For what she heard was Louie giggling because Tad Coon’s handy-paws tickled him. Tad was examining him to see if he carried a bug in his pocket, like Tommy Peele. Nobody could convince Tad that Tommy’s noisy ticky watch wasn’t a bug.
The lamp cast a light on the cellar floor and Tad saw a mouse. He whisked around and caught it. There, now he could see a pile of grain sacks where he knew there was a whole family of them. He didn’t stop to think where the light was coming from. He’d got used to light and noises while Louie kept him locked up in that awful cage. He used to hate the cellar, too. Now that he was free he thought it was fun--the loveliest sort of a place to go hunting in. You’d better believe he and Louie had those grain sacks flying.
“Louie Thomson!” said his mother. “Whatever are you doing?”
“My coon’s catching a mouse,” laughed Louie. “Oh, Ma, he’s tame! I let him go this morning and he came right back again.” Of course Tad came back to get even with that mean old rat who plagued him while he was starving in his prison. But Louie didn’t guess that. “Shh, Ma!” he said. “Hold your light so’s he can see. Look! He’s caught another!”
“Good land!” exclaimed his mother again. “He’s smarter than a cat. I wish he’d come up and clean a few out o’ my kitchen.”
Just then, clump, clump, came Louie’s father down the stairs. Even Tad could tell he was angry by the way he was stamping--you know coons and skunks and bunnies, even, do it, too. He guessed it was time to be going.
“What does all this racket mean?” shouted Louie’s father. “I told you I’d kill that beast if I heard any more from him; now I’m going to do it.” And he snatched the broom from his wife’s hand. He wanted to use it for a club. Then he looked in the cage.
He didn’t see any coon, but he did see the corn Louie had brought for him! “What do you mean,” he roared, “breaking off my corn for your beast? I told you to leave my grain strictly alone. Now I’ll give you a licking you won’t forget. Where’s that brute gone?”
Tad was sneaking around behind him in the dark shadows. Whack! The broomstick just missed him as he bounced out the cellar door. Whack, whack, it came down on Louie Thomson’s shoulders. Out of the cellar door he bolted, too, and raced after Tad Coon.