The Tale of Benny Badger Part 6

Benny Badger couldn't help thinking that Mr. Fox was a very kind person.

And he went away feeling that it was very fine to have a friend like him.

But after a while he began to wonder if he wasn't mistaken; for he happened to remember that Mr. Fox hadn't said a single word about letting him know when he had found the nest with the thirteen eggs in it.

XIII

DON'T DO THAT!

Benny Badger turned in his tracks and went straight back to the place where he had left Mr. Fox.

But Mr. Fox was nowhere to be seen.

So Benny began asking everybody he met if he had caught a glimpse of Mr.

Fox that night. First he asked a white-footed deer mouse, who pointed behind him and said that he had just seen Mr. Fox "over there." Then Benny put his question to a frightened prairie dog, who claimed that he had noticed Mr. Fox "over there," as he pointed in a direction exactly opposite. And still another reported that he had noticed Mr. Fox in an entirely different place.

"That's odd!" Benny Badger said to himself. "How can he be in three places at once?" And since he could not answer that question, he decided to look in none of those three directions, but to try a fourth, because he felt sure that none of the three could be the right one. And besides, if Mr. Fox had really been where he was said to have been seen, he was such a roving fellow that he would have moved on.

Well, where he looked next, Benny found Mr. Fox.

"What luck?" Benny asked that wily gentleman once more.

Mr. Fox replied somewhat stiffly that he had nothing to say.

"What's that on your mouth?" Benny Badger demanded suddenly.

Mr. Fox hastily rubbed his paw across his mouth.

"It can't be egg," he blurted.

"_Egg!_" Benny Badger shouted. "I hadn't mentioned _egg_! But now that _you_ mention _egg_, perhaps that's it."

Mr. Fox looked most ill at ease. But he made no reply.

"What's that clinging to your shoulder?" asked Benny Badger abruptly.

"It can't be a feather," said Mr. Fox, nervously brushing off his shoulder as he spoke.

"A feather!" Benny Badger exclaimed. "I've said nothing about a _feather_! But now that you speak of it, Mr. Fox, perhaps that's it."

Mr. Fox looked very, very uncomfortable. And he murmured something about "having to be on his way."

"Wait a moment!" said Benny, as Mr. Fox turned aside. "What's that on the back of your neck?"

Mr. Fox tried in vain to look at the back of his own neck.

"It can't be----" he began.

But before he could finish, Benny Badger interrupted him.

"Yes, it is!" he cried. "It's my teeth!"

And so saying, he seized Mr. Fox on the back of his neck and began to drag him over the gra.s.s.

It became clear, at once, that Mr. Fox did not enjoy the sport.

"Don't do that, friend!" he begged. "What are you trying to do, anyhow?"

"I'm trying to rub the egg off your mouth," Benny Badger explained.

"Please don't trouble yourself," said Mr. Fox.

Then Benny began to shake him.

"Don't do that, friend!" said Mr. Fox again. "What are you trying to do?"

"I'm only trying to shake the feather off you," Benny told him.

"Don't trouble yourself," said Mr. Fox. "If you'll take those teeth off my neck, that's all I'll ask of you."

"Not yet!" Benny Badger replied grimly. "You're a robber. And I'm going to teach you a lesson. . . . You _will_ rob birds' nests, will you?"

To his great surprise, Mr. Fox began to laugh.

"Why, you'd rob them yourself if you weren't so clumsy!" he cried.

"You're really no better than I am."

Benny Badger hadn't thought of that. And the idea surprised him so much that his mouth fell open. And of course Mr. Fox at once leaped aside and ran off.

XIV

A QUEER DISCOVERY

No one would ever have called Benny Badger a great traveller. He was altogether too heavy to roam far from home upon his short legs. So it often happened that he did not know all that went on in the neighborhood.

Of course, his watchful eyes took in almost everything that was in sight of his den. But as for what was taking place just beyond the next rise, that was an entirely different matter. Unless somebody chanced to stop and gossip with Benny, sometimes several days would pa.s.s before he knew what his neighbors were doing.

Luckily, Benny Badger kept his ears open, when he was awake.

And often he kept them half-open when he lay half-asleep, stretched out in the gra.s.s not too far from his den, enjoying a sun-bath.