If Tommy Peele wondered what Doctor Muskrat was doing up at the watering
trough just outside his barn door, he did a lot more wondering when he
stepped inside. For there, on top of the feed bin, with her fur all
puffed out and her tail as prickly as a caterpillar, perched the House
Cat. And beneath her, thumping very severely, with a fine wad of
pussycat fur in each of his hind toenails, sat Nibble Rabbit.
The cat was whining: “Aw, please let me go! I didn’t mean to. Honest I
thought it was a rat!”
Nibble gave his ears a big flop. “No, ma’am!” he was stating decidedly.
“You can’t fool me. A bunny doesn’t smell the least bit in the world
like any rat. You were trying to hunt my children. But you won’t mean to
next time. I know that. I only rolled you over, this time, just to show
you that a rabbit can fight. Next time----”
“Next time,” squawked Chirp Sparrow, who had his first nest robbed by
that very same Tabby Tiptoes; “next time he’ll set you spinning three
ways at once until your brains are as addled as a frosted egg.”
“Me-waur-r!” begged the poor pussy. “Please, Tommy Peele, let me out and
I’ll run back to the house. Truly I will.”
“I hope these wild things will teach you some manners,” said Tommy
Peele. “Whatever Nibble did to you is nothing to what you’ll get if you
try your tricks on Doctor Muskrat.” He carried her away down past the
gate so she wouldn’t meet him.
“Good Clover-leaves!” whispered Nibble in surprise, when he saw how
gently Tommy treated his enemy. “Do you s’pose he’ll be cross with me
for what I’ve done?”
“Don’t flutter yourself,” Chirp assured him. “Tommy never takes sides
between his friends. Though why he’s friends with that cat, when he
knows the things she does, is more than I can tell you. You’ll have to
ask Watch the Dog about it.”
Sure enough, when Tommy came back to the barn, he put out a handful of
feed for his rabbit, just as though there hadn’t been the least bit of
trouble. And his eyes didn’t open so very wide when Silk-ears and all
her bunnies began to pop out from under the mangers and inside the hay
and beneath the box he used for a milking-stool. And he didn’t have to
look at the dust on their whiskers to know they’d been dipping into the
cows’ breakfast. Some of the cows were telling him so.
But it doesn’t take much to start some folks sniffing and moaning. A
nice clean bunny-paw never spoiled the Red Cow’s appetite. And the White
Cow gave Tommy a nudge while he was milking her that said plain as
words: “Isn’t it fun to have Nibble with us again?”
Now Doctor Muskrat and Nibble Rabbit weren’t having any livelier time
than Stripes Skunk and his kittens were in the bottom of the haystack,
hunting the rats they found there.
A rat is pretty dangerous for a skunk kitten to hunt--as dangerous as
though a small boy went hunting bobcats--but it’s the skunk kitten’s
business to take chances, and it isn’t the small boy’s.
There aren’t very many rats in the woods; sometimes one goes sneaking
down the high grass beside a fence or snoops into a twiggy bush after
baby birds in nesting time; sometimes one picks up tadpoles when the
muddy ponds they hatched in begin to dry up; but mostly rats live very
close to men. (Why they do is a special secret I’ll tell you some winter
night.) So you see Stripes Skunk’s kittens hadn’t much chance to deal
with such big game. They were awfully proud and excited about it.
It didn’t take the rats in the haystack very long to find it was a very
poor place to be. They can eat hay--if they have to--but they can’t live
on it like a fieldmouse can. They got hungry. But every time one
ventured its whiskers out of a hole, Stripes Skunk’s kittens would
pounce on it. It didn’t matter how creepy-crawly quiet they were--a
kitten was sure to hear them. At last the wisest of them thought of a
plan.
“Greywhisker,” said he, “you take one hole, Brokentooth the next,
Scarfoot the next, and Eggeater the last. Each of you will scrabble
about inside his burrow as though he meant to run, the minute he is
quiet the one to the windy side of him must take his turn. That will
keep those striped beasts running round and round the stack. Every third
turn, run to the centre and all squeak as though you were fighting. That
will keep them interested. They won’t hear me make a brand-new hole, and
then we’ll plan how we can sneak out while they aren’t looking.”
Now do you know what that rat (his name was Snatch) meant to do? He
meant to keep them all busy while he dug that new hole for himself
and then sneak out without telling them. That’s rat for you! They
cheat each other just as much as they do anybody else! But the others
couldn’t think of any better plan, so they trusted him.
Only they made one mistake. The skunks weren’t running round and round
that haystack. They were sitting perfectly still, each one with his nose
at a hole. But one after another pricked up his ears as the rat
pretended to come out, and dropped them when he scuttled back again.
Wise old Papa Stripes was tiptoeing around finding all their trails so
if one did get by a kitten he’d know where it was likely to go. “Hm!” he
sniffed. “They’re playing a game, are they? We’ll just see who’s IT.”
Scrabble! Scratch! Squeak! went Brokentooth, Scarfoot, and Eggeater,
each in turn. Each time the kitten stationed outside his hole pricked up
its ears, and its wavy tail would tremble to the tip, and its claws
would catch for a leap. Dig and gnaw, gnaw and dig, went the selfish
Snatch, the cleverest rat of them all, making himself a new hole to
sneak out through. They were helping him, but he wasn’t going to help
them--not he.
Papa Stripes laid his head on one side and considered the case. Then a
sly smile raised his whiskers. Pit-pat, pit-pat, he marched round the
stack, whispering to each of his kittens in turn. “You see the slit in
the old elm tree?” he asked one. The kitten nodded. “Did you notice the
rat path under the chicken coop?” he asked the next. “Looks to me like a
rat hole under that corn crib, eh?” he asked the third. He didn’t give
any orders like “You do this,” or “You do that,” because he wanted the
kittens to think for themselves. But he did show them what to think
about.
Nip, slip, came Snatch, creeping out of the new hole he’d just made for
himself. Pounce! Stripes closed it up behind him. “Now, rat,” he
chuckled, “let’s see you run! And let’s see who catches you!”
“Wee-e-e-ak!” Snatch made for the slit in the elm. A kitten was there
before him. The chicken-coop, then? No! The corn crib! Was Tommy’s
barnyard all full of hunting skunks? A hole! A hole! He’d find one in
the barn--under the grain bin! He raced for the door, the kittens after
him, gaining at every bound, with their father ’most scared to death he
wouldn’t be on time to lend a tooth if they needed it.
That’s how Snatch came to dive right between Tommy’s tall rubber boots
as he stepped out the barn door with a milkpail in his hand. That’s how
the skunk kittens came to flash past before the milk he slopped over
could fall on them. “My land!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
As though he couldn’t see for himself.
They were all three scrimmaging with Snatch the Rat at the very mouth of
the rat hole. They never knew which of them killed him.
“Ee-e-e-yow!” squealed Stripes, prancing in his pride. “Isn’t that some
hunting!” Then back they all romped to catch those poor hungry fellows
in the haystack who thought Snatch was taking a mighty long time to make
their new hole for them.