prob’ly you’re all wondering what happened to chaik jay and tad coon when the big rain began to fall. chaik had hurt his wing. he’d have had a bad time with it if he’d tried to stay in the pickery thorn bush, in the quail’s thicket, down by dr. muskrat’s pond. tad coon knew a thing or two when he advised the bird to let louie thomson catch him. well, when louie burst into his mother’s kitchen with chaik holding on tight to his fat, warm finger he was ’most bursting with pride. you know just how you’d feel if you were louie. chaik felt just a little fluttery, but he knew he was safe so long as the little boy held him. he waved his well wing and put up his crest, but he never let go his hold on the funniest perch he’d ever sat on.
of course, louie’s mother forgot all about the supper she was cooking. “oh, wherever did you catch him?” she asked. “isn’t he a pretty thing? i never knew they had purple on their necks—just like grapes hanging in the sun. how do you s’pose he keeps all that white in his wings so clean?”
“he takes a bath every morning,” said louie. “i’ve seen him.”
tad was out in the woodshed, by the pussycat’s dish, snubbing his shiny black nose against the screen. he was sniffing the hot johnnycake he could smell baking in the oven. you know louie promised him some—with syrup on it, too. pretty soon chaik had his beak pointed at the stove; he knew what johnny cake was, because he’d had a taste of the piece louie brought to the pond. he was ’most as interested as tad coon.
then louie’s mother smelled it. “heavens!” she exclaimed. “i clean forgot my oven!” she opened the door and took the johnnycake out, hot and steaming. louie took a nice crusty corner, right away quick. of course chaik thought that this was the signal for him, so he picked up a crumb—and his eyes fairly popped because he wasn’t used to eating hot things. then didn’t she laugh! “the smart thing!” said she. “he’s just like folks. but your pa’ll be here in a minute and he won’t think this kitchen’s any place for birds—not if i know him. quick, louie! put him down cellar in the cage so the cats can’t get at him. here’s enough for him and the coon.”
down cellar they went, but louie was careful to leave the door open so tad could run down and see him. and chaik didn’t mind the cage so very much.
in fact, he was as comfortable as though he’d been at home. more comfortable, maybe, because it was pretty scary sleeping in the woods with killer the weasel sniffing about to find his hiding holes. anyway, he was too full and too sleepy to think about it.
but tad coon wasn’t sleepy a bit.
he licked the last crumb of johnnycake, and the last drop of syrup louie had put on it, out of his whiskers, and was just cleaning the stickiness off his little handy paws when he heard something that pricked his ears straight up. “huh! that’s a funny noise in the henhouse,” he said to himself. “it isn’t louie, and it isn’t his father—i believe i’ll take a look.” so off he marched, stepping most carefully in the hard middle of the path where the men walk so he wouldn’t make his tracks plain for any one to follow.
he thought about it because the evening was so dark he couldn’t see very far ahead of him, but he could smell plain as plain. it was so fresh and cool all his own fur wanted to puff out, but he wouldn’t let it; he didn’t want anybody to get a smell of him. snf, snf, snf! “what’s that in the woodpile?” over he jumped, so softly he didn’t make even the scritch of a claw, then——
“hey! if this happened to our quail folk out by the pond there would be a fine goings on!” for it was the remains of a chicken. he craned his neck to see who had put it there, but he couldn’t notice anything but the feather smell. “that bird wasn’t killed to-night,” thought he. “that was last night’s work. it wasn’t any owl. it wasn’t a cat—they’re horrid, spitty creatures, but they don’t steal. hist! i’ll know who it was in about two whisks of a mouse’s tail—he’s doing it again!”
pit, pit, pit, he tiptoed over to the henhouse. all the birds were shrieking and cackling. “help! murder-r! thieves!” the ones on the far-up back perches were squawking. “spur him! peck him!” but the ones who were down in front were only fluttering hard to keep high off the floor on their clumsy wings.
tad squinted through a crack. he could just make out a limp white heap of feathers being dragged. he couldn’t see who was doing the dragging, but—sniff! he went galloping around and around the house whining: “where did he get in; oh, wherever did he get in?”
for that thief was the biggest, oldest, grayest rat he’d ever seen, and the wisest, too; he’d hunted right under the noses of louie’s cats for so long he had a whole lot more tricks than tad had hairs in his whiskers. but tad played a brand-new one on him. suddenly he stopped right still. “what a cub i am!” he snickered to himself. “old sharptooth will take that bird right back to the woodpile where he ate the other one. that’s the place for me to wait for him.” in about three jumps he was on top of it with his ears cocked, listening for the rat to come.
he was listening so hard he didn’t pay any attention when the kitchen door slammed. louie’s father was going to take a last look at his barns to make sure the big rain that was coming wouldn’t do any harm to them, and louie was with him to carry the lantern. he swung it as he walked and the light set all the shadows dancing. tad coon didn’t pay any attention to that, either; he’d learned all about it down by doctor muskrat’s pond. but the rat did.
pit-pat, pit-pat, swish. tad could hear him coming, dragging his chicken. in one lantern swing his eyes lit up like the headlights of a little automobile, and he saw tad’s ears, pointed right toward him. he dropped his bird and jumped at the very same breath as tad coon. in the next swing louie thomson’s father saw the white feathers lying on the ground—and he saw the fluffy tail and frilly fur pantaloons of tad coon diving down a big crown crock for a drain he was just going to dig.
“here!” he roared. “that’s who’s been——” he was going to finish “killing our chickens,” and he was going to lay it to tad coon, but he didn’t have time. the crocks were laid out across the yard, ready to put in. the first three were so close together even a rat couldn’t squeeze out between them. louie’s father caught up a shovel and slapped it over the open end of the third one.
“we-e-ak, we-e-ak, snarl, snap, scuffle, scratch, wee-e-ee——!” what a thumping and bumping was inside that crock! then it was quiet. he moved his shovel to peek in. he looked into the smiley face of tad coon, but tad’s smile had rat hanging down from either side.
“well, i swan!” exclaimed louie thomson’s father. he said some more things like that; the words didn’t make much sense, because he didn’t know exactly what he did mean. but you ought to have heard louie thomson! “hooray!” he squealed. “hooray for my coon! that’s the rat we saw stealing an egg out from under the hen who set in the grain room last spring. it’s the very same one. you said he was too smart for the cats and they’d never catch him. but my coon got him! he sure did!”
“that’s some coon!” said his father at last. “some coon! but how do you know he doesn’t kill chickens, too?”
“because he’s friends with all the birds down by the pond,” louie insisted. “i’ve never seen him eat a single one. not even my jay with the hurt wing—i’m pretty sure he could have caught him just as easy as i did.”
“your jay!” said his father. “where do you keep him?” he thought he knew everything there was on the farm.
“down cellar,” said louie. he was just a little scared that maybe his father would be angry if chaik made a noise, because he had got so angry when tad coon did. “he’ll be quiet—i know he will—but i couldn’t bear to leave him out in the rain. the minute it stops i’ll let him go again—truly i will.”
“hm! first thing i know i’ll have a menagerie instead of a farm,” was all the man answered to that. “give me the lantern. i’ll tend to locking up the barns so the doors won’t blow off their hinges. you take a couple of blocks from that woodpile and fix the cellar door so your coon isn’t locked out. i guess it won’t rain in. and put some corn down there. the mice are very bad again. he’s a mighty good beast to have around—that is, if i don’t catch him after my chickens——”
but louie was gone to fix a fine place for tad to hide from the storm.
