At last there was a sharp cracking sound. Tommy felt himself falling through space. He remembered what Bobby Coon had told him, and he wondered if he would be lucky enough to escape as Bobby did. Then he shut his eyes tight, waiting for the crash when the tree should strike the ground.
When he opened his eyes, he was—just Tommy sitting on the wishing-stone overlooking the Green Meadows. His face was wet with perspiration. Was it from the sun beating down upon him, or was it from the fear that had gripped him when that tree began to fall? A shudder ran over him at the memory. He looked over to the corn-field where he had found the tracks of Bobby Coon and the mischief he had wrought. What was he to do about it? Somehow strangely his sympathy was with Bobby.
“He doesn’t know any better,” muttered Tommy. “He thinks that corn belongs to him as much as to anybody else, and there isn’t any reason why he shouldn’t think so. It isn’t fair to trap him or kill him for something he doesn’t know he shouldn’t do. If he just knew enough to eat what he wants and not waste so much, I guess there wouldn’t be any trouble. He’s just like a lot of folks who have so much they don’t know what to do with it, only they know better than to waste it, and he doesn’t. I know what I’ll do. I’ll take Bowser down there to-night and give him a scare. I’ll give him such a scare that he won’t dare come back until the corn is so hard he won’t want it. That’s what I’ll do!
“My, it must be awful to think you’re safe and then find you’re trapped! I guess I won’t ever hunt coons any more. I used to think it was fun, but I never thought how the coon must feel. Now I know and—and—well, a live coon is a lot more interesting than a dead one, anyway. Funny what I find out on this old wishing-stone. If I keep on, I won’t want to hunt anything any more.”
Tommy got up, stretched, began to whistle as if there was a load off his mind, and started for home, still whistling.
And his whistle was good to hear.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW TOMMY ENVIED HONKER THE GOOSE
The feel of spring was in the air. The sound of it filled Tommy’s ears. The smell of it filled his nostrils and caused him to take long, deep breaths. The sight of it gladdened his eyes, and the joy of it thrilled his heart. For the spring, you know, has really arrived only when it can be felt, heard, smelled, and seen, and has the power to fill all living things with abounding joy and happiness.
Winter had been long in going. It seemed to Tommy that it never would go. He liked winter. Oh, yes, Tommy liked winter! He liked to skate and slide, to build snow forts and houses, and make snow men. He liked to put on his snow-shoes and tramp through the Green Forest, for many are the secrets of the summer which the winter reveals to those with eyes to see, and Tommy was trying to train his eyes to be of that kind. But when it was time for winter to go, he wanted it to go quickly, and it hadn’t. It had dragged on and dragged on. To be sure, there had been a few springlike days, but they had been only an aggravation.