CHAPTER VIII

COULD A LITTLE BOY GO WILD?

Patty, patty, ka-flip, ka-flip, went Tad’s feet, running away from Louie Thomson’s house for the second time. Pad, pad, pad, pounded Louie Thomson’s feet, running after him. Louie was mad clear through, but he wasn’t mad at Tad Coon. He was angry at his father for trying to beat him with a broom.

All the same, he felt scary and lonely when he got out there in the darkness. He could hear Tad’s feet running down the alleyways between the corn. But the stalks were way up over his head. He couldn’t see where he was going. Pretty soon he couldn’t even hear the coon--he was all alone.

But was he? He stubbed his toe on something--something soft and furry and warm. It was Tad. For just as soon as Tad got over being scared about himself he began to wonder if that cross man with the big stick had done anything awful to poor Louie Thomson. He knew what it was like to be chased. Besides, Tad’s the most curious beast in all the woods and fields, and he had to know the meaning of those little, sad, sniffly noises Louie was making.

But Louie just knew Tad was sorry for him. The poor little boy threw himself on the ground and cried and cried. “It isn’t fair,” he sobbed. “I hoed that corn, I had a right to take just a little weeny bit of it for you. Besides, you earned it. You killed the mice in our cellar just as much as those old cats ever do. I wasn’t bad, and I just won’t take a licking for it.” All the same, he knew that’s what he’d get if he went back home.

Tad kept cocking his ears and touching Louie with his shy little handy-paws, trying to think what he was doing. Little coons cry, too, but they cry, “Wa-wa-wa,” more like a hungry little bird. By and by he got restless and started along.

“Wait for me! Wait for me!” called Louie, and he got up and followed Tad--all the way back to Doctor Muskrat’s pond.

The night was clear and warm. And it wasn’t so very dark, after all. Louie could see quite well. Now it was his turn to be curious about what Tad Coon was doing. A frog jumped in the long grass and Tad pounced on it, just the way he pounced on a mouse. But he didn’t eat it--not yet. He carried it over to the water. Then he began splashing.

“He’s washing it first,” thought Louie. “If that isn’t the beatin-est!”

Sure enough, when he had it washed all clean Tad gulped his frog. Then he paddled his paws and scrubbed his mouth and whiskers. Yes, and even reached up behind his ears.

“Washing looks kind of nice,” thought Louie to himself. So he tried it, too. He washed himself clean as clean--clean as that fat old coon, even. And then he felt so comfortable he curled up by Doctor Muskrat’s stone and fell fast asleep.

You wouldn’t think even the wild woodsfolk would be afraid of a tired little boy, fast asleep by the pond, but they were. They were most scared to death. The whippoorwill sounded a desperate warning as she circled about on her long pointed wings trying to make up her mind to scoop up a mouthful of water, and the little bats squeaked as though the big owl was after them.

They woke up a lot of the Woodsfolk who had eaten their late supper by moonlight and gone to bed. Stripes Skunk came over from the potato patch, and Nibble Rabbit loped out to the edge of the Pickery Things and stood there on tip-toe, even to his stick-up ears, he was so s’prised. Chatter Squirrel looked from the lowest branch of Tad Coon’s tree. Doctor Muskrat crawled up on his stone, and maybe you think he didn’t jump when he found who was sleeping beside it. But fat old Tad patted out of his nest in the cool bulrushes, where he’d been taking a little cat-nap with one ear open, and settled it.

“Needn’t anybody be afraid of Louie Thomson,” said Tad. “He’s my boy. And he’s most as nice as Tommy Peele, Nibble. He’s friends.”

“But we haven’t made any compact with him,” suggested Doctor Muskrat.

“Compact!” sniffed Tad. “The minute he found I was shut up in my cage he brought me the juiciest mouthful of corn you ever wet your whiskers in.”

“Yah!” jeered Stripes. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I say you’d get caught? It’s all over traps, wherever you find men.”

“You did,” admitted Tad. “It was the queerest thing. I could get into that cage, and so could that mean old rat--he thought I was dead, Mr. Scaly-tail did. You ought to have heard him squeal when I grabbed him. But then I couldn’t get out again!” Tad didn’t know it was his very own self who shook the cage door down. “It didn’t matter a bit,” he went on comfortably. “Louie came right down and turned me loose. But you’re right about another thing, Stripes, men do kill men.”

“What!” exclaimed all the woodsfolk.

Tad nodded solemnly. “Sure as tadpoles have tails! We were having the nicest mouse hunt, Louie and I, when that big man came stamping in. He tried to kill me with a stick, and he did hit Louie with it--twice.” Of course Louie’s father didn’t mean to kill him; he only meant to punish him for taking the corn. But Woodsfolk don’t beat their children, they only shake them.

“Louie could run, all the same,” Tad finished. “So he came with me; he’s going to go wild again and live with us.”

Doctor Muskrat looked at Louie in a very puzzled way. “I wonder if he can go wild?” said he. “It’s a long, long time since men were wild.” You ought to have seen the Woodsfolk prick up their ears over the idea.