Dickie Deer Mouse couldn't help being worried when Mr. Crow said that. And he looked puzzled, too.
"I don't see," he said, "how I could have got you into a peck of trouble, Mr. Crow, for I haven't eaten a peck of Farmer Green's corn. I've had only a few kernels of it—not more than half a pint."
"Then you've got me into a half-pint of trouble, anyway," old Mr. Crow insisted. "And that's too much, for a person of my age. You'll have to keep away from my—ahem!—from Farmer Green's cornfield. And what's more, Fatty Coon says the same thing."
At the mention of Fatty Coon's name Dickie Deer Mouse had to smile.
"Fatty Coon!" he echoed. "How he does like corn!"
"Yes! But he doesn't like you," Mr. Crow snapped. "You'd better look out for him," he warned Dickie. "He'll come to call on you some night, the first thing you know.
"By the way, where are you living now?" Mr. Crow inquired.
But Dickie Deer Mouse made no answer. Right before Mr. Crow's sharp eyes he vanished among the roots of a tree. And it made the old gentleman quite peevish because he couldn't discover where Dickie Deer Mouse had hidden himself.
For a little while Mr. Crow stood like a black statue and peered at the tangle where Dickie Deer Mouse had disappeared. But Mr. Crow couldn't see him anywhere. And at last his patience came to an end.
"He never answered my question," Mr. Crow grumbled. "He wouldn't tell me where he lived. But I'll find out. I'll ask my cousin, Jasper Jay; for there isn't much that he doesn't know."