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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f0fbfc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #64452 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64452) diff --git a/old/64452-0.txt b/old/64452-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f888c2d..0000000 --- a/old/64452-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2165 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bad Little Owls, by John Breck - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Bad Little Owls - -Author: John Breck - -Illustrator: William T. Andrews - -Release Date: February 02, 2021 [eBook #64452] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Roger Frank - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAD LITTLE OWLS *** -THE BAD LITTLE OWLS - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -Told at Twilight Stories - -By JOHN BRECK - - MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY - NIBBLE RABBIT MAKES MORE FRIENDS - THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX - THE COON’S TRICKS - THE WAVY TAILED WARRIOR - TAD COON’S GREAT ADVENTURE - THE BAD LITTLE OWLS - THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -[Illustration: The Bad Little Owls] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -Told at Twilight Stories - -THE BAD LITTLE OWLS - -by John Breck - -Book VII - -Illustrated by William T. Andrews - -Garden City--New York - -Doubleday, Page & Company - -1923 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN -LANGUAGES INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN - -COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS - -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, -GARDEN CITY, N. Y. - -First Edition - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -CONTENTS - - I. The Woodsfolk Learn the Rules about Fire - II. Chaik Jay Carries Bad News - III. Mrs. Owl Invites Killer the Weasel to the Woods and Fields - IV. Fur and Feathers Plan a Campaign - V. Killer the Weasel Makes a Plan Likewise - VI. A Plan to Foil the Enemy - VII. The Cleverness of Chaik Jay - VIII. Killer Finds the Pond Mighty Lonesome - IX. Trouble Comes Home to the Bad Little Owls - X. The Big Rain Puts an End to Evil Doings for a Time - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - The Bad Little Owls - - She lit above Killer’s head while he was busy eating the robin - - “When a fellow can smell he can see with his nose just who has - been there” - - The Doctor said Chaik Jay had had too much party - - “Run for your lives, everybody. Killer has come to the pond!” - - Chaik frightens the mice away, to save them from Killer the Weasel - - Chaik dropped from the tree and told Tad all about everything - - The Owl helps Killer find the stump where the mice live - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - -THE BAD LITTLE OWLS - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE WOODSFOLK LEARN THE RULES ABOUT FIRE - - -“Take to the water, quick!” shouted Doctor Muskrat. “Climb a tree!” -advised Chatter Squirrel, balancing on the tip end of a limb. And they -had the Woodsfolk so excited they didn’t know what to do. Most of them -couldn’t climb if they wanted to, and mighty few of them like to swim. -So those who were there tried to run away, and those who weren’t came -to see what was going on. Tommy Peele’s woods were just alive with -scuttling and fluttering. All because Louie Thomson had brought a -lantern to light his party with. He had brought all sorts of things to -eat, too, and he planned to sleep all night in the Woods and Fields, -in a tent made of one of his mother’s blankets. - -Of course Louie couldn’t think what was the matter with the Woodsfolk. -But Tommy Peele’s big furry dog, Watch, who was with him, knew well -enough. He sat there with his tongue out, laughing at them. - -When Tad Coon saw Watch laughing he got over being frightened, and -then he was curious. He waded out of the pond and came over to look at -the little sputtery flame dancing inside the lantern. Of course he -thought it was a bug. Most everything that hasn’t leaves or fur or -feathers is a bug to Tad Coon. Bugs do themselves up in very funny -packages sometimes before they’re all through hatching. He put out his -handy-paw to catch it. - -“Look out!” barked Watch. “Let it alone!” But he didn’t say it before -Tad had touched the glass with his little wet claw. Before he could -jerk it back the water began sizzling and he got a bit of a burn. “Ow, -ow!” howled poor Tad, dancing around with his paw in his mouth. “It’s -a buzzer with a hot tail.” (He meant a paper wasp.) “Ow, ow!” he -sobbed. “It bit me!” So that scared all the Woodsfolk all over again. - -Doctor Muskrat knew all about the fires that sometimes burn up the -marshes, but Tad didn’t, because he’s always gone to sleep for the -winter before they begin. Nibble Rabbit knew something about them, -because Watch tried to explain when he told what was happening to -Grandpop Snapping Turtle. (Tommy Peele’s mother was cooking him.) But -nobody ever dreamed Stripes Skunk would understand. - -Stripes did know. He knew the rule of tents because his people were -friendly with the Indians just like cats are friendly with us -housefolk. They hunted around the campfires to catch creepy-crawley -things. He didn’t know the difference between Louie’s blanket and a -real tent, nor between Louie’s lantern and a real campfire because -he’d never seen them. So he was just as pleased as though this was a -real camp and Louie a real Indian. “Come along,” he called to his -kittens. “This is the rule of fires: When the men aren’t walking -around them you can lie down three tail lengths from the light and get -your whiskers warm.” So down they lay. And weren’t they just conceited -because all the other Woodsfolk had their eyes popped out, staring at -them. - -All this time, Tad was sitting right squash on his bushy tail in the -edge of the pond, using all his other three paws to hold the poor -burned one in his mouth--because it hurt him so dreadfully--at least -he thought it did. Tad Coon’s always thinking he’s killed when he’s -hardly more than mussed his fur. (He made an awful fuss the time -Grandpop Snapping Turtle nipped his tail, and after all, Grandpop only -pulled a couple of hairs out.) “Oo-h-ow-h-ow!” whimpered Tad, licking -himself between each sniffle. - -“Let’s see, let’s see!” said Doctor Muskrat. He began peering at it in -the darkness way off away from the lantern. - -“Come up here by the fire,” giggled Watch. “It’s not hurting Stripes. -If you don’t get too close to its cage you’re all right. It can’t jump -out and bite you.” Now wasn’t that a sensible way to explain about a -lantern to the Woodsfolk? It surely is just a little flame of fire all -shut up safe inside of its glass, like a goldfish in a bowl. - -So Tad and Doctor Muskrat crept up close, jumping just a little -whenever the flame danced, and peeked at the poor burned paw. It had -just the teeniest, weeniest little pinhead of a blister. When Tad saw -how very little it was he felt quite cheerful again, and forgot all -about it. - -Indeed, he was more curious than ever about the lantern. “Where did -Louie catch it?” he wanted to know. “What does it eat? Doesn’t it ever -run wild at all?” - -“Sometimes,” said Watch with a little shiver. “Then it grows very, -very fast and eats up everything it can reach. I’ve seen a little bit -of a fire like that eat up a whole haystack in about the time it takes -the sun to set. But men are very, very careful never to let it get out -if they can possibly help it. They keep it in strong black cages (he -meant stoves, of course), and feed it cold black stones. (That was -coal, you know.) Or they keep it in a cave and feed it a bit of wood. -(Watch meant an open grate.) It spits and sputters and sometimes a -little piece jumps out, but someone always catches it. And they keep a -lot in little cages like this and feed it water with a funny smell.” -(That’s lamps burning kerosene.) - -But you couldn’t expect the Woodsfolk to believe such things! - -Now Louie brought that lantern to the pond just to light up his feast -because there wasn’t any moonlight. But he did much better than -that--or worse, according as you look at it. For by the time the -Woodsfolk had learned a few things about it the buzzwings came to -learn about it, too, ’specially some great big shelly-winged beetles, -with great big stabbing-beaks on their ugly faces. And wasn’t it nice; -most everybody there except Nibble Rabbit’s family and Doctor Muskrat -just love to eat them! - -As soon as they saw the light, a whole flock of these fellows came -over from the pond to investigate it. Some of them lit on the glass -and burned their feet a whole lot worse than Tad Coon burned his -handy-paw, because they didn’t know enough to take them off again. -They stuck right there and ran out their jabbers until they blunted -the ends of them. And all the time they kept buzzing their war cry, -calling the rest of the beetles to come and help them fight it. -Foolish things, they didn’t know that if one beetle can’t hurt a thing -even a thousand of them can’t. “Brz-brz-brz!” they roared. “Brz-brz!” -roared all the others, coming to help them. - -My, there were a lot of them! But the Woodsfolk didn’t mind them a -little bit. They just thought this was an extra feast Louie had so -cleverly provided. You ought to have seen Stripes Skunk’s children -dancing around on their little hind legs, slapping them with their -paddy-paws. Tad crunched and crunched until his jaws were tired. Even -Chatter Squirrel and Chaik the Jay could see to catch them. They’d -snap a bug, and then they’d eat some more of Louie’s corn; then they’d -go back to the buzzwings again. And the more they ate the more -desperate the buzzwings grew. But they blamed it all on the lantern. - -It was a long, long time before they got so blind angry they began to -fight everything they saw. They couldn’t hurt the furry folk, and they -couldn’t catch Chaik, but they did get poor Louie Thomson, who was -sitting there laughing at their goings on. Wow! But didn’t he squall! -He squalled louder than Tad Coon. He hopped around sucking his poor -hand just as Tad sucked his handy-paw, with all the Woodsfolk staring -at him. It didn’t take them long to guess what had happened. And -weren’t they just sorry as anything! - -Poor Louie! It hurt lots worse than that little bitty burn of Tad -Coon’s. But he didn’t make nearly so much fuss about it. He didn’t -like even the Woodsfolk to hear him. ’Specially when they were so -sorry. And Watch just whined his sympathy, plain as words, and licked -the sore spot for him. - -Even that didn’t stop it from hurting. So Louie ran down to the pond -and stuck it in the water. Then he picked a bulrush and squeezed the -nice, soft, juicy end against it. Of course that interested Doctor -Muskrat. He flopped over to see what root Louie was using. - -“Hey, Watch!” he said. “That poor boy has the right idea, but he’s got -hold of the wrong root. Tell him to try this marsh marigold. It’s -fine.” - -“Or dock,” suggested Nibble Rabbit. Dock is a favourite remedy in a -rabbit hole. - -“No, leeks,” suggested Tad Coon. He didn’t mean to rub them on, but to -eat them. They’re little wild onions, and they taste so good to Tad he -forgets about everything else when he’s eating them. But there weren’t -any by the pond. - -“I can’t talk to him,” sniffed Watch. “Anyway, the best thing is that -blue mud you put on Tad’s nose. Where do you find it?” - -“Right in the bank here,” said Doctor Muskrat, giving a scratch with -his paw to show him. And Louie didn’t need any more telling. He knew -about that mud himself--his mother had put some on a bee-sting. So he -scooped out a good handful and slapped it on his bite. Then he did -feel better. He felt well enough to remember that he was so sleepy he -couldn’t keep his eyes open. - -Over by his tent there were just as many beetles as ever, buzzing over -his lantern. They were still fighting it, and the little skunks were -still catching them. They couldn’t eat another one, but they thought -it was fun to jump up and bat them. But Louie could see they’d never -in the world catch them all. The only thing for him to do was to turn -out his light and then the rest of the bad buzzwings would go back to -the marsh where they belonged. “Pouff!” My, how dark everything was! - -“Oh-h!” sighed Tad Coon in a sorry voice; “he killed it! What did he -do that for? It bit me, all right, but I didn’t want it killed. And -the buzzwing was the one who bit him. I saw it.” You see he thought -the flame was alive. - -“It’s only gone dark,” Watch comforted him. “It does that quite often, -like the fireflies over in the marsh do when they fold their wings. -But it always shines when he wants it to unless he forgets to feed -it.” You know a lantern won’t burn if it hasn’t any oil. Watch knew -that much, but he was really most as puzzled as Tad. - -Inside his blanket tent Louie was already fast asleep. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -CHAIK JAY CARRIES BAD NEWS - - -When Louie’s lantern went out, all the Woodsfolk scurried to their -holes as fast as ever they could go. All but Watch, Tommy Peele’s dog, -who curled up just outside Louie’s blanket tent and went to sleep with -one ear open, and Chaik the Jay. - -Poor Chaik was in a bad way. It was easy enough to fly over to the -feast while the lantern was lit, but now, in the black dark, he -couldn’t get home. He tried to fly. Bump! He hit a tree. “Ough! I -can’t risk that again,” he thought to himself. “Wonder where I am? -What’s more, I wonder where those Bad Little Owls are?” He began -tiptoeing around the trunk. First thing he knew his foot found a -woodpecker hole. In he popped, without stopping to think. “Ah,” he -chuckled, “this is luck! Mussy nest, though, I must tease Taps -Woodpecker about his housekeeping. Whatever is this I’m stepping on?” -He scratched round, feeling carefully with his claws. Then his -feathers fluffed out with fright. “Great acorns!” he gasped. “It isn’t -Tap’s nest at all any more. This is a mouse’s bones I’m standing on. -I’m in the hole in the dead hickory where they killed Tap’s wife last -year and stole the nest for themselves.” True enough. He had a right -to be scared; he was in the little owls’ own hole. - -There was a soft flutter just outside. He held his sharp beak ready -for a fight, but he didn’t stir. He didn’t even breathe for quite a -while. Nothing happened. “It’s the queerest thing,” he thought. “I -should think this place should smell owlier than it does. Yes, and -those bones are certainly old. I wonder----” - -Right then a whispering interrupted him. It certainly was those owls. -“What did you get?” said one. “I’ve got a mouse, a pretty good one, -too.” - -“More fool you,” said the other. “We could have cleaned up all those -beetles who were lying around and then had a mouse apiece if you -hadn’t grabbed that one right off. He squeaked, and now that dog is on -the lookout for us.” Chaik guessed the mice had come out to pick up -what the Woodsfolk left near Louie’s blanket tent, where Watch the Dog -was asleep with one ear open, and the owls found them. “Give us a -leg,” the owl went on. - -“Go get one for yourself,” said the other rudely. - -“I can’t,” whined the scary one. Chaik guessed it was the he-owl. “I’m -scared of that dog. He moved when your mouse squeaked. I’d have had -one, too, if you hadn’t been so greedy.” - -“Oh, here, then. I’ll get another easy enough. That dog can’t catch -me,” snapped his wife, clicking her beak. “But this thing has got to -stop. We can’t be bothered with dogs and boys and everything right -here on our hunting ground.” - -“How can we help it?” - -“I’m going to hunt up Killer the Weasel. That’s what the mice ought to -have done. He wouldn’t kill any more mice than Stripes Skunk and Tad -Coon do between them, and if he settled here I can just tell you -everybody else would have to move away--or get eaten. He’s the one to -bring.” - -“So would we,” protested the scary owl. “You can’t nest with him -anywhere about. He can climb like Chatter Squirrel.” - -“Well, what nesting did we do this year?” she snarled back. “After -those nasty jays pulled out all our feathers when they caught us in -the Brushpile we couldn’t hunt enough to lay eggs, let alone raise a -family!” - -Suddenly the he-owl, who was much the scarier of the two, put up his -beak and sniffed uncomfortably. “I smell feathers,” said he. “You -haven’t been catching any birds, have you? I’m sure it’s feathers I’ve -been noticing for the longest while.” - -“Just suppose you stop plaguing me about that young seagull,” snapped -his wife. “I like eating them, even if you don’t. It was a good half a -hatching ago that I caught her, and you’re still yapping about it. The -old ones never found who’d taken her.” - -“Luckily they didn’t,” he said sulkily. “They’d have shouted it all -over the marsh. It’s no use having the birds picking on us, I tell -you. We have troubles enough without that. Now that I’ve got a full -set of feathers growing in I mean to keep them. This flying about -without my tail is no fun.” He was so full of his troubles he forgot -all about what he smelled. “Now you say you’re going to bring Killer -the Weasel into these Woods and Fields. That’ll make the most trouble -of all. He won’t do any more good than Silvertip the Fox nor Slyfoot -the Mink, and they were a whole lot safer for us. They didn’t climb. -Why, his very mate can’t trust him.” He said this in a very shocked -voice because he was just a little bit afraid of his own bossy wife. - -“Teeth and toenails!” she squawked. “Don’t you ever think? I don’t -expect to do any of the trusting; I’ll leave it all to that -whining skunk who’s even afraid of Bob White Quail, and that sly, -slippery-clawed Tad Coon, and that honey-whiskered Nibble Rabbit. -They want to make friends, do they? I’ll show them a new friend -all right enough. Killer can eat every last tail-tip of them if -he’ll listen to me, and just so long as he keeps away from the -barns, the men won’t bother to come after him.” - -Chaik Jay heard every last word. Then he heard one of the owls flit -away, but the sound was so faint he couldn’t tell whether the other -had gone, too. He began to move, very carefully. But just the least -scratch of his wings caught the ear of that scary little he-owl, who -was still sitting on the limb outside. Pit-pit-pit, he clawed over -toward the hole. Chaik could hear him sniff. Now he’d look into it and -see. - -“Wauk! Waourr!” shrieked his wife from over by the pond. He stopped to -listen. She was fluttering about like a crazy bird just outside of -Louie Thomson’s tent. “Wah! Ur-r-rh, yah!” yapped Watch who had been -sleeping with one ear open. “Wuk-uk-uk!” answered the bad little bird -who had just been going to peek and see poor Chaik crouching inside, -ready for a battle in the dark, a battle which could only have one -ending, a bunch of mussed blue feathers at the foot of the tree. - -But the little owl never looked. He flapped his wings noisily because -he was too excited to fly in proper owl fashion. - -Off he flew to help his mate. - -And that smart Chaik Jay did the cleverest thing--he flew right after -the owl. He knew that owl hole wasn’t any place to hide in, and he -knew he couldn’t find his way home. And the only way he could find -Watch was to follow the owl. - -It wasn’t any good for Chaik to fly quietly; his wings were so mussed -he couldn’t, anyway. And he couldn’t dodge in and out of the twigs -because he couldn’t see them as plainly as the little owl. All he -could do was to follow the sound and be ready to dodge if the bad -little bird took it into his head to pounce at him. - -But the owl wasn’t thinking about anything in the world but his mate. -He really did love her, even if they quarreled. And he really meant to -fight for her as bravely as ever he knew how. But he didn’t have to. -For she came to meet him, squawking between each flop, so crazy scared -that she flew right past him and all but collided with Chaik, who was -following close on his stubby tail. - -Chaik dipped, to get out of her way, and struck his wing against a -branch. He went whirling tail over crest, not a bit like a bird, but -quite like a cluster of leaves the caterpillars bite off for an -airplane to carry them back to earth when they want to dig down and -make their homes for the winter time. He struck a bush and then went -bouncing and sliding to the ground. For a minute he lay there, almost -dazed, his poor little head in a whirl. How his poor wing did ache! He -listened. - -“It’s funny I don’t hear Watch,” thought Chaik. “I certainly heard him -a minute ago.” He gave a little raspy whisper. - -“Oh!” came a startled voice right above him. “I thought you were a -mouse. Is that you, Chaik?” Watch must have been holding his breath as -well as his paw, ready to pounce on him. - -“Yes,” Chaik answered back. “What was all the racket over? What’s -happening?” - -“Those pesky whisktails,” Watch answered. He meant the mice. “Stripes -Skunk or Tad Coon ought to have stayed to help me. They’ve been -squeaking and scuffling over those corncobs left after Louie’s party, -and the beetles Stripes’s kittens left lying round, until I couldn’t -get a wink of sleep. Finally I snapped a paw to quiet them and hit -feathers instead of fur. I guess I most squashed all the squawk right -out of that little owl before I knew who she was and let her go -again.” - -“And I wish you’d killed her!” hissed Chaik. “Put down your head. -Their ears are so frightfully keen and they mustn’t hear a word. -Listen! They’re going to bring Killer the Weasel to these Woods and -Fields!” - -“Great beef-bones! They can’t! They mustn’t! Oh, that’s too awful!” - -“But they will,” Chaik insisted. “You’ll see. He’s going to fool us -all into making friends and--well, you know what then! Not even my -nest will be safe from him. Not even their own, but they’ll take that -risk to get even with us because we jays pulled out their feathers so -they couldn’t hunt enough this year to do any nesting. Now do you -see?” - - - - -CHAPTER III - -MRS. OWL INVITES KILLER THE WEASEL TO THE WOODS AND FIELDS - - -Chaik Jay didn’t need to whisper. The Bad Little Owls weren’t there to -overhear him, as he’d overheard them while he was hidden in their very -own hole. When Watch pawed the lady owl, who was mouse hunting right -under his nose in the black dark, he spoiled more than her feathers; -he ruined the last of her temper. And her temper is ’most as short as -her tail at the best of times, as you know. - -She beaked her wings so spitefully that she ’most took out what -feathers she had left (they get very loose long before the leaves -begin to fall), and set right off to find Killer the Weasel. - -Right straight into the Deep Woods she flew, her scary little mate -flapping along behind her. Pretty soon she heard a sound; it was a -faint squawk, choked in the middle. She circled to listen. There came -another squawk, exactly like the first. Then there was an uneasy -stirring and fluttering in the secret depths of a thick, leafy tree. -Dark deeds were being done there. “What? What? Who called?” said a -scared bird voice. No answer. The silence was more terrible than any -words. - -A minute passed, another. She perched softly to listen. Her mate -didn’t dare to speak, though he was ’most bursting with questions; -yes, and something more. He was still afraid. He circled and lit -beside her, with the least little scratching of a twig; she gave him a -vicious peck. Poor little fellow, he didn’t even dare to preen the -spot for fear he’d make another sound and get something worse. Then -the first bird voice said at last: “Some youngster had a bad dream. -You should always own up to it, little stubby wings, and not frighten -the rest of us.” But still no one answered. - -All the same the birds began to settle down again and all was quiet. -“Ah-h!” came the very same choked cry; then a word. “Help! Kil----” -and that was all. All but a soft thump. In a moment the tree was an -uproar of fluttering and screaming. - -“I knew he was there,” said the bad little lady owl triumphantly. -“Killer’s been raiding the robins’ roost.” And she was right. After -they finish nesting, all the robins fly to sleep in the same secret -hiding place, in the loneliest grove they can find. And there they -make friends with each other and talk over their fall trip and decide -where they’ll go when the snow comes to cover up the ground, and hide -the worms, and when, and which party they want to join. And Killer the -Weasel and the hooter owls try to find it, because it’s such easy -hunting. - -“Don’t speak to him to-night. Please don’t!” begged her husband. “Do -take a day to sleep on it. Something awful always happens if you lose -your temper.” You see even the owls know that. But they won’t always -believe it. She wouldn’t. - -“It’s terrible!” he gasped. “Killer has more birds already than he’ll -eat in a week.” - -“That’s what I’m waiting for,” she answered grimly. “We’ll take care -of the extra ones.” - -“Oh, don’t! Don’t you dare touch them!” he protested. “The robins will -find it out, and we’ll never hear the end of it. Just think what the -jays did to us. We haven’t been able to fly decently since they picked -on us, way last spring. And there are so many more robins. We’d never -have a day’s rest. They’ll pluck us bare. Do let’s go home!” - -“Oh, do shut up!” she snapped angrily. “You can fly back and good -riddance. I’m not keeping you. I can mind my own business without you. -It doesn’t concern you.” - -“It does, too,” he whimpered. “Nobody ever knows us apart. If those -robins get just a glimpse of you they’ll never believe I wasn’t eating -them, too. Won’t you please listen?” - -But his wife wasn’t paying any attention to him at all. She was -leaning over, craning out her neck, cocking her ear. All she answered -was: “There he goes now.” After a second she added to herself: “My, -but he’s little. I don’t believe he can do it, ever in this world.” - -[Illustration: She lit above Killer’s head while he was busy eating -the robin] - -“Do what?” he wanted to know. - -“Kill----” she hesitated; “kill any one bigger than Tad Coon.” She -didn’t want him to know it was Watch the Dog and Tommy Peele and Louie -Thomson she wanted to get rid of for good and all. She thought to -herself: “If only those boys were gone, and the Woodsfolk hadn’t any -one to give those nice feasts to them so they’d never get hungry, -they’d fight each other again.” She didn’t know they really liked -living together the way Mother Nature meant them to in the First-Off -Beginning. But she knew he’d be scared if she told him that. He was -simply foolish about men. - -“If he can’t kill them, why are they all so afraid?” he asked. - -“That’s so,” she agreed. “I don’t see how he ever fights them, but I -s’pose he knows some tricks he doesn’t tell. You wait for me right -here.” And down she flew to follow Killer the Weasel to his den. - -She lit above Killer’s head while he was busy eating the robin he’d -carried home--only one out of all those he left lying dead on the -ground beneath the roost. She squirmed out to the very tip end of the -branch and watched him every moment while she was talking. “Good -morning,” she said, for the east was growing light. “I don’t need to -ask you how the hunting goes. I see you’ve had a fine night with -plenty of robins.” - -He raised his flat, three-cornered, snaky-head, and his eyes gleamed -red in the shadows. “Not so bad,” he answered, and she could hear his -tongue rasp his prickly whiskers. “It’s a great game. But I make the -most of it, because when the robins nest in a flock it’s a sign -they’ll soon be gone. I try to see how many I can kill before they -wake up. I’d have broken my record to-night if a piece of bark I was -standing on hadn’t broken. Did you hear that last youngster squall -out? The whole flock began stirring; the fun is over then.” - -The owl’s claws trembled so she had to clamp them tight. To kill when -he wasn’t hungry, just for fun! It was enough to make even an owl’s -blood run cold. But she kept her beak from clattering and remarked: -“Very clever. You’re quieter than I am. I couldn’t help admiring you -because I find them almost too big to manage.” - -“Size is nothing,” said Killer. “It’s all just a matter of brains.” - -“Do you really think so?” she asked in a flattering tone. “Because I -know a perfectly wonderful hunting ground if you can manage that awful -coon.” - -“Coon!” exclaimed Killer. “I’ll show you how I can handle him. Fft! -for a coon.” - -You ought to have heard the wicked little bird tell him about Nibble -Rabbit’s delicious little bunnies. M-m-m! Didn’t his mouth just water -for them? But she never said a word about Watch the Dog, or Tommy -Peele, or Louie Thomson. She knew if he made trouble for the Woodsfolk -he’d just have to fight their friends. But--she didn’t know that these -little boys had ever and ever so much more brains than a weasel! - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -FUR AND FEATHERS PLAN A CAMPAIGN - - -Next morning the robins were in an awful flutter when they came down -to drink. And when a robin is excited he just has to tell everybody -all about it--you’ve heard them, lots of times, though you don’t -always understand them. Bobby took his bath in a great splatter and -then flew over to talk with Watch while he fixed his feathers. - -He caught sight of Chaik Jay all huddled up on the bottom branch of a -bush. His poor hurt wing, that he struck when he went tail over crest -in the black dark, was drooping. - -“Whew!” whistled Bobby. “Chaik looks like I feel, too mussed up to -know my beak from my back toe-claw. We didn’t sleep a wink last night, -over at the roost; terrible things were happening.” - -“Quick!” snapped Watch; “what did happen?” - -It seemed to him that Killer the Weasel was standing right beside him. -He had to sniff to make sure he wasn’t. He was so excited that his -back hair was as stiff as it gets when he wants to fight. - -“Well, last night, when it was black, black dark,” began Bobby in a -scary whisper, “we heard a cry, as though some bird were having a bad -dream. Then everything was quiet, and we settled down to sleep again. -Pretty soon we were waked up the very same way. It happened over and -over. I had my eyes wide open a dozen times, but I couldn’t see a -single thing. And my ears are sharp, but I couldn’t even hear -anything. Yet this morning a dozen families report some bird is -missing. You don’t think a ghost bird could have taken them?” He meant -the big white owl who sometimes comes down from the far north, where -the storms grow, and snatches the sleeping folks out of their -pine-tree perches. But that only happens in the winter time. - -“It was Killer the Weasel, of course,” sniffed Watch. - -“No, it wasn’t,” argued Bobby. “Killer’s been there half-a-dozen -times, but he always leaves dead birds scattered around on the ground -to scare us.” - -“Then it was the Bad Little Owls,” said Watch. - -“They wouldn’t dare!” exclaimed Bobby, ruffling up his feathers. “What -do you take us for, a flock of sparrows?” - -“A flock of foolish heads!” Watch snapped back impatiently. “It serves -you right. Why do you keep on perching there if Killer knows right -where you are?” - -Bobby stared at him with round eyes. “If we did move, how would the -new birds who come in on every wind find out where we are? Eh? How -would we get together for the long flight? We robins stick to the -Robins’ Roost so long as there’s a bird left alive to perch there.” - -“Um-m,” said Watch thoughtfully. “It would be inconvenient. I see that -now. But why don’t you fly along?” - -“My wings!” Bobby almost hopped at the idea. “It’s easy to see you -don’t know what business this long flight is. We can’t all go -together--we wouldn’t find enough to feed all of us along the road. We -can’t afford to spend all day hunting our food as we do here. And a -fine mixup it would be if every bird left just when the whim took him. -We leave in regular turn. Mother Nature gives us our first signal when -the leaves do the butterfly dance (he meant when they turn gay colours -and fall) and our last party takes wing at the turn of the worm.” -(That’s when the worms dig down below the icy ground for their winter -sleep.) - -[Illustration: “When a fellow can smell, he can see with his nose just -who has been there”] - -“I see,” Watch nodded. “Well, then, we’ll just find out who it is and -nip his tail for him. Come along.” - -Bobby Robin really felt quite comforted when Watch seemed ready to -help him--those hundreds and hundreds of birds who weigh down the -great elm tree before they get their signal from Mother Nature to fly -south are a terrible responsibility. But he didn’t see just exactly -what Watch could do about it. He dipped along beside the dog’s long, -easy run for a minute or so. Then he broke out again, “But I can’t -think who it could have been.” - -“It was Killer the Weasel or the owls,” Watch answered. “I’ll bet you -on it.” - -“What’ll you bet?” Bobby demanded with a sidewise quirk of his -head--that is the way he smiles. “I’m a pretty old bird. I’ve been -hunted by weasels and cats and hawks and foxes and big owls and little -ones ever since I first grew feathers, but never have I known the like -of this.” - -“I’ll bet you a bone,” Watch began. Then he wiped out the idea with a -sweep of his tail. “Foolish me! I forgot you haven’t teeth. Well, I’ll -bet you a nice soft bread-crust I can lay me paw on. I buried it -yesterday--to keep those thieves of chickens from stealing it.” - -“I’ll take you,” giggled Bobby. “And I’ll bet you a whole nest of -furry caterpillars it wasn’t either of them.” - -“What’ll I do with the caterpillars?” sniffed Watch. “Wear ’em in my -whiskers?” - -Bobby just had to laugh, but he got all sober and discouraged again -the next minute. “I don’t see how we’re going to decide, anyhow,” he -sighed. “It happened hours ago--long before the sun began to spread -his wings.” (Birds say the long streaks you see in the east at sunrise -are the sun’s wings flapping before he soars across the sky.) “And it -was so crow dark nobody could see anything.” - -“That doesn’t matter,” said Watch cheerfully. “I don’t have to see. -Seeing’s no good the minute after a thing has happened. Hearing isn’t -any better. But I can smell! M-m-m!” he sniffed softly. “And when a -fellow can smell he can see with his nose just who has been there and -what they did long after they’ve gone. Listen!” He laid his nose to the -trunk of the Roosting Elm. “Killer!” he exclaimed. “Here he climbed up. -Here he came down. Here he walked out below this limb. Here--here--owl! -Bobby. Plain as day I do smell owl!” - -“Fur and feathers working together,” sobbed Bobby. “What chance have -we poor birds? What won’t they do to us to-night?” - -“Well, you’re feathers and I’m fur,” argued Watch. “Can’t we do -something, too?” - -And that made Bobby so happy again he just had to flap his wings over -it. - -But Watch was thoughtful. - -“Now listen to me, Bobby,” he said at last. “If Killer and the Bad -Little Owls are going to hunt together, we Woodsfolk are going to have -trouble, aren’t we? Trouble afoot and awing.” He licked his nose, as -though he were trying to smell out the thing to do next. - -“Trouble afoot is the only thing I’m afraid of,” cheeped Bobby. “Those -owls can’t do anything alone; I thought you were going to nip Killer’s -tail for him. Wasn’t that what you said?” He sounded all discouraged -again. - -“Now don’t get flutter-headed,” warned Watch. “So I am. But I have to -get my teeth on it, don’t I? And that means I have to catch the -cleverest, craftiest of all things from under-the-earth. Yes, and the -wickedest. It gives me the creeps to think about him.” - -“By the Great Grub Who Gnawed the Moon!” gasped the bird, leaning over -to get a good look at the big dog. “You talk as though you were afraid -of him--a great big beast like you afraid of a slinky little thing -like him!” - -And then Watch repeated exactly what Killer had told the wife of the -Bad Little Owl. “It isn’t size, it’s brains. Nobody is really safe -from him. I’m ever so much bigger than Doctor Muskrat or even Tad -Coon. But if Killer caught me while I was asleep and got his weasel -hold under my chin, even I couldn’t bite him back. He’s so small I -couldn’t reach him.” - -“That’s so!” exclaimed Bobby. “You’d be no safer than a bird.” - -“Oh, yes, I am,” Watch was fair enough to explain. “I’m the last beast -in all the woods he’d try it on. My ears are wide, and my nose is wet, -and my long, stiff coat feels every stir in the grass. I wake up with -a jump before I know whether I heard or smelled or felt what was -coming. But Killer is quieter than a pad-footed pussy. He can hide his -scent like a nesting quail, and he can see where he’s stepping. That’s -why he never hunts fair. He’s all bite and no fight.” - -“He certainly is!” agreed the bird. - -“Ah, but here’s the point,” the old dog went on. “We know who we’re -hunting, and he doesn’t know we know. We won’t let him. Then we’ve got -trouble down a mouse hole. We’ll hunt him like the pussycat hunts -them--pretend we aren’t paying any attention and be all ready to -pounce on him. A still tongue and a waving tail is the way to trail -trouble whenever you find it. Not a cheep until the time comes!” - -And this time Bobby Robin didn’t answer--not with his tongue. He just -wagged his long tail up and down so very hard that his whole perch -wagged with him. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -KILLER THE WEASEL MAKES A PLAN LIKEWISE - - -With a still tongue and a waving tail Watch galloped back from the -Robins’ Roost, Bobby Robin flitting along beside him. They were -hunting trouble, and that was the very wisest way in the world to hunt -it. Because the very trouble they were hunting was peering through a -crack between two big stones on the bank of Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. It -was a little bit of a crack--so little you wouldn’t think a garter -snake could much more than squeeze into it. But it held a lot of -trouble. Because trouble is brains--not size. - -Trouble was the meanest of all the things from under-the-earth who -came up to spoil Mother Nature’s nice plans in the far-back, First-Off -Beginning of Things. Trouble was Killer the Weasel, with his snaky -head and his cruel beady eyes and his conceited smile. And he was -peering through that crack to see how the Woodsfolk behaved before he -tried a very funny trick the wife of the Bad Little Owls had whispered -to him. - -The first thing he saw was Watch the Dog bounding along with his tail -in the air as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “Ho,” said the -wicked weasel to himself, “that clumsy beast would carry his tail -between his legs if he knew I was here!” I told you he was conceited. - -The next thing he saw was Bobby Robin flitting past as careless as a -butterfly in a breeze. “A-ha!” said the weasel to himself, “that -foolish bird would set up a fine squawking if he knew I was here.” -Wasn’t he just conceited? - -Then he laid his ear to the crack to hear if they were talking about -him. But they weren’t--not a single word. It really hurt his feelings. -That’s how conceited he was! - -All he heard was Chaik Jay waking up in the bottom of the bush where -he’d crept the night before. “What a place to sleep!” thought the -wicked weasel. “It’s a pity I didn’t see him.” - -Chaik gave himself a little shake; then he tried to stretch. -“Ye-a-a-ak!” he squawked. “Ow, my sore wing! Oh, my cramped claws! -Whee! my stiff feathers!” - -“What a noise to make!” growled the wicked weasel to himself. “I don’t -believe he can fly a little bit. Now that dog will make a quick meal -of him.” - -But the dog didn’t at all. He just said: “Here, Chaik, let me lick the -soreness out, the way we dogs do.” - -“No, thanks,” Chaik almost giggled, because the idea was really funny. -“I’d never find head nor tail of myself again if you mussed me up with -your great wet tongue. I’d much rather have Doctor Muskrat bring me a -blister beetle if he can find one.” - -And the wicked weasel didn’t know what to make of that. Chaik was -sitting on the lowest branch where anybody could have caught him, and -Watch wasn’t even trying to eat him! - -Instead of that, he went down by Doctor Muskrat’s big flat stone and -barked. And instead of diving down to the deepest bottom of the pond -and hiding beneath the water lilies, up swam Doctor Muskrat himself, -and he flopped on his stone. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Did any -one want me?” - -“Ye-ah,” called the bird. “I’ve hurt my wing. And I’m sore all over. I -feel like a mouse after a cat has been playing with it.” - -“You do, do you?” said the good old muskrat, flopping over to him. -“Well, you look as if you’d been caught in a hailstorm. Let’s see -what’s the matter with your flapper. M-m-m. It isn’t broken. Just give -it a day’s rest.” - -“How about a blister beetle?” asked Chaik. “I feel scary here on the -ground. I want to get to flying again.” - -“Fine for fur, but no good at all for feathers,” the doctor explained. -“There, there! Don’t flutter yourself. I guess you had too much party -last night by the looks of you. You’d better be careful about eating. -I recommend a little acid. Try an ant or two. Or perhaps you’d like a -nice red sumach berry from the Quail’s Thicket. I’ll cut down a branch -so you can reach them.” Sumach berry, indeed! You know how Chaik loves -them. Off he hopped, dragging his wing. - -“Queerer and queerer,” thought the bad beast hiding under the stone. - -The next thing he saw was Nibble’s bunnies trooping down to drink--my, -but they made his mouth water! And he could hear all the birds -spluttering and splashing at the edge of the sand where it would be -easy to catch them! Still, he stayed hidden. - -But when Stripes Skunk came strolling down with his three fat kittens -behind him and the bunnies actually began playing with them he made up -his mind. “That little owl told the truth!” said the weasel to -himself. “She said the Woodsfolk were all friends, but I couldn’t -believe her. Well, if they’ve made friends with my cousin Stripes -Skunk, they’ll make friends with me. How nice that will be. They’ll -walk right into my jaws. I’ll do exactly what the owl told me to. Her -advice is worth having!” And he began to prick up his ears and -carefully slick back his whiskers. - -He didn’t have very much elbow room in that narrow crack between the -two big stones but the way he managed to fix himself up was surely -surprising. The wife of the Bad Little Owl would never in the world -have known he was the bristly whiskered ruffian with red in his eye -she found gnawing a robin in the door of his den. - -When he squeezed through the crack and shook himself he was really a -very elegant-looking creature. His little ears were perked up as pert -as he could prick them. His tail didn’t stick straight out behind; it -was all fluffed out and he cocked it up the way Chatter Squirrel does. -He didn’t slink along like a snake gliding through the bushes; he -arched his neck and he arched his back and he hopped as neatly as a -rabbit. I won’t say he was comfortable, but he really did look -handsome. - -Well, the first beast he met was that very bunny who had been locked -up in the cage in Louie Thomson’s cellar. “Good morning, Miss Rabbit,” -said he in his politest voice. “Can you tell me where I can find my -cousin, Tad Coon? I’ve come to visit him.” He said that because he -wanted to find out where Tad was. He was the least little bit scared -he might have to be careful about Tad. - -The bunny opened her eyes very wide. You remember Tad Coon was the -fellow who taught her how foolish she was to trust strangers. He told -her that his family ate little rabbits. If this was a cousin of Tad’s -she wasn’t going to risk being eaten. She didn’t even stop to answer; -she just flicked her white tail in his very face and made for the -Pickery Things. - -“That’s funny,” thought the weasel. “But maybe she’s only young and -foolish.” So he edged along by some tall grass to where Stripes Skunk -was catching some grasshoppers. “Good morning, Cousin Stripes,” he -said. “I’m your cousin Slick.” (He thought maybe he could fool even -Stripes, just a little, because he looked so different.) “Won’t you -introduce me to your friends? I’m tired of living in the Deep Woods. I -want to be good and happy like the rest of you.” (That’s what the Bad -Little Owl had told him to say.) - -Stripes was most as scared as the bunny. But he could see something -the bunny didn’t see--something the wicked weasel didn’t see, either. -For that good old dog Watch was standing right behind him. And he -looked different, too. He wasn’t sleek and good-tempered any more. He -was red-eyed and bristly, thinking about what the weasel had done to -the poor robins. He didn’t take a step, or Killer’s sharp ears would -have heard him. He crouched for a great big spring, and then---- - -[Illustration: The Doctor said Chaik had had too much party and -should be careful about eating] - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -A PLAN TO FOIL THE ENEMY - - -“Aough-ah!” came a sound from the little blanket tent Everybody -looked. Then Stripes and Watch both knew what it was; Louie Thomson -was waking up inside of it. And in the next instant, Watch the Dog and -Stripes Skunk were staring at each other all alone. Killer wasn’t -there at all! - -“Oh!” gasped Stripes. “Where has he gone?” He began turning round and -round, trying to see what had become of the wicked beast. - -“Where has who gone? What do you mean?” asked Watch. For the wise dog -was pretending he hadn’t even seen him. - -“My cousin,” Stripes explained, feeling scarier and scarier. “He came -to visit me. Isn’t it too bad I hadn’t a chance to say good-bye to -him?” - -“Say good-bye to him?” said the dog, wagging his wavy tail in a joking -way. “How could you say good-bye to any one who wasn’t here? I’ve been -here all the time, but I’m not your cousin.” - -“Then I’ll say good-bye to you instead.” Stripes’s teeth were almost -chattering. “I’m going. Give my regards to my cousin if you should -happen to see him.” - -“Wherever are you going?” asked Watch. He was really puzzled by this -time. - -“I’m going----” Stripes couldn’t think for a minute where he was -going. He just wasn’t going to stay in the Woods and Fields now that -that bad beast had come. “I’m going with Bobby Robin on the long -flight,” he said at last. Which was very foolish because he couldn’t -begin to run fast enough to keep up with a bird when it was flying. -Even Nibble Rabbit can’t. But he humped himself off in a great hurry, -so scared that his hair was all bristling. - -You know where Killer hid when Louie gave that big noisy yawn? He just -slid back into his narrow crack between the two big stones. “I’m -safe,” he sniffed to himself. “Nobody can get me out of here--not even -that foolish dog. This rock is too hard digging for anybody’s -toenails.” He felt shivery all right enough. Because scary folk aren’t -all bad, but, deep down inside them, bad ones are always scary. - -In a minute he began to hear his cousin Stripes Skunk asking Watch the -Dog where he’d gone to. - -He squinted through his crack to see how soon they were going, and -what do you think he saw? He saw Louie Thomson. Yes, even if Louie -didn’t see him, he saw Louie squirm out from under his blanket tent. -First came his tously head; then came his shoulders. “Whoever in all -the woods is that?” thought the weasel, and his eyes began to pop. - -Killer tried to listen and then he tried to sniff in the direction of -Louie Thomson because he just couldn’t believe his eyes. Suddenly -Louie scrambled to his feet and stood up. The weasel’s hair stood up, -too. Now he understood. “It’s a man!” he hissed, and he ground his -teeth in a rage. “That’s what I get for listening to the owl. She -knows we’re deadly enemies. Just let me get out of this hole without -being seen, and I’ll hustle back to the Deep Woods in two long bounces -and a tailflip. But I’ll give that lying little bird a lick with my -tongue that won’t smooth her feathers!” He felt so hateful that he -tried to grip his own claws into the hard stone. - -Louie Thomson washed himself and dug a root, and then he went up to -his house to see if his mother had saved him any civilized breakfast. -Watch took a good, long lap of water and then he sniffed about. -“Wonder where everybody’s gone?” he puzzled. “I guess I’ll get some -breakfast up at Louie’s house. They’ll be all through long ago at -Tommy’s.” So off they strolled. And the pond was quieter yet--there -wasn’t anybody there at all. - -That is, anybody but Killer the Weasel, down in his nice, safe crack. -And he didn’t make any noise, either. He’d gone off to sleep. He -sleeps in the daytime, anyway, and he slept very soundly because there -wasn’t a sound to waken him. - -There wasn’t a pat, or a flutter, or a chirp, or a squeak, or even a -sneeze, because there wasn’t any one to make them. Not even a -fieldmouse! This is what happened: You remember Doctor Muskrat -prescribed sumach berries for poor Chaik Jay. He even went over to the -Quail’s Thicket and cut down a couple of stalks with his chisel teeth. -They’re very nice, though a bit seedy for us--but that’s exactly what -the birds like--so he took a taste or two himself while he watched -Chaik gulp a fine crawful. - -“Well, Chaik,” he said at last, “I guess Nibble Rabbit can look after -you now. I’ve got a couple of things back at the pond I must attend -to.” - -“Don’t go back there,” fluttered Chaik, suddenly remembering. “I -overheard the Bad Little Owls, last night, just before I got hurt. -They say Killer the Weasel is coming to our Woods and Fields. Whatever -will we do about it?” - -“Time enough to think about it when he comes,” said the old muskrat -comfortably. “No wonder you tumbled off your perch, if you had a dream -like that.” - -And that was the very minute when the baby bunny came bounding in. -“Daddy Rabbit,” she squealed, “there’s a strange beast down by the -pond!” - -“There! Maybe you think she’s dreaming, too!” cheeped Chaik -triumphantly. “It’s Killer, sure as sure! What did he look like?” - -Now you remember how Killer fixed himself all up, the way the owl’s -wife had told him to, when he tried to make friends with the -Woodsfolk. “Eh?” said Nibble, when the bunny finished telling about -him, “that’s never Killer.” - -“Then who is it?” asked the sensible muskrat. “There’s no such animal -as that in all the woods--not that I ever heard tell of.” - -[Illustration: “Run for your lives, everybody. Killer has come to the -pond!”] - -But before even Chaik could answer him, in galloped Stripes Skunk. -“Hey! Where are my kittens?” he gasped. “Call your bunnies, Nibble! -Run for your lives, everybody. Killer has come to the pond!” - -And Doctor Muskrat and Nibble Rabbit and Nibble’s mate and all her -bunnies, and Stripes’s own kittens, who came gliding through the -tunnels under the Pickery Things, looked at each other with their eyes -as big and round as so many thorn apples, they were so scared. - -Chaik Jay was the first to speak. “Poor me!” he wailed. “He’ll eat me -before sunset. My wing simply won’t fly. I can’t make it.” - -“Can’t you hang on by somebody’s fur and come along?” suggested Nibble -anxiously. - -“It’s too slippery,” sighed poor Chaik. “I’d slip off and get hurt -again.” - -“Listen here, Chaik,” said Doctor Muskrat. “Your claws can still -climb. This thicket is full of little, fine twigs that won’t begin to -hold up Killer. He’s as heavy as I am. Couldn’t you hop up and perch -in the middle of them?” - -“Yes,” exclaimed Nibble enthusiastically. “And the Pickery Things have -thorns all over them. They pick as hard on the top as they do on the -bottom. Killer hates them.” - -Chaik tried. And he found he could move a great deal better than he -could that morning. He slipped and stumbled and scrambled and flapped -his well wing, and squawked as softly as he could when he bumped his -sore one, but climb he did. “Flit along,” he chirped cheerfully in a -minute; “I wouldn’t ask a better place to perch in.” He didn’t feel as -cheerful as he sounded, but he didn’t want them to get into trouble by -waiting for him. - -“All right,” thumped Nibble with his furry feet. That’s safer than -whispering. Then he remembered. “But where are we going? To the marsh -on the far-away side of the Deep Woods, where the sun goes to sleep?” -The Woodsfolk didn’t know that the sun went a great deal farther than -that. The near side of that marsh was as far as any of them had gone. - -“We can’t run fast enough,” mourned Stripes. “He’d catch up with us -before very long.” - -“An I can’t run at all,” said the fat old muskrat. “I’d better go back -and trust the water to hide me from him.” - -“Nonsense!” sniffed Stripes. “I’ve seen him swim. We’ll all run across -the Broad Field as fast as we can--he hates to leave the woods worse -than anything----” - -“Yes,” interrupted Nibble, flicking his long ears as a bright idea -struck him. “We’ll cross the Broad Field and we’ll hide by Tommy -Peele’s barn. There’s food and water for every one. We’ll treat him as -I told the fieldmice to treat you when you were fighting them--we’ll -run off and leave him alone!” And he twiddled his tufty tail just to -show how pleased he felt over his bright idea. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE CLEVERNESS OF CHAIK JAY - - -Poor Chaik Jay felt a lot sadder than he looked when he saw the -Woodsfolk go skipping across the Broad Field one at a time so nobody -would notice them, on the way to Tommy Peele’s barn. - -But he was a pretty sensible bird. “I’m glad they’re gone,” he said to -himself. “That was a fine idea of Nibble Rabbit’s to go away. Killer -won’t stay here long if he finds there isn’t any hunting.” - -Pretty soon he was very busy exercising his stiff wing and thinking: -“I can reach every sumach berry in this thicket. They’re fine eating. -I feel better every minute. I’ll be able to fly before very long--if I -can’t fly across the Broad Field to-night I’ll surely be able to do it -in the morning.” He really did feel better. That was the funny part of -it. It wasn’t long before he had his feathers all prinked up and his -crest perked as sassy as if he were going courting. - -“It’s too bad about those foolish mice,” he thought to himself. “The -bad old weasel can live on them for a long time if there’s nobody else -here to hunt them.” He thought harder than ever. “It would be nicer -yet,” he said after another minute, “if the mice would go, too. Killer -can’t eat clams and snails and bugs and roots and such things like the -rest of us Woodsfolk. He’d have to go away.” - -But how could Chaik do that--just one lone bluejay with a hurt wing? -He kept on thinking, all the same; he thought so hard his head needed -scratching. At last he began to have an idea. “Isn’t it a lucky thing -they did leave me here? I can talk more bird and beast talk than any -one else in all the Woods and Fields, except Miau the Catbird. I wish -he’d happen along, I do. I could use him. If we could warn all the -birds, Killer would never be able to catch one. But the mice----” - -And just them someone did happen along. It wasn’t Miau, but--but, -listen! It was the hoptoad! You know him--so terrible scary-ugly, but -nice as anything--the one who found Nibble Rabbit’s lost bunny. Well, -the hoptoad called, in his funny, gulpy voice, “Chirpy, Chaik Jay! Do -you see anything of the rain?” He loves rain because it makes the -wings of the bugs all waterlogged and it’s easy to catch them. - -“Chirpy, Croaker Toad,” Chaik answered, “I can’t see a sign of it.” - -“It’s coming, all the same,” gulped Croaker. “Floods of it. I feel -it.” - -“It is?” asked Chaik eagerly. “Mice, oh, mice! How they hate it!” And -he bounced on his perch until Croaker Toad stared with his big round -eyes. But a lot Chaik cared! - -He carried on at such a rate that a big saw-billed duck slanted down -to see what was the matter. “It’s going to rain,” he sang, looking -mischievously at the duck, his feathers all puffed out from laughing. - -“Of course it’s going to rain,” quacked the duck, making a gawpy face -with his long red bill that set Chaik giggling all over again. “It’s -going to rain hard, and it’s going to rain soon. You won’t find it a -laughing matter, old soggy feathers.” (A duck never forgets to tease -the other birds about not having a nice water-proof coat, you know.) -And off he flew. - -[Illustration: Chaik frightens the mice away to save them from Killer -the Weasel] - -But Chaik Jay didn’t care a wormy thorn apple what the duck thought -about him. He was just waiting for a fieldmouse. The very first time -he heard one stirring out in the thicket he called: “Hey! Who’s there? -Is that you, Nibble Rabbit?” He knew it wasn’t Nibble, because Nibble -had gone away, but he said it on purpose. - -“No,” came the answer; “it’s Scritch Mouse.” But I tell you he felt -kind of flattered at being taken for someone as big and important as a -rabbit. “I haven’t seen or heard anything of him since this morning.” - -“Chirk-cheree!” exclaimed Chaik impatiently. “I do wish he’d come. -Won’t you peek in his hole for me and see if he’s there? I want to get -along myself before it comes.” - -“Before what comes?” asked the mouse. “I’m perfectly sure he isn’t -there.” - -“Before the rain, of course,” answered the clever bird. “Every one -else has run away, but I was to wait and warn him. There’s the most -terrible rain coming--I just heard about it from the saw-billed duck.” -(No mouse would ever dare to ask questions of a saw-bill for -himself--the bird would eat him as easy as quack at him, so Chaik went -right on adding to it.) “The birds coming down from the north had to -swim two days instead of flying. It’s going to flood these Woods and -Fields from the Brushpile to the Robins’ Roosting Tree--maybe worse. -It’s the worst----” - -“Well,” interrupted the mouse, “it’s a funny thing nobody told us.” - -“Oh, nobody told me not to tell you,” said Chaik. “But you haven’t -been very friendly with the Woodsfolk lately, have you?” - -Scritch ran as fast as his claws could catch on the ground. He went -straight to the stump where Great-grandfather Fieldmouse, who’s so old -his ears are crinkly, lives with all his family. Every one was taking -an afternoon nap when he bounced right in and woke them. “Quick, -quick!” he squeaked. “An awful thing is happening. We must run!” - -Great-grandfather Fieldmouse raised his rumply head and blinked at -him. “Eh? What? Who’s that? Was any one chasing you?” he asked. - -“No,” said Scritch. “It’s worse than that. Hurry! The rest of the -Woodsfolk have gone already--every last one.” - -“Ho, they left because they’re afraid of Killer the Weasel,” sniffed -the old fieldmouse. “But we’re not going. He can’t eat many more of us -than they do themselves. He isn’t like a bear who could tear this -stump right open and kill us all--but you don’t know about that. Bears -were long before your time.” They were long before Great-grandfather -Fieldmouse’s time, too, but he’s always pretending. The fat old fellow -set to combing his rumpled head with a stiff hind paw. - -“That isn’t why they’ve gone,” squealed Scritch triumphantly. “They -just pretended that it was. They’ve gone because the ducks say there’s -a terrible storm coming. They say they had to swim in it for two days -instead of flying. They say Doctor Muskrat’s Pond is going to grow so -fast it will swallow up the Woods and Fields, and we’ll all be -drowned!” - -“That’s what they tell you,” sneered the old mouse. “They don’t like -to own up that they’re afraid of a little beast like Killer.” - -“But they didn’t mean to. It was Chaik Jay. He thought I was Nibble -Rabbit.” My, but wasn’t Scritch proud when he remembered Chaik took -him for Nibble! “And Chaik said they didn’t warn us because we weren’t -friends.” - -“They didn’t, didn’t they?” snarled the old mouse. “We’ll show them if -we’ll stay here and be drowned.” That settled it. In less than an hour -Chaik saw the last mouse tail go trooping into the cornfield. - -“Chay!” he laughed. “Now, Killer, you’ll have a hard time finding -anything to eat around this pond. I’ll give you two days to go back to -the Deep Woods where you belong. And you’ll be a whole lot thinner -than when you came, old slinky-sides.” - -It was true, there wasn’t a single bit of fur for Killer to put his -teeth into when he woke up from his daytime sleep and went hunting. -But Chaik was determined Killer wouldn’t make his supper off a bird, -either. Every time one lit to drink at Doctor Muskrat’s Pond Chaik -would send it away. - -He told some one reason for leaving and some another, just whatever he -thought would scare them the most. Once a whole flock of gorgeous -little fellows swooped down and he was puzzled. They were warblers -from the far-away south; they come up north every summer, but they live -all by themselves and speak their own language, so none of the -northern birds can talk to them at all. “Now, how in the world can I -frighten those silly little spiggoty birds?” he mused with his head on -one side, most discouraged. “They won’t listen to reason.” - -Suddenly he began chuckling to himself. “If they can’t talk my talk -they can’t talk the marsh hawk’s, either.” He practised quietly for a -minute or two. Then he began to shout the hawk’s hunting call. -“Kee-yah!” he squawked. “Kee-yah!” And you should have heard those -warblers flutter their wings. They flew off without even stopping to -look behind them. - -It was really a fine imitation. It fooled more than the scary little -spiggoty birds. It fooled the marsh hawk himself. He woke up on his -perch down in the bulrushes where he dozes until the mice begin to -stir for their suppers. He thought surely it was one of his sons who -was hunting with his mother over in the Big Marsh, on the far-away -side of the Deep Woods, where the Woodsfolk think the sun goes to -sleep. “What’s he doing here?” wondered the old bird. “Surely his -mother never sent him to tell me we were going to start south ahead of -the storm.” And up he flew, craning his neck all around and calling. - -Of course Chaik knew better than to answer. He dropped down under the -leaves of the pickery thorn tree of the Quail’s Thicket and hid from -the hawk by scrambling around its trunk, keeping always on the -opposite side of it. “Lucky thing for me Killer the Weasel isn’t on -the prowl for me right now,” he thought. “I believe this is a poor -place to sleep. These leaves will let in ever so much rain, and if the -owls should take to hunting me from above and Killer from below they -wouldn’t be very long about catching me.” - -Just then his heart ’most stopped beating; he heard a rustling beneath -him--right at the very foot of the tree he was hiding on. He squinched -himself flat tight against the bark so he looked like nothing more -than a bumpy knothole and peeked--into the smiling face of Tad Coon. - -[Illustration: Chaik dropped from the tree and told Tad all about -everything] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -KILLER FINDS THE POND MIGHTY LONESOME - - -“Tad Coon!” gasped Chaik Jay. “What are you doing here? My, but I’m -glad you came.” And he dropped down from the trunk of the pickery -thorn tree. - -He told Tad all about everything; how the other Woodsfolk had gone up -to stay at Tommy Peele’s barn while Killer lived at the pond, and how -he’d fooled the mice into leaving it, and scared the birds so the -wicked beast wouldn’t find a thing to eat when he did wake up except -crawfish and snails, and angleworms, and he doesn’t like them. - -“Te-hee!” snickered Tad into his fur, because he was trying not to -make any noise about it. “That’s a wonderful joke. How hungry he’s -going to be! And hunger bites the inside of your ribs worse than the -Buzzers with hot tails I shook down on Trailer the Hound bite the -outside of them. Not a thing can he eat anywhere around unless he -tries to catch the hawk. I believe I’ll paddle out to his perch and -warn him.” - -“Yes,” cheeped Chaik, in a discouraged voice, “or unless he catches -me. I still can’t use my wing.” - -“Oh, you can come up to the barn,” said Tad easily. “There are lots of -fine places to perch in.” - -“But I can’t get there,” Chaik explained. - -“Sure you can,” Tad grinned. “I came down here with Louie Thomson. -Watch the Dog said he was coming after his little skin tree he sleeps -in. (Tad meant Louie’s blanket tent, you know.) He’s going to live -with the house folks until after the big storm that’s coming. Just let -him catch you and he’ll take you home and feed you till you can fly.” - -“Oh, no! Oh, no! I wouldn’t dare do that! Not even with Tommy Peele,” -fluttered Chaik. “I couldn’t stand being locked up.” - -“Locked up! How long do you s’pose you’d be locked up while I was -running around with my handy-paws? It’s better than being eaten, isn’t -it?” Tad demanded. - -“Ye-es,” chirped the bird, rather doubtfully. - -“Then get on a branch and flutter so he’ll see you,” ordered Tad, as -cheerfully as though it were the most natural thing in the world for -birds to let themselves be caught by their little boy friends. - -So Chaik hopped and sidled out to the tip of a bough where Louie could -see him. - -The little boy couldn’t have helped finding him, for there sat Tad -Coon right beneath him, with his sniffy black nose turned up, pointing -straight at him. And Chaik Jay was fluttering in a scared way. - -“You rascally old thing!” scolded Louie. Of course he thought Tad was -the one the pretty blue bird was afraid of; he never dreamed any one -would be afraid of him any more, because he never dreamed of hurting -his wild friends. “Is that the kind of a beast you are? You’re all -right while you know you can’t catch him, but the minute he can’t fly -you want to eat him. Well, I won’t let you. If you’re so hungry you -can’t wait till supper time you can go catch yourself a frog!” - -A lot Tad cared! He knew Louie wouldn’t hurt him, and he didn’t know -what the scolding was about--he guessed maybe Louie thought someone -had hurt Chaik’s wing on purpose. He just winked the tips of his ears -to cheer up the bird when the little boy reached out his hand to take -him. - -It was a very gentle hand. - -It tried very softly to untangle Chaik’s feet from the branch. Before -either of them knew just exactly how it happened Chaik found himself -holding on very tight to Louie’s soft, warm finger instead of the -rough wood, balancing himself with his well wing. And suddenly he -found he wasn’t scared any more. He felt perfectly safe and happy. And -you know how Louie Thomson would feel! He was so pleased and proud he -just couldn’t get home fast enough to show his mother. - -Do you know how happy Chaik Jay felt when he went riding up the lane -perched on Louie’s finger? He felt so happy he got actually impudent. -He looked up at the marsh hawk, still skimming over Doctor Muskrat’s -Pond wondering who had called him, and gave the hawk’s hunting call -again. That brought the hawk circling right over them. The hawk came -so near Louie could see the black tips to his blue-gray wings, like a -seagull’s, and the wide black bar on the end of his tail, and his -feathery whiskers--even the surprised look in his eyes, as bright and -coppery as a new penny. - -“Well, I’m ruffled!” he exclaimed, quite indignantly. “Were you the -one giving my call?” - -“Surely,” said that very impudent jay, bobbing his head and flicking -his own striped tail. “I thought you might want to know there’s not a -claw stirring in all these Woods and Fields except yours and Killer -the Weasel’s and those of the Bad Little Owls.” - -“Ha-a-ah!” The hawk made a cup of his tail and wings and hung above -them for a moment while he thought this over. “Thanks,” he said, and -his voice wasn’t nearly as harsh. “I’m glad to know it. If that’s -what’s going on, the pond is no place for me!” He’s not a very big -hawk, you know--not nearly as big as the fine red lady hawk who came -to help Stripes Skunk kill the crook-tailed snake which stole eggs -from the meadowlarks. He had good reason to be afraid of Killer. So -round he turned and Louie saw the queer white patch on his back that -you only notice from behind go jogging off toward his mate on the -far-off side of the Deep Woods. - -So when the wicked weasel woke up and squeezed himself through the -narrow crack between his two stones, he didn’t see any one at all. -“That’s queer,” he thought. “It’s certainly supper time for those -juicy little rabbits.” He listened. He didn’t hear any one at all, so -he began exploring, with his nose to the ground. And he could smell -where all the Woodsfolk had been scuttling around--tracks and tracks -of them. That satisfied him. “They’ll be coming down for a drink -before long,” he told himself. “I’ll just step under this bush, where -they won’t see me too soon, and wait for them.” - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -TROUBLE COMES HOME TO THE BAD LITTLE OWLS - - -Well, Killer waited, and waited, and waited. But nobody came at all. -Nobody unless you count the bats. Killer didn’t because only a bird -can catch them when they’re awake, and it’s a mighty lucky bird if it -does. - -He got hungrier, and hungrier, and hungrier. Still nobody came. And -the hungrier he got the madder he was because the Little Screecher -Owls had brought him there. He thought they were playing a trick on -him. So he began to slip from one tree to another, hunting for the one -they perch in. - -The ground under an owl’s perch always has little gray wads of fur and -feathers and bones beneath it--the leftovers of the last food the owls -have been eating. - -If there are very many weasels and cats to bother them, the owls -neatly carry these to some other tree than the one they sleep in. But -these Bad Little Owls were too lazy to attend to their housekeeping. -Killer put his nose into a whole pile of this rubbish the very first -thing. - -“Robin!” he sniffed. “Let me think. That owl said she didn’t hunt -robins. Then she stole them; she stole them from under the Robins’ -Roost. I’ll teach that owl to let my birds alone, just exactly -wherever I choose to leave them. She stole those robins! I’ll----” But -he pricked up his ears because he heard the little owls begin to talk -on their perch just over his head. - -“I wonder if Killer and the Woodsfolk have made friends by now,” said -one. “I’ve been listening ever since I woke up, and I haven’t heard a -thing.” - -“Few beasts can move so quietly that an owl doesn’t hear them even if -he’s listening,” thought Killer proudly. - -“Of course they’ve made friends,” said the lady owl. “If they made -friends with Stripes Skunk, of course they would with him. He’s ever -so much smarter, and I think he’s much handsomer.” She did, too. Owls -think it’s fine to be fierce looking. - -“But what if they don’t?” insisted her mate. - -“Why, then I’ll show him where they have their holes and help him hunt -them, that’s all,” she answered. - -“A-ha!” said Killer to himself. “That won’t be a bad plan. I won’t -quarrel with her yet. I’ll let her help me all she can before I get -even with her. All the same, I want to know what that man is doing out -here, and why she didn’t warn me.” - -He meant Louie Thomson. - -If those little owls had known there wasn’t another thing for him to -eat in all the Woods and Fields except the flittery bats, which he -couldn’t catch, and Chatter Squirrel, safely hidden in his secret -nest, they’d have had the appetites scared right out of them--and -that’s the most you can possibly scare an owl. But they didn’t. So -there they perched, feasting on the robins they had stored in their -hole, which they used for a pantry. - -“Speaking of holes,” said the little he-owl, “I’ve been wondering if -we oughtn’t to look up some more. This one we have will never hold all -we’ll have to hide when that weasel begins killing the Woodsfolk.” - -“It’s no use,” answered his wicked little wife. “Those Woodsfolk are -all too big for us to carry. We’ll have to eat them where he leaves -them, like we did when Silvertip was doing our hunting.” - -“Silvertip!” bristled the weasel. “O-ho! I remember that fox. He -couldn’t catch me. I’m too smart for him. But I’d better keep an eye -out. I wonder where he is now?” - -“I wish Killer would catch some more robins,” said the little he-owl, -wiping his beak clean of the feathers that were sticking to it. -“They’re very convenient, and we’ve eaten all but the very last one. -Shall I get it?” - -“Um-hm!” the weasel nodded to himself. “Now I understand. You birds -invited me here to do your hunting, did you? Well, I’ll see to it you -don’t get anything you don’t earn.” But of course he didn’t say -it--not yet. He wanted to hear what else they’d talk about. - -“Only one robin left!” exclaimed the lady owl. “My claws! Who’d have -thought we’d eat those birds all up in such a short time? You must -have been at them while I was sleeping, you greedy thing! I’ve had -hardly any of them.” She clattered her beak at the other owl so -angrily that he moved away from her down the limb. - -“You’ve had as many as I have,” he whimpered. “Can’t we show Killer -the stump where the mice live? They’d be easy to carry, and he’d kill -any amount of them.” - -“Fine!” she agreed. “We’ll need them. There’s going to be a storm.” - -“Well, we might just as well eat this robin then,” argued her piggy -little mate, “and then we can clean out the hole and leave it all -ready to store the mice in.” - -Killer listened while the owl tugged and grunted, getting the bird out -of his narrow pantry door. Suddenly he called: “I’ll trouble you for -that robin. It’s mine, and I want it myself!” - -Plunk! Down fell the bird, ’most on top of the wide burdock leaf where -Killer was hiding from them. But that wasn’t on purpose. The little -he-owl never meant to let it fall--he just jumped so hard from fright -that he dropped it. - -My, but his wife wanted to peck him! She didn’t dare, for fear Killer -would see how angry she was about losing it. She gave her husband a -horrid glare with her scary, starey eyes, and then she said in her -politest voice: “Certainly, Mr. Weasel, you’re welcome to anything we -have.” - -“But I don’t see how you come to have it,” said Killer rudely. - -“Owl custom, owl custom, my dear sir,” said she, preening herself so -her feathers wouldn’t ruffle and show how scared she was. “We pick up -the odds and ends you clever hunters don’t care about, and store them -up here in our hole. You can see it from where you are, and I’m sure I -hope you’ll help yourself whenever you feel like it.” All this time -she was saying to herself: “That’s the last thing we’ll hide in this -hole, now he knows where it is.” Wasn’t she deceitful? - -“You’re very kind, I’m sure,” he answered more politely. “But I’ve -hurt my paw so I can’t climb.” He said that because he hoped the owls -would go on roosting there so he could come and catch them in the -daytime if he wanted to. - -“Isn’t that too bad,” she sympathized. Really she was glad; her -feathers unruffled again, now that she felt sure he couldn’t sneak up -on her while she wasn’t looking. - -By this time he was picking the robin’s bones. Pretty soon he licked -his whiskers with a raspy tongue; it made cold shivers run through -those bad little birds. Even the lady owl was sorry she’d brought him -to Tommy Peele’s Woods and Fields. That’s what she got for losing her -temper. She wondered how long he’d been listening and what he’d heard. - -The wicked weasel knew just what she was thinking about. He said in a -voice as raspy as his tongue: “I heard you say something about a -mouse’s stump. That sounds like a quick place to get a full meal -before this storm that’s coming. I’ll ask you to take me there so I -won’t have to waste any time hunting for it. But first I want to ask -you some questions. Come down here so I don’t have to shout. Come -along!” - -His wife stared at the Bad Little Owl and the Bad Little Owl stared -back at her. Their eyes grew wider and shinier, and their clothes felt -pin-featherier than ever they had since the day those birds were -hatched. My, but they were scared! Slowly they both turned to stare -down at Killer the Weasel, who sat beneath their tree. And let me tell -you he wasn’t the handsome, slicked-up beast with the pricky ears and -the arched neck and the fluffed tail who had tried to make friends -with the Woodsfolk--he looked too sharp-toothed and snaky for -anything. - -“Hustle!” called Killer in his raspy voice. “I’m not going to shout at -you way up there for every one to hear, and I’m not going to hunt, -until I know several things that you forgot to tell me when you -invited me here. But we’ve no time to waste. If this turns out to be a -three-days’ storm we’ll be hungry enough by the end of it, even if we -get a good meal before it begins. Come along!” He fixed his eye on the -lady owl, and she saw a red spark gleaming in it. - -She didn’t mean to come--not she. But somehow she couldn’t seem to -help herself. Before he knew quite what she was doing, down she came. -She grabbed at the springy, pickery stem of a wild raspberry--no bird -in its sane senses would ever think of perching on one--and there she -hung. But she knew he could jump right up and catch her. - -“Now!” he hissed in that dreadful whisper things from under-the-earth -use, whether they wear fur or scales, “Where’s Silvertip the Fox, my -deadly enemy?” - -“Silvertip? Oh, he’s duck hunting in the Big Marsh, way off the other -side of the Deep Woods,” lied the owl. She didn’t dare tell him -Silvertip was dead. - -“Ah,” growled the weasel. “Well, then, why didn’t you warn me about -that man?” (He meant Louie Thomson.) “Did you think I wouldn’t know -these woods are full of his jaws, just gaping for me to put my foot in -one?” (He meant traps, of course.) - -“Who-o-o!” exclaimed the owl. “That man hasn’t any more jaws or claws -than a hoptoad. Men don’t get them till they’re grown, and he’s just a -little harmless wild one. He never hunts; he lives on corn. Once in a -while he comes over here for a root from Doctor Muskrat, who owns the -pond--just like the other wild things do if they’re sick or hurt. Then -he goes back again.” - -“Hey? What’s that? A wild man? There isn’t any such thing!” snarled -Killer. - -“Well, he’s wild. You could see for yourself even the rabbits weren’t -afraid of him,” the owl kept on arguing. - -The weasel thought for a minute. That certainly was true; so were the -corncobs, left from Louie’s feast, he saw piled beside the little -blanket tent. “All right,” said he. “Then show me the mouse’s stump. -Flap along, bird, flap along!” - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE BIG RAIN PUTS AN END TO EVIL DOINGS FOR A TIME - - -I just tell you the wife of the Bad Little Owl was glad to get on her -wings. She flew so fast that her mate, flying along behind her, said: -“Hey! Killer can’t keep up with us at this rate. Where are you going?” - -“I’m scared to death of that wicked weasel,” she answered. “I’m going -as fast and as far as ever I can.” - -“What a way to talk!” he hooted indignantly. “The poor fellow was -hungry. No wonder he was cross. Just as soon as he gets a good meal -he’ll be friendly again. We can’t change our hunting ground with this -storm coming on. There won’t be any grasshoppers to speak of, and it -takes so many of them to make a meal. We mightn’t have the luck to -catch a sparrow, and we wouldn’t know a single mousehole. It’s too -dangerous.” - -“It’s not nearly as dangerous as Killer!” snapped his wife. “He didn’t -make you come right down close to him, the way he made me. He could -have caught me. I won’t risk it again.” - -“He made me give him that robin,” answered the little he-owl. “But I -don’t care a bit. I’m tired of eating robins. Think of all we had to -carry home from the Robins’ Roost. And we didn’t help him kill a -single one. Now, if we help him kill the mice we’ll get every other -one of them. Um-m!” And he smacked his beak. Wasn’t he just a greedy -little bird? - -[Illustration: The Owl helps Killer find the stump where the mice -live] - -His mate wheeled around to think it over. She certainly didn’t like -the looks of that storm. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to just show Killer -the stump. The minute he took his eye off her she’d hide and she -wouldn’t come back until after he had eaten and gone. She could hear -him calling. Her mate answered with the funny little yap owls use -between them when they are hunting together. Down she dropped, but she -gripped her claws good and tight into the branch of a tree near the -mouse’s stump before she called, “Here we are!” - -“Huh-huh-huh,” panted the wicked beast. “I didn’t know where you -had gone. Snff, snff! Lots of tracks here, all right enough!” he -chuckled. It was inky dark, so of course he couldn’t see that the -footprints of the mice were all leading out and none leading back -in again; you remember Chaik Jay had sent every last tail -scuttling out of the Woods and Fields as fast as mice could run. -Scritch, scritch! If Great-grandfather Fieldmouse had heard -Killer’s claws tearing at the rotten wood he wouldn’t have boasted -that no one but a bear could break in and eat them. Then---- - -Boom! Crash-h-h! R-r-r-rip! Splash! Down in one blinding sheet came -the first rain of that storm. It was surely a bad one! - -The hoptoad was right when he said there was going to be rain--“floods -of it.” There was. And there was wind and lightning and thunder and -terrible squeaking and squawking and rustling and pounding--all the -noises that make a storm such a scary thing. Of course it wasn’t as -bad as Chaik Jay told the mouse it was going to be, but the mice -didn’t know that. They were all hidden in the stone pile by the -cornfield fence, or in logs and stumps in the Deep Woods. Some of them -even went all the way up to Tommy Peele’s barn and hid in the -strawstack. They didn’t hide in the haystack because---- - -But first I want to tell you the rest of what happened down by Doctor -Muskrat’s Pond. The owls tried to fly home, but their wings got so -waterlogged with the rain they had to creep into the hollow oak that -was blown down in the terrible storm--the time Nibble Rabbit rescued -the Woodsfolk who were living in it and had a storm party in his -little cornstalk tent. - -Killer tried to hide in his crack between two stones in the bank of -Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. But the water found him. First it trickled in -from the ground above, where Louie Thomson’s little blanket tent used -to stand, and most washed him out; and then the pond grew fuller and -fuller and higher and higher until it most drowned him. So he had to -go out in all that rain, gnashing his teeth and swearing. - -“Those pesky owls!” he snarled (only he said something worse than just -“pesky”). “I’m going to drag them out of their snug hole by their -scrawny little necks and eat them and live in it myself till this -storm is gone.” - -Up he climbed. His paw wasn’t hurt a bit--when he told the owl it was -he was only pretending, you know. Of course the owls weren’t in it. He -squeezed into it himself, but it was so small for him he had to double -all up inside and the mouse bones in the bottom of it were very -uncomfortable. Wasn’t he starved and squirmy and peevish, the wicked -thing! - -But the Woodsfolk weren’t. Nibble Rabbit knew his way about Tommy -Peele’s barn quite as well as he knew his way about the Woods and -Fields. And that made Silk-ears think he was smarter than ever. Doctor -Muskrat learned from the white ducks, who aren’t nearly as stupid as -they look, all about the ponds the rain was making, so he was happy. -And Stripes Skunk had the finest hunting in the world in the haystack. -He stationed one of his kittens at each of the rat holes, so whenever -Ouphe’s sons or grandsons tried to dodge out of the stack to hunt a -meal someone was sure to catch him. He turned into a feast instead of -finding one. So they were all very comfortable and happy. Except the -bad rats! - -Pretty clever of them, wasn’t it? But you forget that Killer was -clever, too. Though I don’t blame you for that--so did the Woodsfolk. -They never dreamed that Killer would find out where they’d run away -to. Or that he’d be bold enough to follow them. People always forget -that the old saying “He who fights and runs away may live to fight -another day,” doesn’t mean that he who runs away gets out of fighting -for good and all. - -No, it was war to the tooth in the end. Fur and feathers fought -together on both sides, for the Bad Little Owls kept right on helping -Killer--they didn’t dare not to. And every decent bird was more than -willing to wear out his summer wings, if need be, to help good old -Doctor Muskrat and his friends. So it was pretty even. - -But the Woodsfolk won in the end--’cause they had help that was -neither one nor tother--feathers or fur, or even skin or scales. It -was something Mother Nature herself had never dreamed of in the -First-Off Beginning of Things. It was---- - -Why, Great beef-bones! as Watch would say. Here I am at ’most the very -last line in this book. Well, you’d better copy that wise dog and -think about all the nicest things you know to keep from worrying while -you wait for the next story to find out just what it was. - -THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAD LITTLE OWLS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Bad Little Owls</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: John Breck</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: William T. Andrews</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 02, 2021 [eBook #64452]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Roger Frank</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAD LITTLE OWLS ***</div> - -<div style='text-align:center;'> - <h1>THE BAD LITTLE OWLS</h1> - <div style='margin-top:4em;'>Told at Twilight Stories</div> - <div style='font-size:1.1em; margin-bottom:0.7em;'>By JOHN BRECK</div> - <div style='font-size:0.9em;'>MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY<br /> - NIBBLE RABBIT MAKES MORE FRIENDS<br /> - THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX<br /> - TAD COON’S TRICKS<br /> - THE WAVY TAILED WARRIOR<br /> - TAD COON’S GREAT ADVENTURE<br /> - THE BAD LITTLE OWLS<br /> - THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME</div> -</div> - -<div class='section'> - <div class='figcenter portrait' id='i001'> - <img src='images/illus-001.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>The Bad Little Owls</p> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='section' style='text-align:center'> - <div style='margin-bottom:1em;'>Told at Twilight Stories</div> - <div style='font-size:1.4em; margin-bottom:0.7em;'>The Bad Little Owls</div> - <div>by</div> - <div style='font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:0.7em;'>John Breck</div> - <div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>Book VII</div> - <div style='font-size:0.9em;'>Illustrated by</div> - <div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>William T. Andrews</div> - <div style='font-size:0.8em;'>Garden City    New York</div> - <div style='font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:0.5em;'>Doubleday, Page & Company</div> - <div style='font-size:0.8em;'>1923</div> -</div> - -<div class='section' style='text-align:center; font-size:0.8em;'> - <div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY<br /> - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</div> - <div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF<br /> - TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,<br /> - INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN</div> - <div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS</div> - <div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES<br /> - AT<br /> - THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</div> - <div>First Edition</div> -</div> - -<div class='section'> - <div>CONTENTS</div> - <ul class='toc' style='margin-top:0.2em;'> - <li><span>I.</span> <a href='#ch_I'>The Woodsfolk Learn the Rules about Fire</a></li> - <li><span>II.</span> <a href='#ch_II'>Chaik Jay Carries Bad News</a></li> - <li><span>III.</span> <a href='#ch_III'>Mrs. Owl Invites Killer the Weasel to the Woods and Fields</a></li> - <li><span>IV.</span> <a href='#ch_IV'>Fur and Feathers Plan a Campaign</a></li> - <li><span>V.</span> <a href='#ch_V'>Killer the Weasel Makes a Plan Likewise</a></li> - <li><span>VI.</span> <a href='#ch_VI'>A Plan to Foil the Enemy</a></li> - <li><span>VII.</span> <a href='#ch_VII'>The Cleverness of Chaik Jay</a></li> - <li><span>VIII.</span> <a href='#ch_VIII'>Killer Finds the Pond Mighty Lonesome</a></li> - <li><span>IX.</span> <a href='#ch_IX'>Trouble Comes Home to the Bad Little Owls</a></li> - <li><span>X.</span> <a href='#ch_X'>The Big Rain Puts an End to Evil Doings for a Time</a></li> - </ul> -</div> - -<div class='section'> - <div>ILLUSTRATIONS</div> - <ul class='loi' style='margin-top:0.2em;'> - <li><a href='#i001'>The Bad Little Owls</a></li> - <li><a href='#i002'>She lit above Killer’s head while he was busy eating the robin</a></li> - <li><a href='#i003'>“When a fellow can smell he can see with his nose just who has been there”</a></li> - <li><a href='#i004'>The Doctor said Chaik Jay had had too much party</a></li> - <li><a href='#i005'>“Run for your lives, everybody. Killer has come to the pond!”</a></li> - <li><a href='#i006'>Chaik frightens the mice away, to save them from Killer the Weasel</a></li> - <li><a href='#i007'>Chaik dropped from the tree and told Tad all about everything</a></li> - <li><a href='#i008'>The Owl helps Killer find the stump where the mice live</a></li> - </ul> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; margin-bottom:1em;'>The Bad Little Owls</div> - -<h2 id='ch_I' title="The Woodsfolk Learn the Rules About Fire"> -<span>CHAPTER I</span><br />THE WOODSFOLK LEARN THE RULES ABOUT FIRE -</h2> - -<p>“Take to the water, quick!” shouted Doctor Muskrat. “Climb a tree!” -advised Chatter Squirrel, balancing on the tip end of a limb. And they -had the Woodsfolk so excited they didn’t know what to do. Most of them -couldn’t climb if they wanted to, and mighty few of them like to swim. -So those who were there tried to run away, and those who weren’t came -to see what was going on. Tommy Peele’s woods were just alive with -scuttling and fluttering. All because Louie Thomson had brought a -lantern to light his party with. He had brought all sorts of things to -eat, too, and he planned to sleep all night in the Woods and Fields, -in a tent made of one of his mother’s blankets.</p> - -<p>Of course Louie couldn’t think what was the matter with the Woodsfolk. -But Tommy Peele’s big furry dog, Watch, who was with him, knew well -enough. He sat there with his tongue out, laughing at them.</p> - -<p>When Tad Coon saw Watch laughing he got over being frightened, and -then he was curious. He waded out of the pond and came over to look at -the little sputtery flame dancing inside the lantern. Of course he -thought it was a bug. Most everything that hasn’t leaves or fur or -feathers is a bug to Tad Coon. Bugs do themselves up in very funny -packages sometimes before they’re all through hatching. He put out his -handy-paw to catch it.</p> - -<p>“Look out!” barked Watch. “Let it alone!” But he didn’t say it before -Tad had touched the glass with his little wet claw. Before he could -jerk it back the water began sizzling and he got a bit of a burn. “Ow, -ow!” howled poor Tad, dancing around with his paw in his mouth. “It’s -a buzzer with a hot tail.” (He meant a paper wasp.) “Ow, ow!” he -sobbed. “It bit me!” So that scared all the Woodsfolk all over again.</p> - -<p>Doctor Muskrat knew all about the fires that sometimes burn up the -marshes, but Tad didn’t, because he’s always gone to sleep for the -winter before they begin. Nibble Rabbit knew something about them, -because Watch tried to explain when he told what was happening to -Grandpop Snapping Turtle. (Tommy Peele’s mother was cooking him.) But -nobody ever dreamed Stripes Skunk would understand.</p> - -<p>Stripes did know. He knew the rule of tents because his people were -friendly with the Indians just like cats are friendly with us -housefolk. They hunted around the campfires to catch creepy-crawley -things. He didn’t know the difference between Louie’s blanket and a -real tent, nor between Louie’s lantern and a real campfire because -he’d never seen them. So he was just as pleased as though this was a -real camp and Louie a real Indian. “Come along,” he called to his -kittens. “This is the rule of fires: When the men aren’t walking -around them you can lie down three tail lengths from the light and get -your whiskers warm.” So down they lay. And weren’t they just conceited -because all the other Woodsfolk had their eyes popped out, staring at -them.</p> - -<p>All this time, Tad was sitting right squash on his bushy tail in the -edge of the pond, using all his other three paws to hold the poor -burned one in his mouth—because it hurt him so dreadfully—at least -he thought it did. Tad Coon’s always thinking he’s killed when he’s -hardly more than mussed his fur. (He made an awful fuss the time -Grandpop Snapping Turtle nipped his tail, and after all, Grandpop only -pulled a couple of hairs out.) “Oo-h-ow-h-ow!” whimpered Tad, licking -himself between each sniffle.</p> - -<p>“Let’s see, let’s see!” said Doctor Muskrat. He began peering at it in -the darkness way off away from the lantern.</p> - -<p>“Come up here by the fire,” giggled Watch. “It’s not hurting Stripes. -If you don’t get too close to its cage you’re all right. It can’t jump -out and bite you.” Now wasn’t that a sensible way to explain about a -lantern to the Woodsfolk? It surely is just a little flame of fire all -shut up safe inside of its glass, like a goldfish in a bowl.</p> - -<p>So Tad and Doctor Muskrat crept up close, jumping just a little -whenever the flame danced, and peeked at the poor burned paw. It had -just the teeniest, weeniest little pinhead of a blister. When Tad saw -how very little it was he felt quite cheerful again, and forgot all -about it.</p> - -<p>Indeed, he was more curious than ever about the lantern. “Where did -Louie catch it?” he wanted to know. “What does it eat? Doesn’t it ever -run wild at all?”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes,” said Watch with a little shiver. “Then it grows very, -very fast and eats up everything it can reach. I’ve seen a little bit -of a fire like that eat up a whole haystack in about the time it takes -the sun to set. But men are very, very careful never to let it get out -if they can possibly help it. They keep it in strong black cages (he -meant stoves, of course), and feed it cold black stones. (That was -coal, you know.) Or they keep it in a cave and feed it a bit of wood. -(Watch meant an open grate.) It spits and sputters and sometimes a -little piece jumps out, but someone always catches it. And they keep a -lot in little cages like this and feed it water with a funny smell.” -(That’s lamps burning kerosene.)</p> - -<p>But you couldn’t expect the Woodsfolk to believe such things!</p> - -<p>Now Louie brought that lantern to the pond just to light up his feast -because there wasn’t any moonlight. But he did much better than -that—or worse, according as you look at it. For by the time the -Woodsfolk had learned a few things about it the buzzwings came to -learn about it, too, ’specially some great big shelly-winged beetles, -with great big stabbing-beaks on their ugly faces. And wasn’t it nice; -most everybody there except Nibble Rabbit’s family and Doctor Muskrat -just love to eat them!</p> - -<p>As soon as they saw the light, a whole flock of these fellows came -over from the pond to investigate it. Some of them lit on the glass -and burned their feet a whole lot worse than Tad Coon burned his -handy-paw, because they didn’t know enough to take them off again. -They stuck right there and ran out their jabbers until they blunted -the ends of them. And all the time they kept buzzing their war cry, -calling the rest of the beetles to come and help them fight it. -Foolish things, they didn’t know that if one beetle can’t hurt a thing -even a thousand of them can’t. “Brz-brz-brz!” they roared. “Brz-brz!” -roared all the others, coming to help them.</p> - -<p>My, there were a lot of them! But the Woodsfolk didn’t mind them a -little bit. They just thought this was an extra feast Louie had so -cleverly provided. You ought to have seen Stripes Skunk’s children -dancing around on their little hind legs, slapping them with their -paddy-paws. Tad crunched and crunched until his jaws were tired. Even -Chatter Squirrel and Chaik the Jay could see to catch them. They’d -snap a bug, and then they’d eat some more of Louie’s corn; then they’d -go back to the buzzwings again. And the more they ate the more -desperate the buzzwings grew. But they blamed it all on the lantern.</p> - -<p>It was a long, long time before they got so blind angry they began to -fight everything they saw. They couldn’t hurt the furry folk, and they -couldn’t catch Chaik, but they did get poor Louie Thomson, who was -sitting there laughing at their goings on. Wow! But didn’t he squall! -He squalled louder than Tad Coon. He hopped around sucking his poor -hand just as Tad sucked his handy-paw, with all the Woodsfolk staring -at him. It didn’t take them long to guess what had happened. And -weren’t they just sorry as anything!</p> - -<p>Poor Louie! It hurt lots worse than that little bitty burn of Tad -Coon’s. But he didn’t make nearly so much fuss about it. He didn’t -like even the Woodsfolk to hear him. ’Specially when they were so -sorry. And Watch just whined his sympathy, plain as words, and licked -the sore spot for him.</p> - -<p>Even that didn’t stop it from hurting. So Louie ran down to the pond -and stuck it in the water. Then he picked a bulrush and squeezed the -nice, soft, juicy end against it. Of course that interested Doctor -Muskrat. He flopped over to see what root Louie was using.</p> - -<p>“Hey, Watch!” he said. “That poor boy has the right idea, but he’s got -hold of the wrong root. Tell him to try this marsh marigold. It’s -fine.”</p> - -<p>“Or dock,” suggested Nibble Rabbit. Dock is a favourite remedy in a -rabbit hole.</p> - -<p>“No, leeks,” suggested Tad Coon. He didn’t mean to rub them on, but to -eat them. They’re little wild onions, and they taste so good to Tad he -forgets about everything else when he’s eating them. But there weren’t -any by the pond.</p> - -<p>“I can’t talk to him,” sniffed Watch. “Anyway, the best thing is that -blue mud you put on Tad’s nose. Where do you find it?”</p> - -<p>“Right in the bank here,” said Doctor Muskrat, giving a scratch with -his paw to show him. And Louie didn’t need any more telling. He knew -about that mud himself—his mother had put some on a bee-sting. So he -scooped out a good handful and slapped it on his bite. Then he did -feel better. He felt well enough to remember that he was so sleepy he -couldn’t keep his eyes open.</p> - -<p>Over by his tent there were just as many beetles as ever, buzzing over -his lantern. They were still fighting it, and the little skunks were -still catching them. They couldn’t eat another one, but they thought -it was fun to jump up and bat them. But Louie could see they’d never -in the world catch them all. The only thing for him to do was to turn -out his light and then the rest of the bad buzzwings would go back to -the marsh where they belonged. “Pouff!” My, how dark everything was!</p> - -<p>“Oh-h!” sighed Tad Coon in a sorry voice; “he killed it! What did he -do that for? It bit me, all right, but I didn’t want it killed. And -the buzzwing was the one who bit him. I saw it.” You see he thought -the flame was alive.</p> - -<p>“It’s only gone dark,” Watch comforted him. “It does that quite often, -like the fireflies over in the marsh do when they fold their wings. -But it always shines when he wants it to unless he forgets to feed -it.” You know a lantern won’t burn if it hasn’t any oil. Watch knew -that much, but he was really most as puzzled as Tad.</p> - -<p>Inside his blanket tent Louie was already fast asleep.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_II' title="Chaik Jay Carries Bad News"> -<span>CHAPTER II</span><br />CHAIK JAY CARRIES BAD NEWS -</h2> - -<p>When Louie’s lantern went out, all the Woodsfolk scurried to their -holes as fast as ever they could go. All but Watch, Tommy Peele’s dog, -who curled up just outside Louie’s blanket tent and went to sleep with -one ear open, and Chaik the Jay.</p> - -<p>Poor Chaik was in a bad way. It was easy enough to fly over to the -feast while the lantern was lit, but now, in the black dark, he -couldn’t get home. He tried to fly. Bump! He hit a tree. “Ough! I -can’t risk that again,” he thought to himself. “Wonder where I am? -What’s more, I wonder where those Bad Little Owls are?” He began -tiptoeing around the trunk. First thing he knew his foot found a -woodpecker hole. In he popped, without stopping to think. “Ah,” he -chuckled, “this is luck! Mussy nest, though, I must tease Taps -Woodpecker about his housekeeping. Whatever is this I’m stepping on?” -He scratched round, feeling carefully with his claws. Then his -feathers fluffed out with fright. “Great acorns!” he gasped. “It isn’t -Tap’s nest at all any more. This is a mouse’s bones I’m standing on. -I’m in the hole in the dead hickory where they killed Tap’s wife last -year and stole the nest for themselves.” True enough. He had a right -to be scared; he was in the little owls’ own hole.</p> - -<p>There was a soft flutter just outside. He held his sharp beak ready -for a fight, but he didn’t stir. He didn’t even breathe for quite a -while. Nothing happened. “It’s the queerest thing,” he thought. “I -should think this place should smell owlier than it does. Yes, and -those bones are certainly old. I wonder——”</p> - -<p>Right then a whispering interrupted him. It certainly was those owls. -“What did you get?” said one. “I’ve got a mouse, a pretty good one, -too.”</p> - -<p>“More fool you,” said the other. “We could have cleaned up all those -beetles who were lying around and then had a mouse apiece if you -hadn’t grabbed that one right off. He squeaked, and now that dog is on -the lookout for us.” Chaik guessed the mice had come out to pick up -what the Woodsfolk left near Louie’s blanket tent, where Watch the Dog -was asleep with one ear open, and the owls found them. “Give us a -leg,” the owl went on.</p> - -<p>“Go get one for yourself,” said the other rudely.</p> - -<p>“I can’t,” whined the scary one. Chaik guessed it was the he-owl. “I’m -scared of that dog. He moved when your mouse squeaked. I’d have had -one, too, if you hadn’t been so greedy.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, here, then. I’ll get another easy enough. That dog can’t catch -me,” snapped his wife, clicking her beak. “But this thing has got to -stop. We can’t be bothered with dogs and boys and everything right -here on our hunting ground.”</p> - -<p>“How can we help it?”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to hunt up Killer the Weasel. That’s what the mice ought to -have done. He wouldn’t kill any more mice than Stripes Skunk and Tad -Coon do between them, and if he settled here I can just tell you -everybody else would have to move away—or get eaten. He’s the one to -bring.”</p> - -<p>“So would we,” protested the scary owl. “You can’t nest with him -anywhere about. He can climb like Chatter Squirrel.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what nesting did we do this year?” she snarled back. “After -those nasty jays pulled out all our feathers when they caught us in -the Brushpile we couldn’t hunt enough to lay eggs, let alone raise a -family!”</p> - -<p>Suddenly the he-owl, who was much the scarier of the two, put up his -beak and sniffed uncomfortably. “I smell feathers,” said he. “You -haven’t been catching any birds, have you? I’m sure it’s feathers I’ve -been noticing for the longest while.”</p> - -<p>“Just suppose you stop plaguing me about that young seagull,” snapped -his wife. “I like eating them, even if you don’t. It was a good half a -hatching ago that I caught her, and you’re still yapping about it. The -old ones never found who’d taken her.”</p> - -<p>“Luckily they didn’t,” he said sulkily. “They’d have shouted it all -over the marsh. It’s no use having the birds picking on us, I tell -you. We have troubles enough without that. Now that I’ve got a full -set of feathers growing in I mean to keep them. This flying about -without my tail is no fun.” He was so full of his troubles he forgot -all about what he smelled. “Now you say you’re going to bring Killer -the Weasel into these Woods and Fields. That’ll make the most trouble -of all. He won’t do any more good than Silvertip the Fox nor Slyfoot -the Mink, and they were a whole lot safer for us. They didn’t climb. -Why, his very mate can’t trust him.” He said this in a very shocked -voice because he was just a little bit afraid of his own bossy wife.</p> - -<p>“Teeth and toenails!” she squawked. “Don’t you ever think? I don’t -expect to do any of the trusting; I’ll leave it all to that -whining skunk who’s even afraid of Bob White Quail, and that sly, -slippery-clawed Tad Coon, and that honey-whiskered Nibble Rabbit. -They want to make friends, do they? I’ll show them a new friend -all right enough. Killer can eat every last tail-tip of them if -he’ll listen to me, and just so long as he keeps away from the -barns, the men won’t bother to come after him.”</p> - -<p>Chaik Jay heard every last word. Then he heard one of the owls flit -away, but the sound was so faint he couldn’t tell whether the other -had gone, too. He began to move, very carefully. But just the least -scratch of his wings caught the ear of that scary little he-owl, who -was still sitting on the limb outside. Pit-pit-pit, he clawed over -toward the hole. Chaik could hear him sniff. Now he’d look into it and -see.</p> - -<p>“Wauk! Waourr!” shrieked his wife from over by the pond. He stopped to -listen. She was fluttering about like a crazy bird just outside of -Louie Thomson’s tent. “Wah! Ur-r-rh, yah!” yapped Watch who had been -sleeping with one ear open. “Wuk-uk-uk!” answered the bad little bird -who had just been going to peek and see poor Chaik crouching inside, -ready for a battle in the dark, a battle which could only have one -ending, a bunch of mussed blue feathers at the foot of the tree.</p> - -<p>But the little owl never looked. He flapped his wings noisily because -he was too excited to fly in proper owl fashion.</p> - -<p>Off he flew to help his mate.</p> - -<p>And that smart Chaik Jay did the cleverest thing—he flew right after -the owl. He knew that owl hole wasn’t any place to hide in, and he -knew he couldn’t find his way home. And the only way he could find -Watch was to follow the owl.</p> - -<p>It wasn’t any good for Chaik to fly quietly; his wings were so mussed -he couldn’t, anyway. And he couldn’t dodge in and out of the twigs -because he couldn’t see them as plainly as the little owl. All he -could do was to follow the sound and be ready to dodge if the bad -little bird took it into his head to pounce at him.</p> - -<p>But the owl wasn’t thinking about anything in the world but his mate. -He really did love her, even if they quarreled. And he really meant to -fight for her as bravely as ever he knew how. But he didn’t have to. -For she came to meet him, squawking between each flop, so crazy scared -that she flew right past him and all but collided with Chaik, who was -following close on his stubby tail.</p> - -<p>Chaik dipped, to get out of her way, and struck his wing against a -branch. He went whirling tail over crest, not a bit like a bird, but -quite like a cluster of leaves the caterpillars bite off for an -airplane to carry them back to earth when they want to dig down and -make their homes for the winter time. He struck a bush and then went -bouncing and sliding to the ground. For a minute he lay there, almost -dazed, his poor little head in a whirl. How his poor wing did ache! He -listened.</p> - -<p>“It’s funny I don’t hear Watch,” thought Chaik. “I certainly heard him -a minute ago.” He gave a little raspy whisper.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” came a startled voice right above him. “I thought you were a -mouse. Is that you, Chaik?” Watch must have been holding his breath as -well as his paw, ready to pounce on him.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Chaik answered back. “What was all the racket over? What’s -happening?”</p> - -<p>“Those pesky whisktails,” Watch answered. He meant the mice. “Stripes -Skunk or Tad Coon ought to have stayed to help me. They’ve been -squeaking and scuffling over those corncobs left after Louie’s party, -and the beetles Stripes’s kittens left lying round, until I couldn’t -get a wink of sleep. Finally I snapped a paw to quiet them and hit -feathers instead of fur. I guess I most squashed all the squawk right -out of that little owl before I knew who she was and let her go -again.”</p> - -<p>“And I wish you’d killed her!” hissed Chaik. “Put down your head. -Their ears are so frightfully keen and they mustn’t hear a word. -Listen! They’re going to bring Killer the Weasel to these Woods and -Fields!”</p> - -<p>“Great beef-bones! They can’t! They mustn’t! Oh, that’s too awful!”</p> - -<p>“But they will,” Chaik insisted. “You’ll see. He’s going to fool us -all into making friends and—well, you know what then! Not even my -nest will be safe from him. Not even their own, but they’ll take that -risk to get even with us because we jays pulled out their feathers so -they couldn’t hunt enough this year to do any nesting. Now do you -see?”</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_III' title="Mrs. Owl Invites Killer the Weasel to the Woods and Fields"> -<span>CHAPTER III</span><br />MRS. OWL INVITES KILLER THE WEASEL TO THE WOODS AND FIELDS -</h2> - -<p>Chaik Jay didn’t need to whisper. The Bad Little Owls weren’t there to -overhear him, as he’d overheard them while he was hidden in their very -own hole. When Watch pawed the lady owl, who was mouse hunting right -under his nose in the black dark, he spoiled more than her feathers; -he ruined the last of her temper. And her temper is ’most as short as -her tail at the best of times, as you know.</p> - -<p>She beaked her wings so spitefully that she ’most took out what -feathers she had left (they get very loose long before the leaves -begin to fall), and set right off to find Killer the Weasel.</p> - -<p>Right straight into the Deep Woods she flew, her scary little mate -flapping along behind her. Pretty soon she heard a sound; it was a -faint squawk, choked in the middle. She circled to listen. There came -another squawk, exactly like the first. Then there was an uneasy -stirring and fluttering in the secret depths of a thick, leafy tree. -Dark deeds were being done there. “What? What? Who called?” said a -scared bird voice. No answer. The silence was more terrible than any -words.</p> - -<p>A minute passed, another. She perched softly to listen. Her mate -didn’t dare to speak, though he was ’most bursting with questions; -yes, and something more. He was still afraid. He circled and lit -beside her, with the least little scratching of a twig; she gave him a -vicious peck. Poor little fellow, he didn’t even dare to preen the -spot for fear he’d make another sound and get something worse. Then -the first bird voice said at last: “Some youngster had a bad dream. -You should always own up to it, little stubby wings, and not frighten -the rest of us.” But still no one answered.</p> - -<p>All the same the birds began to settle down again and all was quiet. -“Ah-h!” came the very same choked cry; then a word. “Help! Kil——” -and that was all. All but a soft thump. In a moment the tree was an -uproar of fluttering and screaming.</p> - -<p>“I knew he was there,” said the bad little lady owl triumphantly. -“Killer’s been raiding the robins’ roost.” And she was right. After -they finish nesting, all the robins fly to sleep in the same secret -hiding place, in the loneliest grove they can find. And there they -make friends with each other and talk over their fall trip and decide -where they’ll go when the snow comes to cover up the ground, and hide -the worms, and when, and which party they want to join. And Killer the -Weasel and the hooter owls try to find it, because it’s such easy -hunting.</p> - -<p>“Don’t speak to him to-night. Please don’t!” begged her husband. “Do -take a day to sleep on it. Something awful always happens if you lose -your temper.” You see even the owls know that. But they won’t always -believe it. She wouldn’t.</p> - -<p>“It’s terrible!” he gasped. “Killer has more birds already than he’ll -eat in a week.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’m waiting for,” she answered grimly. “We’ll take care -of the extra ones.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t! Don’t you dare touch them!” he protested. “The robins will -find it out, and we’ll never hear the end of it. Just think what the -jays did to us. We haven’t been able to fly decently since they picked -on us, way last spring. And there are so many more robins. We’d never -have a day’s rest. They’ll pluck us bare. Do let’s go home!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, do shut up!” she snapped angrily. “You can fly back and good -riddance. I’m not keeping you. I can mind my own business without you. -It doesn’t concern you.”</p> - -<p>“It does, too,” he whimpered. “Nobody ever knows us apart. If those -robins get just a glimpse of you they’ll never believe I wasn’t eating -them, too. Won’t you please listen?”</p> - -<p>But his wife wasn’t paying any attention to him at all. She was -leaning over, craning out her neck, cocking her ear. All she answered -was: “There he goes now.” After a second she added to herself: “My, -but he’s little. I don’t believe he can do it, ever in this world.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter portrait' id='i002'> - <img src='images/illus-002.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>She lit above Killer’s head while he was busy eating the robin</p> -</div> - -<p>“Do what?” he wanted to know.</p> - -<p>“Kill——” she hesitated; “kill any one bigger than Tad Coon.” She -didn’t want him to know it was Watch the Dog and Tommy Peele and Louie -Thomson she wanted to get rid of for good and all. She thought to -herself: “If only those boys were gone, and the Woodsfolk hadn’t any -one to give those nice feasts to them so they’d never get hungry, -they’d fight each other again.” She didn’t know they really liked -living together the way Mother Nature meant them to in the First-Off -Beginning. But she knew he’d be scared if she told him that. He was -simply foolish about men.</p> - -<p>“If he can’t kill them, why are they all so afraid?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“That’s so,” she agreed. “I don’t see how he ever fights them, but I -s’pose he knows some tricks he doesn’t tell. You wait for me right -here.” And down she flew to follow Killer the Weasel to his den.</p> - -<p>She lit above Killer’s head while he was busy eating the robin he’d -carried home—only one out of all those he left lying dead on the -ground beneath the roost. She squirmed out to the very tip end of the -branch and watched him every moment while she was talking. “Good -morning,” she said, for the east was growing light. “I don’t need to -ask you how the hunting goes. I see you’ve had a fine night with -plenty of robins.”</p> - -<p>He raised his flat, three-cornered, snaky-head, and his eyes gleamed -red in the shadows. “Not so bad,” he answered, and she could hear his -tongue rasp his prickly whiskers. “It’s a great game. But I make the -most of it, because when the robins nest in a flock it’s a sign -they’ll soon be gone. I try to see how many I can kill before they -wake up. I’d have broken my record to-night if a piece of bark I was -standing on hadn’t broken. Did you hear that last youngster squall -out? The whole flock began stirring; the fun is over then.”</p> - -<p>The owl’s claws trembled so she had to clamp them tight. To kill when -he wasn’t hungry, just for fun! It was enough to make even an owl’s -blood run cold. But she kept her beak from clattering and remarked: -“Very clever. You’re quieter than I am. I couldn’t help admiring you -because I find them almost too big to manage.”</p> - -<p>“Size is nothing,” said Killer. “It’s all just a matter of brains.”</p> - -<p>“Do you really think so?” she asked in a flattering tone. “Because I -know a perfectly wonderful hunting ground if you can manage that awful -coon.”</p> - -<p>“Coon!” exclaimed Killer. “I’ll show you how I can handle him. Fft! -for a coon.”</p> - -<p>You ought to have heard the wicked little bird tell him about Nibble -Rabbit’s delicious little bunnies. M-m-m! Didn’t his mouth just water -for them? But she never said a word about Watch the Dog, or Tommy -Peele, or Louie Thomson. She knew if he made trouble for the Woodsfolk -he’d just have to fight their friends. But—she didn’t know that these -little boys had ever and ever so much more brains than a weasel!</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_IV' title="Fur and Feathers Plan a Campaign"> -<span>CHAPTER IV</span><br />FUR AND FEATHERS PLAN A CAMPAIGN -</h2> - -<p>Next morning the robins were in an awful flutter when they came down -to drink. And when a robin is excited he just has to tell everybody -all about it—you’ve heard them, lots of times, though you don’t -always understand them. Bobby took his bath in a great splatter and -then flew over to talk with Watch while he fixed his feathers.</p> - -<p>He caught sight of Chaik Jay all huddled up on the bottom branch of a -bush. His poor hurt wing, that he struck when he went tail over crest -in the black dark, was drooping.</p> - -<p>“Whew!” whistled Bobby. “Chaik looks like I feel, too mussed up to -know my beak from my back toe-claw. We didn’t sleep a wink last night, -over at the roost; terrible things were happening.”</p> - -<p>“Quick!” snapped Watch; “what did happen?”</p> - -<p>It seemed to him that Killer the Weasel was standing right beside him. -He had to sniff to make sure he wasn’t. He was so excited that his -back hair was as stiff as it gets when he wants to fight.</p> - -<p>“Well, last night, when it was black, black dark,” began Bobby in a -scary whisper, “we heard a cry, as though some bird were having a bad -dream. Then everything was quiet, and we settled down to sleep again. -Pretty soon we were waked up the very same way. It happened over and -over. I had my eyes wide open a dozen times, but I couldn’t see a -single thing. And my ears are sharp, but I couldn’t even hear -anything. Yet this morning a dozen families report some bird is -missing. You don’t think a ghost bird could have taken them?” He meant -the big white owl who sometimes comes down from the far north, where -the storms grow, and snatches the sleeping folks out of their -pine-tree perches. But that only happens in the winter time.</p> - -<p>“It was Killer the Weasel, of course,” sniffed Watch.</p> - -<p>“No, it wasn’t,” argued Bobby. “Killer’s been there half-a-dozen -times, but he always leaves dead birds scattered around on the ground -to scare us.”</p> - -<p>“Then it was the Bad Little Owls,” said Watch.</p> - -<p>“They wouldn’t dare!” exclaimed Bobby, ruffling up his feathers. “What -do you take us for, a flock of sparrows?”</p> - -<p>“A flock of foolish heads!” Watch snapped back impatiently. “It serves -you right. Why do you keep on perching there if Killer knows right -where you are?”</p> - -<p>Bobby stared at him with round eyes. “If we did move, how would the -new birds who come in on every wind find out where we are? Eh? How -would we get together for the long flight? We robins stick to the -Robins’ Roost so long as there’s a bird left alive to perch there.”</p> - -<p>“Um-m,” said Watch thoughtfully. “It would be inconvenient. I see that -now. But why don’t you fly along?”</p> - -<p>“My wings!” Bobby almost hopped at the idea. “It’s easy to see you -don’t know what business this long flight is. We can’t all go -together—we wouldn’t find enough to feed all of us along the road. We -can’t afford to spend all day hunting our food as we do here. And a -fine mixup it would be if every bird left just when the whim took him. -We leave in regular turn. Mother Nature gives us our first signal when -the leaves do the butterfly dance (he meant when they turn gay colours -and fall) and our last party takes wing at the turn of the worm.” -(That’s when the worms dig down below the icy ground for their winter -sleep.)</p> - -<div class='figcenter portrait' id='i003'> - <img src='images/illus-003.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>“When a fellow can smell, he can see with his nose just who has been there”</p> -</div> - -<p>“I see,” Watch nodded. “Well, then, we’ll just find out who it is and -nip his tail for him. Come along.”</p> - -<p>Bobby Robin really felt quite comforted when Watch seemed ready to -help him—those hundreds and hundreds of birds who weigh down the -great elm tree before they get their signal from Mother Nature to fly -south are a terrible responsibility. But he didn’t see just exactly -what Watch could do about it. He dipped along beside the dog’s long, -easy run for a minute or so. Then he broke out again, “But I can’t -think who it could have been.”</p> - -<p>“It was Killer the Weasel or the owls,” Watch answered. “I’ll bet you -on it.”</p> - -<p>“What’ll you bet?” Bobby demanded with a sidewise quirk of his -head—that is the way he smiles. “I’m a pretty old bird. I’ve been -hunted by weasels and cats and hawks and foxes and big owls and little -ones ever since I first grew feathers, but never have I known the like -of this.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll bet you a bone,” Watch began. Then he wiped out the idea with a -sweep of his tail. “Foolish me! I forgot you haven’t teeth. Well, I’ll -bet you a nice soft bread-crust I can lay me paw on. I buried it -yesterday—to keep those thieves of chickens from stealing it.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll take you,” giggled Bobby. “And I’ll bet you a whole nest of -furry caterpillars it wasn’t either of them.”</p> - -<p>“What’ll I do with the caterpillars?” sniffed Watch. “Wear ’em in my -whiskers?”</p> - -<p>Bobby just had to laugh, but he got all sober and discouraged again -the next minute. “I don’t see how we’re going to decide, anyhow,” he -sighed. “It happened hours ago—long before the sun began to spread -his wings.” (Birds say the long streaks you see in the east at sunrise -are the sun’s wings flapping before he soars across the sky.) “And it -was so crow dark nobody could see anything.”</p> - -<p>“That doesn’t matter,” said Watch cheerfully. “I don’t have to see. -Seeing’s no good the minute after a thing has happened. Hearing isn’t -any better. But I can smell! M-m-m!” he sniffed softly. “And when a -fellow can smell he can see with his nose just who has been there and -what they did long after they’ve gone. Listen!” He laid his nose to the -trunk of the Roosting Elm. “Killer!” he exclaimed. “Here he climbed up. -Here he came down. Here he walked out below this limb. Here—here—owl! -Bobby. Plain as day I do smell owl!”</p> - -<p>“Fur and feathers working together,” sobbed Bobby. “What chance have -we poor birds? What won’t they do to us to-night?”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’re feathers and I’m fur,” argued Watch. “Can’t we do -something, too?”</p> - -<p>And that made Bobby so happy again he just had to flap his wings over -it.</p> - -<p>But Watch was thoughtful.</p> - -<p>“Now listen to me, Bobby,” he said at last. “If Killer and the Bad -Little Owls are going to hunt together, we Woodsfolk are going to have -trouble, aren’t we? Trouble afoot and awing.” He licked his nose, as -though he were trying to smell out the thing to do next.</p> - -<p>“Trouble afoot is the only thing I’m afraid of,” cheeped Bobby. “Those -owls can’t do anything alone; I thought you were going to nip Killer’s -tail for him. Wasn’t that what you said?” He sounded all discouraged -again.</p> - -<p>“Now don’t get flutter-headed,” warned Watch. “So I am. But I have to -get my teeth on it, don’t I? And that means I have to catch the -cleverest, craftiest of all things from under-the-earth. Yes, and the -wickedest. It gives me the creeps to think about him.”</p> - -<p>“By the Great Grub Who Gnawed the Moon!” gasped the bird, leaning over -to get a good look at the big dog. “You talk as though you were afraid -of him—a great big beast like you afraid of a slinky little thing -like him!”</p> - -<p>And then Watch repeated exactly what Killer had told the wife of the -Bad Little Owl. “It isn’t size, it’s brains. Nobody is really safe -from him. I’m ever so much bigger than Doctor Muskrat or even Tad -Coon. But if Killer caught me while I was asleep and got his weasel -hold under my chin, even I couldn’t bite him back. He’s so small I -couldn’t reach him.”</p> - -<p>“That’s so!” exclaimed Bobby. “You’d be no safer than a bird.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I am,” Watch was fair enough to explain. “I’m the last beast -in all the woods he’d try it on. My ears are wide, and my nose is wet, -and my long, stiff coat feels every stir in the grass. I wake up with -a jump before I know whether I heard or smelled or felt what was -coming. But Killer is quieter than a pad-footed pussy. He can hide his -scent like a nesting quail, and he can see where he’s stepping. That’s -why he never hunts fair. He’s all bite and no fight.”</p> - -<p>“He certainly is!” agreed the bird.</p> - -<p>“Ah, but here’s the point,” the old dog went on. “We know who we’re -hunting, and he doesn’t know we know. We won’t let him. Then we’ve got -trouble down a mouse hole. We’ll hunt him like the pussycat hunts -them—pretend we aren’t paying any attention and be all ready to -pounce on him. A still tongue and a waving tail is the way to trail -trouble whenever you find it. Not a cheep until the time comes!”</p> - -<p>And this time Bobby Robin didn’t answer—not with his tongue. He just -wagged his long tail up and down so very hard that his whole perch -wagged with him.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_V' title="Killer the Weasel Makes a Plan Likewise"> -<span>CHAPTER V</span><br />KILLER THE WEASEL MAKES A PLAN LIKEWISE -</h2> - -<p>With a still tongue and a waving tail Watch galloped back from the -Robins’ Roost, Bobby Robin flitting along beside him. They were -hunting trouble, and that was the very wisest way in the world to hunt -it. Because the very trouble they were hunting was peering through a -crack between two big stones on the bank of Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. It -was a little bit of a crack—so little you wouldn’t think a garter -snake could much more than squeeze into it. But it held a lot of -trouble. Because trouble is brains—not size.</p> - -<p>Trouble was the meanest of all the things from under-the-earth who -came up to spoil Mother Nature’s nice plans in the far-back, First-Off -Beginning of Things. Trouble was Killer the Weasel, with his snaky -head and his cruel beady eyes and his conceited smile. And he was -peering through that crack to see how the Woodsfolk behaved before he -tried a very funny trick the wife of the Bad Little Owls had whispered -to him.</p> - -<p>The first thing he saw was Watch the Dog bounding along with his tail -in the air as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “Ho,” said the -wicked weasel to himself, “that clumsy beast would carry his tail -between his legs if he knew I was here!” I told you he was conceited.</p> - -<p>The next thing he saw was Bobby Robin flitting past as careless as a -butterfly in a breeze. “A-ha!” said the weasel to himself, “that -foolish bird would set up a fine squawking if he knew I was here.” -Wasn’t he just conceited?</p> - -<p>Then he laid his ear to the crack to hear if they were talking about -him. But they weren’t—not a single word. It really hurt his feelings. -That’s how conceited he was!</p> - -<p>All he heard was Chaik Jay waking up in the bottom of the bush where -he’d crept the night before. “What a place to sleep!” thought the -wicked weasel. “It’s a pity I didn’t see him.”</p> - -<p>Chaik gave himself a little shake; then he tried to stretch. -“Ye-a-a-ak!” he squawked. “Ow, my sore wing! Oh, my cramped claws! -Whee! my stiff feathers!”</p> - -<p>“What a noise to make!” growled the wicked weasel to himself. “I don’t -believe he can fly a little bit. Now that dog will make a quick meal -of him.”</p> - -<p>But the dog didn’t at all. He just said: “Here, Chaik, let me lick the -soreness out, the way we dogs do.”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks,” Chaik almost giggled, because the idea was really funny. -“I’d never find head nor tail of myself again if you mussed me up with -your great wet tongue. I’d much rather have Doctor Muskrat bring me a -blister beetle if he can find one.”</p> - -<p>And the wicked weasel didn’t know what to make of that. Chaik was -sitting on the lowest branch where anybody could have caught him, and -Watch wasn’t even trying to eat him!</p> - -<p>Instead of that, he went down by Doctor Muskrat’s big flat stone and -barked. And instead of diving down to the deepest bottom of the pond -and hiding beneath the water lilies, up swam Doctor Muskrat himself, -and he flopped on his stone. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Did any -one want me?”</p> - -<p>“Ye-ah,” called the bird. “I’ve hurt my wing. And I’m sore all over. I -feel like a mouse after a cat has been playing with it.”</p> - -<p>“You do, do you?” said the good old muskrat, flopping over to him. -“Well, you look as if you’d been caught in a hailstorm. Let’s see -what’s the matter with your flapper. M-m-m. It isn’t broken. Just give -it a day’s rest.”</p> - -<p>“How about a blister beetle?” asked Chaik. “I feel scary here on the -ground. I want to get to flying again.”</p> - -<p>“Fine for fur, but no good at all for feathers,” the doctor explained. -“There, there! Don’t flutter yourself. I guess you had too much party -last night by the looks of you. You’d better be careful about eating. -I recommend a little acid. Try an ant or two. Or perhaps you’d like a -nice red sumach berry from the Quail’s Thicket. I’ll cut down a branch -so you can reach them.” Sumach berry, indeed! You know how Chaik loves -them. Off he hopped, dragging his wing.</p> - -<p>“Queerer and queerer,” thought the bad beast hiding under the stone.</p> - -<p>The next thing he saw was Nibble’s bunnies trooping down to drink—my, -but they made his mouth water! And he could hear all the birds -spluttering and splashing at the edge of the sand where it would be -easy to catch them! Still, he stayed hidden.</p> - -<p>But when Stripes Skunk came strolling down with his three fat kittens -behind him and the bunnies actually began playing with them he made up -his mind. “That little owl told the truth!” said the weasel to -himself. “She said the Woodsfolk were all friends, but I couldn’t -believe her. Well, if they’ve made friends with my cousin Stripes -Skunk, they’ll make friends with me. How nice that will be. They’ll -walk right into my jaws. I’ll do exactly what the owl told me to. Her -advice is worth having!” And he began to prick up his ears and -carefully slick back his whiskers.</p> - -<p>He didn’t have very much elbow room in that narrow crack between the -two big stones but the way he managed to fix himself up was surely -surprising. The wife of the Bad Little Owl would never in the world -have known he was the bristly whiskered ruffian with red in his eye -she found gnawing a robin in the door of his den.</p> - -<p>When he squeezed through the crack and shook himself he was really a -very elegant-looking creature. His little ears were perked up as pert -as he could prick them. His tail didn’t stick straight out behind; it -was all fluffed out and he cocked it up the way Chatter Squirrel does. -He didn’t slink along like a snake gliding through the bushes; he -arched his neck and he arched his back and he hopped as neatly as a -rabbit. I won’t say he was comfortable, but he really did look -handsome.</p> - -<p>Well, the first beast he met was that very bunny who had been locked -up in the cage in Louie Thomson’s cellar. “Good morning, Miss Rabbit,” -said he in his politest voice. “Can you tell me where I can find my -cousin, Tad Coon? I’ve come to visit him.” He said that because he -wanted to find out where Tad was. He was the least little bit scared -he might have to be careful about Tad.</p> - -<p>The bunny opened her eyes very wide. You remember Tad Coon was the -fellow who taught her how foolish she was to trust strangers. He told -her that his family ate little rabbits. If this was a cousin of Tad’s -she wasn’t going to risk being eaten. She didn’t even stop to answer; -she just flicked her white tail in his very face and made for the -Pickery Things.</p> - -<p>“That’s funny,” thought the weasel. “But maybe she’s only young and -foolish.” So he edged along by some tall grass to where Stripes Skunk -was catching some grasshoppers. “Good morning, Cousin Stripes,” he -said. “I’m your cousin Slick.” (He thought maybe he could fool even -Stripes, just a little, because he looked so different.) “Won’t you -introduce me to your friends? I’m tired of living in the Deep Woods. I -want to be good and happy like the rest of you.” (That’s what the Bad -Little Owl had told him to say.)</p> - -<p>Stripes was most as scared as the bunny. But he could see something -the bunny didn’t see—something the wicked weasel didn’t see, either. -For that good old dog Watch was standing right behind him. And he -looked different, too. He wasn’t sleek and good-tempered any more. He -was red-eyed and bristly, thinking about what the weasel had done to -the poor robins. He didn’t take a step, or Killer’s sharp ears would -have heard him. He crouched for a great big spring, and then——</p> - -<div class='figcenter portrait' id='i004'> - <img src='images/illus-004.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>The Doctor said Chaik had had too much party and should be careful about eating</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_VI' title="A Plan to Foil the Enemy"> -<span>CHAPTER VI</span><br />A PLAN TO FOIL THE ENEMY -</h2> - -<p>“Aough-ah!” came a sound from the little blanket tent Everybody -looked. Then Stripes and Watch both knew what it was; Louie Thomson -was waking up inside of it. And in the next instant, Watch the Dog and -Stripes Skunk were staring at each other all alone. Killer wasn’t -there at all!</p> - -<p>“Oh!” gasped Stripes. “Where has he gone?” He began turning round and -round, trying to see what had become of the wicked beast.</p> - -<p>“Where has who gone? What do you mean?” asked Watch. For the wise dog -was pretending he hadn’t even seen him.</p> - -<p>“My cousin,” Stripes explained, feeling scarier and scarier. “He came -to visit me. Isn’t it too bad I hadn’t a chance to say good-bye to -him?”</p> - -<p>“Say good-bye to him?” said the dog, wagging his wavy tail in a joking -way. “How could you say good-bye to any one who wasn’t here? I’ve been -here all the time, but I’m not your cousin.”</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll say good-bye to you instead.” Stripes’s teeth were almost -chattering. “I’m going. Give my regards to my cousin if you should -happen to see him.”</p> - -<p>“Wherever are you going?” asked Watch. He was really puzzled by this -time.</p> - -<p>“I’m going——” Stripes couldn’t think for a minute where he was -going. He just wasn’t going to stay in the Woods and Fields now that -that bad beast had come. “I’m going with Bobby Robin on the long -flight,” he said at last. Which was very foolish because he couldn’t -begin to run fast enough to keep up with a bird when it was flying. -Even Nibble Rabbit can’t. But he humped himself off in a great hurry, -so scared that his hair was all bristling.</p> - -<p>You know where Killer hid when Louie gave that big noisy yawn? He just -slid back into his narrow crack between the two big stones. “I’m -safe,” he sniffed to himself. “Nobody can get me out of here—not even -that foolish dog. This rock is too hard digging for anybody’s -toenails.” He felt shivery all right enough. Because scary folk aren’t -all bad, but, deep down inside them, bad ones are always scary.</p> - -<p>In a minute he began to hear his cousin Stripes Skunk asking Watch the -Dog where he’d gone to.</p> - -<p>He squinted through his crack to see how soon they were going, and -what do you think he saw? He saw Louie Thomson. Yes, even if Louie -didn’t see him, he saw Louie squirm out from under his blanket tent. -First came his tously head; then came his shoulders. “Whoever in all -the woods is that?” thought the weasel, and his eyes began to pop.</p> - -<p>Killer tried to listen and then he tried to sniff in the direction of -Louie Thomson because he just couldn’t believe his eyes. Suddenly -Louie scrambled to his feet and stood up. The weasel’s hair stood up, -too. Now he understood. “It’s a man!” he hissed, and he ground his -teeth in a rage. “That’s what I get for listening to the owl. She -knows we’re deadly enemies. Just let me get out of this hole without -being seen, and I’ll hustle back to the Deep Woods in two long bounces -and a tailflip. But I’ll give that lying little bird a lick with my -tongue that won’t smooth her feathers!” He felt so hateful that he -tried to grip his own claws into the hard stone.</p> - -<p>Louie Thomson washed himself and dug a root, and then he went up to -his house to see if his mother had saved him any civilized breakfast. -Watch took a good, long lap of water and then he sniffed about. -“Wonder where everybody’s gone?” he puzzled. “I guess I’ll get some -breakfast up at Louie’s house. They’ll be all through long ago at -Tommy’s.” So off they strolled. And the pond was quieter yet—there -wasn’t anybody there at all.</p> - -<p>That is, anybody but Killer the Weasel, down in his nice, safe crack. -And he didn’t make any noise, either. He’d gone off to sleep. He -sleeps in the daytime, anyway, and he slept very soundly because there -wasn’t a sound to waken him.</p> - -<p>There wasn’t a pat, or a flutter, or a chirp, or a squeak, or even a -sneeze, because there wasn’t any one to make them. Not even a -fieldmouse! This is what happened: You remember Doctor Muskrat -prescribed sumach berries for poor Chaik Jay. He even went over to the -Quail’s Thicket and cut down a couple of stalks with his chisel teeth. -They’re very nice, though a bit seedy for us—but that’s exactly what -the birds like—so he took a taste or two himself while he watched -Chaik gulp a fine crawful.</p> - -<p>“Well, Chaik,” he said at last, “I guess Nibble Rabbit can look after -you now. I’ve got a couple of things back at the pond I must attend -to.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t go back there,” fluttered Chaik, suddenly remembering. “I -overheard the Bad Little Owls, last night, just before I got hurt. -They say Killer the Weasel is coming to our Woods and Fields. Whatever -will we do about it?”</p> - -<p>“Time enough to think about it when he comes,” said the old muskrat -comfortably. “No wonder you tumbled off your perch, if you had a dream -like that.”</p> - -<p>And that was the very minute when the baby bunny came bounding in. -“Daddy Rabbit,” she squealed, “there’s a strange beast down by the -pond!”</p> - -<p>“There! Maybe you think she’s dreaming, too!” cheeped Chaik -triumphantly. “It’s Killer, sure as sure! What did he look like?”</p> - -<p>Now you remember how Killer fixed himself all up, the way the owl’s -wife had told him to, when he tried to make friends with the -Woodsfolk. “Eh?” said Nibble, when the bunny finished telling about -him, “that’s never Killer.”</p> - -<p>“Then who is it?” asked the sensible muskrat. “There’s no such animal -as that in all the woods—not that I ever heard tell of.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter portrait' id='i005'> - <img src='images/illus-005.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>“Run for your lives, everybody. Killer has come to the pond!”</p> -</div> - -<p>But before even Chaik could answer him, in galloped Stripes Skunk. -“Hey! Where are my kittens?” he gasped. “Call your bunnies, Nibble! -Run for your lives, everybody. Killer has come to the pond!”</p> - -<p>And Doctor Muskrat and Nibble Rabbit and Nibble’s mate and all her -bunnies, and Stripes’s own kittens, who came gliding through the -tunnels under the Pickery Things, looked at each other with their eyes -as big and round as so many thorn apples, they were so scared.</p> - -<p>Chaik Jay was the first to speak. “Poor me!” he wailed. “He’ll eat me -before sunset. My wing simply won’t fly. I can’t make it.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you hang on by somebody’s fur and come along?” suggested Nibble -anxiously.</p> - -<p>“It’s too slippery,” sighed poor Chaik. “I’d slip off and get hurt -again.”</p> - -<p>“Listen here, Chaik,” said Doctor Muskrat. “Your claws can still -climb. This thicket is full of little, fine twigs that won’t begin to -hold up Killer. He’s as heavy as I am. Couldn’t you hop up and perch -in the middle of them?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” exclaimed Nibble enthusiastically. “And the Pickery Things have -thorns all over them. They pick as hard on the top as they do on the -bottom. Killer hates them.”</p> - -<p>Chaik tried. And he found he could move a great deal better than he -could that morning. He slipped and stumbled and scrambled and flapped -his well wing, and squawked as softly as he could when he bumped his -sore one, but climb he did. “Flit along,” he chirped cheerfully in a -minute; “I wouldn’t ask a better place to perch in.” He didn’t feel as -cheerful as he sounded, but he didn’t want them to get into trouble by -waiting for him.</p> - -<p>“All right,” thumped Nibble with his furry feet. That’s safer than -whispering. Then he remembered. “But where are we going? To the marsh -on the far-away side of the Deep Woods, where the sun goes to sleep?” -The Woodsfolk didn’t know that the sun went a great deal farther than -that. The near side of that marsh was as far as any of them had gone.</p> - -<p>“We can’t run fast enough,” mourned Stripes. “He’d catch up with us -before very long.”</p> - -<p>“An I can’t run at all,” said the fat old muskrat. “I’d better go back -and trust the water to hide me from him.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense!” sniffed Stripes. “I’ve seen him swim. We’ll all run across -the Broad Field as fast as we can—he hates to leave the woods worse -than anything——”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” interrupted Nibble, flicking his long ears as a bright idea -struck him. “We’ll cross the Broad Field and we’ll hide by Tommy -Peele’s barn. There’s food and water for every one. We’ll treat him as -I told the fieldmice to treat you when you were fighting them—we’ll -run off and leave him alone!” And he twiddled his tufty tail just to -show how pleased he felt over his bright idea.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_VII' title="The Cleverness of Chaik Jay"> -<span>CHAPTER VII</span><br />THE CLEVERNESS OF CHAIK JAY -</h2> - -<p>Poor Chaik Jay felt a lot sadder than he looked when he saw the -Woodsfolk go skipping across the Broad Field one at a time so nobody -would notice them, on the way to Tommy Peele’s barn.</p> - -<p>But he was a pretty sensible bird. “I’m glad they’re gone,” he said to -himself. “That was a fine idea of Nibble Rabbit’s to go away. Killer -won’t stay here long if he finds there isn’t any hunting.”</p> - -<p>Pretty soon he was very busy exercising his stiff wing and thinking: -“I can reach every sumach berry in this thicket. They’re fine eating. -I feel better every minute. I’ll be able to fly before very long—if I -can’t fly across the Broad Field to-night I’ll surely be able to do it -in the morning.” He really did feel better. That was the funny part of -it. It wasn’t long before he had his feathers all prinked up and his -crest perked as sassy as if he were going courting.</p> - -<p>“It’s too bad about those foolish mice,” he thought to himself. “The -bad old weasel can live on them for a long time if there’s nobody else -here to hunt them.” He thought harder than ever. “It would be nicer -yet,” he said after another minute, “if the mice would go, too. Killer -can’t eat clams and snails and bugs and roots and such things like the -rest of us Woodsfolk. He’d have to go away.”</p> - -<p>But how could Chaik do that—just one lone bluejay with a hurt wing? -He kept on thinking, all the same; he thought so hard his head needed -scratching. At last he began to have an idea. “Isn’t it a lucky thing -they did leave me here? I can talk more bird and beast talk than any -one else in all the Woods and Fields, except Miau the Catbird. I wish -he’d happen along, I do. I could use him. If we could warn all the -birds, Killer would never be able to catch one. But the mice——”</p> - -<p>And just them someone did happen along. It wasn’t Miau, but—but, -listen! It was the hoptoad! You know him—so terrible scary-ugly, but -nice as anything—the one who found Nibble Rabbit’s lost bunny. Well, -the hoptoad called, in his funny, gulpy voice, “Chirpy, Chaik Jay! Do -you see anything of the rain?” He loves rain because it makes the -wings of the bugs all waterlogged and it’s easy to catch them.</p> - -<p>“Chirpy, Croaker Toad,” Chaik answered, “I can’t see a sign of it.”</p> - -<p>“It’s coming, all the same,” gulped Croaker. “Floods of it. I feel -it.”</p> - -<p>“It is?” asked Chaik eagerly. “Mice, oh, mice! How they hate it!” And -he bounced on his perch until Croaker Toad stared with his big round -eyes. But a lot Chaik cared!</p> - -<p>He carried on at such a rate that a big saw-billed duck slanted down -to see what was the matter. “It’s going to rain,” he sang, looking -mischievously at the duck, his feathers all puffed out from laughing.</p> - -<p>“Of course it’s going to rain,” quacked the duck, making a gawpy face -with his long red bill that set Chaik giggling all over again. “It’s -going to rain hard, and it’s going to rain soon. You won’t find it a -laughing matter, old soggy feathers.” (A duck never forgets to tease -the other birds about not having a nice water-proof coat, you know.) -And off he flew.</p> - -<div class='figcenter portrait' id='i006'> - <img src='images/illus-006.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>Chaik frightens the mice away to save them from Killer the Weasel</p> -</div> - -<p>But Chaik Jay didn’t care a wormy thorn apple what the duck thought -about him. He was just waiting for a fieldmouse. The very first time -he heard one stirring out in the thicket he called: “Hey! Who’s there? -Is that you, Nibble Rabbit?” He knew it wasn’t Nibble, because Nibble -had gone away, but he said it on purpose.</p> - -<p>“No,” came the answer; “it’s Scritch Mouse.” But I tell you he felt -kind of flattered at being taken for someone as big and important as a -rabbit. “I haven’t seen or heard anything of him since this morning.”</p> - -<p>“Chirk-cheree!” exclaimed Chaik impatiently. “I do wish he’d come. -Won’t you peek in his hole for me and see if he’s there? I want to get -along myself before it comes.”</p> - -<p>“Before what comes?” asked the mouse. “I’m perfectly sure he isn’t -there.”</p> - -<p>“Before the rain, of course,” answered the clever bird. “Every one -else has run away, but I was to wait and warn him. There’s the most -terrible rain coming—I just heard about it from the saw-billed duck.” -(No mouse would ever dare to ask questions of a saw-bill for -himself—the bird would eat him as easy as quack at him, so Chaik went -right on adding to it.) “The birds coming down from the north had to -swim two days instead of flying. It’s going to flood these Woods and -Fields from the Brushpile to the Robins’ Roosting Tree—maybe worse. -It’s the worst——”</p> - -<p>“Well,” interrupted the mouse, “it’s a funny thing nobody told us.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nobody told me not to tell you,” said Chaik. “But you haven’t -been very friendly with the Woodsfolk lately, have you?”</p> - -<p>Scritch ran as fast as his claws could catch on the ground. He went -straight to the stump where Great-grandfather Fieldmouse, who’s so old -his ears are crinkly, lives with all his family. Every one was taking -an afternoon nap when he bounced right in and woke them. “Quick, -quick!” he squeaked. “An awful thing is happening. We must run!”</p> - -<p>Great-grandfather Fieldmouse raised his rumply head and blinked at -him. “Eh? What? Who’s that? Was any one chasing you?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Scritch. “It’s worse than that. Hurry! The rest of the -Woodsfolk have gone already—every last one.”</p> - -<p>“Ho, they left because they’re afraid of Killer the Weasel,” sniffed -the old fieldmouse. “But we’re not going. He can’t eat many more of us -than they do themselves. He isn’t like a bear who could tear this -stump right open and kill us all—but you don’t know about that. Bears -were long before your time.” They were long before Great-grandfather -Fieldmouse’s time, too, but he’s always pretending. The fat old fellow -set to combing his rumpled head with a stiff hind paw.</p> - -<p>“That isn’t why they’ve gone,” squealed Scritch triumphantly. “They -just pretended that it was. They’ve gone because the ducks say there’s -a terrible storm coming. They say they had to swim in it for two days -instead of flying. They say Doctor Muskrat’s Pond is going to grow so -fast it will swallow up the Woods and Fields, and we’ll all be -drowned!”</p> - -<p>“That’s what they tell you,” sneered the old mouse. “They don’t like -to own up that they’re afraid of a little beast like Killer.”</p> - -<p>“But they didn’t mean to. It was Chaik Jay. He thought I was Nibble -Rabbit.” My, but wasn’t Scritch proud when he remembered Chaik took -him for Nibble! “And Chaik said they didn’t warn us because we weren’t -friends.”</p> - -<p>“They didn’t, didn’t they?” snarled the old mouse. “We’ll show them if -we’ll stay here and be drowned.” That settled it. In less than an hour -Chaik saw the last mouse tail go trooping into the cornfield.</p> - -<p>“Chay!” he laughed. “Now, Killer, you’ll have a hard time finding -anything to eat around this pond. I’ll give you two days to go back to -the Deep Woods where you belong. And you’ll be a whole lot thinner -than when you came, old slinky-sides.”</p> - -<p>It was true, there wasn’t a single bit of fur for Killer to put his -teeth into when he woke up from his daytime sleep and went hunting. -But Chaik was determined Killer wouldn’t make his supper off a bird, -either. Every time one lit to drink at Doctor Muskrat’s Pond Chaik -would send it away.</p> - -<p>He told some one reason for leaving and some another, just whatever he -thought would scare them the most. Once a whole flock of gorgeous -little fellows swooped down and he was puzzled. They were warblers -from the far-away south; they come up north every summer, but they live -all by themselves and speak their own language, so none of the -northern birds can talk to them at all. “Now, how in the world can I -frighten those silly little spiggoty birds?” he mused with his head on -one side, most discouraged. “They won’t listen to reason.”</p> - -<p>Suddenly he began chuckling to himself. “If they can’t talk my talk -they can’t talk the marsh hawk’s, either.” He practised quietly for a -minute or two. Then he began to shout the hawk’s hunting call. -“Kee-yah!” he squawked. “Kee-yah!” And you should have heard those -warblers flutter their wings. They flew off without even stopping to -look behind them.</p> - -<p>It was really a fine imitation. It fooled more than the scary little -spiggoty birds. It fooled the marsh hawk himself. He woke up on his -perch down in the bulrushes where he dozes until the mice begin to -stir for their suppers. He thought surely it was one of his sons who -was hunting with his mother over in the Big Marsh, on the far-away -side of the Deep Woods, where the Woodsfolk think the sun goes to -sleep. “What’s he doing here?” wondered the old bird. “Surely his -mother never sent him to tell me we were going to start south ahead of -the storm.” And up he flew, craning his neck all around and calling.</p> - -<p>Of course Chaik knew better than to answer. He dropped down under the -leaves of the pickery thorn tree of the Quail’s Thicket and hid from -the hawk by scrambling around its trunk, keeping always on the -opposite side of it. “Lucky thing for me Killer the Weasel isn’t on -the prowl for me right now,” he thought. “I believe this is a poor -place to sleep. These leaves will let in ever so much rain, and if the -owls should take to hunting me from above and Killer from below they -wouldn’t be very long about catching me.”</p> - -<p>Just then his heart ’most stopped beating; he heard a rustling beneath -him—right at the very foot of the tree he was hiding on. He squinched -himself flat tight against the bark so he looked like nothing more -than a bumpy knothole and peeked—into the smiling face of Tad Coon.</p> - -<div class='figcenter portrait' id='i007'> - <img src='images/illus-007.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>Chaik dropped from the tree and told Tad all about everything</p> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_VIII' title="Killer Finds the Pond Mighty Lonesome"> -<span>CHAPTER VIII</span><br />KILLER FINDS THE POND MIGHTY LONESOME -</h2> - -<p>“Tad Coon!” gasped Chaik Jay. “What are you doing here? My, but I’m -glad you came.” And he dropped down from the trunk of the pickery -thorn tree.</p> - -<p>He told Tad all about everything; how the other Woodsfolk had gone up -to stay at Tommy Peele’s barn while Killer lived at the pond, and how -he’d fooled the mice into leaving it, and scared the birds so the -wicked beast wouldn’t find a thing to eat when he did wake up except -crawfish and snails, and angleworms, and he doesn’t like them.</p> - -<p>“Te-hee!” snickered Tad into his fur, because he was trying not to -make any noise about it. “That’s a wonderful joke. How hungry he’s -going to be! And hunger bites the inside of your ribs worse than the -Buzzers with hot tails I shook down on Trailer the Hound bite the -outside of them. Not a thing can he eat anywhere around unless he -tries to catch the hawk. I believe I’ll paddle out to his perch and -warn him.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” cheeped Chaik, in a discouraged voice, “or unless he catches -me. I still can’t use my wing.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you can come up to the barn,” said Tad easily. “There are lots of -fine places to perch in.”</p> - -<p>“But I can’t get there,” Chaik explained.</p> - -<p>“Sure you can,” Tad grinned. “I came down here with Louie Thomson. -Watch the Dog said he was coming after his little skin tree he sleeps -in. (Tad meant Louie’s blanket tent, you know.) He’s going to live -with the house folks until after the big storm that’s coming. Just let -him catch you and he’ll take you home and feed you till you can fly.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no! Oh, no! I wouldn’t dare do that! Not even with Tommy Peele,” -fluttered Chaik. “I couldn’t stand being locked up.”</p> - -<p>“Locked up! How long do you s’pose you’d be locked up while I was -running around with my handy-paws? It’s better than being eaten, isn’t -it?” Tad demanded.</p> - -<p>“Ye-es,” chirped the bird, rather doubtfully.</p> - -<p>“Then get on a branch and flutter so he’ll see you,” ordered Tad, as -cheerfully as though it were the most natural thing in the world for -birds to let themselves be caught by their little boy friends.</p> - -<p>So Chaik hopped and sidled out to the tip of a bough where Louie could -see him.</p> - -<p>The little boy couldn’t have helped finding him, for there sat Tad -Coon right beneath him, with his sniffy black nose turned up, pointing -straight at him. And Chaik Jay was fluttering in a scared way.</p> - -<p>“You rascally old thing!” scolded Louie. Of course he thought Tad was -the one the pretty blue bird was afraid of; he never dreamed any one -would be afraid of him any more, because he never dreamed of hurting -his wild friends. “Is that the kind of a beast you are? You’re all -right while you know you can’t catch him, but the minute he can’t fly -you want to eat him. Well, I won’t let you. If you’re so hungry you -can’t wait till supper time you can go catch yourself a frog!”</p> - -<p>A lot Tad cared! He knew Louie wouldn’t hurt him, and he didn’t know -what the scolding was about—he guessed maybe Louie thought someone -had hurt Chaik’s wing on purpose. He just winked the tips of his ears -to cheer up the bird when the little boy reached out his hand to take -him.</p> - -<p>It was a very gentle hand.</p> - -<p>It tried very softly to untangle Chaik’s feet from the branch. Before -either of them knew just exactly how it happened Chaik found himself -holding on very tight to Louie’s soft, warm finger instead of the -rough wood, balancing himself with his well wing. And suddenly he -found he wasn’t scared any more. He felt perfectly safe and happy. And -you know how Louie Thomson would feel! He was so pleased and proud he -just couldn’t get home fast enough to show his mother.</p> - -<p>Do you know how happy Chaik Jay felt when he went riding up the lane -perched on Louie’s finger? He felt so happy he got actually impudent. -He looked up at the marsh hawk, still skimming over Doctor Muskrat’s -Pond wondering who had called him, and gave the hawk’s hunting call -again. That brought the hawk circling right over them. The hawk came -so near Louie could see the black tips to his blue-gray wings, like a -seagull’s, and the wide black bar on the end of his tail, and his -feathery whiskers—even the surprised look in his eyes, as bright and -coppery as a new penny.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m ruffled!” he exclaimed, quite indignantly. “Were you the -one giving my call?”</p> - -<p>“Surely,” said that very impudent jay, bobbing his head and flicking -his own striped tail. “I thought you might want to know there’s not a -claw stirring in all these Woods and Fields except yours and Killer -the Weasel’s and those of the Bad Little Owls.”</p> - -<p>“Ha-a-ah!” The hawk made a cup of his tail and wings and hung above -them for a moment while he thought this over. “Thanks,” he said, and -his voice wasn’t nearly as harsh. “I’m glad to know it. If that’s -what’s going on, the pond is no place for me!” He’s not a very big -hawk, you know—not nearly as big as the fine red lady hawk who came -to help Stripes Skunk kill the crook-tailed snake which stole eggs -from the meadowlarks. He had good reason to be afraid of Killer. So -round he turned and Louie saw the queer white patch on his back that -you only notice from behind go jogging off toward his mate on the -far-off side of the Deep Woods.</p> - -<p>So when the wicked weasel woke up and squeezed himself through the -narrow crack between his two stones, he didn’t see any one at all. -“That’s queer,” he thought. “It’s certainly supper time for those -juicy little rabbits.” He listened. He didn’t hear any one at all, so -he began exploring, with his nose to the ground. And he could smell -where all the Woodsfolk had been scuttling around—tracks and tracks -of them. That satisfied him. “They’ll be coming down for a drink -before long,” he told himself. “I’ll just step under this bush, where -they won’t see me too soon, and wait for them.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_IX' title="Trouble Comes Home to the Bad Little Owls"> -<span>CHAPTER IX</span><br />TROUBLE COMES HOME TO THE BAD LITTLE OWLS -</h2> - -<p>Well, Killer waited, and waited, and waited. But nobody came at all. -Nobody unless you count the bats. Killer didn’t because only a bird -can catch them when they’re awake, and it’s a mighty lucky bird if it -does.</p> - -<p>He got hungrier, and hungrier, and hungrier. Still nobody came. And -the hungrier he got the madder he was because the Little Screecher -Owls had brought him there. He thought they were playing a trick on -him. So he began to slip from one tree to another, hunting for the one -they perch in.</p> - -<p>The ground under an owl’s perch always has little gray wads of fur and -feathers and bones beneath it—the leftovers of the last food the owls -have been eating.</p> - -<p>If there are very many weasels and cats to bother them, the owls -neatly carry these to some other tree than the one they sleep in. But -these Bad Little Owls were too lazy to attend to their housekeeping. -Killer put his nose into a whole pile of this rubbish the very first -thing.</p> - -<p>“Robin!” he sniffed. “Let me think. That owl said she didn’t hunt -robins. Then she stole them; she stole them from under the Robins’ -Roost. I’ll teach that owl to let my birds alone, just exactly -wherever I choose to leave them. She stole those robins! I’ll——” But -he pricked up his ears because he heard the little owls begin to talk -on their perch just over his head.</p> - -<p>“I wonder if Killer and the Woodsfolk have made friends by now,” said -one. “I’ve been listening ever since I woke up, and I haven’t heard a -thing.”</p> - -<p>“Few beasts can move so quietly that an owl doesn’t hear them even if -he’s listening,” thought Killer proudly.</p> - -<p>“Of course they’ve made friends,” said the lady owl. “If they made -friends with Stripes Skunk, of course they would with him. He’s ever -so much smarter, and I think he’s much handsomer.” She did, too. Owls -think it’s fine to be fierce looking.</p> - -<p>“But what if they don’t?” insisted her mate.</p> - -<p>“Why, then I’ll show him where they have their holes and help him hunt -them, that’s all,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“A-ha!” said Killer to himself. “That won’t be a bad plan. I won’t -quarrel with her yet. I’ll let her help me all she can before I get -even with her. All the same, I want to know what that man is doing out -here, and why she didn’t warn me.”</p> - -<p>He meant Louie Thomson.</p> - -<p>If those little owls had known there wasn’t another thing for him to -eat in all the Woods and Fields except the flittery bats, which he -couldn’t catch, and Chatter Squirrel, safely hidden in his secret -nest, they’d have had the appetites scared right out of them—and -that’s the most you can possibly scare an owl. But they didn’t. So -there they perched, feasting on the robins they had stored in their -hole, which they used for a pantry.</p> - -<p>“Speaking of holes,” said the little he-owl, “I’ve been wondering if -we oughtn’t to look up some more. This one we have will never hold all -we’ll have to hide when that weasel begins killing the Woodsfolk.”</p> - -<p>“It’s no use,” answered his wicked little wife. “Those Woodsfolk are -all too big for us to carry. We’ll have to eat them where he leaves -them, like we did when Silvertip was doing our hunting.”</p> - -<p>“Silvertip!” bristled the weasel. “O-ho! I remember that fox. He -couldn’t catch me. I’m too smart for him. But I’d better keep an eye -out. I wonder where he is now?”</p> - -<p>“I wish Killer would catch some more robins,” said the little he-owl, -wiping his beak clean of the feathers that were sticking to it. -“They’re very convenient, and we’ve eaten all but the very last one. -Shall I get it?”</p> - -<p>“Um-hm!” the weasel nodded to himself. “Now I understand. You birds -invited me here to do your hunting, did you? Well, I’ll see to it you -don’t get anything you don’t earn.” But of course he didn’t say -it—not yet. He wanted to hear what else they’d talk about.</p> - -<p>“Only one robin left!” exclaimed the lady owl. “My claws! Who’d have -thought we’d eat those birds all up in such a short time? You must -have been at them while I was sleeping, you greedy thing! I’ve had -hardly any of them.” She clattered her beak at the other owl so -angrily that he moved away from her down the limb.</p> - -<p>“You’ve had as many as I have,” he whimpered. “Can’t we show Killer -the stump where the mice live? They’d be easy to carry, and he’d kill -any amount of them.”</p> - -<p>“Fine!” she agreed. “We’ll need them. There’s going to be a storm.”</p> - -<p>“Well, we might just as well eat this robin then,” argued her piggy -little mate, “and then we can clean out the hole and leave it all -ready to store the mice in.”</p> - -<p>Killer listened while the owl tugged and grunted, getting the bird out -of his narrow pantry door. Suddenly he called: “I’ll trouble you for -that robin. It’s mine, and I want it myself!”</p> - -<p>Plunk! Down fell the bird, ’most on top of the wide burdock leaf where -Killer was hiding from them. But that wasn’t on purpose. The little -he-owl never meant to let it fall—he just jumped so hard from fright -that he dropped it.</p> - -<p>My, but his wife wanted to peck him! She didn’t dare, for fear Killer -would see how angry she was about losing it. She gave her husband a -horrid glare with her scary, starey eyes, and then she said in her -politest voice: “Certainly, Mr. Weasel, you’re welcome to anything we -have.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t see how you come to have it,” said Killer rudely.</p> - -<p>“Owl custom, owl custom, my dear sir,” said she, preening herself so -her feathers wouldn’t ruffle and show how scared she was. “We pick up -the odds and ends you clever hunters don’t care about, and store them -up here in our hole. You can see it from where you are, and I’m sure I -hope you’ll help yourself whenever you feel like it.” All this time -she was saying to herself: “That’s the last thing we’ll hide in this -hole, now he knows where it is.” Wasn’t she deceitful?</p> - -<p>“You’re very kind, I’m sure,” he answered more politely. “But I’ve -hurt my paw so I can’t climb.” He said that because he hoped the owls -would go on roosting there so he could come and catch them in the -daytime if he wanted to.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t that too bad,” she sympathized. Really she was glad; her -feathers unruffled again, now that she felt sure he couldn’t sneak up -on her while she wasn’t looking.</p> - -<p>By this time he was picking the robin’s bones. Pretty soon he licked -his whiskers with a raspy tongue; it made cold shivers run through -those bad little birds. Even the lady owl was sorry she’d brought him -to Tommy Peele’s Woods and Fields. That’s what she got for losing her -temper. She wondered how long he’d been listening and what he’d heard.</p> - -<p>The wicked weasel knew just what she was thinking about. He said in a -voice as raspy as his tongue: “I heard you say something about a -mouse’s stump. That sounds like a quick place to get a full meal -before this storm that’s coming. I’ll ask you to take me there so I -won’t have to waste any time hunting for it. But first I want to ask -you some questions. Come down here so I don’t have to shout. Come -along!”</p> - -<p>His wife stared at the Bad Little Owl and the Bad Little Owl stared -back at her. Their eyes grew wider and shinier, and their clothes felt -pin-featherier than ever they had since the day those birds were -hatched. My, but they were scared! Slowly they both turned to stare -down at Killer the Weasel, who sat beneath their tree. And let me tell -you he wasn’t the handsome, slicked-up beast with the pricky ears and -the arched neck and the fluffed tail who had tried to make friends -with the Woodsfolk—he looked too sharp-toothed and snaky for -anything.</p> - -<p>“Hustle!” called Killer in his raspy voice. “I’m not going to shout at -you way up there for every one to hear, and I’m not going to hunt, -until I know several things that you forgot to tell me when you -invited me here. But we’ve no time to waste. If this turns out to be a -three-days’ storm we’ll be hungry enough by the end of it, even if we -get a good meal before it begins. Come along!” He fixed his eye on the -lady owl, and she saw a red spark gleaming in it.</p> - -<p>She didn’t mean to come—not she. But somehow she couldn’t seem to -help herself. Before he knew quite what she was doing, down she came. -She grabbed at the springy, pickery stem of a wild raspberry—no bird -in its sane senses would ever think of perching on one—and there she -hung. But she knew he could jump right up and catch her.</p> - -<p>“Now!” he hissed in that dreadful whisper things from under-the-earth -use, whether they wear fur or scales, “Where’s Silvertip the Fox, my -deadly enemy?”</p> - -<p>“Silvertip? Oh, he’s duck hunting in the Big Marsh, way off the other -side of the Deep Woods,” lied the owl. She didn’t dare tell him -Silvertip was dead.</p> - -<p>“Ah,” growled the weasel. “Well, then, why didn’t you warn me about -that man?” (He meant Louie Thomson.) “Did you think I wouldn’t know -these woods are full of his jaws, just gaping for me to put my foot in -one?” (He meant traps, of course.)</p> - -<p>“Who-o-o!” exclaimed the owl. “That man hasn’t any more jaws or claws -than a hoptoad. Men don’t get them till they’re grown, and he’s just a -little harmless wild one. He never hunts; he lives on corn. Once in a -while he comes over here for a root from Doctor Muskrat, who owns the -pond—just like the other wild things do if they’re sick or hurt. Then -he goes back again.”</p> - -<p>“Hey? What’s that? A wild man? There isn’t any such thing!” snarled -Killer.</p> - -<p>“Well, he’s wild. You could see for yourself even the rabbits weren’t -afraid of him,” the owl kept on arguing.</p> - -<p>The weasel thought for a minute. That certainly was true; so were the -corncobs, left from Louie’s feast, he saw piled beside the little -blanket tent. “All right,” said he. “Then show me the mouse’s stump. -Flap along, bird, flap along!”</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - -<h2 id='ch_X' title="The Big Rain Puts an End to Evil Doings for a Time"> -<span>CHAPTER X</span><br />THE BIG RAIN PUTS AN END TO EVIL DOINGS FOR A TIME -</h2> - -<p>I just tell you the wife of the Bad Little Owl was glad to get on her -wings. She flew so fast that her mate, flying along behind her, said: -“Hey! Killer can’t keep up with us at this rate. Where are you going?”</p> - -<p>“I’m scared to death of that wicked weasel,” she answered. “I’m going -as fast and as far as ever I can.”</p> - -<p>“What a way to talk!” he hooted indignantly. “The poor fellow was -hungry. No wonder he was cross. Just as soon as he gets a good meal -he’ll be friendly again. We can’t change our hunting ground with this -storm coming on. There won’t be any grasshoppers to speak of, and it -takes so many of them to make a meal. We mightn’t have the luck to -catch a sparrow, and we wouldn’t know a single mousehole. It’s too -dangerous.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not nearly as dangerous as Killer!” snapped his wife. “He didn’t -make you come right down close to him, the way he made me. He could -have caught me. I won’t risk it again.”</p> - -<p>“He made me give him that robin,” answered the little he-owl. “But I -don’t care a bit. I’m tired of eating robins. Think of all we had to -carry home from the Robins’ Roost. And we didn’t help him kill a -single one. Now, if we help him kill the mice we’ll get every other -one of them. Um-m!” And he smacked his beak. Wasn’t he just a greedy -little bird?</p> - -<div class='figcenter portrait' id='i008'> - <img src='images/illus-008.jpg' alt='' /> - <p>The Owl helps Killer find the stump where the mice live</p> -</div> - -<p>His mate wheeled around to think it over. She certainly didn’t like -the looks of that storm. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to just show Killer -the stump. The minute he took his eye off her she’d hide and she -wouldn’t come back until after he had eaten and gone. She could hear -him calling. Her mate answered with the funny little yap owls use -between them when they are hunting together. Down she dropped, but she -gripped her claws good and tight into the branch of a tree near the -mouse’s stump before she called, “Here we are!”</p> - -<p>“Huh-huh-huh,” panted the wicked beast. “I didn’t know where you -had gone. Snff, snff! Lots of tracks here, all right enough!” he -chuckled. It was inky dark, so of course he couldn’t see that the -footprints of the mice were all leading out and none leading back -in again; you remember Chaik Jay had sent every last tail -scuttling out of the Woods and Fields as fast as mice could run. -Scritch, scritch! If Great-grandfather Fieldmouse had heard -Killer’s claws tearing at the rotten wood he wouldn’t have boasted -that no one but a bear could break in and eat them. Then——</p> - -<p>Boom! Crash-h-h! R-r-r-rip! Splash! Down in one blinding sheet came -the first rain of that storm. It was surely a bad one!</p> - -<p>The hoptoad was right when he said there was going to be rain—“floods -of it.” There was. And there was wind and lightning and thunder and -terrible squeaking and squawking and rustling and pounding—all the -noises that make a storm such a scary thing. Of course it wasn’t as -bad as Chaik Jay told the mouse it was going to be, but the mice -didn’t know that. They were all hidden in the stone pile by the -cornfield fence, or in logs and stumps in the Deep Woods. Some of them -even went all the way up to Tommy Peele’s barn and hid in the -strawstack. They didn’t hide in the haystack because——</p> - -<p>But first I want to tell you the rest of what happened down by Doctor -Muskrat’s Pond. The owls tried to fly home, but their wings got so -waterlogged with the rain they had to creep into the hollow oak that -was blown down in the terrible storm—the time Nibble Rabbit rescued -the Woodsfolk who were living in it and had a storm party in his -little cornstalk tent.</p> - -<p>Killer tried to hide in his crack between two stones in the bank of -Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. But the water found him. First it trickled in -from the ground above, where Louie Thomson’s little blanket tent used -to stand, and most washed him out; and then the pond grew fuller and -fuller and higher and higher until it most drowned him. So he had to -go out in all that rain, gnashing his teeth and swearing.</p> - -<p>“Those pesky owls!” he snarled (only he said something worse than just -“pesky”). “I’m going to drag them out of their snug hole by their -scrawny little necks and eat them and live in it myself till this -storm is gone.”</p> - -<p>Up he climbed. His paw wasn’t hurt a bit—when he told the owl it was -he was only pretending, you know. Of course the owls weren’t in it. He -squeezed into it himself, but it was so small for him he had to double -all up inside and the mouse bones in the bottom of it were very -uncomfortable. Wasn’t he starved and squirmy and peevish, the wicked -thing!</p> - -<p>But the Woodsfolk weren’t. Nibble Rabbit knew his way about Tommy -Peele’s barn quite as well as he knew his way about the Woods and -Fields. And that made Silk-ears think he was smarter than ever. Doctor -Muskrat learned from the white ducks, who aren’t nearly as stupid as -they look, all about the ponds the rain was making, so he was happy. -And Stripes Skunk had the finest hunting in the world in the haystack. -He stationed one of his kittens at each of the rat holes, so whenever -Ouphe’s sons or grandsons tried to dodge out of the stack to hunt a -meal someone was sure to catch him. He turned into a feast instead of -finding one. So they were all very comfortable and happy. Except the -bad rats!</p> - -<p>Pretty clever of them, wasn’t it? But you forget that Killer was -clever, too. Though I don’t blame you for that—so did the Woodsfolk. -They never dreamed that Killer would find out where they’d run away -to. Or that he’d be bold enough to follow them. People always forget -that the old saying “He who fights and runs away may live to fight -another day,” doesn’t mean that he who runs away gets out of fighting -for good and all.</p> - -<p>No, it was war to the tooth in the end. Fur and feathers fought -together on both sides, for the Bad Little Owls kept right on helping -Killer—they didn’t dare not to. And every decent bird was more than -willing to wear out his summer wings, if need be, to help good old -Doctor Muskrat and his friends. So it was pretty even.</p> - -<p>But the Woodsfolk won in the end—’cause they had help that was -neither one nor tother—feathers or fur, or even skin or scales. It -was something Mother Nature herself had never dreamed of in the -First-Off Beginning of Things. It was——</p> - -<p>Why, Great beef-bones! as Watch would say. Here I am at ’most the very -last line in this book. Well, you’d better copy that wise dog and -think about all the nicest things you know to keep from worrying while -you wait for the next story to find out just what it was.</p> - -<div style='text-align:center; margin-top:0.7em;'>THE END</div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAD LITTLE OWLS ***</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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