John Breck

“ For the first thing every mother rabbit teaches the fluffy bunny babies, as soon as they open their eyes, is to run from anything that has the strange and scary scent of the Things-from-under-the-Earth, whether they wear scales or fur. Snakes have it just the same as Stripes the Skunk, or Slyfoot the Mink, or the weasel whom the Woodsfolk usually mean when they speak of the Killer. ”

“ He caught in the lower branches, and then he began—well, Tad Coon or Chatter Squirrel would never have called it climbing! It was scratch and scramble and grunt and whine, but he kept right on. And the higher he went the lower the sapling leaned. Down, down came Bob White till he lay on the ground. Nibble had hardly touched his teeth to that wicked wire when it let go its hold and Bob White was free. And just about then Stripes Skunk let go, too, and came tumbling down on top of them.
There lay Bob White, too weak to fly, his eyes closed, and his poor little thirsty beak half open. ”

“ When men make that red spot that’s all hot—like a buzzer’s tail, you know—come out of the end of a stick—that’s fire,” he explained.
“They do it to the bulrushes,” nodded the doctor. “The red spot gets bigger and bigger until everything’s red and then the hot things disappear.”
“Exactly. But men don’t always let it make everything red. They keep it in one place and use it to cook with. They’re cooking Grandpop.”
“Cooking?” echoed Nibble and Doctor Muskrat.
“Bare bones and broken biscuits!” sniffed Watch. “I can’t explain that to you any more than I can explain about the buzzers to Tommy Peele. ”

“ Trailer was trying to tell me. Coon, coon, coon!” he sang, sniffing around to find him.
“Lie still,” warned Doctor Muskrat, who was hiding with Tad in the Pickery Things.
“I can’t,” whimpered Tad. “This place is all right for a rabbit, but the pond is where I belong.” And with that he staggered to his feet and started for it. But right on the edge of the bank he stumbled. Down he rolled, paws over fur, with Nibble Rabbit and Doctor Muskrat scuttling after him.
“Look out!” barked Watch. “Let me get at him. He’ll fight like anything! They always do.” ”

“ Stripes answered slowly. “Being good is something even Mother Nature couldn’t give the First Skunk; he’d have to get it for himself. For the other things, I like being just the way we are. When I had to climb the tree to help Bob White Quail I’d have liked the handy-paws the First Skunk wanted. But that’s just because I’ve never practised climbing, like my little cousin Spotty. And handy-paws are no earthly good to dig with—you just ought to see these paddy-paws of mine make the dirt fly. ”

“ Doctor Muskrat’s little eyes twinkled. “Why do you run around the Pickery Things each evening and give a stamp at every tunnel?”
“So if any other rabbit comes he’ll know that the place belongs to me.”
“How will he know?” asked the doctor. “He mightn’t see you or hear you——”
“He’d smell me, of course!” Nibble’s eyes were big and round.
“He would. Now do you see why nearly every one wanted some way of leaving messages for other Woodsfolk while he went off to hide or feed? You don’t dare make a noise; you can’t wait too long for fear someone will see you ”

“ That’s why Watch has to take him all the way down here to the pond to show him these striped buzzers before he’ll understand who bit Trailer. But I don’t see why Watch can’t tell us what Tommy did to Grandpop Snapping Turtle. They certainly didn’t put an ugly thing like that in any cage.”
“There!” exclaimed Doctor Muskrat. “He can’t make us understand what he’s talking about because we Woodsfolk haven’t the words for things we’ve never seen. Those man-words Watch uses don’t mean anything to us. ”

“ But paddy-paws behind, where he wanted them, wouldn’t be half as nice as these good firm footy soles I stand on.
“I wouldn’t even give up my hairy tail. It’s heavy, but no one can bite it, and it’s wonderful to sleep in.” He whisked it into a billowy rug about his toes; then he finished contentedly, “I don’t mind Mother Nature making us so we can’t chase other folks, seeing that she gave us our scent so we’re not always being chased. She was perfectly fair.”
“Fair!” You ought to have seen Nibble turn his sniffy nose up at this. ”

“ They help each other if they can; if they can’t at least they learn about the danger to those precious nests of their own.
But when Bob White’s wife gave that horrified “Prr-whit!” that a quail’s ears can hear so far, her own husband did not come. The other birds might scatter all over the woods and fields calling anxiously, “Bob White, Bob White, Oh, Bob White!” but he did not answer.
Nibble was the only one who knew for sure who had taken the eggs. He didn’t tell on Stripes Skunk—not yet, for fear the little owls would hear of it. ”

“ He doesn’t have to. He wouldn’t face any one anywhere near his own size—he just turns around so you can’t find anything but the tip of his tail to chew on. And that’s all shaggy, slippery hairs, so you couldn’t possibly get a grip on it, and if you did he knows he could make you let go. He has this scent,” Tad sniffed disgustedly, “and it’s worse than any bite he could give because it shows all your enemies where you are.”
“But Watch was trying to follow Stripes, because he’s the killer of those poor little chicks up at the barn, and he could hardly trail him at all.” ”

“ It is!” Nibble cried. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Then Grandpop Snapping Turtle can’t live in one. He can’t eat unless he’s under water. Watch says Tommy’s cooking him. I don’t know what that means, either, but I can guess. Tommy eats him. There isn’t anything that hasn’t someone who eats it and no one else can eat Grandpop unless Tommy Peele does.”
“Maybe,” Nibble agreed; “but the real question is what will Tommy do to Tad Coon. Tad can’t run away, and Watch knows he’s here. If Tommy is very angry because Tad made those striped buzzers bite Trailer he’ll make Watch find him.” ”

“ But now he wasn’t really afraid of the smiling hound any more than he was of Watch.
Watch sat with his ears pricked and his nostrils twitching while he listened to the Hound’s Hunting Song. “Eh, but that’s grand!” he barked. “It puts the tickle into your feet to be up and running.” ”

“ Trailer just stumbled up to the house with his eyes bunged shut and his nose as big as a soupbone, mumbling something about a coon as near as I can understand him. But no coon ever did anything like that to him.”
The doctor cocked his ears. “Can’t talk, can’t he? Poor fellow. Did you try what blue clay will do for him? I’ll get you some.”
Tad Coon needs Doctor Muskrat.
“Ok, he’ll be all right. His master Sandy’s working over him,” Watch answered. “But what did do it?”
“Those striped buzzers with hot spots in their tails. ”

“ Because Tad was down at Doctor Muskrat’s Pond waiting for him, to know if Tommy Peele believed him. How could Nibble say, “Well, we’re pretty sure you told the truth, but we can’t find any one else to lay it to. The real killer must be too smart for us.” So he just crept into the Brushpile beneath the two little owls, asleep like two small knots on their limb.
They slept late, for they had feasted on those chicks that morning. It was almost dark before they stretched their wings and twiddled their stumpy tails. “Have you seen anything of Stripes?” ”

“ You remember, Nibble, how the sun and the wind and the rain didn’t take care of things the way she’d ordered them to, so winter came, and the plants hid in the earth and wouldn’t be eaten, and her very own new creatures got so terrible starvation hungry that some of them took to eating each other—like the wolves ate the cows. ”

“ I’d rather dig grubs from a rotten log, even if we haven’t any compact.” And Nibble knew he meant it.
But Watch didn’t. “A lot of good that would do!” he snarled.
“That’s just what the cows said about their compact with you dogs in the First-Off Beginning,” interrupted Doctor Muskrat in his sober voice. “But you did keep it. Tad Coon isn’t one of the Things-from-under-the-Earth that Mother Nature herself can’t trust. Let’s all make a compact. Why fight unless you have to?” ”

“ But so long as he does what he’s told, Tommy’ll feed him. We feed ourselves.”
“I see.” Nibble flicked his tail thoughtfully. “And we find our own holes and take care of ourselves and we like doing it.”
“Do we, indeed?” said a whiny, complainy voice from the bulrushes on the bank. “Is that dog gone?” It was Tad Coon. He came splashing out of the water and flopped down in the sun. Then he got very busy with his funny little paws. ”

“ Stripes demanded, his eyes opened very wide.
“A boy? Why, he’s a man’s kitten,” Nibble explained patiently. (Kittens are what Stripes calls his own young.) “This is his hunting ground. But he only hunts Bad Ones. We Woodsfolk aren’t afraid of him, and Doctor Muskrat is his special friend.”
“I must thank Doctor Muskrat,” exclaimed Stripes very eagerly. “I’d like to bring him a present—how about a nice fresh egg? I just found some here.”
And just then Bob White’s wife, over in the Quail’s Thicket, began to scream. “Prr-whit! My nest! Someone’s spoiled my beautiful eggs! ”

“ TAD COON’S TRICKS AND HIS TROUBLES
“I wonder why all the Tame Beasts have work to do or milk to give or eggs or whatever it happens to be?” Nibble Rabbit remarked. “We don’t What’s our job, Doctor Muskrat? Trailer says a Beast without a job isn’t worth feeding.”
“That’s just the point.” The doctor’s bright eyes were twinkling. “You silly rabbit! Do you think Trailer would be so nice and obedient to Watch and Tommy if he didn’t know the people up at the house would feed him? If he had to catch his breakfast or go hungry there wouldn’t be any bunny. He licked his lips every time he sniffed you. ”

“ And it wasn’t to blow the water out of his nose—it was to make Nibble look at him. Nibble did look. And Doctor Muskrat closed both of his eyes in a big wink. After that you can be pretty sure Nibble kept his eyes on that playful tail of Tad Coon.
Flick! it went. Swish! For Tad wasn’t thinking what he was doing. He had an idea for another joke. “Pop!” Up comes the ugly head of Grandpop Snapping Turtle, his beady eyes peering, his hissy mouth open. Snap! it went on the end of that playful tail. Jerk! And Tad Coon was bouncing up the bank, his fluffy breeches sticking straight out with fright. ”

“ Nibble was in a terrible temper. “Tried to lay all on poor Tad Coon, didn’t you? You’d better foot it if you want to save your skin. That dog will most certainly kill you.”
So off trudged Stripes with his head hanging. And Nibble hopped over to the Quail’s Thicket just in time to hear them asking each other, “Where’s Bob? Where IS Bob?”
CHAPTER X
STRIPES SKUNK BEGINS TO BE GOOD
You know quail live together in the winter but separate when they nest in the spring. They mostly settle near enough together so that when anything goes wrong the covey call can bring them all in. ”

“ It always does. It happened to Chatter Squirrel and Silvertip the Fox, and Mrs. Hooter, and the Red Cow——” Here he pricked up his ears, for Watch the Dog was barking at the other end of the pasture. And Watch had Tommy Peele and Tommy’s big cousin Sandy and Trailer the Hound with him. So he signalled Watch to hurry. Then he hurried back to hide in the Pickery Things where he could see what that happening was going to be. He was so curious he forgot all about Tad Coon. ”