"There!" Fatty cried, as they came in sight of the bright, round thing.
"There it is—just as I told you!" And they all set up a great shouting.
All but Mrs. Coon. She wasn't quite sure, even yet, that Fatty had really found the moon. And she walked close to the shining thing and peered at it. But not too close! Mrs. Coon didn't go too near it. And she told her children quite sternly to stand back. It was well that she did; for when Mrs. Coon took her eyes off Fatty's moon and looked at the ground beneath it—well! she jumped back so quickly that she knocked two of her children flat on the ground.
A trap! THAT was what Mrs. Coon saw right in front of her. And Farmer Green, or his boy, or whoever it was that set the trap, had hung that bright piece of TIN over the trap hoping that one of her family would see it and play with it—and fall into the trap. Yes—it was a mercy that Fatty hadn't begun knocking it about. For if he had he would have stepped right into the trap and it would have shut—SNAP! Just like that. And there he would have been, caught fast.
It was no wonder that Mrs. Coon hurried her family away from that spot. And Fatty led them all home again. He couldn't get away from his moon fast enough.
XVIII
THE LOGGERS COME
Fatty Coon was frightened; he had just waked up and he heard a sound that was exactly like the noise Farmer Green and his hired man had made when they cut down the tall chestnut tree where he was perched.
"Oh, Mother! What is it?" he cried.
"The loggers have come," Mrs. Coon said. "They are cutting down all the big trees in the swamp."
"Then we'll have to move, won't we?" Fatty asked.