That made Tommy laugh. “He’s friends,” shouted Nibble. “A man always makes friends when he laughs at you.” And Watch knew that, because it’s how the first dog made friends with the man and his wife and his baby in the First-Off Beginning.
Tommy looked at the bass and then he looked at Stripes Skunk again. He tossed it right beneath Stripes’ crinkly nose and said: “I believe you want this. Well, you can have it. There are lots more fish in Doctor Muskrat’s pond, and I just love fishing.” So Stripes knew Nibble Rabbit was right.
I guess you’d have liked to go fishing that sunny afternoon down by Doctor Muskrat’s pond your own self—I just believe you would! Tommy perched on the trunk of the tree again and did the fishing. Doctor Muskrat was cuddled down under the bulrushes most interested to see how Tommy did it. Nibble was nipping the tops of clovers, with an ear cocked so he wouldn’t miss any of the excitement when Tommy caught one—not that he cared for fish, but some other fellows did.
Tad and Stripes had eaten the great big bass, and now Tad was dozing, flat on his back in the sun, with his handy-paws folded over his fat tummy, and Stripes was curled up as tight as his fullness would let him, with his wavy tail over his shiny black nose, to keep the flies off it.
Even Watch was contented. He was napping, too. Sometimes he squirmed and growled to himself because he didn’t approve one little bit of having Tommy make friends with a bad Thing-from-Under-the-Earth like Stripes Skunk. It was plenty bad enough to have him make friends with mischievous Tad Coon! But Watch was happy all the same.
Pretty soon Stripes opened his shiny black eyes; he stretched himself and yawned. A leaf blew past and he pounced on it like a kitten. Then a grasshopper clicked up and he chased it. Next he took to playing with some leaves that were dancing in the wind, and then he took after his own plumy tail, whirling round and round in a mad little dance of his own, humming a little tune that was a happy, not a whiny, one.
Watch pricked up his ears because he was so surprised to think Stripes could sing—Bad Ones can’t, you know. And his own tail began to beat in time to Stripes’ patty little feet. So Stripes slyly pounced on it. Well, you know what happened then! Watch began to chase him. Only he couldn’t chase very fast because Stripes does look so funny when he’s running. His fur fluffs up and his hind feet are pigeon-toed, and his draggy, wavy tail goes flourishing in and out between them.
First Stripes got scared, but pretty soon he saw even Watch was laughing. And Watch tipped him right over on his back and snooted him in the ribs like he does the kittens. “You silly old thing,” he chuckled. “I won’t make any better compact with you than I did with Tad Coon, but I won’t hurt you while you behave yourself.”
“I’ll show you how I’ll behave,” said Stripes, and he deliberately boxed Watch’s big ear, just to show that he wasn’t afraid of him. And Tommy Peele ’most fell into the pond all over again, he was laughing so hard at them. They all made so much noise that the spotty blue kingfisher came over to cock his crest and see what they were doing. He and Doctor Muskrat gave Tommy a lot of good advice, only of course he didn’t understand it. But he did know they were very friendly, and that was the main thing.