I just tell you Chaik and Tad didn’t mind that rain. Tad Coon had a big,
dry cellar to hunt in and a fine supply of mice who came to nibble his
corn. Chaik Jay slept in his corner of the window sill in the kitchen
behind the curtain. It wasn’t quite so convenient as perching, for his
long claws got in his way, but he found the varnished back of a chair
too slippery; besides, he wanted to keep an eye on his raisins. Those
thieving mice once tried to steal them. He gave one of them a good peck;
it ran off squealing with one leg up, and after that they knew better
than to bother him.
When Louie’s father came padding in and began putting on his shoes that
he had left under the stove to dry the night before he danced and
flapped good morning. And wasn’t the man just flattered to death to have
a wild bird out of the woods as friendly as that?
When Chaik flapped he got more excited than ever. “My wing is well
again!” he squawked. “Yah! My wing is well again!” Then didn’t he have
some fun? He could fly over the stove and perch on the handle of the
teakettle while Mr. Thomson laid the fire for breakfast.
But all the man said was, “You think you own this house, don’t you?
Well, I dunno but you’re about right, you sassy thing!”
Chaik just answered, “Hey?” That’s all he said when Mr. Thomson opened
the door to go out and Chaik’s well wing brushed against his ear as he
slipped out beside him. “Now look what I’ve done,” said the man who
didn’t like Woodsfolk. “I s’pose that’s the last we’ll see of you.” And
he felt so lonesome as he watched Chaik go flitting off through the rain
that he remembered about bringing back something from the barn for Tad
Coon’s breakfast. He wanted Tad to stay.
But he needn’t have worried about never seeing Chaik Jay again. Chaik
knew when he was well off. He just wanted to take a good flippity-flap
with his well wing to be sure it worked right, and he was ’most afraid
to try it in the house for fear he’d hit something with it. My, but it
was fun to fly up high and come sliding down the air again; it was fun
even if it was still raining.
But he didn’t stay out in the rain long enough to get very wet. He went
over to the barn and poked around. He was a little scary at first about
going in the dark doorway, but after he’d been in there a little while
he just had to hunt up Tad Coon. Tad was so full of mice he was dozing
off to sleep in the cellar; he came out when he heard Chaik calling.
“Oh, Tad!” Chaik exclaimed, bobbing his head and flirting his tail
because he was too excited to keep still even while he was talking.
“This is a wonderful place. That big barn where the cows live is
perfectly safe for birds. Those swallows have left their nests all over
it, and they’re such scary fellows they wouldn’t stay a minute if
anything happened to one of them. I found a robin’s nest, too, a mud
one, but it’s round, not flat on one side like a swallow’s, and it’s too
big for a phoebe bird--I sat in it to see. (Tad Coon grinned at that.)
Besides, it hasn’t any cocoons or moss in it.”
“I thought you’d like the barn,” Tad nodded. “But where were you last
night? I couldn’t find you anywhere. And your supper is still in your
cage. Did you get anything to eat?”
“Did I get anything to eat? Why, these house-folks have more things
stored away to eat than all the Jays in the Deep Woods put together.
That trap where they keep the corn doesn’t catch me. I can walk in and
out any time I want to. (He meant the corn crib; the slats wouldn’t hold
him any more than they would a mouse.) And I found a knothole into the
biggest pile of wheat you ever dreamed about. (That was the grain room,
of course.) And there’s dusty stuff the cows are eating (meal and bran),
and some little wrinkly sweet wild grapes I hid in a special place. I’ll
give you a taste.” (He meant his raisins in the kitchen window.)
“I guess you had plenty to eat, all right enough,” remarked Tad, “but
you never told me where you slept.”
“Hey?” chuckled Chaik with his most mischievous air, “I wouldn’t dare;
you wouldn’t believe me. I’ll just have to show you. Come along.” And he
flapped right up to the kitchen window. Then wasn’t he the puzzled bird?
He could see Louie’s mother moving around inside, getting the breakfast.
He could see the raisins poked into the crack. But he couldn’t get in
there to get them. He walked all the way up the screen, fluttering and
scratching. Pretty soon he perched on the sill and began to think it
over.
“That’s the second time this has happened,” he said. “I hid a little
shiny hollow acorn last night, and then I couldn’t get it again. I knew
right where it was, too. Now I can see those little wrinkly grapes,
right where I put them, but I can’t get them either. It’s very queer.”
“You mean you were in the house?” gasped Tad. “Right up inside it, with
the traps shut?” (He meant with the doors closed; he hadn’t learned all
the proper house names for things yet.) “But that wasn’t safe. What if
that big man wanted to hit you like he did me and Louie?” Tad didn’t
quite trust him yet.
“He didn’t,” said Chaik. “He’s not a bit peckish, even if he does make
more noise than Watch the Dog when he barks.” (That was what Chaik
thought of Mr. Thomson’s laughing.) “Yeah! Hey!” he called suddenly
because he saw Louie.
Louie looked up. He was feeling quite scared because he didn’t see
anything of his bird--not even a little pile of feathers to show that the
cats had caught him. “Why, however did you get there?” he asked, and he
ran to open the window and shove up the screen.
In hopped Chaik. All his nice raisins had dropped out of the crack when
Louie opened the window for him, but he didn’t care. He just ate a few
himself and shoved a taste of them down to Tad. “That happened, too,” he
said thoughtfully as he gulped a raisin. “The minute I stopped worrying
about my acorn, one of the house-folks gave it to me. A house isn’t fixed
for birds. But it’s very interesting--and full of smells.” He turned his
beak toward the stove where Louie’s mother was frying bacon.
“Mmn! Mmn! Lovely ones,” sniffed Tad, twitching his nose around until he
made such funny faces Louie began to giggle at him. He could smell that
bacon right through the window.
Louie’s father came back from the barn carrying the milk pails all full
and frothing. He had more milk than usual that morning--he remembered
about that a long time afterward. He didn’t know it yet, but his luck
began to turn on that farm the very day he made friends with the
Woodsfolk. You’ll see.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” asked Louie in a very surprised voice. The
little boy could sleep right through all the racket of the alarm clock,
even if Chaik Jay couldn’t. His father almost always called him to help
with the milking.
“Oh, I just guessed you might as well sleep,” said his father. “You can
feed the calf if you’ve a mind to.” He knew Louie liked to do that. It
isn’t nearly as hard work either. “I kind of wish I had, though,” the
big man went on. “I let your bird out. He was over in the barn this
morning. Maybe we could catch him again, but I don’t know. He was flying
pretty strong.”
“Hey?” asked Chaik, before Louie could even answer. He half guessed they
would be talking about him--conceited thing!
“That was all right,” said the little boy. “I let him in again. He came
back, just like my coon.”
Louie’s father stared at Chaik, sitting on the window sill with the
window open behind him so he could go out and in. Then he peeked out and
saw Tad Coon down below with his nose all wiggling because he smelled
the bacon Louie’s mother was cooking. “Hm! Looks like we had company to
breakfast,” was all he said.
But it wasn’t all he did. He gave Chaik some nice crisp bacon crumbs--he
insisted it was just to see if the bird really would eat them. And
Louie’s mother caught him right in the act of slipping a good slice out
to Tad Coon. “Here,” she laughed, “there’s no need for you to feed that
fellow. I’m frying up some cracklings for him and the cats.” She made a
delicious mixture of odds and ends of bacon and bread and such things.
But when Louie went to carry it out, the poor cats climbed up on the
shelf in the shed and spat and whined because they hadn’t made any
compact with any coon. So they said. Really it was because they were
afraid of him.
Tad didn’t care. He wasn’t hungry, anyway. Only he liked the taste of
new things. He ate his share on the cellar steps. And the mice, who had
run away to hide because he was hunting them, all crept to the mouth of
the holes and sat there sniffing until their whiskers trembled.
“I say,” thought Louie Thomson to himself as he started off to school,
“I just must talk with Tommy Peele. He knows about the wild things.”
Only Louie wasn’t thinking about a wild thing, but about his father who
used to be crosser than Tad Coon in a cage.