Billy Mink.
The farmer did a lot of thinking after he guessed that it was Billy Mink who had driven all the Rats out of his barn into his house. “If I could get that little brown rascal over here to the house,” thought the farmer, “I would soon be rid of those robber Rats. But how am I going to do it? If he doesn’t know that those Rats are over here, he certainly will not venture any nearer to the house than that woodpile. And if he cannot get into the henhouse to steal my chickens, he won’t stay around here very long, because he will have little to eat. The thing for me to do is see that he has plenty to eat and learns where it comes from.”
So the very first thing the farmer did the next morning was to put some scraps of fresh meat just outside the woodpile. It didn’t take Billy Mink long to find them. Of course the farmer was out of sight. He was in the barn, peeping through a crack. He saw Billy come out from under the wood and sniff at the pieces of meat. It was clear that Billy was suspicious. He went all around those scraps of meat, and the farmer could tell by the way he moved that Billy suspected a trap.
But Billy found no trap. Of course not, because there was no trap. At last he ventured to seize one of those scraps of meat and darted back into the woodpile with it. A few minutes later he was out again, just as cautious as before. So, one by one, he took the scraps of meat under the woodpile. The farmer smiled as he saw the last scrap disappear. He knew that Billy had enough for a good meal and that with a stomach well filled he would probably take a nap.
This is just what Billy did. All the time he kept wondering about those scraps of meat and how they had happened to be so handy. “It’s queer,” thought Billy, “how that meat happened to be right there. I wonder if that farmer could have dropped it. If he did, I hope he’ll do it again.” With this, Billy went to sleep.
Just at dusk Billy awoke. He was hungry again. He began to think of those hens over in the henhouse. Then he remembered the trap he had found over there and decided he would keep away from the henhouse. He decided that he would go over to the big barn to see if any of those Rats had returned. And then, all of a sudden, he remembered the easy breakfast he had had that morning. Instantly Billy popped his head out from under the woodpile. He didn’t really expect to find any more scraps of meat, and you can guess just how surprised and pleased he was when he found that there were some more scraps just where he had found his breakfast that morning. For the first time Billy suspected that they might have been put there especially for him, and in his heart he began to have a friendly feeling for that farmer.
CHAPTER XXX
BILLY LIVES HIGH
Misunderstandings cleared away
Bring peace and happiness to stay.
Billy Mink.