“Mice, indeed!” chirped the sparrow, quite sharply. “Mice! Why, do you know what they did? They sneaked down under the earth and nibbled the very roots of the plants when they tried to hide under the Earth-that-was-common-to-all. And that was the meanest trick! It took Mother Nature half through the first spring to find out what they had been doing. Some were so ashamed of it that they stayed right there and got to be moles. But some of them pretended they just didn’t know any better.”
Nibble felt a bit flustered because he does it, too, and so does Doctor Muskrat. But then the quail and the sleek brown thrasher are just as bad, so he didn’t try to say anything. Fortunately Chirp went right on talking.
“The wickedest creature of all,” he said, “is Ouphe the Rat. He’s so horrid and dirty and disgusting that he eats even his own kind. He’s a cannibal! Everything hates him, whether it wears feathers or fur or scales—even the stupid cow. And he hates everything. He comes sneaking and creeping just when you least expect him, and—”
“Cheep!” went the watch bird of the flock. “Cheep!” echoed their voices and flutter went their lively little wings with brown edges to every feather. And Ouphe squeaked with rage because he’d missed them that time.
“You will talk about me!” he snarled. “You will, will you? Wait till you hatch and I’ll crunch your baby birds’ bones for you.” He clashed his yellow fangs horribly.
CHAPTER VIII
NIBBLE FOOLS OUPHE IN HIS OWN HAYSTACK
The little rabbit crouched down in the bole in the bottom of the haystack not three feet away from the wicked rat. But Ouphe hadn’t seen him. He was sure of it because Ouphe kept squalling at the sparrows all the nastiest things he could put his tongue to. And the sparrows, swinging from a branch of the elm tree that leaned above him, weren’t much more polite.
“Swapping lies with the field-mice, were you?” sneered Ouphe. “I’ll attend to them.”
“It wasn’t lies,” shrieked Chirp Sparrow indignantly. “Didn’t you come sneaking and creeping—just the way you always do? Thought you’d climb up the other side of the stack and surprise us when we weren’t expecting you, didn’t you? And isn’t that exactly what I said? Let me tell you, you’re one thing we always do expect. You’ll maybe catch us when you learn to fly—but not before.”
“I’ll catch you when I clean out these tattle-tales of field-mice,” snapped Ouphe, and he gnashed his teeth until the froth made his whiskers white.