In one way, especially, Fatty Coon and Dickie Deer Mouse were alike:
They were night-prowlers. When they slept it was usually broad daylight
outside, and the birds--except for a few odd fellows like Willie
Whip-poor-will and Mr. Night Hawk--were abroad, and singing, and
twittering. And when most of the birds went to sleep Dickie and Fatty
Coon began to feel quite wide awake.
It was not strange, therefore, that Dickie Deer Mouse was surprised when
he found himself face to face with Fatty Coon in the cornfield at
midday.
Dickie tried to slip out of sight under a pumpkin vine that grew between
the rows; but Fatty Coon saw him before he could hide. And Fatty began
to make the queerest noise, as if he were almost choking.
Dickie Deer Mouse stopped. And he trembled the least bit; for Fatty
looked terribly fierce. Perhaps (Dickie thought) he was choking with
rage.
"Can I help you?" Dickie asked him. "Would you like me to thump you on
the back?"
Fatty Coon shook his head. There was nothing the matter with him, except
that he had stuffed his mouth so full that he couldn't speak. After
swallowing several times he wiped his mouth on the back of his paw--a
habit of which his mother had never been able to break him. It was no
wonder that dainty Dickie Deer Mouse shuddered again, when Fatty did
that.
"May I go and get you a napkin?" Dickie asked, as he edged away.
"No!" Fatty Coon growled. "I've been wanting to have a talk with you.
And now that I've found you, you needn't run off."
Then, to Dickie's horror, Fatty stopped talking and licked both his
paws.
"May I get you a finger bowl?" Dickie inquired.
Fatty Coon actually didn't know what he meant.
"Is that something to eat?" he asked. And he looked much interested, and
seemed quite downcast when Dickie said "No!"
"Then you needn't trouble yourself," Fatty Coon told him with a sigh.
"Can't you find corn enough for a good meal?" Dickie asked him
wonderingly.
"I could," said Fatty Coon, "if other people didn't take so much of
it.... Now, there's Mr. Crow," he complained. "I had to get out of bed
and come over here to-day, in the sunlight, because I was afraid he
wouldn't leave any corn for me.
"There's no use saying anything to him," Fatty continued, "because he
thinks this is _his_ cornfield.... But little chaps like you will have
to keep away from this place.... Now I've warned you," he added. "And if
I hear of your eating any more corn I'll come straight to your
house--when I find out where it is--and I'll----"
He did not finish his threat. But he looked so darkly at Dickie that
what he _didn't_ say made Dickie Deer Mouse shiver all over, though the
warm midday sun fell upon the cornfield.
Now, Dickie Deer Mouse hadn't eaten a single kernel of corn all that
day. But he suddenly lost his appetite for it; and murmuring a faint
good-bye he turned and ran for the woods as fast as he could go.
"Stop! Stop!" Fatty Coon called after him. "There's something more I
want to say to you."
But whatever it may have been, Dickie Deer Mouse did not wait to hear
it.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]