“Did I get anything to eat? Why, these house-folks have more things stored away to eat than all the Jays in the Deep Woods put together. That trap where they keep the corn doesn’t catch me. I can walk in and out any time I want to. (He meant the corn crib; the slats wouldn’t hold him any more than they would a mouse.) And I found a knothole into the biggest pile of wheat you ever dreamed about. (That was the grain room, of course.) And there’s dusty stuff the cows are eating (meal and bran), and some little wrinkly sweet wild grapes I hid in a special place. I’ll give you a taste.” (He meant his raisins in the kitchen window.)
“I guess you had plenty to eat, all right enough,” remarked Tad, “but you never told me where you slept.”
“Hey?” chuckled Chaik with his most mischievous air, “I wouldn’t dare; you wouldn’t believe me. I’ll just have to show you. Come along.” And he flapped right up to the kitchen window. Then wasn’t he the puzzled bird? He could see Louie’s mother moving around inside, getting the breakfast. He could see the raisins poked into the crack. But he couldn’t get in there to get them. He walked all the way up the screen, fluttering and scratching. Pretty soon he perched on the sill and began to think it over.
“That’s the second time this has happened,” he said. “I hid a little shiny hollow acorn last night, and then I couldn’t get it again. I knew right where it was, too. Now I can see those little wrinkly grapes, right where I put them, but I can’t get them either. It’s very queer.”
“You mean you were in the house?” gasped Tad. “Right up inside it, with the traps shut?” (He meant with the doors closed; he hadn’t learned all the proper house names for things yet.) “But that wasn’t safe. What if that big man wanted to hit you like he did me and Louie?” Tad didn’t quite trust him yet.
“He didn’t,” said Chaik. “He’s not a bit peckish, even if he does make more noise than Watch the Dog when he barks.” (That was what Chaik thought of Mr. Thomson’s laughing.) “Yeah! Hey!” he called suddenly because he saw Louie.
Louie looked up. He was feeling quite scared because he didn’t see anything of his bird—not even a little pile of feathers to show that the cats had caught him. “Why, however did you get there?” he asked, and he ran to open the window and shove up the screen.
In hopped Chaik. All his nice raisins had dropped out of the crack when Louie opened the window for him, but he didn’t care. He just ate a few himself and shoved a taste of them down to Tad. “That happened, too,” he said thoughtfully as he gulped a raisin. “The minute I stopped worrying about my acorn, one of the house-folks gave it to me. A house isn’t fixed for birds. But it’s very interesting—and full of smells.” He turned his beak toward the stove where Louie’s mother was frying bacon.
“Mmn! Mmn! Lovely ones,” sniffed Tad, twitching his nose around until he made such funny faces Louie began to giggle at him. He could smell that bacon right through the window.
Louie’s father came back from the barn carrying the milk pails all full and frothing. He had more milk than usual that morning—he remembered about that a long time afterward. He didn’t know it yet, but his luck began to turn on that farm the very day he made friends with the Woodsfolk. You’ll see.