“Fine for fur, but no good at all for feathers,� the doctor explained. “There, there! Don’t flutter yourself. I guess you had too much party last night by the looks of you. You’d better be careful about eating. I recommend a little acid. Try an ant or two. Or perhaps you’d like a nice red sumach berry from the Quail’s Thicket. I’ll cut down a branch so you can reach them.� Sumach berry, indeed! You know how Chaik loves them. Off he hopped, dragging his wing.
“Queerer and queerer,� thought the bad beast hiding under the stone.
The next thing he saw was Nibble’s bunnies trooping down to drink—my, but they made his mouth water! And he could hear all the birds spluttering and splashing at the edge of the sand where it would be easy to catch them! Still, he stayed hidden.
But when Stripes Skunk came strolling down with his three fat kittens behind him and the bunnies actually began playing with them he made up his mind. “That little owl told the truth!� said the weasel to himself. “She said the Woodsfolk were all friends, but I couldn’t believe her. Well, if they’ve made friends with my cousin Stripes Skunk, they’ll make friends with me. How nice that will be. They’ll walk right into my jaws. I’ll do exactly what the owl told me to. Her advice is worth having!� And he began to prick up his ears and carefully slick back his whiskers.
He didn’t have very much elbow room in that narrow crack between the two big stones but the way he managed to fix himself up was surely surprising. The wife of the Bad Little Owl would never in the world have known he was the bristly whiskered ruffian with red in his eye she found gnawing a robin in the door of his den.
When he squeezed through the crack and shook himself he was really a very elegant-looking creature. His little ears were perked up as pert as he could prick them. His tail didn’t stick straight out behind; it was all fluffed out and he cocked it up the way Chatter Squirrel does. He didn’t slink along like a snake gliding through the bushes; he arched his neck and he arched his back and he hopped as neatly as a rabbit. I won’t say he was comfortable, but he really did look handsome.
Well, the first beast he met was that very bunny who had been locked up in the cage in Louie Thomson’s cellar. “Good morning, Miss Rabbit,� said he in his politest voice. “Can you tell me where I can find my cousin, Tad Coon? I’ve come to visit him.� He said that because he wanted to find out where Tad was. He was the least little bit scared he might have to be careful about Tad.
The bunny opened her eyes very wide. You remember Tad Coon was the fellow who taught her how foolish she was to trust strangers. He told her that his family ate little rabbits. If this was a cousin of Tad’s she wasn’t going to risk being eaten. She didn’t even stop to answer; she just flicked her white tail in his very face and made for the Pickery Things.
“That’s funny,� thought the weasel. “But maybe she’s only young and foolish.� So he edged along by some tall grass to where Stripes Skunk was catching some grasshoppers. “Good morning, Cousin Stripes,� he said. “I’m your cousin Slick.� (He thought maybe he could fool even Stripes, just a little, because he looked so different.) “Won’t you introduce me to your friends? I’m tired of living in the Deep Woods. I want to be good and happy like the rest of you.� (That’s what the Bad Little Owl had told him to say.)
Stripes was most as scared as the bunny. But he could see something the bunny didn’t see—something the wicked weasel didn’t see, either. For that good old dog Watch was standing right behind him. And he looked different, too. He wasn’t sleek and good-tempered any more. He was red-eyed and bristly, thinking about what the weasel had done to the poor robins. He didn’t take a step, or Killer’s sharp ears would have heard him. He crouched for a great big spring, and then——