“But they weren’t mine,” she cheeped joyfully. “Not a single one.”
“They were ours,” mourned the meadowlarks. “That’s why we’re so ashamed of ourselves for picking at you. But we’ll pay back. We’ll help you take care of Tommy Peele’s potato patch for ever and ever.”
Maybe that didn’t make Stripes happy! For if he could have their help to fight the potato bug army he was sure he could stay for ever and ever in Tommy Peele’s woods and fields.
Stripes was just going to dance a bit of the tickle out of his toes, the way he did when Tommy Peele made him happy, when Coquillicot the Thrasher flew out of the thorn tree. He’d been hiding away all by himself while he composed a triumph song—and that’s the biggest compliment any bird can pay you.
Coquillicot perched right over Stripes Skunk’s head, folded his tail straight up and down, tucked his wings under it, and began in a low, mysterious voice:
Pit-pit—pirra-whit!
What rustling form passes
Where nests in the grasses
The wife of Coquillicot?
Churr-churr—who’s there?