'EN
Solomon Owl was afraid of fire. And when he looked down from his perch in
the tree and saw, through the hole in the stranger's crown, that all was
aglow inside his big, round head, Solomon couldn't help voicing his
horror. He "_whoo-whooed_" so loudly that Tommy Fox, at the foot of the
tree, asked him what on earth was the matter.
"His head's all afire!" Solomon Owl told him. "That's what makes his eyes
glare so. And that's why the fire shines through his mouth and his nose,
too. It's no wonder he didn't answer my question--for, of course, his
tongue must certainly be burned to a cinder."
"Then it ought to be safe for anybody to enter the chicken house," Tommy
Fox observed. "What could the stranger do, when he's in such a fix?"
"He could set the chicken house afire, if he followed you inside," replied
Solomon Owl wisely. "And I, for one, am not going near the pullets
to-night."
"Nor I!" Fatty Coon echoed. "I'm going straight to the cornfield. The corn
is still standing there in shocks; and I ought to find enough ears to make
a good meal."
But Solomon Owl and Tommy Fox were not interested in corn. They never ate
it. And so it is not surprising that they should be greatly disappointed.
After a person has his mouth all made up for chicken it is hard to think
of anything that would taste even half as good.
"It's queer he doesn't go and hold his head under the pump," said Solomon
Owl. "That's what I should do, if I were he."
"Jimmy Rabbit had better not go too near him, or he'll get singed," said
Tommy Fox, anxiously. "I don't want anything to happen to _him_."
"Jimmy Rabbit is very careless," Solomon declared. "I don't see what he's
thinking of--going so near a fire! It makes me altogether too nervous to
stay here. And I'm going away at once."
Tommy Fox said that he felt the same way. And the moment Fatty Coon, with
his sharp claws, started to crawl down the tree on his way to the
cornfield, Tommy Fox hurried off without even stopping to say good-bye.
"_Haw-haw-haw-hoo_!" laughed Solomon Owl. "Tommy Fox is afraid of you!" he
told Fatty Coon.
But Fatty didn't seem to hear him. He was thinking only of the supper of
corn that he was going to have.
"Better come away!" Solomon Owl called to Jimmy Rabbit, turning his head
toward the fence where Jimmy had been lingering near the hot-headed
stranger.
But Jimmy Rabbit didn't answer him, either. He was no longer there. The
moment he had seen Tommy
|