That trap wasn’t a very good one. He got it from Louis Thomson, who had a lot that he set out all through other people’s woods where he thought the other people wouldn’t catch him, because he wasn’t quite satisfied to hunt just on his own. And he knew this particular trap was slow because it was all , and it hadn’t a good spring. But he made Tommy give him a two-bladed knife and his big glass shooter and twenty cents to boot. For the Red Cow wasn’t the only one who was greedy.
But Tommy oiled it and cleaned it and got it to work. And he showed it to Watch the Dog and told him to be very careful not to around and get his nose in it. And Watch spread himself out beside Tommy while Tommy worked. Watch snoozed in the sun and his tail whenever Tommy talked to him. For the weather was beginning to grow warmer. The that the poor partridge had wanted so badly had come.
Down by the pond the ice was getting so soft that didn’t dare on it to call Doctor Muskrat. And he wanted to call him a great deal of the time. For he knew the wise old doctor was very careful about making tracks near his warm spring. But all sorts of careless young muskrats were wandering up and down the stream. They said it was mating time, and they were trying to find some lady muskrat who would be foolish enough to start housekeeping then. They ran in and out among the , and digging and making the plainest sort of trail, and then they would with their muddy feet right into the drinking hole.
I can tell you it made Nibble angry enough. He didn’t fancy drinking after them, but they didn’t pay any attention to him. And Chaik the Jay got into such a rage that he forgot he should have kept quiet there. He perched on the tallest bulrush and cursed and squalled at them. But when Doctor Muskrat heard the rumpus and lifted his head up through the ice, with his long teeth showing between his gray whiskers, they off as though Silvertip himself were after them.
And then the old doctor would . “The take them and their love-making, the silly young things! What’s the sense of disturbing the whole just because they want everyone to know they’re old enough to dig a nursery? Eh?” He forgot that he’d done the very same thing in his own first spring.
But Nibble thought they were having a good time over it all. Only he wished they wouldn’t leave quite so many tracks for Tommy Peele to find.
And the very next day there came Tommy, splashing through the big in his tall rubber boots, sloshing through the last of the snowdrifts, and whistling a lively . And Nibble up his ears to listen. Because he thought that maybe Tommy was on a spring wandering of his own, and this was his mating song. For he never dreamed that whole generations of bunnies and muskrats and piping birds would grow old and die before Tommy even thought of such a thing.
Tommy had on his blue sweater, but he’d left his red hanging back of the stove because he’d got them all wet snowballing. And Watch was dancing along in front of him singing “Aourgh! aorugh!” which is neither a mating song nor a proper hunting song. It was like Tommy’s whistle—it showed that he was happy.
But Nibble wasn’t. He was uncomfortable. For all the footprints of those foolish young beasts led straight to the warm spring, which was still the only open water, though the ice was soft and melting all over the pond. And you remember this was the wise old doctor’s front door.
Of course Tommy followed them right there. And Nibble
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