Louie’s eyes grew big and round. “I didn’t do a thing. Cross my heart didn’t—’cepting to feed them, like you showed me. The coon and the jay bird are living up at mine.”
“They are!” exclaimed Tommy. “Then I guess you didn’t do anything to them.”
“Do you s’pose they wanted to see what it was like to be tame—just like I tried being wild?” Louie wondered.
“N-n-no,” drawled Tommy thoughtfully. “My rabbit’s tried it before. But he always goes wild again. I guess he likes it best.”
“Now that fox is back by Doctor Muskrat’s pond—I’ll bet you anything!”
The two boys wouldn’t have been so puzzled if they had known how the Bad Little Owls had invited Killer the Weasel to Tommy’s Woods and Fields. It was to avoid him that all the Woodsfolk had come to stay with the boys for a while; indeed, they had even warned the obstinate mice to leave, so that Killer and the Bad Little Owls would have to go hungry.
Killer and the Bad Little Owls were hungry—Killer especially. He wasn’t enjoying his visit to the Woods and Fields one bit. For it rained and it rained, and it rained and it kept on raining. And nobody with fur can hunt in the rain because the water washes away all the trails; you can’t see where they come from or where they’re going to; you can’t even smell them.
It was way along in the afternoon before he poked out his wicked nose and found the sun was out, too, and the leaves were dancing. But he didn’t want to dance; his poor skin was doing it for him and he didn’t like it a bit; he was shivering because he was empty as a drum and the wind was thumping him. He crept down and tiptoed over to Doctor Muskrat’s pond. He walked all around it, but he didn’t see a single footprint. He didn’t even see a frog. By this time he was hungry enough to eat one, but they were all buried down in the warm mud. The only fellow he found was the Hop-toad.
The Hop-toad was very happy. Most every leaf that blew down in the wind had under it a fine fat angleworm who had come up to nibble a pleasant change from the grass-blades they eat all summer. Besides, they were simply loaded with bug cradles of every sort.
As a result, the Hop-toad was so full he could hardly squeeze his fat yellow vest into his own front door beneath his own big stone; so he just sat and blinked his ruby eyes at Killer and grinned. Who else in all the Woods and Fields would have dared to do that?