The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse | Page 5

Mouse told him.
"Ha!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "What are you doing in the cornfield, I should like to know?"
"Sometimes I go there to get a few kernels of corn," Dickie explained.
"Ha!" Mr. Crow cried once more. "That's where the corn's going! Farmer Green thinks I'm taking it. And so you're getting me into a peck of trouble, young man."
Dickie Deer Mouse couldn't help being worried when Mr. Crow said that. And he looked puzzled, too.
"I don't see," he said, "how I could have got you into a peck of trouble, Mr. Crow, for I haven't eaten a peck of Farmer Green's corn. I've had only a few kernels of it--not more than half a pint."
"Then you've got me into a half-pint of trouble, anyway," old Mr. Crow insisted. "And that's too much, for a person of my age. You'll have to keep away from my--ahem!--from Farmer Green's cornfield. And what's more, Fatty Coon says the same thing."
At the mention of Fatty Coon's name Dickie Deer Mouse had to smile.
"Fatty Coon!" he echoed. "How he does like corn!"
"Yes! But he doesn't like you," Mr. Crow snapped. "You'd better look out for him," he warned Dickie. "He'll come to call on you some night, the first thing you know.
"By the way, where are you living now?" Mr. Crow inquired.
But Dickie Deer Mouse made no answer. Right before Mr. Crow's sharp eyes he vanished among the roots of a tree. And it made the old gentleman quite peevish because he couldn't discover where Dickie Deer Mouse had hidden himself.
For a little while Mr. Crow stood like a black statue and peered at the tangle where Dickie Deer Mouse had disappeared. But Mr. Crow couldn't see him anywhere. And at last his patience came to an end.
"He never answered my question," Mr. Crow grumbled. "He wouldn't tell me where he lived. But I'll find out. I'll ask my cousin, Jasper Jay; for there isn't much that he doesn't know."
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VII
NOISY VISITORS
Of course Jasper Jay knew where Dickie Deer Mouse lived. And he took great pleasure in pointing out the exact spot to his curious cousin, old Mr. Crow.
It was broad daylight when they visited the tree where Dickie's house hung. The two rogues did not know that he was drowsing inside his snug home, because he had been out late the night before.
No one that knew the two cousins would need to be told that they could never talk together quietly. Perched close to Dickie's house, Mr. Crow croaked in a hoarse voice, while Jasper Jay squalled harshly.
"This is it!" Jasper had announced, as soon as they arrived. "This is his house. And isn't it a sight?"
"I should say so!" old Mr. Crow agreed. "It's got a roof on it--ha! ha!"
And the two visitors laughed loudly, as if they thought there was a huge joke somewhere.
They made such a noise, from the very first, that Dickie Deer Mouse awoke and heard almost everything they said. But he didn't mind their remarks in the least--until he caught Fatty Coon's name.
It was old Mr. Crow who mentioned it first.
"I'll have to tell Fatty Coon about this queer house," he chuckled. "It's too good a joke to keep. He'll be over here as soon as he knows where to come, for he'll be glad to see it; and he wants to talk to Dickie Deer Mouse about taking our corn."
Dickie had still felt somewhat sleepy during the first part of this talk outside his house. But when Mr. Crow began to speak about Fatty Coon, Dickie became instantly wide awake. He sprang quickly to his feet; and thrusting his head through his doorway, he called in his loudest tone:
"When do you think Fatty Coon will call on me?"
The two cousins looked at each other. And then they looked all around.
"What was that strange squeaking?" Mr. Crow asked Jasper Jay.
"To me it sounded a good deal like a rusty hinge on Farmer Green's barn door," Jasper Jay answered.
But Mr. Crow shook his head. "It couldn't have been that," he said.
"Maybe Mrs. Green is rocking on a loose board on the porch," Jasper suggested.
Still Mr. Crow couldn't agree with him.
"Don't be silly!" he snapped. "We're half a mile from the farmhouse."
"Well, what do you think the noise was?" Jasper Jay inquired.
Old Mr. Crow cocked an eye upward into the tree-top above him. "I'd think it was a Squirrel if it was louder," he replied. Jasper Jay laughed in a most disagreeable fashion.
"I'd think it was thunder if it was loud enough," he sneered.
And at that the two cousins began to quarrel violently. To tell the truth, they never could be together long without having a dispute.
For a short time Dickie Deer Mouse listened to their rude remarks, hoping that they would stop wrangling long enough to hear his question about Fatty