LOUIE TAKES LESSONS OF THE WOODSFOLK
It was early in the morning when Louie woke up and began to rub his
eyes. Where was he? What were those little cheepy sounds all around
him and that rustling and pattering--yes, and splashing? He remembered
that splashing; it was the last thing he heard the night before. Tad
Coon had been splattering and scrubbing in Doctor Muskrat’s pond.
That’s exactly where he was; down by Doctor Muskrat’s pond, with his
head pillowed on the grass at the edge of Doctor Muskrat’s flat stone.
The splashing wasn’t all Tad Coon’s; a little bit of it was the swish
of Doctor Muskrat diving in head first when Louie stretched his arm.
He dove in such a hurry that he left a nice newly dug sweetflag root
behind him.
Louie opened his eyes, and then he lay very, very quiet. For all the
Woodsfolk were out getting their breakfasts; they weren’t paying the
least attention to him. He never knew there were so many of them.
Chatter Squirrel ran down a tree and nibbled the edge of a mushroom.
Three little mice ran down to drink; one gnawed the head of a bulrush
Doctor Muskrat had cut down, and another shinned up a leaning grass
stem and ate its seeds. Bob White Quail’s whole family came strolling
by, dear little bright-eyed, striped brown puffballs, just beginning
to have wing feathers. One of Stripes Skunk’s children jumped right
over his feet; he was chasing a grasshopper. Nibble Rabbit’s bunnies
were mostly chasing each other. They kicked up their furry heels and
flicked their tufty little tails at each other, playing hide and seek
in and out of some burdock leaves. Fat Tad Coon was making a happy
whiny little song through his nose while he scrubbed another frog
before eating it. And all the little birds would perk up their heads,
give a touch or two to their feathers, and fly down to spatter in the
pond and wet their whistles, maybe snatch a bug or a worm, before they
began their morning song. By the time they were all wide awake Louie’s
head was ringing with the racket. But he didn’t want them to stop--no,
indeed, he just wanted to sing with them.
[Illustration: When Louie opened his eyes, all the woodsfolk were out
getting their breakfasts.]
He was very careful about getting up because he didn’t want to scare
any of them. He sneaked down to wash, because everybody else was doing
it, you know. First thing he knew he felt so happy he was whistling.
Chaik the Jay shouted “Hey!” at him. And he just shouted back, “Hey
yourself!” Because by then he knew Chaik was just making fun of him.
Why, he was one of them; couldn’t he just make as much noise and have
as much fun?
Yes, and have something to eat, too. He didn’t want a mushroom, like
Chatter, because mushrooms sometimes give little boys worse pains
inside them than the potato plants gave the foolish mice. He didn’t
want a grasshopper, or a seed, like the quail, or a plantain leaf,
like a bunny, or a frog or a bug or a worm. But there was that root of
Doctor Muskrat’s. He smelled it--just like the wild things do. He
tasted it. Then he ate it. Yum-m-m! It tasted like more.
The rest of the Woodsfolk didn’t pay any attention to Louie, but old
Doctor Muskrat kept swimming round, wondering what had become of the
root; he never dreamed that little boy would eat it.
Louie watched him for quite a while before he thought about it
himself. Then he said: “You poor old rat. Never mind, I’ll pay you
back.” And he waded right in among the cattails, scaring ’bout a dozen
turtles who were sitting on a log, and grubbed up another root that
had the same kind of leaves on it. He put that one on the stone where
he’d found the one he ate.
Doctor Muskrat just blinked in surprise. He came out and sniffed it.
He tasted it. “Why, that boy’s awfully clever. He’s found the right
one first thing,” said he to himself. “Wonder if he could do it
again?” So this time he went after another kind of a root.
Louie came up close and looked at it. Then he hunted and hunted until
he found the kind of a plant it grew on. It was a big juicy mallow,
the kind the doctor gave Nibble Rabbit that very first day when he
found the little bunny in his cattails. You know how good that was! He
laid it out on the flat stone and waited for Doctor Muskrat to taste
it so he’d be sure it was the right one.
Wasn’t Doctor Muskrat pleased? Just wasn’t he! He called: “Tad, Tad
Coon. This is the smartest boy I ever saw. He’s learning faster than
any youngster I ever taught. If he doesn’t take to hunting us, these
woods and fields will be just like Mother Nature made the world in the
First-Off Beginning of Things.”
“O-ho!” said Tad, waddling over to see what was going on. “We’ll just
have to show him what’s right and what isn’t--like we showed Stripes
Skunk. I don’t believe he knows a bit more about it. I don’t guess he
ever meant to be bad.”
“Yes,” agreed Doctor Muskrat, “but we mustn’t show him all our secrets
right away; he might get caught again. I don’t want him carrying any
tales back to that man he lived with. He knows enough already.”
Just then they pricked up their ears. Clump, clump, clump, came
Louie’s father down the lane. Louie pricked up his ears, too. He knew
his father would be angry because he had to drive up the cows himself.
He knew what his father would do if he caught his little runaway son.
Down he dropped on his hands and knees and crawled up the widest
tunnel where Tad Coon creeps into Nibble Rabbit’s Pickery Things. He
hid right in the very spot where Nibble hid the Red Cow’s bad baby.
And his father couldn’t find hide nor hair of any one.
Tad chuckled to Doctor Muskrat: “He isn’t going to get caught again.”
And Louie didn’t, either. It was fun down by Doctor Muskrat’s pond,
even if you were only a little boy instead of a furry wild thing--or a
feathery one. When the sun grew warm, all the furry folk found
themselves nice cool nests and went back to snooze again. Even the
birds were quiet.
Louie wasn’t quite as comfortable as the rest because he didn’t have
any fur--his legs were bare, and the mosquitoes bothered him--and he
didn’t have any dark hole where he could crawl in and hide from them.
But he was pretty smart, all the same. He didn’t try to hide in the
bushes because all the little bugs who were taking their naps on the
under side of the leaves woke up and buzzed around him. He lay out
under Tad Coon’s tree, where the wind blew them right past, and
covered himself with some nice flat branches after he’d shaken the
bugs out of them. That certainly amused Tad Coon.
Miau the Catbird, who wears a gray coat and makes a noise like a
week-old kitten, when he doesn’t sing, came and peeked at him. He
raised that little black patch on his head, just as though he were
lifting his hat to Louie. It looked as if he were a very polite little
bird trying to say “Good morning.”
My, but didn’t he flutter when Louie answered, “Good morning,
yourself, Mr. Bird!” But the little boy said it in such a nice voice
Miau couldn’t stay scared, so he chirped back.
“Is that the way you say it?” giggled Louie, and he tried to talk
exactly like him. He didn’t talk bird talk well at all. You ought to
have heard Miau squawk, because he thought it was funny. And Louie
squawked, too, so a couple of blackbirds with bright scarlet patches
on their shoulders came over to see what was going on. So did Bobby
Robin, and Chip Sparrow, who is one of Chirp Sparrow’s wild cousins,
not nearly so big or dressed up, but with a lovely song, and a
gorgeous black and orange oriole. A fine noise they were making.
But right in the middle of all their fun Louie heard another noise. It
was his mother calling him. Her voice wasn’t happy, like those noisy
birds, but very sad and lonely. Louie jumped up and ran as fast as
ever he could to answer her.
“Oh, Louie, Louie! Your father said you weren’t here, but I sort of
knew where I’d find you,” she cried when she had kissed him. “You
mustn’t run away from me! I’ve been so afraid something would happen
to you!”
“It did,” laughed Louie; “lots of things.” And he told her all about
how nice all the Woodsfolk had been, and how the birds were teaching
him bird talk. And where he got his breakfast--just everything. But
she said, “Come home, and I’ll give you a better breakfast than that
muskrat has in his whole pond.”
Do you know, Doctor Muskrat was really disappointed when he saw Louie
Thomson go trotting up the lane beside his mother. “It’s too bad,”
said he. “That boy of yours was learning very fast, Tad Coon. If he’d
stayed down here by the pond just a little while longer he’d have been
as wild as any of us.” You see the Woodsfolk wanted to have a nice
wild boy to play with just as much as Louie ever wanted a nice tame
coon.
Tad Coon’s own ears were drooping. “Maybe he was hungry,” Tad guessed.
“Maybe we didn’t have the right things to feed him.” He knew what that
was, because he’d been so hungry himself when he was shut up in
Louie’s cage.
“Nonsense!” sniffed Doctor Muskrat. “If he’d only wait until Tommy
Peele could teach him his way of fishing, he’d have had all he
wanted.” You see, muskrats can eat their fish without taking the
trouble to cook them.
Tad sighed. He was really just as disappointed as the doctor. A little
boy was such fun; he did such queer things--he was as much fun for Tad
Coon as Tad was for him. “That was his mother,” he said at last.
“Maybe he was too little to leave her, like Nibble Rabbit’s bunny. He
isn’t anywhere near full grown. All the same, I don’t think she takes
very good care of him.” He was thinking that when Louie’s father
struck him with the broom, his mother never did anything to stop him.
I guess Louie’s father would have been pretty s’prised to know Tad
thought he was trying to kill his very own little son. He didn’t mean
to hurt Louie--he just thought that Louie ought to obey him like Watch
the Dog obeyed Tommy Peele. Watch wanted awfully to fight with Tad
Coon because of what Tad did to Trailer the Hound, but Tommy just
wouldn’t let him. Louie wanted to take some corn for his coon, and he
just went ahead and took it anyway, even if his father forbade him.
Watch knew you ought to obey, but even he couldn’t have explained to
Tad Coon about it. Louie knew, deep down inside, but he didn’t want to
believe it. He was still angry.
Tad Coon thought and thought. By and by he said, “Maybe our boy’s
mother knows what’s best for him. They mostly do. Maybe he couldn’t go
wild. He hasn’t a lick of fur to his skin. What would he do in the
winter time? Bury himself in the mud like a frog? Eh?”
“Find himself one of those little trees of skin, like the red men
Stripes Skunk told us about,” answered the doctor. “Stripes might
remember where they got them.” He meant the skin tents the Indians
used and he didn’t know that they had to kill great big buffaloes and
tan their skins; he thought they just hunted for them like Tad hunts
for a hollow tree to sleep in.
“I’m afraid they’re all gone, like those red men,” said Tad. “None of
us have ever seen one.” And he was sort of lonesome till the middle of
the afternoon, when who should come trotting back to the pond but
Louie! And Tad was just as glad to see him as Louie had been to find
Tad had come back to his old cage again.