TAD COON’S TRICKS

CHAPTER I SONGS OF THE HUNT

You’d have thought every wing and paw in the Woods and Fields (except the Bad Little Owls, of course) would have been glad to know that Silvertip the Fox was caught. ’Specially Nibble Rabbit, who started the hunt, and wise old Doctor Muskrat, who planned it, and Tommy Peele’s good dog, Watch, and Trailer the Hound, who were still barking on his trail way out in the middle of the Deep Woods. For Silvertip was just as clever as he was wicked; the very last thing he’d done was to fool those two dogs again.

I s’pose old Grandpop Snapping Turtle, who did the catching was—glad, I mean. But Doctor Muskrat just looked very, very sober, and Nibble felt the shivers run from the puff on his tufty tail to the tips of his tickly whiskers whenever he thought about it. They didn’t have a word to say while they waited for the two hunters to come back to the meeting-place by the flat stone at the edge of the Pond.

But they thought of course the dogs would bark the good news so loud that Tommy could hear it way down the road at the schoolhouse. Instead, Trailer just gasped, “How awful!” in a very awed voice. And Watch looked as if somebody’d rubbed him the wrong way.

“Awful!” repeated Trailer. “Poor Silvertip! Think of his being caught by a stupid old mud-grubber like that!” He drooped his tail and ears.

“Why, that’s just the way I felt about it!” Nibble exclaimed. “But I never dreamed you would. I thought you hated him.”

“Hate him!” said both dogs at once. “Why, he was the smartest Beast we ever chased. We hadn’t any reason to hate him.”

That certainly made Nibble open his eyes pretty wide. “Then why did you try to kill him?” he demanded. “Was it because you’re hungry?” He was glad to know that the Pickery Things were close behind him when he asked that.

Trailer laughed. “I’m always hungry.” But his tail went up when he said it, so Nibble didn’t run. “But that isn’t why I hunt. You have to know a beast to hate him. I’ve killed plenty of beasts I never saw before I found their trail. Lots that I don’t eat, either.”

“I couldn’t do that!” Nibble gasped and Doctor Muskrat nodded.

“Of course not,” said Trailer, quite proudly, too. “But that’s what I was made for. My mother taught me to use my nose before my eyes were open and to sing the trailing song as soon as I could talk above a whimper.”

“Sing it,” begged the woodsfolk. “Please.”

Trailer raised his head and bayed with an open throat:

“You see,” he explained, “one dog doesn’t do all the singing. He sings one line and someone else answers with the next one, round and round again.”

The sound sent a queer, scary thrill through Nibble Rabbit. But now he wasn’t really afraid of the smiling hound any more than he was of Watch.

Watch sat with his ears pricked and his nostrils twitching while he listened to the Hound’s Hunting Song. “Eh, but that’s grand!” he barked. “It puts the tickle into your feet to be up and running.”

Nibble Rabbit squirmed closer to the Pickery Things. He wasn’t afraid of the dogs, but he felt very queer. “It starts my feet tickling, too,” he sniffed. “And my fur’s all fluffed out like a moulting bird.”

Trailer laughed. “That’s partly what we sing it for,” he explained. “It rouses up you Game Beasts and gets you running, and when your coat stands up on end your scent is easier to follow.”

“You don’t say?” Nibble’s eyes were sparkling. “Then that’s why the Quail say ‘Hold your scent!’ when they mean ‘sleek down your feathers.’”

“Exactly,” nodded Trailer. “And they’re so clever that it takes a special dog, who makes a business of birds, to find them. He has a special song, too, but I never learned it. I only follow furry things.”

“That was splendid!” put in Doctor Muskrat, who had been listening thoughtfully to the talk. He wasn’t at all sorry because the dogs had politely left him a clear path to the water. He could have dived in a flash if he had wanted to. “You’ve made the frogs very jealous, Mr. Trailer.” Sure enough, the frogs were tuning up all over the pond. “There’s something very queer about this,” he went on. “Your song doesn’t do anything to me—because I’ve never been chased that way. But there was one dog, a noisy little one, who used to drive me nearly out of my wits when I was younger.”

“That might have been Spice the Terrier, who was here when I was a pup,” said Watch. “I know his song well enough. He was always shouting it at something.

Watch had fairly snapped out Spice’s song.

“That’s it!” squealed the Doctor. “That’s the very song—and look at my fur! It will take a dip in cold water to smooth it again.” He was as fluffy as Tad Coon’s tail. “Now, Watch, what’s your song?”

“Oh, I’m no regular kind of a dog, so I really haven’t any,” said Watch, looking a bit regretful. “I just do—whatever I’m told the best I can and”—here his ears pricked and his tail began to wag—“I look after Tommy Peele.”

“But why must you always do things?” said Nibble.

“Why, everyone has to have a job of some kind,” said Trailer. “Or else he’s a worthless old scrump not worth feeding. And, if it’s really your own special job, you enjoy doing it. I love to hunt, but I wouldn’t care much about driving cows.”

“Sure you would if you learned how,” said Watch. “I really do.”

“There, you see?” laughed Trailer. And Nibble nodded.

“Speaking of driving cows,” smiled Trailer, “who do you think drove up to Tommy Peele’s this morning?” He said it to tease Watch. He and Watch had gone out before daybreak to hunt Silvertip and now it was way past milking time.

But Watch wasn’t teased a bit.

“The cows slept in the barn,” he grinned. “Nobody had to drive them—so there! The only job I have waiting for me right now is to clean up my breakfast plate before Chirp Sparrow gets his scratchy little feet into it.”

Trailer forgot all about how tired he was. “Fine,” said he. “I’m ready to help you.” And off they trotted with their tails waving.

CHAPTER II TAD COON’S TRICKS AND HIS TROUBLES

“I wonder why all the Tame Beasts have work to do or milk to give or eggs or whatever it happens to be?” Nibble Rabbit remarked. “We don’t What’s our job, Doctor Muskrat? Trailer says a Beast without a job isn’t worth feeding.”

“That’s just the point.” The doctor’s bright eyes were twinkling. “You silly rabbit! Do you think Trailer would be so nice and obedient to Watch and Tommy if he didn’t know the people up at the house would feed him? If he had to catch his breakfast or go hungry there wouldn’t be any bunny. He licked his lips every time he sniffed you. But so long as he does what he’s told, Tommy’ll feed him. We feed ourselves.”

“I see.” Nibble flicked his tail thoughtfully. “And we find our own holes and take care of ourselves and we like doing it.”

“Do we, indeed?” said a whiny, complainy voice from the bulrushes on the bank. “Is that dog gone?” It was Tad Coon. He came splashing out of the water and flopped down in the sun. Then he got very busy with his funny little paws. The front ones were handy ones, but the hind feet made a print like a baby’s would except that there was a little round hole, where the claw pricked, in front of every toe. He would wipe them in his warm fur and lick them, one by one, with his warm tongue. Nibble couldn’t think what he was doing.

“There,” he said at last, not quite so crossly. “I can feel with them. The water’s awfully cold. And I had to stand in it all the time you beasts were talking. That hound is my very worst enemy—I can’t yet see for the life of me why he didn’t make a snap at Nibble Rabbit.”

“Because I belong to Tommy Peele,” Nibble explained. “Why don’t you make friends with him?”

“Huh!” grunted Tad, crosser than ever. “Do you s’pose those dogs would let me? Never!”

You know Nibble Rabbit. First he’s scared and next he’s curious. That’s why he has such a very good time—he’s always finding out about new things. But you don’t know Tad Coon—not yet. There’s this about Tad Coon. First, he’s very, very unhappy and then suddenly he’s got a lovely joke on someone.

He was very unhappy on this particular morning, though he was spread out very comfortably in the warm sun where Trailer had lain. Still he kept on complaining.

“It isn’t any trouble to you fellows to find a hole,” he was saying. “A nice spot to dig and there you are. But I live in trees, and not every tree in the woods has a big enough hollow for me to hide in. I used to sleep in that big oak—it went and blew down in the Terrible Storm” (he said this exactly as though the poor old oak did it on purpose), “and I had another that the wood-duck nested in. Silvertip the Fox spoiled the nest and he didn’t leave me a single egg, either. And I had the nicest of all in a great big elm; now there’s a cross old mother coon with four young ones in it. I haven’t any place to go-o-o!”

“That’s too bad,” said Doctor Muskrat, edging nearer the water because Tad Coon’s temper isn’t very good.

“Get a square meal and then you won’t want to sit there squalling like a blind kitten.” And in he dove.

Tad Coon didn’t dive after him. He didn’t even get angry. He just went on wailing, “I haven’t eaten anything but frogs all spring and I’m so sick of them I can’t bear the sight of them.”

“Try fish, then,” advised Doctor Muskrat, from the pond.

Tad Coon stopped whimpering. He looked at Doctor Muskrat, and then he looked at Nibble Rabbit. “I believe I will,” he said. And he looked at Nibble again. Then he walked out on the flat stone that used to be Doctor Muskrat’s.

“Don’t go in there,” warned Nibble. “That’s right where Grandpop Snapping Turtle just caught Silvertip the Fox.”

“I know that,” answered Tad. “I don’t dive; I go fishing. I take my tail—” and he did it—“like this. And I tickle the water—like this. And when a fish comes up, thinking it’s a fly just dropped in the water, I reach out my paw and catch him. Move around behind me, so you won’t cast a shadow. I must see what I’m doing.”

So Nibble moved around where Tad told him to and craned his neck. This looked interesting.

Swish, swish, swish, went Tad Coon’s bushy tail. He cocked his head. Swish—out went his hand—splash, went a great big wave all over Nibble Rabbit.

“Ugh! Snff-snff-choo-a-a-ka-choo!” he sneezed. He stamped his feet angrily.

Tad looked over his shoulder and then went back to his fishing as though he didn’t know what he had done, but Nibble could hear him snort as he tried to choke down his laughter, and his fur was shaking.

Tad was sitting right over the place where Grandpop Snapping Turtle had caught Silvertip the Fox. Tad knew perfectly well he was there, but it would take something smarter than a loggy old turtle to catch Tad Coon. Besides, he knew, too, that Grandpop Snapping Turtle wouldn’t pay attention to anything else until Silvertip was all eaten up. So he sat there flicking the water with the tip-end of his tail, pretending he was fooling the fish into thinking it was a fly alighting. He was trying to think up another trick to play.

But there was one thing Tad didn’t know. He didn’t know what Doctor Muskrat was doing. Doctor Muskrat was paddling around in the pond, diving now and then as though he were fishing—and so he was, fishing up trouble for Tad Coon. The first time he came up to find out the meaning of Tad’s splash he sniffed. And it wasn’t to blow the water out of his nose—it was to make Nibble look at him. Nibble did look. And Doctor Muskrat closed both of his eyes in a big wink. After that you can be pretty sure Nibble kept his eyes on that playful tail of Tad Coon.

Flick! it went. Swish! For Tad wasn’t thinking what he was doing. He had an idea for another joke. “Pop!” Up comes the ugly head of Grandpop Snapping Turtle, his beady eyes peering, his hissy mouth open. Snap! it went on the end of that playful tail. Jerk! And Tad Coon was bouncing up the bank, his fluffy breeches sticking straight out with fright. And when Grandpop Snapping Turtle’s ugly head sank back it was wearing whiskers—whiskers which used to belong to the very last tip-end of that smarty coon’s tail.

And then didn’t Doctor Muskrat and Nibble Rabbit have their turn to chuckle! Nibble laughed till he stamped, only this time he wasn’t the one who was angry. And Doctor Muskrat paddled away round and came up on the bank beside him.

“What made Grandpop Snapping Turtle wake up?” asked Nibble.

“Mussel shells,” giggled the wise muskrat. “You know Bobby Robin’s story about the Babes in the Woods that the robins covered with leaves? That’s just what I’ve been doing to Silvertip. Only leaves don’t sink, so I used empty mussel shells. I’ve shied them down at him until Grandpop Snapping Turtle couldn’t take a bite without getting his beak into one of them. He thinks Tad Coon did it.”

“He-he!” snickered Nibble Rabbit. “And Tad Coon blames it all right back on him!”

CHAPTER III GRANDPOP’S BITE THAT NEVER LET GO

“Ow, ow, ow!” wailed Tad from way up the bank in the Pickery Things. And he had the tip of his tail in his mouth, so you could hardly make out what he was saying. “Ow, ow, my tail’s bitten right off!” “Do you think it’s really as bad as all that?” asked Nibble anxiously. Tad’s eyes were bulging so wide that they showed white all round them when he went bouncing off the flat stone. If he were really truly hurt it wouldn’t seem so funny. They liked him.

“Let’s go and see,” said the doctor, and he scuffled up the bank as fast as he could travel. “Did that turtle really bite you?” he asked. “Let me look so I’ll know what kind of a remedy to go after.”

So Tad took his tail out of his mouth and showed it to the doctor. He wouldn’t look at it himself for fear there would be blood on it. Tad’s very timid that way. And Doctor Muskrat examined it carefully. At last he said: “Why, Tad Coon, there’s nothing wrong with this tail.”

“Isn’t there?” asked Tad in a relieved voice. “It felt as if there was. It truly did.” So he took back his tail and combed the hair out and examined it most carefully with his little handy-paws, but all he could find was a tiny weeny bare spot at the very tip where Grandpop Snapping Turtle had pulled the hair out. “That’s good,” he smiled with a satisfied air. He wasn’t the least bit ashamed of having made such a fuss about nothing.

He wasn’t even thinking about it. Pretty soon he burst right out laughing. “Ho, ho! That old turtle’s got tickly coon hairs in his mouth. I hope they set him choking.” Then he cocked his head on one side and the most mischievous sparkle came into his dark brown eyes which peer out from a band of dark brown fur that lies across his nose like a pair of goggles. “I’ll get even with him,” he chuckled. “I’ll find his nest when his wife comes out to lay her eggs on the beach and I’ll eat every last one of them.”

“That won’t be till June,” answered Doctor Muskrat. “You’d better find something else in the meantime. I know where there are some marshmallow roots and we’ll all share them.”

“That sounds fine,” Tad agreed. “Just wait a minute.”

“What do you s’pose he’s up to now?” asked Nibble curiously.

But he knew in just a moment. Tad found himself a nice big rock. And he shoved and pushed and tugged and grunted until he worked it out on the edge of the flat stone and sent it crashing down on top of Grandpop Snapping Turtle.

Kerchug! went the rock. And that was the last straw that broke Grandpop Snapping Turtle’s temper. He came flopping up on land as fast as he could travel. And he had his wicked eye on Tad Coon.

Swish, went Doctor Muskrat back into the water. That was the safest place for him because he can swim as fast as any one and a little bit faster than any turtle who ever flipped a paddle. Bounce, went Nibble Rabbit clear through the woods and past the Brushpile and out into the head of the Broad Field before he stopped to listen. Scritch, scratch, went lazy Tad Coon to the top of a big stump where Grandpop Snapping Turtle couldn’t reach him. And that turtle was digging in his claws and tearing up the earth as he marched round and round it, reaching up his long neck and hissing: “Just you wait till I get hold of your leg with my bite that never lets go!”

“Grandpop’s lost his temper,” said Nibble to himself. “Something’s sure to happen. It always does. It happened to Chatter Squirrel and Silvertip the Fox, and Mrs. Hooter, and the Red Cow——” Here he pricked up his ears, for Watch the Dog was barking at the other end of the pasture. And Watch had Tommy Peele and Tommy’s big cousin Sandy and Trailer the Hound with him. So he signalled Watch to hurry. Then he hurried back to hide in the Pickery Things where he could see what that happening was going to be. He was so curious he forgot all about Tad Coon.

But Tad Coon hadn’t forgotten about himself. He hadn’t lost his temper. As soon as he heard the dogs coming he watched his chance while Grandpop Snapping Turtle was on the far side of the stump and jumped over to the nearest tree. And you should have seen his little handy-paws shin up it!

So all Tommy Peele and his cousin Sandy found was a spitting, swearing old shellback marching round and round that stump.

“Oh-h-h!” shouted Sandy. “Turtle soup for supper. Um-m!”

“Don’t hurt him!” cried Tommy. “He doesn’t do any harm.”

“Doesn’t he?” exclaimed Sandy. “He just spoils all the fishing in your pond, and he’s simply death on muskrats.”

Of course that settled Tommy Peele, because Doctor Muskrat was his friend.

So Sandy took up a long stick and held it out in front of Grandpop Snapping Turtle. “Ah-h-h!” he hissed triumphantly. And he grabbed it right in the middle with his bite that never lets go.

“Pick up the other end,” said Sandy. Tommy did, and there they had the turtle hanging between them, so blazing angry and so proud of his bite that won’t let go, that he never noticed that they were carrying him farther and farther away from his pond. And that was the last Nibble ever saw of him.

CHAPTER IV TAD’S TRICKS COME HOME TO ROOST

But there was a whole lot of excitement near the Pond. There was Tad Coon snug in the crotch of a tree, there was Trailer the Hound sniffing the top of the stump where Tad had sat to keep out of reach of the angry turtle, and there was Nibble Rabbit snuggled beneath the Pickery Things, so curious that he couldn’t sit still.

Pretty soon Trailer began to whimper. “Coon, coon, coon,” he said to himself. “Where did he come from? Where did he go?” And he was so puzzled that he shook his head until his ears flopped.

That was too much for Tad Coon. He pulled off a strip of bark and dropped it right on top of Trailer. The hound jumped as though something had stung him.

And wasn’t Nibble surprised? He didn’t see how Tad dared play tricks on the very dog he said was his worst enemy.

Pretty soon Tad began to call out: “Hey; you hound, go away! I want to come down before that Man with the gun gets back here.”

“Go away?” barked Trailer. “I most certainly won’t. I’ll stay right here and keep you until I see what Sandy and Tommy Peele want to do with you.”

“Tommy won’t hurt you,” shouted Nibble. “He’ll just make friends with you.”

“No, thank you,” grinned Tad Coon. “Not the way he makes friends. I don’t want to be trapped like you and Doctor Muskrat, and I don’t want to be hunted like Silvertip the Fox. I’m going.”