At that Solomon Owl let out a long row of hoots, because he was pleased.
“The very thing!” he cried. “That’s what I’ve been wanting all this time. And I never guessed it.... I’ll pay you for your advice the next time I see you,” he told Aunt Polly. And Solomon Owl hurried away before she could stop him. Since he had no intention of visiting her on ground-hog day, he knew it would be spring before he saw Aunt Polly Woodchuck again.
The old lady scolded a bit. And it did not make her feel any pleasanter to hear Solomon’s mocking laughter, which grew fainter and fainter as he left the pasture behind him. Then she went inside her house, for she was fast growing sleepy. And she wanted to set things to rights before she began her long winter’s nap.
Meanwhile, Solomon Owl roamed restlessly through the woods. There was only one place in the neighborhood where he could get a pullet. That was at Farmer Green’s chicken house. And for some reason he did not care to visit the farm buildings until it grew darker.
So he amused himself by making the woods echo with his strange cry, “Whoo-whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo, to-whoo-ah!” And now and then he threw in a few “wha-whas,” just for extra measure.
Many of the forest folk who heard him remarked that Solomon Owl seemed to be in extra fine spirits.
“Probably it’s the hunter’s moon that pleases him!” Jimmy Rabbit remarked to a friend of his. “I’ve always noticed that old Solomon makes more noise on moonlight nights than at any other time.”
The hunter’s moon, big and yellow and round, was just rising over Blue Mountain. But for once it was not the moon that made Solomon Owl so talkative. He was in fine feather, so to speak, because he was hoping to have a fat pullet for his supper. And as for the moon, he would have been just as pleased had there been none at all that night. For Solomon Owl never cared to be seen when he visited Farmer Green’s chicken house.
VII
The Blazing Eyes
It was some three hours after sunset when Solomon Owl at last reached Farmer Green’s place. All was quiet in the chicken house because the hens and roosters and their families had long since gone to roost. And except for a light that shone through a window, the farmhouse showed not a sign of life.