Читать книгу Tad Coon's Great Adventure - John Breck - Страница 4

Table of Contents

My, but Nibble was proud of his little bunnies! He wanted to take them back to the pond, right away quick, and show them to Doctor Muskrat. But Silk-ears, his mate, was quite stubborn about going. “No,” she said. “The old mother rabbit who told me how to raise them said that pond wasn’t a good place at all. She was there last year. Every one of her bunnies disappeared the minute they left the nest. Hooter the Owl got one, and Glider the Blacksnake got another, and Silvertip the Fox caught the third, and the last one just disappeared. She thinks Slyfoot the Mink found him while she was digging a new hole. She meant to leave him the old hole to live in. He was a very scary little bunny.”

Nibble pricked up his ears. “She went to dig a new hole, did she?” he asked. “Why was that?”

“Why, because she was going to raise a new family, of course, and she couldn’t have him tracking out and in.”

“How silly I was,” said Nibble. “Now I see why the stars said in my Fortune that Doctor Muskrat told me: ‘By dawn and by dusk you shall travel alone.’ I was plenty old enough to begin without any telling. And ‘All troubles are yours excepting your own.’ I was so busy getting rid of other people’s troubles that my own went with them. Now the Hooters have gone, and Silvertip, and Glider, and even Slyfoot doesn’t live there.” Nibble never thought that maybe wise old Doctor Muskrat had something to do with that fortune.

Of course his mate didn’t understand what he was talking about; she didn’t know any of the things he’d done. But she did know that he just insisted on talking to that wise old mother rabbit.

Of course you’ve guessed it before this--that wise old rabbit was Nibble’s own Mammy Bunny. He was down by the pond when she came back to see how he was getting along. She’d never think of going to ask Doctor Muskrat about him. He told her all the stories he hadn’t told Silk-ears and she shook her head when he told her that Tommy Peele was his special friend. She didn’t like boys a bit. I don’t think she really believed when he told her about Tommy’s dog, Watch, and Trailer the Hound. But then, mothers don’t know all about everything. They now what’s best for little bunnies, but you can’t expect them to know more than a great big grown-up rabbit like Nibble.

But Nibble didn’t care whether she believed him or not. “I’ve found you again,” he said, and he waggled his long ears, because he was so excited about it. “I’ve found you. Next thing you know we’ll have found Tad Coon.”

And maybe Mammy Rabbit wasn’t shocked at that! She didn’t think Tad Coon was a safe friend for any rabbit, even a big one. But that didn’t scare Silk-ears. It just made her prouder than ever of Nibble. So off they set for Tommy Peele’s Woods and Fields.

Maybe you think they didn’t have an exciting time getting their bunnies all the way over from their nest in the Deep Woods. It wasn’t because the little ones couldn’t run fast enough. It was mostly because they ran too fast. They scuttled all over and they wouldn’t pay the least attention to Nibble when he thumped his big furry feet at them. Of course they did keep watch of their mother’s white tail-tip--even tiny wee ones, as soon as their eyes are open at all, know that’s what it’s for--but they didn’t see any use in a father at all.

Just once one did. That was when the hawk swooped down. Silk-ears dodged into the Pickery Things, where no hawk could possibly reach her. Three bunnies tagged after her. Nibble just stepped under an elder bush, where the hawk couldn’t pounce from above, and one bunny squirmed right under him. Then it poked out its curious little nose from behind his elbow and blinked at the big bird.

One bunny poked out its curious little nose and blinked at the big bird.

She didn’t really mean them any harm. She was really hunting fieldmice though a hawk will pick up a wee rabbit now and again. But when she saw it was Nibble she just laughed. “Ca, ca! When did you take to hatching?” and flapped right on. She had a nest of her own not far from Nibble’s hole. Like a sensible bird she did her hunting away from home to keep out of neighbourhood quarrels. If she took one of Nibble’s babies she had a pretty good idea that someone would come after one of her own babies who as yet had only pin feathers.

But just as soon as the ungrateful little bunny saw his mother he ran to her. “Where’s the other one?” asked Silk-ears. “Wasn’t she with you?”

“I thought you had her,” said Nibble. And then the hunt for that fifth baby bunny began. They looked and looked until they were almost discouraged. Then, there she was! Where do you s’pose? In a deep footprint some horse had made. She thought she was pretty smart to have hidden so well that even her mother couldn’t find her.

“You bad little thing,” stamped Nibble. “That’s a regular hop-toad trick. We’ll call you ‘hop-toad’ if you ever do it again.”

But do you think he’d let Silk-ears shake her? Certainly not! And the baby didn’t know what a hop-toad was yet, so she didn’t care. Anyway, the Woodsfolk are very careless about naming their children. They just nickname them from some way they act or look and then call them that. And these were too little even to have nicknames yet.

The most exciting time was when they came to the brook that runs into Doctor Muskrat’s pond. The bunnies couldn’t jump, so Nibble had to pick them up by their furry collars, like he did the lady mouse, and carry them over, one by one, kicking and squirming. And Silk-ears jumped over beside him each time--as though she could do something if they did tumble in! Oh, she was glad to get them safe in Nibble’s home, I can tell you.

But if Nibble Rabbit had trouble with his naughty little bunnies you just ought to have seen Stripes Skunk. His kittens had a great idea of hunting things. When they hadn’t anything else to chase they chased each other or their own tails. They chased Nibble’s bunnies, and Nibble had to give one of them a kick that sent him tumbling. They chased Bob White’s stubby-tailed chicks until Bob gave them a smart pecking. They tried to chase the baby meadow-larks, but the little birds who nest on the ground are up and flying before most of the young furry things are out of their holes to bother them. That’s exactly why Mother Nature lets them grow up so much faster. They were very sweet-tempered kittens, anyway. They didn’t mean any harm, and they soon learned what they mustn’t do, and saved most of their chasing for the fieldmice.

Only they never learned not to tease Doctor Muskrat. He would no more get to sleep in the sun on his nice flat stone than somebody’s bad baby would pounce on him. Both Nibble and Stripes were afraid maybe he’d get cross about it. But that was before they caught him playing with those teasing little ones. He’d dive under the water and swim up underneath the stone. Then he’d pop up and snap at their paws when they tried to grab him. And they weren’t the only ones who thought it was fun.

But if Doctor Muskrat liked them, you just ought to have heard Tommy Peele the first time he saw them. He came out with his father to see if it was time to go after those potato-bugs. And of course neither of them could find a single one.

“That’s funny,” said Tommy’s father. “Those potato-bugs have been here. You can see holes where they’ve eaten the leaves. I wonder who cleaned them all up?”

Stripes Skunk sat up and saw what they were looking at. “It was the birds,” he explained, only of course Tommy didn’t understand him. Pretty soon Tommy saw something else. “This plant looks wilty,” he said. “It looks as though a mouse had been gnawing it.”

“It was a mouse,” smiled Nibble Rabbit, because he knew Stripes wouldn’t tell that he’d tried to stop them. He came hopping up close to Tommy. And Tommy didn’t know what he said, either, but his father must have understood a little.

“It’s queer about that stem,” he remarked. “I never knew mice to do anything like that before, but mice must be what your skunk friend is hunting here. That rabbit certainly isn’t afraid of him.”

“Those rabbits!” Tommy fairly squealed. For Silk-ears and all the babies were peeking at him with their long ears perked up among the potato stems. “And those skunks!” For Stripes Skunk’s three kittens were trying to squint at him from under the leaves, and the lower they put down their heads the higher they arched up their tails. But they didn’t know that. They thought they were beautifully hidden. And there were their three black plumes, with white tips squirming at the ends of them. No wonder Tommy laughed. No wonder he said: “Say, Dad. Let’s catch one!”

When Tommy tickled her nose with the tender end of a grass-blade she ate it.