if tommy peele wondered what doctor muskrat was doing up at the watering trough just outside his barn door, he did a lot more wondering when he stepped inside. for there, on top of the feed bin, with her fur all puffed out and her tail as prickly as a caterpillar, perched the house cat. and beneath her, thumping very severely, with a fine wad of pussycat fur in each of his hind toenails, sat nibble rabbit.
the cat was whining: “aw, please let me go! i didn’t mean to. honest i thought it was a rat!”
nibble gave his ears a big flop. “no, ma’am!” he was stating decidedly. “you can’t fool me. a bunny doesn’t smell the least bit in the world like any rat. you were trying to hunt my children. but you won’t mean to next time. i know that. i only rolled you over, this time, just to show you that a rabbit can fight. next time——”
“next time,” squawked chirp sparrow, who had his first nest robbed by that very same tabby tiptoes; “next time he’ll set you spinning three ways at once until your brains are as addled as a frosted egg.”
“me-waur-r!” begged the poor pussy. “please, tommy peele, let me out and i’ll run back to the house. truly i will.”
“i hope these wild things will teach you some manners,” said tommy peele. “whatever nibble did to you is nothing to what you’ll get if you try your tricks on doctor muskrat.” he carried her away down past the gate so she wouldn’t meet him.
“good clover-leaves!” whispered nibble in surprise, when he saw how gently tommy treated his enemy. “do you s’pose he’ll be cross with me for what i’ve done?”
“don’t flutter yourself,” chirp assured him. “tommy never takes sides between his friends. though why he’s friends with that cat, when he knows the things she does, is more than i can tell you. you’ll have to ask watch the dog about it.”
sure enough, when tommy came back to the barn, he put out a handful of feed for his rabbit, just as though there hadn’t been the least bit of trouble. and his eyes didn’t open so very wide when silk-ears and all her bunnies began to pop out from under the mangers and inside the hay and beneath the box he used for a milking-stool. and he didn’t have to look at the dust on their whiskers to know they’d been dipping into the cows’ breakfast. some of the cows were telling him so.
but it doesn’t take much to start some folks sniffing and moaning. a nice clean bunny-paw never spoiled the red cow’s appetite. and the white cow gave tommy a nudge while he was milking her that said plain as words: “isn’t it fun to have nibble with us again?”
now doctor muskrat and nibble rabbit weren’t having any livelier time than stripes skunk and his kittens were in the bottom of the haystack, hunting the rats they found there.
a rat is pretty dangerous for a skunk kitten to hunt—as dangerous as though a small boy went hunting bobcats—but it’s the skunk kitten’s business to take chances, and it isn’t the small boy’s.
there aren’t very many rats in the woods; sometimes one goes sneaking down the high grass beside a fence or snoops into a twiggy bush after baby birds in nesting time; sometimes one picks up tadpoles when the muddy ponds they hatched in begin to dry up; but mostly rats live very close to men. (why they do is a special secret i’ll tell you some winter night.) so you see stripes skunk’s kittens hadn’t much chance to deal with such big game. they were awfully proud and excited about it.
it didn’t take the rats in the haystack very long to find it was a very poor place to be. they can eat hay—if they have to—but they can’t live on it like a fieldmouse can. they got hungry. but every time one ventured its whiskers out of a hole, stripes skunk’s kittens would pounce on it. it didn’t matter how creepy-crawly quiet they were—a kitten was sure to hear them. at last the wisest of them thought of a plan.
“greywhisker,” said he, “you take one hole, brokentooth the next, scarfoot the next, and eggeater the last. each of you will scrabble about inside his burrow as though he meant to run, the minute he is quiet the one to the windy side of him must take his turn. that will keep those striped beasts running round and round the stack. every third turn, run to the centre and all squeak as though you were fighting. that will keep them interested. they won’t hear me make a brand-new hole, and then we’ll plan how we can sneak out while they aren’t looking.”
now do you know what that rat (his name was snatch) meant to do? he meant to keep them all busy while he dug that new hole for himself and then sneak out without telling them. that’s rat for you! they cheat each other just as much as they do anybody else! but the others couldn’t think of any better plan, so they trusted him.
only they made one mistake. the skunks weren’t running round and round that haystack. they were sitting perfectly still, each one with his nose at a hole. but one after another pricked up his ears as the rat pretended to come out, and dropped them when he scuttled back again. wise old papa stripes was tiptoeing around finding all their trails so if one did get by a kitten he’d know where it was likely to go. “hm!” he sniffed. “they’re playing a game, are they? we’ll just see who’s it.”
scrabble! scratch! squeak! went brokentooth, scarfoot, and eggeater, each in turn. each time the kitten stationed outside his hole pricked up its ears, and its wavy tail would tremble to the tip, and its claws would catch for a leap. dig and gnaw, gnaw and dig, went the selfish snatch, the cleverest rat of them all, making himself a new hole to sneak out through. they were helping him, but he wasn’t going to help them—not he.
papa stripes laid his head on one side and considered the case. then a sly smile raised his whiskers. pit-pat, pit-pat, he marched round the stack, whispering to each of his kittens in turn. “you see the slit in the old elm tree?” he asked one. the kitten nodded. “did you notice the rat path under the chicken coop?” he asked the next. “looks to me like a rat hole under that corn crib, eh?” he asked the third. he didn’t give any orders like “you do this,” or “you do that,” because he wanted the kittens to think for themselves. but he did show them what to think about.
nip, slip, came snatch, creeping out of the new hole he’d just made for himself. pounce! stripes closed it up behind him. “now, rat,” he chuckled, “let’s see you run! and let’s see who catches you!”
“wee-e-e-ak!” snatch made for the slit in the elm. a kitten was there before him. the chicken-coop, then? no! the corn crib! was tommy’s barnyard all full of hunting skunks? a hole! a hole! he’d find one in the barn—under the grain bin! he raced for the door, the kittens after him, gaining at every bound, with their father ’most scared to death he wouldn’t be on time to lend a tooth if they needed it.
that’s how snatch came to dive right between tommy’s tall rubber boots as he stepped out the barn door with a milkpail in his hand. that’s how the skunk kittens came to flash past before the milk he slopped over could fall on them. “my land!” he exclaimed. “what are you doing here?” as though he couldn’t see for himself.
they were all three scrimmaging with snatch the rat at the very mouth of the rat hole. they never knew which of them killed him.
“ee-e-e-yow!” squealed stripes, prancing in his pride. “isn’t that some hunting!” then back they all romped to catch those poor hungry fellows in the haystack who thought snatch was taking a mighty long time to make their new hole for them.
