“I might,” said Tad. “You see I’m so starvation hungry. Dry bread and carrots aren’t any food for a decent coon. Not even an ear of corn, by way of a change.”
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried the poor bunny. “Mammy! Mammy!”
“Now whist,” said Tad soothingly. “I can’t get you, so you’re perfectly safe. But if ever you get out of here you’ll be more careful about trusting folks, won’t you? You never can tell just how hungry they are, you know.”
“But I never will. I’ll die right here. I’ll never get out.”
“Yes, you will, too,” said Tad. “I’m going to get out. I don’t know when or how, but I will. And if ever I do it won’t take me a minute to open your cage with my handy-paws. And then I won’t want to eat you any more. This place is just alive with mice. If ever I get after them they’ll know it. Grr-r-r! I sit here and listen to them. I know all their holes. I’ll hunt ’em!” and he licked his whiskers at the very idea. “Now you cuddle down, little hop-toad, and I’ll tell you stories about Nibble Rabbit.”
And he did. He told her about the time he went fishing and splashed Nibble, and how Grandpop Snapping-turtle nipped the end of his tail. He forgot to be hungry and the bunny forgot to be scared until she fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER V
WHY LOUIE THOMSON WHISTLED
All night long Tad Coon kept still in his cage down in the dark, smelly cellar. He wasn’t waiting for a mouse to come and nibble his bread--they’d learned it wasn’t safe to do that. He was trying not to wake Nibble Rabbit’s poor little bunny.
All night he watched those mice scuttling about the floor with his mouth just watering. He was so dreadfully hungry. He didn’t have enough to eat, and it didn’t agree with him, and the damp air made his bones ache. It was worse yet when a rat came snooping in and caught one of the mice. He ate part of it and then left it lying right under Tad Coon’s hungry whiskers. But it was worst of all when that rat began to gnaw the bunny’s box. Tad shook his bars and chattered at him. “Go away! Go away, you brute, or I’ll trim your ugly whiskers!”
“Yah!” sneered the rat. “A lot you’ll do. You’ll die pretty soon. And when they throw you out on the rubbish-pile I’ll be the one who eats you!” Then he peered at the bunny. “I won’t bother to gnaw in and get her,” said he. “They’ll throw her out in the morning. She’s dead already!”