Well, maybe Fuzzies were naturally gregarious, and were homemakers—­den-holes, or nests, or something like that.  Nobody wants messes made in the house, and when the young ones did it, their parents would bang them around to teach them better manners.  This was Little Fuzzy’s home now; he knew how he ought to behave in it.

* * * * *

The next morning at daylight, he was up on the bed, trying to dig Pappy Jack out from under the blankets.  Besides being a most efficient land-prawn eradicator, he made a first rate alarm clock.  But best of all, he was Pappy Jack’s Little Fuzzy.  He wanted out; this time Jack took his movie camera and got the whole operation on film.  One thing, there’d have to be a little door, with a spring to hold it shut, that little Fuzzy could operate himself.  That was designed during breakfast.  It only took a couple of hours to make and install it; Little Fuzzy got the idea as soon as he saw it, and figured out how to work it for himself.

Jack went back to the workshop, built a fire on the hand forge and forged a pointed and rather broad blade, four inches long, on the end of a foot of quarter-inch round tool-steel.  It was too point-heavy when finished, so he welded a knob on the other end to balance it.  Little Fuzzy knew what that was for right away; running outside, he dug a couple of practice holes with it, and then began casting about in the grass for land-prawns.

Jack followed him with the camera and got movies of a couple of prawn killings, accomplished with smooth, by-the-numbers precision.  Little Fuzzy hadn’t learned that chop-clap-clap routine in the week since he had found the wood chisel.

Going into the shed, he hunted for something without more than a general idea of what it would look like, and found it where Little Fuzzy had discarded it when he found the chisel.  It was a stock of hardwood a foot long, rubbed down and polished smooth, apparently with sandstone.  There was a paddle at one end, with enough of an edge to behead a prawn, and the other end had been worked to a point.  He took it into the living hut and sat down at the desk to examine it with a magnifying glass.  Bits of soil embedded in the sharp end—­that had been used as a pick.  The paddle end had been used as a shovel, beheader and shell-cracker.  Little Fuzzy had known exactly what he wanted when he’d started making that thing, he’d kept on until it was as perfect as possible, and had stopped short of spoiling it by overrefinement.

Finally, Jack put it away in the top drawer of the desk.  He was thinking about what to get for lunch when Little Fuzzy burst into the living room, clutching his new weapon and yeeking excitedly.

“What’s the matter, kid?  You got troubles?” He rose and went to the gunrack, picking down a rifle and checking the chamber.  “Show Pappy Jack what it is.”

Little Fuzzy followed him to the big door for human-type people, ready to bolt back inside if necessary.