“aough, aough!” barked watch. “yah!” he yapped breathlessly when he found doctor muskrat sitting out on the flat stone, waiting to meet him. “you’re just who i was looking for. trailer just stumbled up to the house with his eyes bunged shut and his nose as big as a soupbone, mumbling something about a coon as near as i can understand him. but no coon ever did anything like that to him.”
the doctor cocked his ears. “can’t talk, can’t he? poor fellow. did you try what blue clay will do for him? i’ll get you some.”
“ok, he’ll be all right. his master sandy’s working over him,” watch answered. “but what did do it?”
“those striped buzzers with hot spots in their tails. they’re over there guarding the nest that fell down on trailer. the rest of them are building a new one up in that tree—and you just ought to have seen what they did to poor tad coon. he was up there hiding.”
“well, you just tell him to stay hidden, too,” whined watch, stretching his stiff legs thoughtfully. “i’ve had enough of hunting after silvertip the fox to last me awhile.”
“but what happened to grandpop snapping turtle?” called nibble from the pickery things.
“he’s in a pot on the fire right now,” answered watch.
“what’s a pot? what’s a fire?” asked the two wild folks.
“fire? you know fire. when men make that red spot that’s all hot—like a buzzer’s tail, you know—come out of the end of a stick—that’s fire,” he explained.
“they do it to the bulrushes,” nodded the doctor. “the red spot gets bigger and bigger until everything’s red and then the hot things disappear.”
“exactly. but men don’t always let it make everything red. they keep it in one place and use it to cook with. they’re cooking grandpop.”
“cooking?” echoed nibble and doctor muskrat.
“bare bones and broken biscuits!” sniffed watch. “i can’t explain that to you any more than i can explain about the buzzers to tommy peele. but i can show them to him—and i’d better.” so off he set with his tail drooping because he was puzzled.
“it isn’t so very queer that tommy peele’s own dog can’t tell him that grandpop snapping turtle ate silvertip, when you really come to think about it,” observed nibble rabbit thoughtfully. “tommy can’t even talk to the tame beasts. that’s why watch has to take him all the way down here to the pond to show him these striped buzzers before he’ll understand who bit trailer. but i don’t see why watch can’t tell us what tommy did to grandpop snapping turtle. they certainly didn’t put an ugly thing like that in any cage.”
“there!” exclaimed doctor muskrat. “he can’t make us understand what he’s talking about because we woodsfolk haven’t the words for things we’ve never seen. those man-words watch uses don’t mean anything to us. you talk about a cage. i don’t know what you mean and you can’t even tell me.”
“why, a cage,” nibble began—“a cage is a sort of a cave, only it isn’t in the ground. it bites like wood, but it doesn’t look like any tree i ever saw, and it has something in front of it that you can see through and the wind can blow through, but you can’t jump through it.” now we might guess that was a packing-box with a big open front of chicken-wire. but even nibble couldn’t be sure of wood when its bark was off.
“um-hm!” grinned doctor muskrat. “a cave that isn’t in the ground? wood that isn’t in a tree? what does that mean?”
nibble laughed at himself. to one of the woodsfolk it did sound foolish.
“now if a cage is like a barn, only little,” said the doctor, “i can think about it. i’ve seen a barn from the outside, and if it’s hollow like a tree i can guess what the inside is like.”
“it is! it is!” nibble cried. “why didn’t i think of that?”
“then grandpop snapping turtle can’t live in one. he can’t eat unless he’s under water. watch says tommy’s cooking him. i don’t know what that means, either, but i can guess. tommy eats him. there isn’t anything that hasn’t someone who eats it and no one else can eat grandpop unless tommy peele does.”
“maybe,” nibble agreed; “but the real question is what will tommy do to tad coon. tad can’t run away, and watch knows he’s here. if tommy is very angry because tad made those striped buzzers bite trailer he’ll make watch find him.”
“if tommy’s eaten grandpop he won’t be a bit hungry,” began doctor muskrat hopefully. then a bright idea struck him. “and tommy’ll never know tad’s to blame. no one can tell him!”
“that’s so!” nibble exclaimed. “no one can!”
all the same, when nibble heard watch bringing tommy to the woods to show him the paper wasps’ nest so he’d know who bit trailer, the rabbit couldn’t help feeling that something would go wrong. tommy would find out and then wouldn’t he be angry with tad coon! and neither nibble nor doctor muskrat could bear to have tad hunted like silvertip the fox. poor tad couldn’t even run.
watch galloped up to the wasps’ nest and barked. “there they are, tommy. they did it. those are the buzzers with hot tails i’ve been trying to tell you about.”
“that’s funny,” said tommy, and he looked right up into the tree. the wasps up there were buzzing over which was the best twig to begin building another nest on. “i wonder how it came to fall down.”
of course nibble didn’t understand him—but watch did! “yow!” he barked. “that coon made it fall. trailer was trying to tell me. coon, coon, coon!” he sang, sniffing around to find him.
“lie still,” warned doctor muskrat, who was hiding with tad in the pickery things.
“i can’t,” whimpered tad. “this place is all right for a rabbit, but the pond is where i belong.” and with that he staggered to his feet and started for it. but right on the edge of the bank he stumbled. down he rolled, paws over fur, with nibble rabbit and doctor muskrat scuttling after him.
“look out!” barked watch. “let me get at him. he’ll fight like anything! they always do.”
“come here, watch! go lie down!” shouted tommy peele.
“why?” whimpered watch. but tommy peele never answered. he couldn’t! there was tad coon sniffling through his puffy nose, peering through his squinty eyes, snarling with his swollen lips, and all smeared with doctor muskrat’s mud plaster and chewed root poultice. he was making the awfullest faces you ever saw. maybe you think tommy peele could help laughing at him. well, you couldn’t your own self.
“you lucky coon!” squealed nibble. “when he laughs he can’t stay angry.”
at the edge of doctor muskrat’s pond.
