CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF THE POTATO BUGS

You never saw any one so puzzled as Stripes Skunk and Tad Coon after Tommy had gone running back to the barn to milk his cows with that shiny watch ticking away in his pocket. “I didn’t hear it tell Tommy to do anything,” said Tad. “It was just saying the same thing over and over again all the time.” Because it made a noise Tad thought of course the watch was talking. He never knew the black marks on its face meant anything more to Tommy than Tommy would have known the black spots on a nice little orange-coloured ladybug meant anything to Tad Coon.

Stripes Skunk was squinting thoughtfully at one with his head on one side, and he knew what those spots meant; they meant that you mustn’t eat it. By and by he said, “It told me something. It told me that I must keep on the lookout for Tommy Peele’s potato bugs. They make just that kind of a noise when you squeeze ’em. And I’ll have to be mighty careful not to let ’em lay any eggs. They’re horrid things. I couldn’t eat very many of ’em.” So off he pattered to look at them.

Now a potato bug is a second cousin to the nice spotty ladybug—you know her all right enough. You sing that song, “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home; your house is on fire and your children will burn.” And sure enough, she’ll lift her stiff black and orange skirts and shake out the wings she keeps tucked up under them so they won’t get draggled when she’s walking, and go off in a hurry.

But the potato bug isn’t pretty and he isn’t nice. He’s mustard-yellow, with three stripes, which mean that some folks can eat him, and a pair of dots which mean that most folks can’t. Just before the first frost in the fall he burrows down under the Earth-that-is common-to-all and makes himself a little house, snugly waterproofed with varnish against the rains. There he learns all sorts of tricks from the Bad Ones who are always making Mother Nature so much trouble.

When it comes time to creep out in the spring he knows she has guards out watching for him. Because his wife lays eggs that look like little clusters of yellow bananas and taste so good that she has to be mighty careful about hiding them. But there’s no end of trouble if they hatch, for nobody can eat his dirty little six-legged caterpillar children.

So he sends out spies to be sure the coast is clear and, when no one is looking, out marches a whole yellow-uniformed army that swarms all over the potato plant’s neat green leaves. And the army gnaws and nibbles and fights and scrambles to do all the harm and lay all the eggs it possibly can before Mother Nature’s fighters can come to rescue the poor potato plants.

Stripes had hunted a long time before he found a single spy just a few days before; now he was surrounded by a whole potato bug army. Tommy Peele’s potato patch was besieged! And there was no one to stop the enemy but a couple of meadowlarks. Even they gave up in despair when they saw Stripes march in, for the skunks are old foes of the meadowlarks. He was alone!

And he felt mighty discouraged, I can tell you. But he’d promised to fight them, so he set to work all alone, eating them as fast as ever he could lay a paw on them. That’s about the only way Mother Nature teaches her creatures to destroy such things.

My—they tasted strong! He felt sicker and sicker with every one. It grew dark and they hid so he could hardly find them—still he kept on eating. But at last they began to burn like fire inside him. He had just enough strength to stagger down to Doctor Muskrat’s pond—and the next thing he knew the sun was shining!

Stripes lay there in a sort of a daze, trying to think just what had happened to him. There was a queer, far-away sound in his poor little loppy, sick ears—but when he opened his eyes there was Bob White Quail standing right beside him. “What’s the matter, Stripes?” he was asking.

Suddenly Stripes could remember everything—those horrible hundreds and hundreds of potato bugs gnawing and squirming and swarming all around him. “I’m sick,” he moaned. “I promised to keep the bugs off Tommy Peele’s potatoes—but they’re too many for me. I’m beaten. Now I’ll have to go away and never come back here again.” And the tears began to trickle down his pointy nose and drip on his paddy-paws.

“You won’t, either,” snapped Bob White. “You saved me from dying in that wire snare. I haven’t forgotten that. Besides, those potato bugs are some of my own business. Get Doctor Muskrat to give you some medicine and then come and see what we quail-folk are doing.” He raised the covey-call, “Prr-whit! Prr-whit!” and off he flew to the Quail’s Thicket.

It didn’t take Bob White long to lay down the law to the quail-folk. In about the time it takes to swallow a seed they were whirring off in every direction. Bob White himself went to find those fly-away meadowlarks. “What do you mean by deserting like that in the face of the potato bug army?” he demanded. My, but his voice sounded pecky!

“We flew away because that terrible skunk came to help them,” fluttered the larks. “There was no use trying to fight him!”

“You didn’t have to fight him,” raged Bob White. “You only had to fight with him. You foolish, cowardly tip-tails! He’d come to help you!”

“To help us?” squawked the meadowlarks. “That beast! That beast who smashes our eggs and kills our mates and eats our young? We’d as soon expect help of Glider the Blacksnake.”

“You would, would you?” Bob White’s beak clicked dangerously.

“Well, it’s time you learned that skunk is a special one. He saved my life, and all the quail trust him. You get every meadowlark in all the woods and fields and the marsh beyond and go back to your fighting. Hear me?” And he looked so ruffly they didn’t even dare to answer him.