Ep 15 · The Long Friend

Old Timber needs the spare lantern from the big old barn before the light goes — and the only two friends at the pond are Bongo, who is all hurry, and Shelly, who is all wait. Zippy, Fern, and Garingo wave the mismatched pair off; then it's just the quick one and the slow one, together, on a small quest down the winding path. About a bear cub who keeps charging ahead and a tortoise who keeps being right about the slow way round; about a mud-slick where Bongo's speed is exactly wrong and Shelly's care is exactly right, and a fallen reed-gate where Shelly's pace is exactly wrong and Bongo's strong arms are exactly right; about the plain hurt of feeling too-slow and too-much, said out loud at last; about great grey elephants who remember an old friend across many, many years and call out a special hello when they meet again. The friends come home, the others welcome them back, and Old Timber asks the two of them what they learned — then lands the lesson, and at the very end shares the line a wise king named Solomon wrote down about a friend who loves at all times. With Professor Hoot's Totally True Facts on the V-formation of geese — the most well-mannered traffic in the sky — and a Mudpuppy Minutes that gets friendship gloriously, confidently wrong.