Tad catches the rat that was killing the chickens.
For that thief was the biggest, oldest, grayest rat he’d ever seen, and the wisest, too; he’d hunted right under the noses of Louie’s cats for so long he had a whole lot more tricks than Tad had hairs in his whiskers. But Tad played a brand-new one on him. Suddenly he stopped right still. “What a cub I am!” he snickered to himself. “Old Sharptooth will take that bird right back to the woodpile where he ate the other one. That’s the place for me to wait for him.” In about three jumps he was on top of it with his ears cocked, listening for the rat to come.
He was listening so hard he didn’t pay any attention when the kitchen door slammed. Louie’s father was going to take a last look at his barns to make sure the big rain that was coming wouldn’t do any harm to them, and Louie was with him to carry the lantern. He swung it as he walked and the light set all the shadows dancing. Tad Coon didn’t pay any attention to that, either; he’d learned all about it down by Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. But the rat did.
Pit-pat, pit-pat, swish. Tad could hear him coming, dragging his chicken. In one lantern swing his eyes lit up like the headlights of a little automobile, and he saw Tad’s ears, pointed right toward him. He dropped his bird and jumped at the very same breath as Tad Coon. In the next swing Louie Thomson’s father saw the white feathers lying on the ground—and he saw the fluffy tail and frilly fur pantaloons of Tad Coon diving down a big crown crock for a drain he was just going to dig.
“Here!” he roared. “That’s who’s been——” He was going to finish “killing our chickens,” and he was going to lay it to Tad Coon, but he didn’t have time. The crocks were laid out across the yard, ready to put in. The first three were so close together even a rat couldn’t squeeze out between them. Louie’s father caught up a shovel and slapped it over the open end of the third one.
“We-e-ak, we-e-ak, snarl, snap, scuffle, scratch, wee-e-ee——!” What a thumping and bumping was inside that crock! Then it was quiet. He moved his shovel to peek in. He looked into the smiley face of Tad Coon, but Tad’s smile had rat hanging down from either side.
“Well, I swan!” exclaimed Louie Thomson’s father. He said some more things like that; the words didn’t make much sense, because he didn’t know exactly what he did mean. But you ought to have heard Louie Thomson! “Hooray!” he squealed. “Hooray for my coon! That’s the rat we saw stealing an egg out from under the hen who set in the grain room last spring. It’s the very same one. You said he was too smart for the cats and they’d never catch him. But my coon got him! He sure did!”
“That’s some coon!” said his father at last. “Some coon! But how do you know he doesn’t kill chickens, too?”
“Because he’s friends with all the birds down by the pond,” Louie insisted. “I’ve never seen him eat a single one. Not even my jay with the hurt wing—I’m pretty sure he could have caught him just as easy as I did.”