“I guess you’d mind if he locked you up like he did Nibble,” remarked Chaik Jay. “That’s what it means to belong to him.”
“No, it doesn’t,” contradicted Nibble. (He really knew more about the little boy than any one else. He hadn’t liked being locked up, but he did like Tommy.) “Watch says I belong to him just the same out of my cage as I did in it. And he feeds me just the same, too.”
“Hmm!” sniffed Doctor Muskrat. He was wondering if it was that way with traps. ’Cause you remember Tommy’d caught him in one, and then let him go again. And Tommy’d fed him, too.
“You know,” said Nibble, “all the beasts up at the barn say——” And then for the first time he heard the swishing in the bulrushes behind him.
“Ow!” he squealed. And he jumped. For the starey eyes of the cross Red Cow came peering through them.
“Swish!” went Doctor Muskrat through his hole in the ice. “Flutter!” went the scary wings of Chewee the Chickadee, and even Chaik the Bluejay, who isn’t afraid of many things, went off with a startled “squawk,” while Nibble Rabbit dashed through a tunnel he knew in the Quail’s Thicket. But you know Nibble. First he’s scared—and then he’s curious. As soon as he was safely hidden he stopped to listen. “Stupid beast,” he said to himself. “Why couldn’t she have waited until we got done talking?”
“M-m-moo!” lowed the Red Cow in a troubled voice.
Nibble came creeping back again. Pretty soon he sat up and stretched his neck to get a good look at her. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Is anything the matter?”
“M-m-m-yes,” moaned the Red Cow, swinging her head restlessly from side to side and looking terribly troubled. “I don’t know just what it is, but I’m all afraid! Isn’t there any place where wolves don’t come? Or Men?”
“No Man comes here,” said Nibble, “’cepting only Tommy Peele—and he’s just a little one.” Then, because the Red Cow looked so unhappy, he burst out cheerfully, “Come on. I’ll show you where you can hide, even, from him.”