CHAPTER XII
TOMMY PEELE’S FRIENDS STAND UP FOR HIM
Of course Nibble Rabbit wouldn’t eat the pile of meal Tommy Peele left for Doctor Muskrat.
But he thought he was going to have a terrible time to keep all those foolish young muskrats, who were scuttling round in the marsh trying to start their spring love affairs, from doing it. He forgot that everything around the place where Tommy had set it still smelled of the little boy and his dog. So not another beast dared come near it.
Chaik the Jay and Chewee the Chickadee stole a few beakfuls, but Nibble knew Doctor Muskrat wouldn’t mind that. And he wanted company. So he told them all about how Tommy had caught the doctor and let him go again. And how Tommy had thrown away the trap.
Chaik raised and lowered his crest, just as we sometimes do our eyebrows, when we’re puzzled about anything. “He was lucky,” Chaik said. “I’ve seen beasts suffer in a trap for whole days before they died. And I never heard of any before that got out of one alive. I believe that human is queer. Sometimes I think he’s trying to think the way we woods folk do.”
“I know it,” chimed in Chewee. “When it was so terribly cold I was having an awful time. The ice had frozen over the cones so I couldn’t even pick a living among the pine trees. And do you know what he did? He tied a big lump of fat pork away out on the end of a springy branch, so that fat house cat couldn’t reach it. Just for me! Wasn’t that clever” And he began hopping about in the excited way he has whenever he gets to talking.
“Well, he most certainly is trying to make friends with us,” Nibble observed. “Only catching us in traps isn’t a very comfortable way of doing it. You fellows will have to help me convince Doctor Muskrat.”
Help! He needed it. It was two whole days before the doctor poked his head out of the hole where Watch had smashed the crumbly ice. The wise old beast wasn’t using his front door any more.
“Come on,” called Nibble cheerfully. “See what Tommy Peele left you to say he was sorry he bit you.”
“Not I,” growled the doctor. “I’ve had enough of his jaws.” He spread out his paddle paw. The good roots he stores in his medicine chest had nearly healed it, but his little toe was gone. “I’m going to move away as soon as I can travel.”