you just ought to have heard the commotion in the quail’s thicket when bob white came whirring home with his wild tale. but do you think he could make the quail believe that stripes skunk had helped nibble rabbit set him free again? not until nibble rabbit himself came hopping along and told them exactly the same thing—only he gave stripes all the credit.
“eggs! eggs!” exclaimed bob white’s wife when stripes explained he was trying to pay back because he’d mussed up her nest that morning. “what are a couple of eggs? i’ll scrape them back into the nest and lay a couple more in no time. i hadn’t begun to set on them.”
“come along, stripes,” said nibble. “we must tell doctor muskrat. you know he told watch the dog to try you. if the quail can trust you, i guess i can. your cousin slyfoot the mink would have eaten me long ago if i’d come this close to him. why didn’t you?”
“i was afraid,” stripes owned up. “the little owls warned me that if i did the dog would come after me. anyway, i couldn’t catch you. neither could slyfoot if you only knew it.
“you know,” he went on to explain, “we things from under the earth are all scary—just as scary as you are. only you’re so afraid of us that you never remember we have any one to be afraid of. when slyfoot chases one of you silly bunnies you run round and round through the brush trying to hide yourself from him. but as long as you hide he’s hidden, too. all the time he’s trailing you. so he can take his time about finding you—and he always does. now if you’d run straight out in the open, where the grass is short and there isn’t any place to hide, he wouldn’t dare to follow. he knows the owl would get him.”
“if he didn’t get us first,” was nibble’s sly comment.
“but you’ve got twice as many chances to get away. you can dodge and run,” stripes insisted. “besides, your furry feet are so quiet; ours make much more noise when we’re galloping. and the big owl hears you before he looks for you.”
“he does?” nibble exclaimed. “how do you know?”
“why every one in the woods knows that an owl is either right-eared or left-eared. and whichever ear he uses most, that side of his head gets lop-sided from listening,” stripes said.
“but his feathers are so fluffy i don’t see how any one would find out, if it’s really so,” nibble objected.
“killer (he meant the big weasel) ate one,” grinned stripes. “i guess he ought to know. you see everything has something to be afraid of.”
they weren’t going very fast, stripes was eating snails and licking little clusters of insect eggs from the under sides of leaves and digging grubs among the roots, while nibble took a bite here and a bite there as is the way with rabbits. “everything has something to be afraid of—and yet it’s terrible to be afraid,” he said.
“but if you’re not afraid, the others are afraid of you,” answered stripes. “you’re the only rabbit who ever scared me. when you got so cross because i stole those quail eggs, i didn’t know what you’d do to me. honest i didn’t.”
“i didn’t, either,” nibble giggled, remembering how funny stripes looked when he scrouched all up with his back turned and squinted over his shoulder. “i was too angry with you for being so bad. what could i have done, anyway?”
“i wouldn’t like you to kick me,” stripes sniffed, nodding his head very earnestly. “you’ve got picky claws on those big furry kickers of yours. they’d rip a fellow worse than teeth do, and you’re awfully big for a rabbit.”
“am i?” asked nibble in great surprise. “it’s a long time since i’ve seen another bunny—not since the day my mother left me.”
“well, you’ll see plenty before long, now that the news is going through the deep woods that this is such a peaceful place.” by now they were patting up the beach of doctor muskrat’s pond. stripes stopped suddenly. “wait a minute,” he exclaimed, “i’ve got to do something before i meet the doctor.” and off he trotted, his long, hairy tail waggling behind him.
“peaceful?” thought nibble. “he calls this peaceful when something’s happening every minute. what must the deep woods and the far marshes be if this is peaceful? wonder what that hairy scamp is up to now?” but he didn’t worry.
pretty soon stripes came running back with his mouth full. he laid a mouse on the doctor’s flat stone and then he laid something else beside it. “it’s so early,” he explained. “i had quite a hunt to find this potato bug.”
and then didn’t nibble laugh! and didn’t doctor muskrat? but stripes was deadly serious. “that’s to show you i mean to pay tommy peele for those chicks. he’ll have to hunt harder than i did if he wants to find any potato bugs after i’m through with them. i like being good, but how did you know i’d like it?”
“ahem,” doctor muskrat cleared his throat. “way back in the first-off beginning——”
and you know how that would please nibble.
