First thing they knew, up popped Doctor Muskrat himself. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. Then he sniffed and tasted the water that was running off his nose. “What’s that funny smell?” he wanted to know. That’s how much honey was washing off Tad Coon.
“It’s honey,” Stripes explained. “Tad Coon showed me where it was and I got it for him, so now we’re friends. Wouldn’t you like some, too?”
“Me!” exclaimed the doctor. “Great Whiskered Catfish! Whatever would I do with it? Wash myself, like Tad Coon? Or give the mussels a treat so they’d keep their shelly mouths open? I wouldn’t eat it, you know; plants and fish are enough for me.”
“But this is plants,” Tad explained eagerly. He wanted an excuse to send Stripes Skunk back for some more. “The flowers make it and the bees suck it out of them and store it away to eat in the wintertime. Flowers are plants, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” grinned the doctor. “Every one of those big white waterlily flowers tells me that she has a perfectly delicious root down in the bottom of the pond. But I’ve never found any honey in them.”
Stripes looked over and saw the bees buzzing among the lilypads. “That’s just because you never looked,” he protested. “It’s down beneath their fuzzy yellow collars.” He meant their stamens, you know.
Plop went the old muskrat. Back he came, making the pool dance in the ripples behind his busy paddle-paws, and towing a waterlily. “Where’s the honey in that, Tad Coon?” he demanded. “You’re too much of a joker for me to believe any of your fairy tales.” And sure enough, there wasn’t a single drop.
Maybe you think Stripes and Tad weren’t puzzled! They’d always heard that the bees got their honey out of flowers.
“You needn’t think you can fool me like that, you smarty coon,” chuckled the wise old muskrat.
“But I’ve always believed it,” pleaded Tad. He thought it was because he was always playing jokes that when he tried to tell the truth no one would listen.