"I guess you"re glad I have sharp eyes," he said, as they hurried along.
"If the tracks are as big as you say they are, your eyes wouldn"t have to be very sharp to see them," his mother told him. Mrs. c.o.o.n never liked to hear her children boast. She knew that boasting is one of the most unpleasant things anyone can do.
"Well--maybe you don"t think I saw the monster"s tracks at all," said Fatty. "Maybe you don"t think I heard him screech--"
"When did you hear him screech?" Mrs. c.o.o.n asked. "This is the first you"ve said about SCREECHING. When was it?"
"Last summer," Fatty answered.
Mrs. c.o.o.n didn"t smile. Perhaps she was too worried for that.
"It may not be the same monster," she said. "It may not be a monster at all."
But by this time Fatty was sure he was right. He was sure he knew more than his mother.
"Why can"t we go right over to Farmer Green"s and take some of his chickens?" he asked. "The monster has probably eaten him by this time, and all his family, too."
But Mrs. c.o.o.n would do no such thing.
"Show me the tracks," she said firmly. And so they went on into the woods.
"There they are!" Fatty cried, a few minutes later. "See, Mother!
They"re even bigger than I said." He heard a funny noise behind him, then. And when Fatty c.o.o.n looked around he saw that his mother was actually holding her sides, she was laughing so hard.
"Those are Farmer Green"s tracks," she said, as soon as she could stop laughing long enough to speak.
"What--as big as that?" Fatty pointed at the huge prints in the snow.
"Snowshoes!" Mrs. c.o.o.n said. "He was wearing snowshoes--great frames made of thongs and sticks, to keep him from sinking into the snow."
So that was all there was to Fatty"s monster. Somehow, he was disappointed. But he was very glad he had said nothing to Jasper Jay about his strange animal. For if he had, he knew he would never have heard the last of it.
And Fatty was glad about another thing, too. He felt very happy that his mother had not let him go after Farmer Green"s chickens.
THE END