You wouldn’t think even the wild woodsfolk would be afraid of a tired little boy, fast asleep by the pond, but they were. They were most scared to death. The whippoorwill sounded a desperate warning as she circled about on her long pointed wings trying to make up her mind to scoop up a mouthful of water, and the little bats squeaked as though the big owl was after them.
They woke up a lot of the Woodsfolk who had eaten their late supper by moonlight and gone to bed. Stripes Skunk came over from the potato patch, and Nibble Rabbit loped out to the edge of the Pickery Things and stood there on tip-toe, even to his stick-up ears, he was so s’prised. Chatter Squirrel looked from the lowest branch of Tad Coon’s tree. Doctor Muskrat crawled up on his stone, and maybe you think he didn’t jump when he found who was sleeping beside it. But fat old Tad patted out of his nest in the cool bulrushes, where he’d been taking a little cat-nap with one ear open, and settled it.
“Needn’t anybody be afraid of Louie Thomson,” said Tad. “He’s my boy. And he’s most as nice as Tommy Peele, Nibble. He’s friends.”
“But we haven’t made any compact with him,” suggested Doctor Muskrat.
“Compact!” sniffed Tad. “The minute he found I was shut up in my cage he brought me the juiciest mouthful of corn you ever wet your whiskers in.”
“Yah!” jeered Stripes. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I say you’d get caught? It’s all over traps, wherever you find men.”
“You did,” admitted Tad. “It was the queerest thing. I could get into that cage, and so could that mean old rat--he thought I was dead, Mr. Scaly-tail did. You ought to have heard him squeal when I grabbed him. But then I couldn’t get out again!” Tad didn’t know it was his very own self who shook the cage door down. “It didn’t matter a bit,” he went on comfortably. “Louie came right down and turned me loose. But you’re right about another thing, Stripes, men do kill men.”
“What!” exclaimed all the woodsfolk.
Tad nodded solemnly. “Sure as tadpoles have tails! We were having the nicest mouse hunt, Louie and I, when that big man came stamping in. He tried to kill me with a stick, and he did hit Louie with it--twice.” Of course Louie’s father didn’t mean to kill him; he only meant to punish him for taking the corn. But Woodsfolk don’t beat their children, they only shake them.
“Louie could run, all the same,” Tad finished. “So he came with me; he’s going to go wild again and live with us.”