THE STORY...

CHAPTER II

Just then an idea came to Ticklish Tommy’s mind. "Perhaps it is a special kind of cow, and maybe, just maybe, it gives milk!" he thought aloud to himself. He knew a little about cows, because his Uncle Terrific Tad had some in his barn. Ticklish Tommy had gone with his Patriarchal Papa several times, to visit Uncle Terrific Tad when he was milking his cows.

He used to go to the barn at chore time with his dairyman Uncle every chance he got. Sometimes he would stand behind a cow, off to the side a little, as his Uncle milked it. And at times like that, Uncle Terrific Tad liked to tease Ticklish Tommy, by squirting him with a stream of warm white milk, while Uncle was milking his best cow.

Now this brought out the giggles and laughs in Ticklish Tommy all over again. That’s how he got his special name. Remember?

“And do you know what?” Tommy asked, as he was telling Hilarious Hank about it later, “that milk was warm and delicious – the BEST milk I ever tasted!” And so Ticklish Tommy mused about Whistletypuff, and wondered if it could be a cow!

"Or…," he thought quizzically, as his mind began to wander away from the farm, "do you suppose it is a very old and very big dinosaur that lived long ago and far away?" Dinosaurs were especially intriguing to Ticklish Tommy. He liked to read about them and see pictures of them.

Certainly they were some of the most marvelous creatures that God had ever made. They were just amazing! And when Ticklish Tommy started thinking about dinosaurs, he would burst out giggling and laughing!

Dinosaurs were long, and had very powerful tails. Ticklish Tommy understood that they could move their tails in an amazing circular motion, and take down a whole row of big trees in one swipe! Could Whistletypuff be like them, big and fantastically powerful?

But he didn’t ask Magnificent Mama and Patriarchal Papa about that. He didn’t want them to think he was smack-dab in the middle of a dream, a day-dream, that is. So he thought, and he THOUGHT , and he T-H-O-U-G-H-T some more!

"You know,” he said to himself, “maybe Whistletypuff is a tiny little worm, a wiggly little bright green worm, living in the sand on the beach." Ticklish Tommy thought again. "Maybe, just maybe, it is very hard to see it without a magnifying glass!" “Do you suppose that Whistletypuff COULD be a worm?”

Ticklish Tommy knew that worms come in all sorts of sizes. “And they have different colors, too,” he thought. Some are long, and some are short. Some seem to glide along effortlessly, while others arch up and down, like a roller coaster. Some are a peculiar reddish brown, but others are orange, with some black on them, and some of them are even green!

“Some are used for fishing,” he said aloud to himself. “I wish I could go fishing, right now!” But no,” Ticklish Tommy said as he came back to the reality of finding out what Whistletypuff is. “That’s much too important to let the trail go cold while I go fishing!”