Let our foe’s ears ring
With the wing song—
The sting song.
Die singing as you sting!
And bees always use it to work themselves up when they have a fight on so they’ll forget that as soon as they use their stings they’ll die.
“Oh!” cried Nibble. “He must be blinded. See what you’ve done with your jokes, you careless coon! This is worse than the one you played on Trailer.”
Even Tad Coon was shocked. He called, “Stripes, Stripes! come this way! Follow me! If you run through the brush they’ll leave you.”
But of course the bees were making such a noise Stripes Skunk couldn’t hear what he was saying. So he just called back, “I can’t reach in here—my paw’s too fat—but I have another idea.” Down he came. They could see him batting at the bees with his paddy paws until he popped into the big hollow in the oak’s trunk.
CHAPTER II
THE SWEETNESS OF HARMONY AND HONEY
Tad Coon burst into tears when he saw the white tip-end of Stripes’ long wavy tail go into the hole. For a great big cloud of angry bees was pouring in after him. “He’s gone crazy. He’s gone crazy,” sobbed Tad. “This is the awfulest joke I ever played. Now he’ll be stung to death in that smelly black hole. It’s all my fault—why did I ever think of sending him up to meddle with their nest? Honest, I never meant to hurt him.”