“Aye, aye,” squealed the kittens. They cleared out those bunnies in no time. Then they pounced on Tad Coon and pulled his fur until he was laughing so hard he couldn’t box their impudent little pricky ears. He tried to run out the wrong end. Down came the pole and off he walked, dragging the whole blanket after him, and the kittens couldn’t think where he was gone. And Louie most made himself sick laughing at them.
Louie put it up again, as soon as he got done laughing, and fastened it down with more stones all around. But Doctor Muskrat began to turn over the stones to see what they had under them. That was because the blanket smelled so queer. Then the mice came out to visit him and Stripes Skunk came out to hunt them. After that the little owls came and perched right over it. Louie could hear them talking.
“What’s that?” asked one. “It wasn’t here this morning.”
“It’s alive,” whispered the other, “I can hear it breathing.”
“It’s very queer,” said the first little owl. “It surely does breathe. But it hasn’t any head or any feet or any tail.” Of course the tent didn’t have any. Louie Thomson had a head and some feet, but the owls couldn’t see him.
“Maybe it’s got them all pulled in, like a turtle,” said her mate.
“Aw, you old squawk-sparrow!” she snapped. [That’s the same as calling a boy a “’fraid cat.”] “I’ll soon find out what it is.” And she lit right on Louie’s tent pole. “It’s all woolly,” she said. “I s’pose maybe it’s a buffalo.”
The woodsfolk were delighted with Louie’s tent.
“Buffaloes have horns,” insisted the little he-owl. “You just ask the cows. They know. They’re right over there in those woods. I dare you to ask ’em.”