Mr. Eckert's folk fable of a small boy who can talk to furred and feathered friends ["Incident at Hawk's Hill"] is part of an apocrypha that has intrigued chroniclers before Romulus met Remus. It is still intriguing if you are willing to check your skepticism at the prologue, and pad along behind a 6-year-old named Ben…. Ben's interlude concerns his life with a female badger. A natural historian …, Mr. Eckert makes this formidable beast seem appealing, without recourse to undue anthropomorphism. Ben is also a winsome protagonist—and the two make elemental music together.