explained to conclude compensatory strategies is a type of communication strategies which learner uses in order to compensate limitation in learner's language.


Do you want to learn how to trade stocks and cryptocurrency? Join our community of traders, go to richpakesdaily.com and find the next 10-Bagger. How are you doing today? I'm your host Rich, and we have Rich TV Live with our very special guest, David Carbell, the CEO of Ritual Superfoods. How are you doing today, David? I'm doing great, Rich. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Excited to have you back on the show. And I've got some questions for you. Can you please remind our viewers which retailers and e-commerce platforms you are partnering up with for the launch of Ritual Products? Sure. Thanks for asking. So our first retailer, brick-and-mortar retailer, was Rite Aid. And we're really proud of that. We're rolling this product out still, and we'll be moving to coast to coast with them as we speak. So well over 2,000 stores, and I'm grateful and humbled by that. Excited by CVS, which is our second retailer, the health hub concept, which really puts everything in perspective for us. And we'll chat about that. So 3,500 stores as of the end of August. And yeah, we feel real good as to where we are. As far as e-commerce platforms, our own site. Some well foods, which is a smaller site that deals in wholesale to mom and pop and neighborhood supermarkets. And then Amazon will be live in two weeks with our own site there, too. So all the right places, all the right people, and all the right vehicles. Oh, excited about that. Amazon in two weeks, that's going to be huge. How large are CVS and Rite Aid as retailers, David? Yeah. So Rite Aid has collectively 2,400 stores nationwide. And we're in about 2,100 of those locations. CVS has 10,000 stores, but we're going to be rolling out into 1,500 of them. We're well on our way there now, but over the next four to six weeks, we'll be in all 1,500 of these health hub locations. Let's talk a little bit more about CVS health hubs as Ritual is rolling out to health hub locations nationwide in the US. Can you tell us a little bit more about what they're all about? Sure. And it's funny, Rich, I've been calling CVS for 30 years. So I knew them when, you know, my cell phone ring is still Erica to cell 401, which is Rhode Island where they headquartered. Right. About a couple of years ago, they decided, CVS decided they wanted to really interact. This is pre-pandemic, went to interact and make an easier shopping experience for those consumers that want alternatives. They're certainly a chain, a pharmacy chain, and they do a lot with prescriptions, but they recognize that folks are looking for alternatives. So they created this model called health hub with a consumer in mind. It's an easily shoppable experience. It's lower aisles. It's different lighting internally, but it's really focused on that natural and wellness opportunity. For an example, you know, our Rishi is in the comfort and relax section within their stores. Think about that for a second. So what we do is, you know, we've come out with Rishi and it is a relaxation. It's enabling people to deal with stress. CVS health hub has actually put an aisle together for comfort and relaxation for their consumers. So now if you walk into the store instead of, you know, stumbling about trying to find something, you've got these subsections that they've created within this health hub environment. So we're really pleased because it really teased us up well in terms of that consumer to find what they're looking for. And I think this is a concept that is terrific. Last point on this health hub, you know, we had to go through a rigorous third party testing test to be trusted. It's a CVS program through a third party laboratory. So our items, our entire line went through their testing process to enable us to sell to these health hubs. And we passed tests, fine colors, I may add. And we feel great about that. But it all works in concert with one another. CVS is buying better quality product. Health hub is leading the way. And it's really the innovation that they bring to the party. And Ritual is a great partner with them. That's great. We've had a great launch so far this year. Very excited about Ritual Superfoods. Our community is very excited. And a lot of members are positioning themselves in the company. What are you most excited about for the second half of the year? No, it's A, seeing the product on shelf, which I've seen. I do my store tours around Texas here. And that's really cool. It gets me excited. But it's just the continual flow of feedback we're getting from our retailers in particular. And the flow of information is this is exactly the right place, the right time, you know, the stresses of the past year and a half are real. And everyone's gone through that to get a natural plant based organic product like Ritual Superfoods is really it's it's Reformation every day. And more and more retailers right now I've got a list and I I love to share and I'll be back to share of a dozen retailers, a dozen more, while I've already agreed to to list our products. Wow, that's incredible. That's exciting. I can't wait to see that list. Where do you expect most of your growth coming from next year? Yeah, and it's going to be a tie in. I think that Amazon is going to be a tremendous boon for us. Our own website certainly is is a great win for us. But the dot com platforms of these retailers is a hidden gem. You know, you look at our product is trending on ready.com right now. And this is the second time in two months is hit that plateau. I feel great about that. I think that our business at Amazon is going to be a huge business on it on its own. But I think it's going to be the new distribution. You know, we've just got so many backed up here now that have agreed to take us on. Just today, we announced that we were accepted into the organic and wellness show for Kroger, the largest supermarket in the country. Now, they've not agreed to list it yet. But very few manufacturers meet the criteria of that natural and urban space. Kroger sought us out, invited us to this platform in mid August will be face to face with them in different categories. So it's not just the health and wellness category. It's the beverage category. It's not just the beverage category. It's the coffee category. So there's lots of places and they have a plant based buyer. You talk about progressive retailer. You've got Kroger there that one of the first retailers I know that is dedicated a category manager just for plant based items. And when you start thinking about our organic, our holistic approach, really, it's limitless where we can go with this. I love it. Now we have investors from all over the world. A lot of them in Germany that love this company that have already reached out to me and said, Rich, we're really interested in ritual foods. Do you expect to enter into the European Union anytime soon? Yeah, we do. And we had, you know, it's funny, you and I chatted before we just announced that we were going to be part of this ECRM show in the European retailers. It's 17 retailers, 17 of them, all of them wanted to do some business. And they're all throughout your it's fascinating to me in the UK. So the answer is yes, a lot sooner than I even thought, but this phenomenon is just growing leaps and bounds. So we feel real good about that. Very good. Can you please summarize the milestones the company has set and hit in the short period of time that you've been public? Yeah, it's fun when we look back on it. And I one of these days I'll flip the screen and show you what I look at on my desk every morning is that in October before we were even public, we put milestones in of 2,400 stores and 10,000 points of distribution. And that was going to be our year one commitment to investors and to the community. Rich, right now today will be in 3,600 stores by the end of August and well over 12,000 points of distribution. But that's not even the most exciting part. We're going to be in 6,000 stores of this calendar year with over 20,000 points of distribution. That milestone means an awful lot for a lot of different reasons. It helps us achieve our revenue milestones. It helps the investors see the growth. It helps really tell the story of the broad masses are seeing what we're doing and believing in us. So I feel good every day. Again, I'll flip the screen one of these times and show you what I'm talking about. But every day I look at it because I take that seriously, not only for the people within our company, you and the community that you serve in your network, but every one of our investors here is owed that and I take that responsibility real seriously. It's fun to be me. Yeah, I bet. Well, it's fun to be me too and getting a chance to interview you. We started Rich TV Live four years ago with a mandate of identifying undervalued, underappreciated, underexposed companies and bringing them to investors and teaching investors how to win, how to profit, how to become profitable traders. These are the types of companies we love, tight float stocks, growing revenues, strong management team, growing sectors. You guys literally check up every single box. So congratulations on all your success so far. Congratulations on meeting and achieving and surpassing all those milestones. And I'm sure the next time we bring you on, you're going to have more big news, you're going to have more milestones, and you're going to have more success to talk about. So David, congratulations on all your success so far and keep up all the great work. Thanks a lot, Rich. And my pleasure. Always a pleasure. Thank you guys for watching. If you guys like these videos, please smash the like button, comment down below, share the video everywhere, and subscribe for future updates. Now remember, Rich TV Live is strictly for information, education purposes. So please do your due diligence, do your research before you invest in anything we talk about or discuss here in Rich TV Live. Now in saying that, we do have a great track record of bringing you winners and bringing them first. We did bring Ritual Superfoods first. And I'm very excited to see you guys grow, hopefully all the way up to a senior exchange. And we're going to be here every step of the way. So thank you guys for watching. Thank you, David. Have a great day and keep up the great work. Thank you. Have a nice day, everybody. We'll talk to you soon.