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 Coon.

But they talked louder and louder. And since Dickie Deer Mouse never
quarreled with anybody, and hated to hear such language as the two
cousins used, he slipped out of his house without their seeing him and
went over to the cornfield.

For he was hungry.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

VIII

IN THE CORNFIELD

In one way, especially, Fatty Coon and Dickie Deer Mouse were alike:
They were night-prowlers. When they slept it was usually broad daylight
outside, and the birds--except for a few odd fellows like Willie
Whip-poor-will and Mr. Night Hawk--were abroad, and singing, and
twittering. And when most of the birds went to sleep Dickie and Fatty
Coon began to feel quite wide awake