“Take to the water, quick!” shouted Doctor . “Climb a tree!” advised Squirrel, balancing on the tip end of a limb. And they had the Woodsfolk so excited they didn’t know what to do. Most of them couldn’t climb if they wanted to, and few of them like to swim. So those who were there tried to run away, and those who weren’t came to see what was going on. Tommy Peele’s woods were just alive with and fluttering. All because Louie Thomson had brought a lantern to light his party with. He had brought all sorts of things to eat, too, and he planned to sleep all night in the Woods and Fields, in a tent made of one of his mother’s blankets.
Of course Louie couldn’t think what was the matter with the Woodsfolk. But Tommy Peele’s big dog, Watch, who was with him, knew well enough. He sat there with his tongue out, laughing at them.
When Tad Coon saw Watch laughing he got over being frightened, and then he was curious. He out of the pond and came over to look at the little sputtery flame dancing inside the lantern. Of course he thought it was a . Most everything that hasn’t leaves or fur or feathers is a bug to Tad Coon. do themselves up in very funny packages sometimes before they’re all through hatching. He put out his handy-paw to catch it.
“Look out!” barked Watch. “Let it alone!” But he didn’t say it before Tad had touched the glass with his little wet claw. Before he could jerk it back the water began sizzling and he got a bit of a burn. “Ow, ow!” howled poor Tad, dancing around with his paw in his mouth. “It’s a with a hot tail.” (He meant a paper .) “Ow, ow!” he . “It bit me!” So that scared all the Woodsfolk all over again.
Doctor Muskrat knew all about the fires that sometimes burn up the , but Tad didn’t, because he’s always gone to sleep for the winter before they begin. Rabbit knew something about them, because Watch tried to explain when he told what was happening to Grandpop Snapping Turtle. (Tommy Peele’s mother was cooking him.) But nobody ever dreamed Stripes would understand.
Stripes did know. He knew the rule of tents because his people were friendly with the Indians just like cats are friendly with us housefolk. They hunted around the campfires to catch creepy-crawley things. He didn’t know the difference between Louie’s blanket and a real tent, nor between Louie’s lantern and a real campfire because he’d never seen them. So he was just as pleased as though this was a real camp and Louie a real Indian. “Come along,” he called to his kittens. “This is the rule of fires: When the men aren’t walking around them you can lie down three tail lengths from the light and get your whiskers warm.” So down they lay. And weren’t they just because all the other Woodsfolk had their eyes popped out, staring at them.
All this time, Tad was sitting right squash on his bushy tail in the edge of the pond, using all his other three paws to hold the poor burned one in his mouth—because it hurt him so dreadfully—at least he thought it did. Tad Coon’s always thinking he’s killed when he’s hardly more than mussed his fur. (He made an awful fuss the time Grandpop Snapping Turtle nipped his tail, and after all, Grandpop only pulled a couple of hairs out.) “Oo-h-ow-h-ow!” whimpered Tad, licking himself between each sniffle.
“Let’s see, let’s see!” said Doctor Muskrat. He began peering at it in the darkness way off away from the lantern.
“Come up here by the fire,” Watch. “It’s not hurting Stripes. If you don’t get too close to its cage you’re all right. It can’t jump out and bite you.” Now wasn’t that a sensible way to explain about a lantern to the Woodsfolk? It surely is just a little flame of fire all shut up safe inside of its glass, like a goldfish in a bowl.
So Tad and Doctor Muskrat crept up close, jumping just a little whenever the flame danced, and at the poor burned paw. It had just the teeniest, weeniest little pinhead of a . When Tad saw how very little it was he felt quite cheerful again, and forgot all about it.
Indeed, he was more curious than ever about the lantern. “Where did Louie catch it?” he wanted to know. “What does it eat? Doesn’t it ever run wild at all?”
“Sometimes,” said Watch with a little shiver. “Then it grows very, very fast and eats up everything it can reach. I’ve seen a little bit of a fire like that eat up a whole haystack in about the time it takes the sun to set. But men are very, very careful never to let it get out if they can possibly help it. They keep it in strong black cages (he meant stoves, of course), and feed it cold black stones. (That was coal, you know.) Or they keep it in a cave and feed it a bit of wood. (Watch meant an open grate.) It spits and and sometimes a little piece jumps out, but someone always catches it. And they keep a lot in little cages like this and feed it water with a funny smell.” (That’s lamps burning .)
But you couldn’t expect the Woodsfolk to believe such things!
Now Louie brought that lantern to the pond just to light up his feast because there wasn’t any moonlight. But he did much better than that—or worse, according as you look at it. For by the time the Woodsfolk had learned a few things about it the buzzwings came to learn about it, too, ’specially some great big shelly-winged , with great big stabbing-beaks on their ugly faces. And wasn’t it nice; most everybody there except Nibble Rabbit’s family and Doctor Muskrat just love to eat them!
As soon as they saw the light, a whole flock of these fellows came over from the pond to investigate it. Some of them lit on the glass and burned their feet a whole lot worse than Tad Coon burned his handy-paw, because they didn’t know enough to take them off again. They stuck right there and ran out their until they blunted the ends of them. And all the time they kept buzzing their war cry, calling the rest of the beetles to come and help them fight it. Foolish things, they didn’t know that if one can’t hurt a thing even a thousand of them can’t. “Brz-brz-brz!” they roared. “Brz-brz!” roared all the others, coming to help them.
My, there were a lot of them! But the Woodsfolk didn’t mind them a little bit. They just thought this was an extra feast Louie had so cleverly provided. You ought to have seen Stripes Skunk’s children dancing around on their little legs, slapping them with their paddy-paws. Tad and crunched until his were tired. Even Chatter Squirrel and Chaik the Jay could see to catch them. They’d snap a bug, and then they’d eat some more of Louie’s corn; then they’d go back to the buzzwings again. And the more they ate the more desperate the buzzwings grew. But they blamed it all on the lantern.
It was a long, long time before they got so blind angry they began to fight everything they saw. They couldn’t hurt the furry folk, and they couldn’t catch Chaik, but they did get poor Louie Thomson, who was sitting there laughing at their goings on. Wow! But didn’t he squall! He squalled louder than Tad Coon. He around sucking his poor hand just as Tad sucked his handy-paw, with all the Woodsfolk staring at him. It didn’t take them long to guess what had happened. And weren’t they just sorry as anything!
Poor Louie! It hurt lots worse than that little bitty burn of Tad Coon’s. But he didn’t make nearly so much fuss about it. He didn’t like even the Woodsfolk to hear him. ’Specially when they were so sorry. And Watch just his sympathy, plain as words, and licked the sore spot for him.
Even that didn’t stop it from hurting. So Louie ran down to the pond and stuck it in the water. Then he picked a bulrush and squeezed the nice, soft, juicy end against it. Of course that interested Doctor Muskrat. He over to see what root Louie was using.
“Hey, Watch!” he said. “That poor boy has the right idea, but he’s got hold of the wrong root. Tell him to try this marigold. It’s fine.”
“Or dock,” suggested Nibble Rabbit. Dock is a favourite remedy in a rabbit hole.
“No, leeks,” suggested Tad Coon. He didn’t mean to rub them on, but to eat them. They’re little wild onions, and they taste so good to Tad he forgets about everything else when he’s eating them. But there weren’t any by the pond.
“I can’t talk to him,” Watch. “Anyway, the best thing is that blue mud you put on Tad’s nose. Where do you find it?”
“Right in the bank here,” said Doctor Muskrat, giving a scratch with his paw to show him. And Louie didn’t need any more telling. He knew about that mud himself—his mother had put some on a bee-sting. So he out a good handful and slapped it on his bite. Then he did feel better. He felt well enough to remember that he was so sleepy he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
Over by his tent there were just as many beetles as ever, buzzing over his lantern. They were still fighting it, and the little were still them. They couldn’t eat another one, but they thought it was fun to jump up and bat them. But Louie could see they’d never in the world catch them all. The only thing for him to do was to turn out his light and then the rest of the bad buzzwings would go back to the marsh where they belonged. “Pouff!” My, how dark everything was!
“Oh-h!” sighed Tad Coon in a sorry voice; “he killed it! What did he do that for? It bit me, all right, but I didn’t want it killed. And the buzzwing was the one who bit him. I saw it.” You see he thought the flame was alive.
“It’s only gone dark,” Watch comforted him. “It does that quite often, like the fireflies over in the marsh do when they fold their wings. But it always shines when he wants it to unless he forgets to feed it.” You know a lantern won’t burn if it hasn’t any oil. Watch knew that much, but he was really most as puzzled as Tad.
Inside his blanket tent Louie was already fast asleep.
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