The Wishing-Stone Stories

by Thornton W. Burgess

“Coons are raising mischief down in the corn! You’d better get your traps out and see if you can catch the thieving little rascals. Go down and look the ground over, and see what you think,” his father had said to him at noon that day.

So here he was on his way to look for signs of Bobby Coon, and, if the truth were known, actually hoping that he wouldn’t find them! There had been a time when he would have been all excitement over his quest, and eager to find the tell-tale tracks where Bobby Coon went into and out of the corn-field. Then he would have hurried home for his traps in great glee, or instead would have planned to watch with his gun for Bobby that very night.

But now he had no such feelings. Somehow, he had come to regard his little wild neighbors in a wholly different light. He no longer desired to do them harm. Ever since he had begun to learn what their real lives were like, by wishing himself one of them as he sat on the old wishing-stone, he had cared less and less to hunt and frighten them and more and more to try to make friends with them.

His teacher would have said that he had a “sympathetic understanding” of them, and then probably would have had to explain to Tommy what that meant—that he knew just how they felt and had learned to look at things from their point of view. And it was true. He had put away his gun and traps. He no longer desired to kill. He liked to hunt for these little wild people as much as ever, perhaps more, but it was in order to make friends with them, and to find out more about their ways and habits, instead of to kill them.

So it was that he didn’t like his present errand. On the brow of the hill that overlooked the corn-field he stopped for a minute to look down on the broad acres of long-leaved stalks standing row on row, row on row, like a well drilled army. He thought of the long hours he had spent among them toiling with his hoe in the hot sunshine when the swimming-hole was calling to him, and a sudden sense of pride swept over him. The great sturdy plants no longer needed his hoe to keep the weeds down. The ears had filled out and were in the milk now.

“Seems as if we could spare what little a coon wants,” muttered Tommy, as he gazed down on the field. “Of course, if there is a whole family of ’em, something’s got to be done, but I don’t believe one coon can eat enough to do much harm. Dad promised me a share in the crop, when it’s harvested, to pay for my work. It isn’t likely to be very much, and goodness knows I want every penny of it; but I guess, if that coon isn’t doing too much damage, I can pay for it.”

Tommy’s face lighted up at the idea. It was going to take self-denial on his part, but it was a way out. The thought chased the soberness from his face and put a spring into his hitherto reluctant steps. He went at once to that part of the corn-field nearest the Green Forest. It did not take him long to discover the evidences that a raccoon, or perhaps more than one, had been taking toll. Here a stalk less sturdy than its neighbors had been pulled down, the husks stripped from the ears, and a few mouthfuls of the milky grains taken. There a stalk had been climbed and an ear stripped and bitten into.

“Wasteful little beggar!” muttered Tommy. “Why can’t you be content to take an ear at a time and clean it up? Then there would be no kick coming. Dad wouldn’t mind if you filled your little tummy every night, if you didn’t spoil ten times as much as you eat. Ha! here are your tracks. Now we’ll see where you come in.”

Except for the sharp tips of the toes, the tracks were not unlike the print of a tiny hand, and there was no mistaking them for the tracks of any other animal. Tommy studied them until he was sure that all were made by one raccoon, and he was convinced that he had but one to deal with.

At length he found the place where the animal was in the habit of entering the field. There was just the suggestion of a path through the grass in the direction of the Green Forest. It was very clear that Bobby Coon came and went regularly that way, and of course this was the place to set a trap. Tommy’s face clouded again at the thought.