XXII
ONE OF TWINKLY’S NEIGHBORS
Twinkly Eyes had roamed to quite another part of the woods when the twilight stillness was pierced by a sudden screech from up on Mount Olaf.
Mammy Cottontail’s timid heart quailed within her. Mother Red Squirrel could scarce be blamed for all but dropping from her limb; and even Father Red Fox looked anxious at the thought of the red-brown pups in the rocky den on the hill-top.
Far down at the Valley Farm, “Lynx!” whispered the Boy, wide-eyed, “Hope he isn’t coming down to make trouble for our wood folks. He’s mighty fond of baby bunnies.”
Away up almost at the top of Mount Olaf a great cat, three times as heavy as barnyard Tamas, was creeping, creeping, creeping along through the underbrush, on great furry feet that made no sound.
His broad ears bore little tufts at their tips, his jowls were squared off with the most ferocious-looking whiskers, and his thick tail was no more than a stub.
“Children,” quavered Mammy Cottontail, “That was a lynx! Now, I want to tell you something, and I want you to listen with all your ears, because it is very, very serious!
“Old man Lynx and his family live up on that mountain top, and while they don’t come down this far once in a coon’s age, we’ve got to be prepared! Because it would be a terrible thing if they did! Terrible for us, and terrible for everyone we know!
“I’ll tell you why he screeched that way! It was to scare timid folks like us, so that we’d jump and betray our whereabouts. Yes’m, that’s exactly what he screeched for! To make us jump!
“Because, you see, when Mother Nature invented little brown bunnies and grouse hens and muskrats and all the rest of us forest folk, she knew exactly what she was about. And she gave us our brown coats so that we’d match the ground, and couldn’t be seen by the big prowling creatures that are always trying to have rabbit and grouse for dinner. And just so long as we keep as still as field mice, we stand a fighting chance of not being seen.
“But Old Man Lynx knows this as well as we do. He knows that when he goes hunting o’nights, none but the foolish will be stirring a hair’s breadth from their own warm beds. And if there are no foolish ones that he can sneak up on, with his great padded paws that tip-toe so silently through the underbrush, he screams in the hope that it will startle some of us so dreadfully that we will forget to keep still, and jump.”
“It’s enough to make any one jump out of his skin,” said Daddy.
“But that’s exactly what the Old Man figures on. And if you can’t control your nerves any better than to jump when he screeches, he can see exactly where you are! If he’s anywhere near, that is! Well, you children had better go to sleep now. But just you remember this: Lie still when you hear him scream, and ten to one he’ll never know where you are.”
“Yes, Mammy,” whispered six timid little voices.