So Solomon Owl felt most uncomfortable.
"I don"t know what I can do," he said. "I spoke to the stranger-asked him who he was. And he wouldn"t answer me."
"Can"t you frighten him away?" Tommy Fox inquired. "Fly right over his head and give him a blow with your wing as you pa.s.s!"
Solomon Owl coughed. He was embarra.s.sed, to say the least.
"He"s afraid!" Fatty c.o.o.n cried. And both he and Tommy Fox kept repeating, over and over again, "He"s afraid! He"s afraid! He"s afraid!"
It was really more than Solomon Owl could stand.
"I"m not!" he retorted angrily. "Watch me and you"ll see!" And without another word he darted out of the tree and swooped down upon the stranger, just brushing the top of his head. Solomon Owl knew at once that he had knocked something off the top of that dreadful head-something that fell to the ground and made Jimmy Rabbit jump nervously.
Then Solomon returned to his perch in the tree.
"He hasn"t moved," he said. "But I knocked off his hat."
"You took off the top of his head!" cried Fatty c.o.o.n in great excitement.
"Look! The inside of his head is afire."
And peering down from the tree-top, Solomon Owl saw that Fatty c.o.o.n had told the truth.
IX HALLOWE"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 c.o.o.n 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 c.o.o.n, 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 c.o.o.n.
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 Fox bounding off across the meadow Jimmy had started at once for Farmer Green"s vegetable garden.
So Solomon Owl was the last to leave.
"There"s really nothing else I can do," he remarked to himself. "I don"t know what Aunt Polly Woodchuck would say if she knew that I didn"t follow her advice to-night and eat a pullet for my supper.... But I"ve tried my best.... And that"s all anybody can do."
Solomon Owl was upset all the rest of that night. And just before daybreak he visited the farmyard again, to see whether the strange man with the flaring head still watched the chicken house. And Solomon found that he had vanished.
So Solomon Owl alighted on the fence. There was nothing there except a hollowed-out pumpkin, with a few holes cut in it, which someone had left on one of the fence-posts.
"Good!" said he. "Maybe I can get my pullet after all!" He turned to fly to the chicken house. But just then the woodshed door opened again. And Farmer Green stepped outside, with a lantern in his hand. He was going to the barn to milk the cows. But Solomon Owl did not wait to learn anything more.
He hurried away to his house among the hemlocks. And having quickly settled himself for a good nap, he was soon fast asleep.
That was how Johnnie Green"s jack-o"-lantern kept Tommy Fox and Fatty c.o.o.n and Solomon Owl from taking any chickens on Hallowe"en.
X A TROUBLESOME WISHBONE
Solomon Owl had pains-sharp pains-underneath his waistcoat. And not knowing what else to do, he set off at once for Aunt Polly Woodchuck"s house under the hill, in the pasture, which he had not visited since the previous fall. Luckily, he found the old lady at home. And quickly he told her of his trouble.
"What have you been eating?" she inquired.
"I"ve followed your advice. I"ve been eating chickens," said he-"very small chickens, because they were all I could get."
Aunt Polly Woodchuck, who was an herb doctor-and a good one-regarded him through her spectacles.
"I"m afraid," said she, "you don"t chew your food properly. Bolting one"s food is very harmful. It"s as bad as not eating anything at all, almost."
Solomon Owl showed plainly that her remark surprised him.
"Why," he exclaimed, "I always swallow my food whole-when it isn"t too big!"
"Gracious me!" cried Aunt Polly, throwing up both her hands. "It"s no wonder you"re ill. It"s no wonder you have pains; and now I know exactly what"s the matter with you. You have a wishbone inside you. I can feel it!" she told him, as she prodded him in the waistcoat.
"I wish you could get it out for me!" said Solomon with a look of distress.
"All the wishing in the world won"t help you," she answered, "unless we can find some way of removing the wishbone so you can wish on that. Then I"m sure you would feel better at once."