Even Louie Thomson tried not to wriggle for fear of disturbing them. But the top rail of that fence wasn’t any too comfortable, and the flies buzzed about his ears, because he hadn’t any hop-toad to gulp them, and at last a mosquito stabbed its stinger into his cheek. Slap! You ought to have seen those rabbits scuttle home--and the little lost bunny ran just about as fast as the rest. So Louie didn’t care. He put his hands into his pockets and went off home, whistling as gayly as a fiery-coloured oriole.
He whistled so loud that all the birds stopped to listen. He didn’t know just why he felt like whistling. He got to thinking about that coon he caught in his corn-crib. He’d had it in a cage for ever and ever so long, and it was crosser than ever. But he didn’t stop whistling. He went right down into his cellar, leaving the cellar door wide open behind him. Then he opened the door of the cage where he had Tad Coon. “Git along, you bitey old thing,” he said. “I don’t want any pets. They’re too much trouble.”
Tad Coon sat back in a corner, snarling. He didn’t believe Louie meant to be kind to anything. He just guessed that the minute he poked his nose out Louie’d hit him with something. Then he’d be thrown out on the rubbish-pile with Nibble Rabbit’s baby bunny, and the rats would eat him. He thought of course Louie had killed it because all the Woodsfolk knew he always killed things.
Sure enough, Louie picked up a stick and poked him in the ribs. “Hey, you!” he shouted crossly, “git out o’ there! Git a wiggle on!”
Tad grabbed that stick with his teeth and his handy-paws and snatched it right out of Louie’s hands. Then maybe he didn’t run! Bounce! He hit the cellar floor! He hit the cellar steps just twice--blam! blam! Louie came out and watched him gallop across the garden. When he disappeared into the cornfield he was still running. Pretty soon Louie saw him sneak under the fence into Tommy Peele’s potato patch. “Huh!” he grunted disgustedly, “Tommy can have his cranky old coon if he wants him.” He was just pretending he didn’t want Tad; he did, all the same. He felt so sorry he stopped whistling.
He just wanted him so much that he climbed up on the fence to see the last of him. And what do you s’pose Tad Coon was doing? He was lying on his back in the nice warm earth, wriggling and squirming. My, how good that felt! When he jumped up again he was actually smiling. He scrubbed his face and ears all neat and clean, and he fluffed out his tail, and he didn’t look a bit like the snarly beast who’d been living with Louie Thomson. He looked like the smarty one who had been playing with Tommy Peele’s watch and chain the day Tommy and Tad Coon and Stripes Skunk and Nibble Rabbit and Doctor Muskrat all went fishing.
And when Louie Thomson saw how happy he was, why, he just began whistling all over again louder than ever! But still he didn’t know why.
CHAPTER VI
THE WOODSFOLK WONDER ABOUT LOUIE
When Tad Coon got out of that damp, smelly cellar he was just about the happiest coon who ever hunted wood snails under a burdock leaf. He was happy until he’d eaten several snails and three fieldmice and one green frog. Then all of a sudden he remembered the bad news he had for Nibble Rabbit. You know he thought Louie had killed Nibble’s poor little bunny. My, how he hated to tell Nibble and Silk-ears!
So he lost his smile. His face got longer and longer as he dragged his feet toward Doctor Muskrat’s pond. It felt most as long as his tail. His eyes got all teary and his nose got all sniffy, just thinking how badly they were going to feel. But when he came around the end of the Quail’s Thicket who should he see but Nibble talking excitedly to Doctor Muskrat. Silk-ears and a lot of little bunnies were with him.