No wonder Doctor Muskrat wasn’t impressed a bit. He just said: “Then you don’t vote against letting him stay here?”
“Of course not!” shrieked the birds.
“That’s good,” said the wise old beast. “We ’re going to have a meeting about it to-night, at moon-up, down by my pond. The mice have entered a protest.”
“The mice?” squawked the birds all together. “The mice? What have they to say about it? What can they do?”
“That remains to be seen,” said the doctor. “They’ve entered a protest, so all who fly by night must come and put in a good word for him.”
“Yah,” called somebody. “I’m going right away now to send the little owls with my vote.”
“No, you don’t,” said the doctor. “I’m guaranteeing that we’ll hear them and let them go home again in safety. There are two families who aren’t invited—the hawks and the owls.” With that he set off home, flapping his front paws and shuffling his hind ones, with his tail making a snake track between them, and Stripes went, too. But his tail had a sassy little quirk at the end.
Promptly at moon-up the Woodsfolk began to gather at Doctor Muskrat’s Pond. Stripes was there already, and Tommy Peele’s dog Watch to represent Tommy because Tommy doesn’t talk the Woodsfolk tongue, and Chaik the Jay, and a whole company of small birds who can fly by moonlight, besides Bob White Quail and the whippoorwill Pretty soon Doctor Muskrat looked all around and asked: “Where are Tad Coon and Nibble Rabbit?”
“Nibble’s coming,” answered the whippoorwill. “I just saw him. He’s——” Here he interrupted himself. He remembered the old bird proverb, “A long tongue makes a ragged tail,” meaning that you’re apt to get pecked if you talk too much about other people ’s affairs. So he just finished, “He’s on the way.”
Both Stripes and Doctor Muskrat suddenly wondered why Nibble was away so much of the time lately. But before they could ask any questions, up hopped Nibble, as careless as you please, with a clover blossom sticking out of his mouth. He’d eaten it stem first, keeping the best till the last, just like you save the nice buttery middle of your bread for your last bite. But the doctor knew very well that he hadn’t picked it in the clover-patch over by the potatoes. He knew that because he’d just been there. Besides, the whippoorwill came out of the deep woods, and he was the only one who had seen Nibble.