early, early in the morning stripes skunk came snooping into the pickery things. of course they caught hold of him until nibble rabbit waked up. and as soon as he sniffed that scent in the air he said, “is that you, tad coon?”
“no,” said a meek, whiny voice; “it’s me, stripes skunk. i’ve been talking with the little owls. please, won’t you make a compact with me?”
“compact!” nibble exclaimed. “of course i won’t! and no one else will!” at that stripes began to cry. “won’t you even try me?” he sobbed. “i’d not want to be friends. i just want to be let alone as long as i’m good. won’t you give me a chance to show you how very good i can be?”
so nibble finally promised to talk things over with watch and doctor muskrat. doctor muskrat didn’t say anything, but he waited out on his flat stone for watch. and when watch came he fairly howled at the idea.
“make a compact with that murderer?” he barked. “not when he’s killed those little chicks that belong to tommy peele. i’ll kill him.”
“watch,” said doctor muskrat, “who made you executioner of all the woods and fields? killing stripes won’t give back those chicks to tommy peele. but if you put stripes to work instead, he can pay back for them. he can keep down the mice who steal tommy’s grain; he can kill snakes, and locusts, and beetles, and all manner of grubs. if he just picks bugs off tommy’s potatoes he’ll pay for all the harm he’s done.”
watch put his head to one side. he could remember how tommy hated to pick the bugs off those potatoes. “wurff,” he growled at last. “i wish i knew what tommy would think about it. i’ll wait until i know.”
as soon as doctor muskrat had finished speaking, watch went rambling up to the old house with his ears laid back. he wanted to get a nice comfortable bone in a quiet corner and think about it. doctor muskrat was right; no one, not even tommy peele, had appointed him executioner of the woods and fields, and he’d been pretty quick about wanting to kill every one who did any harm, instead of letting them learn better—if they would. you see, a dog is so big and strong he has to be careful not to bully the other beasts. no decent dog can be happy if he does that. but he couldn’t make up his mind that stripes skunk deserved to be trusted.
neither did nibble rabbit. he wanted to know what every other one of the woodsfolk thought about it. right now he knew that stripes was waiting to find out what watch had decided to do to him, and yet he couldn’t help shaking at the idea of going to talk with him. for the first thing every mother rabbit teaches the fluffy bunny babies, as soon as they open their eyes, is to run from anything that has the strange and scary scent of the things-from-under-the-earth, whether they wear scales or fur. snakes have it just the same as stripes the skunk, or slyfoot the mink, or the weasel whom the woodsfolk usually mean when they speak of the killer. he’s so terribly bloodthirsty and cruel that they never give him any other name.
but when nibble found stripes waiting patiently beside his pickery things, right where the faithful thorns had warned him to stop when he came begging for help that morning, even a scarier rabbit than nibble wouldn’t have been afraid. stripes was trembling and trying his best not to cry. “what did he say?” he begged anxiously. “please, nibble, quick! what did that big dog say? it’s too late for me to try to run away from him. he could trail me anywhere, and i’m so slow he’d overtake me in just a little while.”
“he’s gone off to make up his mind,” said nibble. “doctor muskrat put in a word for you. he said that if you hunted the mice in tommy peele’s grain and kept the potato bugs off his vines, you could pay tommy back for those chicks you killed, if you didn’t do any more harm.”
“i will! i will!” chattered stripes. “i just love mice and potato bugs, too. only i thought those chicks belonged to a hen. who’s tommy peele?”
“why, tommy peele is a boy. he owns all these woods and fields, and the hen as well. that’s why watch, his dog, takes care of them all,” nibble began.
“but what’s a boy?” stripes demanded, his eyes opened very wide.
“a boy? why, he’s a man’s kitten,” nibble explained patiently. (kittens are what stripes calls his own young.) “this is his hunting ground. but he only hunts bad ones. we woodsfolk aren’t afraid of him, and doctor muskrat is his special friend.”
“i must thank doctor muskrat,” exclaimed stripes very eagerly. “i’d like to bring him a present—how about a nice fresh egg? i just found some here.”
and just then bob white’s wife, over in the quail’s thicket, began to scream. “prr-whit! my nest! someone’s spoiled my beautiful eggs! prr-whit! two of them are nothing but empty shells,” she wailed. and the air was filled with whirring wings. every other quail in the covey who wasn’t sitting on eggs of her own had come to see what was the matter. and my, but weren’t they angry!
but nibble rabbit was angrier still. “you took those eggs!” he accused stripes. “you just finished telling me so. and you were trying to pretend you would be good. is that your way?” he looked savage enough to kick stripes and send him end over end. that’s the rabbit way of fighting. he stamped his feet.
but stripes never bared a tooth to defend himself. he just turned his back, just as tad said he always did, and hunched himself into a little ball. “i did,” he confessed. “i did take them but i didn’t know it was bad. truly i didn’t. please don’t look that way. i don’t want to do anything more to be sorry for.”
“then why did you steal?” nibble demanded.
“i just found them,” stripes pleaded. “there wasn’t any one with them at all. i knew i mustn’t kill any more quail, but eggs are different. aren’t they?” he asked anxiously.
“no,” said nibble. “they are not. this year’s eggs are next year’s quail. if we let every one help himself to all the eggs he came across there wouldn’t be any more quail to lay them.”
“but i’ve always done it,” whimpered stripes, peeking over his shoulder to see how nibble was bristling. “and i only took two.”
“that’s as bad as taking them all. do you suppose she’ll go back to them now that she knows you’ve found them?” nibble began to suspect that stripes really didn’t know any better after all, but this was no time to teach him.
“wouldn’t she if i promised never to do it again?” he asked hopefully.
“she wouldn’t believe you,” snapped nibble decidedly. “watch the dog gave you one chance even after you killed tommy peele’s little chicks. now you’ve been bad right over again. no one here ever will trust you. you’d better go back where you came from as fast as you can travel—watch will certainly rage about this.”
“but i don’t wa-a-ant to go,” sniffed stripes. “i want to stay right here and learn how to behave. way back in the deep woods i heard about it. it’s the peacefulest place in the world——”
“so you came to see if you couldn’t make us a little trouble!” nibble was in a terrible temper. “tried to lay all on poor tad coon, didn’t you? you’d better foot it if you want to save your skin. that dog will most certainly kill you.”
so off trudged stripes with his head hanging. and nibble hopped over to the quail’s thicket just in time to hear them asking each other, “where’s bob? where is bob?”
