Chapter 2

Dickie tried to slip out of sight under a pumpkin vine that grew between the rows; but Fatty Coon saw him before he could hide. And Fatty began to make the queerest noise, as if he were almost choking.

Dickie Deer Mouse stopped. And he trembled the least bit; for Fatty looked terribly fierce. Perhaps (Dickie thought) he was choking with rage.

"Can I help you?" Dickie asked him. "Would you like me to thump you on the back?"

Fatty Coon shook his head. There was nothing the matter with him, except that he had stuffed his mouth so full that he couldn't speak. After swallowing several times he wiped his mouth on the back of his paw--a habit of which his mother had never been able to break him. It was no wonder that dainty Dickie Deer Mouse shuddered again, when Fatty did that.

"May I go and get you a napkin?" Dickie asked, as he edged away.

"No!" Fatty Coon growled. "I've been wanting to have a talk with you. And now that I've found you, you needn't run off."

Then, to Dickie's horror, Fatty stopped talking and licked both his paws.

"May I get you a finger bowl?" Dickie inquired.

Fatty Coon actually didn't know what he meant.

"Is that something to eat?" he asked. And he looked much interested, and seemed quite downcast when Dickie said "No!"

"Then you needn't trouble yourself," Fatty Coon told him with a sigh.

"Can't you find corn enough for a good meal?" Dickie asked him wonderingly.

"I could," said Fatty Coon, "if other people didn't take so much of it.... Now, there's Mr. Crow," he complained. "I had to get out of bed and come over here to-day, in the sunlight, because I was afraid he wouldn't leave any corn for me.

"There's no use saying anything to him," Fatty continued, "because he thinks this is _his_ cornfield.... But little chaps like you will have to keep away from this place.... Now I've warned you," he added. "And if I hear of your eating any more corn I'll come straight to your house--when I find out where it is--and I'll----"

He did not finish his threat. But he looked so darkly at Dickie that what he _didn't_ say made Dickie Deer Mouse shiver all over, though the warm midday sun fell upon the cornfield.

Now, Dickie Deer Mouse hadn't eaten a single kernel of corn all that day. But he suddenly lost his appetite for it; and murmuring a faint good-bye he turned and ran for the woods as fast as he could go.

"Stop! Stop!" Fatty Coon called after him. "There's something more I want to say to you."

But whatever it may have been, Dickie Deer Mouse did not wait to hear it.

IX

FATTY COON NEEDS HELP

The moment he plunged into the woods beyond the cornfield Dickie Deer Mouse began to feel better. He knew that Fatty Coon would not leave that place of plenty until he had filled himself almost to bursting with tender young corn.

After Dickie had eaten a few seeds that he found under the trees, as well as a plump bug that was hiding beneath a log, he actually told himself that he was glad he had met Fatty Coon in the cornfield.

"Now that he has talked with me," Dickie reasoned, "he won't trouble himself to come to my house when old Mr. Crow tells him where I live."

That thought was a great comfort to him. Ever since he had waked up and heard Mr. Crow and Jasper Jay talking outside his house he had felt most uneasy. If Mr. Crow was going to guide Fatty Coon to his new home, Dickie hardly thought it safe to stay there any longer.

But now he was sure that that danger was past. Fatty had given him his warning. And Dickie had no doubt that so long as he kept away from the corn his greedy neighbor would never bother to disturb him.

So instead of quitting his snug home--as he had feared he must--he went back to it to finish his nap.

Now, Dickie Deer Mouse had lost so much sleep--through being disturbed by Mr. Crow and Jasper Jay--that when night came he kept right on sleeping. Yes! Instead of joining his friends in a mad scamper through the woods in the moonlight, Dickie Deer Mouse slept on and on and on, until--something shook the small tree where he lived and made it sway as if an earthquake had come.

Dickie Deer Mouse roused himself with a start. His sharp ears caught a scratching sound. And sticking his head through his doorway, he looked out.

One quick glance told him what was happening. That pudgy rascal, Fatty Coon, was climbing the tree! And every moment brought him nearer and nearer to Dickie's house.

Dickie's big, black eyes bulged more than ever as he whisked out of his house and scampered to the top of the tree, where the branches were so small that Fatty Coon could never follow him.

"Stop!" Fatty Coon cried. "Mr. Crow told me where I could find you. And I want to have a word with you."

"What sort of word?" Dickie Deer Mouse inquired.

"It's about the cornfield," Fatty Coon explained.

"I haven't been near that place since you last saw me there," Dickie declared.

"I know you haven't," Fatty told him. "That's just why I want to have a word with you. I'm in a peck of trouble. And I want you to help me."

Dickie Deer Mouse could scarcely believe it. But being a very polite young gentleman, he told Fatty that he would be glad to do anything in his power to assist him--or at least, anything except to come down out of the top of the tree.

X

A BIT OF ADVICE

"It's like this," Fatty Coon said, puffing a bit--on account of his climb--as he looked up at Dickie Deer Mouse. "Old Mr. Crow says that Farmer Green is going to sick old dog Spot on me if I don't keep out of the cornfield."

"Well, I should say it was very kind of Mr. Crow to tell you," Dickie remarked.

Fatty Coon was not so sure of that.

"He'd like to have the cornfield to himself," he told Dickie. "He'd like nothing better than to keep me out of it. And if old dog Spot is coming there after me, I certainly don't want to go near the place again."

"Then I'd stay away, if I were you," Dickie Deer Mouse told him.

"Ah! That's just the trouble!" Fatty Coon cried. "I can't! I'm too fond of corn. And that's why I've come here to have a word with you," he went on. "I've noticed that you haven't set foot in the cornfield since I spoke to you over there in the middle of the day. And I want you to tell me how you manage to stay away."

"Something seems to pull me right away from it," Dickie Deer Mouse told him.

Fatty Coon groaned.

"Something seems to pull me _towards_ the corn!" he wailed.

Dickie Deer Mouse couldn't help feeling sorry for him.

"If there was only something else that you liked better than green corn," he said, "perhaps it would help you to keep away from this new danger."

"But there isn't!" Fatty Coon exclaimed.

"Have you ever tried _horns_?" Dickie Deer Mouse asked him.

Fatty Coon looked puzzled.

"What kind?" he asked his small friend.

"Deer's!" Dickie explained. "You know they drop them in the woods sometimes. I've had many a meal off deer's horns. And I can say truthfully that there's nothing quite like them when you're hungry."

Fatty Coon actually began to look hopeful.

"I'm always hungry," he announced. "And perhaps if I could get a taste of deer's horns they would keep my mind off the cornfield. Where did you say I could find some?"

"I didn't say," Dickie Deer Mouse reminded him; "but I don't object to telling you where to look. They're generally to be found in the woods, near the foot of a tree."

Fatty Coon's face brightened at once.

"Then it ought to be easy for me to get a taste of some," he cried. And he began to crawl down the tree even as he spoke.

He did not thank Dickie Deer Mouse for his help. But that was like Fatty. Always having his mind on eatables, he was more than likely to forget to be polite.

Little Dickie Deer Mouse smiled as he watched the actions of his late caller. The instant Fatty Coon reached the ground he began to look under the trees--first one and then another.

"Don't miss a single tree!" Dickie called to him.

"Don't worry!" Fatty Coon replied. "I'm going to keep looking until I find some deer's horns. And I hope I'll like 'em when I find 'em, for I'm terribly hungry right now."

XI

A SEARCH IN VAIN

It was true that Dickie Deer Mouse and all his relations feasted on the horns shed by the deer. But of course they didn't find horns in the woods every day. Only at a certain season of the year did the deer drop them. And since that time was now past, and the Deer Mouse family had scoured the woods until they found--and devoured--them all, it is clear that Fatty Coon had started out on a fruitless hunt.

But he didn't know that, even if Dickie Deer Mouse did. And that was the reason why Dickie smiled as he watched Fatty Coon dodging about among the trees, looking for deer's horns where there couldn't possibly be any.

"It's the finest thing that could happen to Fatty," Dickie Deer Mouse thought. "While he's hunting for horns he can't go to the cornfield. And so long as he stays away from the cornfield, old dog Spot can't catch him there."

And then Dickie set forth to find his friends and enjoy a romp in the moonlight.

Dawn found him creeping into his house once more. And after what had happened during the night it was not strange that he should dream about Fatty Coon.

It was not a pleasant dream. For some reason or other Fatty Coon seemed to be angry with him, and was shouting in a terrible, deep voice, "Where's Dickie Deer Mouse? Where's Dickie Deer Mouse?"

And then Dickie awoke, all a-shiver. But of course he felt better at once, for he knew that it was only a dream. And he stretched himself, and buried his head in his bed of cat-tail down, because the daylight was trickling in through his doorway.

"_Where's Dickie Deer Mouse?_" Again that question startled him, though he was wide awake, and couldn't be dreaming.

The next instant Dickie's tree began to quiver. Fatty Coon was climbing up it! And Dickie Deer Mouse jumped out of bed in a hurry and slipped out of his door.

Looking down, he could see that Fatty Coon was in something quite like a rage.

"What's the matter?" Dickie called to him.

Fatty could do nothing but glare and growl at him.

"Have you had your breakfast?" Dickie asked him.

Fatty shook his head.

"No!" he roared. "I haven't had a morsel to eat since I last saw you. I've been hunting for horns all this time. And I've come back to tell you that I don't like your advice. If I followed it much longer there's no doubt that I'd starve to death."

"It has kept you out of the cornfield, hasn't it?" Dickie inquired.

"Yes!" Fatty admitted. "But it won't much longer. I'm on my way to the cornfield now." He looked at Dickie and frowned, as if to say, "Just try to stop me!"

"Aren't you afraid to go there?" Dickie asked him.

Fatty Coon sniffed.

"That story about old dog Spot was nothing but a trick," he declared. "It was just a trick of old Mr. Crow's. He wants all the corn himself."

"Don't you think, then, that you and I ought to eat all the corn we can?" Dickie inquired.

"I certainly do!" Fatty Coon replied. "Let's hurry over now and get some!"

Dickie Deer Mouse was only too glad to accept the invitation. And he waited politely until Fatty had reached the ground, before going down himself.

Old Mr. Crow saw them the moment they entered the cornfield. And he hurried up to them with a most important air and advised them both that they "had come to a dangerous place."

Fatty Coon paid no attention to the old gentleman.

But Dickie Deer Mouse thanked Mr. Crow and told him that after he had had all the corn he wanted he was going back to the woods.

Noticing that the old gentleman seemed peevish about something, Dickie said to him:

"There ought to be enough for all."

But still Mr. Crow looked glum.

"There's enough for them that don't care for much else," he muttered. "But we can't feed the whole world on this corn, you know.... How would you like it if I took to eating deer's horns--when they're in season, of course?"

"You can have all the deer's horns you want," Fatty Coon remarked thickly--for already his mouth was full.

And being very polite, Dickie Deer Mouse said the same thing; though of course he waited until he could speak distinctly.

XII

A LITTLE SURPRISE

Simon Screecher lived in the apple orchard, in a hollow tree, where he could sleep during the day safe from attack by mobs of small birds, who had the best of reasons for disliking him.

By night Simon wandered about the fields and the woods, hunting for mice and insects. And since night was the time when Dickie Deer Mouse was awake, and up and doing, it would have been a wonder if the two had never met.

One thing is certain: Dickie Deer Mouse was not eager to make Simon Screecher's acquaintance. Whenever he heard Simon's call he stopped and listened. If it sounded nearer the next time it reached his ears, Dickie Deer Mouse promptly hid himself in any good place that was handy.

So matters went along for some time. And Dickie actually began to think that perhaps he didn't need to be so careful, and that maybe Simon Screecher was not so bad as people said.

However, he jumped almost out of his skin one night, when he heard a wailing whistle in a tree right over his head. And when he came down upon all-fours again he couldn't see a single place to hide.

So he stood stock still, hardly daring to breathe.

To Dickie's dismay, a mocking laugh rang out. And somebody said:

"I see you!"

It was Simon Screecher himself that spoke.

Dickie Deer Mouse looked up and spied him, sitting on a low limb. He was not so big as Dickie had supposed. But it was certainly Simon. Dickie knew him, beyond a doubt, by his ear-tufts, which stuck up from his head like horns.

"What made you jump when I whistled?" Simon Screecher asked him.

"I don't know," Dickie answered, "unless it was you."

Simon Screecher chuckled.

"You're a bright young chap," he observed. "But that's not surprising, for I notice that you belong to the Deer Mouse family, and everybody's aware that they are one of the brightest families in Pleasant Valley--_what are left of them_."

These last words made Dickie Deer Mouse more uneasy than ever. But he made up his mind not to let Simon Screecher know that he was worried.

"I have a great many relations," he declared stoutly. "Ours is a big family."

"Yes--but not nearly so big as it was when I first came to this neighborhood to live," Simon told him with a sly smile.

He had hardly finished that remark when a loud _wha-wha, whoo-ah_ came from a hemlock not far away. And the next moment Simon's cousin Solomon Owl sailed through the moonlight and alighted near him.

Dickie Deer Mouse couldn't help thinking that it was a great night for the Owl family. And he was surprised to notice that Simon Screecher did not act overjoyed at seeing his cousin.

"It's a pleasant night," said Solomon Owl in his deep, hollow voice.

Simon Screecher replied somewhat sourly that he supposed it was. And he changed his seat, so that he might keep his eyes on both his cousin and Dickie Deer Mouse at the same time.

But Solomon Owl made matters very hard for Simon. Simon had no sooner seated himself comfortably when Solomon Owl moved to a perch behind him.

Simon Screecher looked almost crosseyed, as he tried to watch everything that happened. And he looked so fretful that for a moment Dickie Deer Mouse actually forgot his fear and laughed aloud. [Illustration]

XIII

THE FEATHERS FLY

"I'm glad to see you," Solomon Owl told his cousin Simon Screecher, while Dickie Deer Mouse stood stock still on the ground beneath the tree where the two cousins were sitting. "I'm glad to see you. And I hope you're enjoying good health."

"I'm well enough," Simon Screecher grunted.

"Do you find plenty to eat nowadays?" Solomon asked him.

Simon Screecher admitted that he was not starving.

"Ah!" Solomon exclaimed. "Then you can have no objection to sharing a specially nice tidbit with your own cousin."

Dickie Deer Mouse shivered. But he did not dare move, with one of Simon Screecher's great, glassy eyes staring straight at him. And there was something else that did not help to put him at his ease: Solomon Owl seemed to be watching him likewise!

"Haven't you dined to-night?" Simon Screecher inquired in a testy tone.

"Yes!" Solomon admitted. "But I haven't had my dessert yet.... What are you looking at so closely, Cousin Simon, down there on the ground?"

An angry light came into Simon Screecher's eyes.

"Can't I look where I please?" he snapped.

And he changed his seat again, so that he might get a better view of Dickie and Solomon at the same time.

Solomon Owl promptly moved to another limb behind Simon, and slightly higher.

And Dickie Deer Mouse took heart when Simon Screecher began to make a queer sound by opening his beak and shutting it with a snap, as if he would like to nip somebody.

Dickie knew that Simon Screecher was in a terrible rage. And unless his threatening actions scared Solomon Owl away, Dickie thought there was likely to be a cousinly fight.

He was pleased to notice that Solomon Owl showed no sign of dismay. There was really no reason why he should. He was much bigger than his peppery cousin. And he looked at Simon in a calm and unruffled fashion that seemed to make that quarrelsome fellow angrier than ever.

"What's the matter?" Solomon Owl asked Simon Screecher. "If you had any teeth I'd think they were chattering.... Are you having a chill?"

Simon made no answer.

"Maybe you're afraid of something," Solomon Owl suggested. "Can it be that young Deer Mouse down there on the ground?" And he laughed loudly at what _he_ thought was a joke.

"That's _my_ Deer Mouse!" Simon Screecher squalled, suddenly finding his voice. "I saw him first. And he's my prize."

"He looks to me like the one I lost a few nights ago," Solomon Owl announced solemnly. "In that case, of course I saw him first. So you'd better fly home to your old apple tree in the orchard."

"I'll do nothing of the sort!" Simon Screecher declared; and his voice rose to a shrill quaver.

Turning swiftly, he flew straight at his cousin. And then how the feathers did fly!

Dickie Deer Mouse wanted to stay right there, for he hated to miss any of the fun. But he remembered that he was a "tidbit"; so he scampered away through the woods. And though he never knew how the fight ended, he was sure of one thing: There was no prize for the winner.

XIV

MAKING READY FOR WINTER

After his escape from Solomon Owl and Simon Screecher, Dickie Deer Mouse never felt quite so care-free as he always had before, when wandering through the woods at night. And he never stayed inside his house after dark without wondering whether Solomon or Simon could by any chance discover his snug home in the last year's bird's nest. It was not a pleasant thought. And the oftener it popped into Dickie's head the less he liked it.

Sometimes, when summer had ended and fall brought a night that was rainy and cold, he liked to go home after he had finished his supper, and burrow deep into his soft bed of cat-tail down.

But even after he had dried his wet coat and warmed himself well, at such times Dickie Deer Mouse started whenever he heard the slightest noise. Somehow, he couldn't get the Owl family out of his mind.

As the days grew shorter--and the nights longer--he began to find that his summer home was not so cozy as it might have been.

The cold wind searched him out, even under his soft covering; and the driving rains trickled annoyingly through his roof of moss.

So at last Dickie Deer Mouse made up his mind that he would move once more. And since he was not the sort to put off the doing of anything that had to be done, he set out at once to see what kind of place he could find.

Now, Dickie Deer Mouse liked the woods in which he had always lived. So one might think it strange that when he set forth on his search he headed straight for Farmer Green's pasture. But there is no doubt that he knew what he was about.

For some time he crept cautiously about the pasture, peeping under big rocks, and moving among the roots of the trees which dotted the hillside here and there. And since his eyes were of the sharpest, what he was looking for he found in surprising numbers.

Most people, strolling through the pasture, would have noticed little except grass and bushes, trees and rocks and knolls. But those were not the things that Dickie Deer Mouse discovered, and sniffed at. What he was hunting for was _holes_.

For Dickie had decided that when winter came, with its ice and snow, its cruel gales and its piercing cold, he would be far more comfortable underground than he could ever hope to be in a last year's bird's nest that was fastened to a tree.

He had found it no easy matter to pick out a summer home. And now there were reasons why his search for a winter one was even harder.

It is true that at the beginning of summer, when Dickie Deer Mouse climbed the tall elm where Mr. Crow lived, he found the old gentleman asleep in the nest that he had hoped to take for his own. But on the whole it was easy to discover whether a nest was deserted.

One look into it usually told the story. Eggs in a bird's nest meant that somebody must live there. And of course if Dickie saw a bird sitting on a nest he knew right away that he couldn't live there without having a fight first.

But a _hole_ is different. One can't see what's at the bottom of it without going inside it.

And that is not always a pleasant thing to do.

XV

A PLUNGE IN THE DARK

There was one hole, especially, among those he found in Farmer Green's pasture, from which Dickie Deer Mouse ran as fast as he could scamper.

This was a hole with a big front door, and plenty of fresh dirt scattered around it, as if somebody had been digging there not long before.

When Dickie first noticed the burrow he stopped short and stood quite still, while he peeped at it out of a tangle of blackberry bushes.

Something told him that he had stumbled upon the home of a dangerous person. And if the wind hadn't been blowing in his face, as he looked towards the wide opening, he would not have dared stay there as long as he did.

As he looked he suddenly saw a pair of eyes gleaming from the dark cavern. And soon he beheld a long, pointed snout, which its owner thrust outside in a gingerly manner.

That was enough for Dickie Deer Mouse.

He wheeled about and whisked up the nearest tree he could find. And there he stayed for a long, long time, until he felt sure that it was quite safe for him to venture down upon the ground again.

He had come upon Tommy Fox's burrow!

And if there was one hole in the ground into which he had no wish to go, that was it. For Tommy Fox was no friend of his.

Since he didn't care for Tommy's company, Dickie went to the corner of the pasture that was furthest from Tommy's home, to search once more for such a hole as he hoped to find.

Almost nobody else ever would have discovered the one that Dickie picked out at last as the best place of all in which to spend the winter. But the bright eyes of Dickie Deer Mouse found a tiny opening, which he carefully made just big enough to admit him.

It was the entrance to an old burrow where an aunt and an uncle of Billy Woodchuck had once lived and raised a numerous family. When the children had all grown up and gone away their parents had left that home for a new one in the clover field. And somehow all the smaller field people had overlooked it.

Little by little the frost had heaved the earth about the doorway, and the wash of the rains had helped to fill it, and Farmer Green's cows had trampled over it, and the grass had all but covered the small opening that remained.