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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mother West Wind "Where" Stories, by Thornton
+W. Burgess, Illustrated by Harrison Cady
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Mother West Wind "Where" Stories
+
+
+Author: Thornton W. Burgess
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 7, 2005  [eBook #17250]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTHER WEST WIND "WHERE" STORIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Janet Blenkinship, Brian Sogard, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 17250-h.htm or 17250-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/2/5/17250/17250-h/17250-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/2/5/17250/17250-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER WEST WIND "WHERE" STORIES
+
+by
+
+THORNTON W. BURGESS
+
+Illustrations by Harrison Cady
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Then there was a crash, and everybody's eyes flew open."
+FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 243._]
+
+Burgess Trade Quaddies Mark
+
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers     New York
+By arrangement with Little, Brown, and Company
+Copyright, 1918,
+by Thornton W. Burgess.
+All rights reserved
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                   PAGE
+
+    I.  WHERE GRANDFATHER FROG GOT
+        HIS BIG MOUTH                                          1
+
+   II.  WHERE MISER THE TRADE RAT
+        FIRST SET UP SHOP                                     17
+
+  III.  WHERE YAP-YAP THE PRAIRIE DOG
+        USED HIS WITS                                         31
+
+   IV.  WHERE YELLOW-WING GOT HIS
+        LIKING FOR THE GROUND                                 47
+
+    V.  WHERE LITTLE CHIEF LEARNED TO MAKE HAY                61
+
+   VI.  WHERE GLUTTON THE WOLVERINE GOT HIS NAME              77
+
+  VII.  WHERE OLD MRS. 'GATOR MADE
+        THE FIRST INCUBATOR                                   91
+
+ VIII.  WHERE MR. QUACK GOT HIS
+        WEBBED FEET                                          107
+
+   IX.  WHERE THUNDERFOOT THE BISON
+        GOT HIS HUMP                                         123
+
+    X.  WHERE LIMBERHEELS GOT HIS
+        LONG TAIL                                            139
+
+   XI.  WHERE OLD MR. GOBBLER GOT THE
+        STRUTTING HABIT                                      155
+
+  XII.  WHERE SEEK-SEEK GOT HIS
+        PRETTY COAT                                          169
+
+  XIII. WHERE OLD MR. OSPREY LEARNED
+        TO FISH                                              185
+
+  XIV.  WHERE OLD MR. BOB-CAT LEFT HIS
+        HONOR                                                199
+
+   XV.  WHERE DIPPY THE LOON GOT THE
+        NAME OF BEING CRAZY                                  213
+
+  XVI.  WHERE BIG-HORN GOT HIS CURVED
+        HORNS                                                229
+
+
+
+
+     LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                             PAGE
+
+  "THEN THERE WAS A CRASH, AND EVERYBODY'S
+   EYES FLEW OPEN"                                      _FRONTISPIECE_
+
+  "LITTLE CHIEF'S FATHER TAUGHT HIM HOW
+   TO MAKE HAY"                                               74
+
+   PETER NOTICED THOSE FEET THE FIRST TIME
+   HE MET MR. AND MRS. QUACK                                 122
+
+  "DON'T CALL ME STRIPED CHIPMUNK, AND
+   DON'T CALL ME GOPHER!" SAID HE                            170
+
+
+
+
+MOTHER WEST WIND "WHERE" STORIES
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+WHERE GRANDFATHER FROG GOT HIS BIG MOUTH
+
+
+Everybody knows that Grandfather Frog has a big mouth. Of course! It
+wouldn't be possible to look him straight in the face and not know that
+he has a big mouth. In fact, about all you see when you look Grandfather
+Frog full in the face are his great big mouth and two great big goggly
+eyes. He seems then to be all mouth and eyes.
+
+Anyway, that is what Peter Rabbit says. Peter never will forget the
+first time he saw Grandfather Frog. Peter was very young then. He had
+run away from home to see the Great World, and in the course of his
+wanderings he came to the Smiling Pool. Never before had he seen so much
+water. The most water he had ever seen before was a little puddle in the
+Lone Little Path. So when Peter, who was only half grown then, hopped
+out on the bank of the Smiling Pool and saw it dimpling and smiling in
+the sunshine, he thought it the most wonderful thing he ever had seen.
+The truth is that in those days Peter was in the habit of thinking
+everything he saw for the first time the most wonderful thing yet, and
+as he was continually seeing new things, and as his eyes always nearly
+popped out of his head whenever he saw something new, it is a wonder
+that he didn't become pop-eyed.
+
+Peter stared and stared at the Smiling Pool, and little by little he
+began to see other things. First he noticed the bulrushes growing with
+their feet in the water. They looked to him like giant grass, and he
+began to be a little fearful lest this should prove to be a sort of
+magic place--a place of giants. Then he noticed the lily-pads, and he
+stared very hard at these. They looked like growing things, and yet they
+seemed to be floating right on top of the water. It wasn't until a Merry
+Little Breeze came along and turned the edge of one up so that Peter saw
+the long stem running down in the water out of sight, that he was able
+to understand how those lily-pads could be growing there. He was still
+staring at those lily-pads when a great deep voice said:
+
+"Chug-a-rum! Chug-a-rum! Don't you know it isn't polite to stare at
+people?"
+
+That voice was so unexpected and so deep that Peter was startled. He
+jumped, started to run, then stopped. He wanted to run, but curiosity
+wouldn't let him. He simply couldn't run away until he had found out
+where that voice came from and to whom it belonged. It seemed to Peter
+that it had come from right out of the Smiling Pool, but look as he
+would, he couldn't see any one there.
+
+"If you please," said Peter timidly, "I'm not staring at anybody." All
+the time he was staring down into the Smiling Pool with eyes fairly
+popping out of his head.
+
+"Chug-a-rum! Have a care, young fellow! Have a care how you talk to your
+elders. Do you mean to be impudent enough to tell me to my face that I
+am not anybody?" The voice was deeper and gruffer than ever, and it made
+Peter more uncomfortable than ever.
+
+"Oh, no, Sir! No, indeed!" exclaimed Peter. "I don't mean anything of
+the kind. I--I--well, if you please, Sir, I don't see you at all, so how
+can I be staring at you? I'm sure from the sound of your voice that you
+must be somebody very important. Please excuse me for seeming to stare.
+I was just looking for you, that is all."
+
+A little movement in the water close to a big green lily-pad caught
+Peter's eyes, and then out on the big green lily-pad climbed Grandfather
+Frog. If Peter had stared before he doubly stared now, eyes and mouth
+wide open. Grandfather Frog was looking his very best in his handsome
+green coat and white-and-yellow waistcoat. But Peter had hardly noticed
+these at all.
+
+"Why, you're all mouth!" he exclaimed, and then looked very much ashamed
+of his impoliteness.
+
+Grandfather Frog's great goggly eyes twinkled. He knew that Peter was
+very young and innocent and just starting out in the Great World. He
+knew that Peter didn't intend to be impolite.
+
+"Not quite," said he good-naturedly. "Not quite all mouth, though I must
+admit that it is of good size. The fact is, I wouldn't have it a bit
+smaller if I could. If it were any smaller, I should miss many a good
+meal, and if I were forced to do that, I am afraid I should be very
+ill-tempered indeed. The truth is, I am very proud of my big mouth. I
+don't know of any one who has a bigger one for their size."
+
+He opened his mouth wide, and it seemed to Peter that Grandfather
+Frog's whole head simply split in halves. He hadn't supposed anybody in
+all the Great World possessed such a mouth.
+
+"Where did you get it?" gasped Peter, and then felt that he had asked a
+very foolish question.
+
+Grandfather Frog chuckled. "I got it from my father, and he got his from
+his father, and so on, way back to the days when the world was young and
+the Frogs ruled the world," said he. "Would you like to hear about it?"
+
+"I'd love to!" cried Peter. So he settled himself comfortably on the
+bank of the Smiling Pool for the first of many, many stories he was to
+hear from Grandfather Frog.
+
+"Chug-a-rum!" began Grandfather Frog. You know he always begins a story
+that way. "Chug-a-rum! Once upon a time the Great World was mostly
+water, and most of the people lived in the water. It was in those days
+that my great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather lived. Those were happy
+days for the Frogs. Yes, indeed, those were happy days for the Frogs. Of
+course they had enemies, but those enemies were all in the water. They
+didn't have to be watching out for danger from the air and from the
+land, as I do now. There was plenty to eat and little to do, and the
+Frog tribe increased very fast. In fact, the Frogs increased so fast
+that after a while there wasn't plenty to eat. That is, there wasn't
+plenty of the kind of food they had been used to, which was mostly water
+plants, and water bugs and such things.
+
+"Of course there were many fish, and these also increased very fast,
+and the big fish ate the Frogs whenever they could catch them, just as
+they do to this day. The big fish also ate the little fish, and it
+wasn't long before the Frogs and the little fish took to living where
+the water was not deep enough for the big fish to swim, and this made it
+all the harder to get enough to eat. The mouths of the Frogs in those
+days were not big. In fact, they were quite small. You see, living on
+the kind of food they did, they had no need of big mouths.
+
+"One day as a Great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather Frog sat with just
+his head out of water, wondering what it would seem like to have his
+stomach really filled, a school of little fish came swimming about him,
+and it popped into his head that if little fish were good for big fish
+to eat, they might be good for a Frog to eat. So he caught the first
+one that came within reach, and he found it was good to eat. He liked it
+so well that after that he caught fish whenever he could. Of course he
+swallowed them whole. He had to, because he had no chewing or biting
+teeth.
+
+"Now the Frogs always have been famous for their appetites, and
+Great-grandfather Frog found that it took a great many of these teeny
+weeny fish to make a comfortable meal. He was thinking of this one day
+when a larger fish came within reach, and almost without realizing what
+he was doing Great-grandfather snapped at and caught him. He caught the
+fish by the tail and at once began to swallow it, which, of course, was
+no way to swallow a fish. But Great-grandfather Frog had much to learn
+in those day, and so he tried to swallow that fish tail first instead
+of head first. He got the tail down and the smallest part of the body,
+and then that fish stuck. Yes, Sir, that fish stuck. The fact was,
+Great-grandfather Frog's mouth wasn't wide enough. It was bad enough not
+to be able to swallow all of that fish, but what was worse was the
+discovery that he couldn't get up again what he had swallowed. That fish
+was stuck! It would go neither down nor up.
+
+"Poor Great-grandfather Frog was in a terrible fix. Big tears rolled
+down his cheeks. He choked and choked and choked, until it looked very
+much as if he might choke to death. Just in time, in the very nick of
+time, who should come along but Old Mother Nature. She saw right away
+what the trouble was, and she pulled out the fish. Then she asked how
+that fish had happened to be in such a place as Great-grandfather Frog's
+mouth. When he could get his breath, he told her all about it--how food
+had been getting scarce and how he had discovered that fish were good to
+eat, and how he had make a mistake in catching a fish too big for his
+mouth. Old Mother Nature looked thoughtful. She saw the great numbers of
+young fish. Suddenly she reached over and put a finger in
+Great-grandfather Frog's mouth and stretched it sideways. Then she did
+the same thing to the other corner. Great-grandfather Frog's mouth was
+three times as big as it had been before.
+
+"'Now,' said she, 'I don't believe you'll have any more trouble, and I'm
+going to do the same thing for all the other Frogs.'
+
+"She did that very day, and from then on the Frogs no longer had any
+trouble in getting plenty to eat. So that is where I got my big mouth,
+and I tell you right now I wouldn't trade it for anything anybody else
+has got," concluded Grandfather Frog, as he snapped up a foolish green
+fly who came too near.
+
+"I think it is splendid, perfectly splendid," cried Peter. "I wish I had
+one just like it." And then he wondered why Grandfather Frog laughed so
+hard.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WHERE MISER THE TRADE RAT FIRST SET UP SHOP
+
+
+It was quite by accident that Peter Rabbit first heard of Miser the
+Trade Rat. You know how it is with Peter; he is forever using those big
+ears of his to learn interesting things. That is what ears are for; but
+there is a right way and a wrong way to use them, and I am afraid that
+Peter isn't always over-particular in this respect. I suspect, in fact I
+know, that Peter sometimes listens when he has no business to listen and
+knows he has no business to listen. Again he sometimes overhears things
+quite by accident when he cannot very well help hearing. It was in this
+way that he first heard of Miser the Trade Rat.
+
+Peter had crept into a hollow log in the Green Forest to rest and to
+feel absolutely safe while he was doing it. He had been there only a
+little while when he heard light footsteps outside and a moment later a
+voice which made him shiver a little in spite of himself and the
+knowledge that he was perfectly safe. The footsteps and the voice were
+Old Man Coyote's.
+
+Very carefully Peter peeped out. Old Man Coyote had sat down close by
+the log in which Peter was hiding. On a dead tree close at hand sat Ol'
+Mistah Buzzard, who had come up from way down south for the summer, and
+it was to him that Old Man Coyote was talking.
+
+"I was over by Farmer Brown's barn last night," said Old Man Coyote,
+"and I caught a glimpse of Robber the Brown Eat. What a disgrace he is
+to the whole Rat tribe! For that matter, he is a disgrace to all who
+live on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest. He isn't much like
+his cousin, Miser the Trade Rat."
+
+"Mah goodness! Do yo' know Miser?" exclaimed Ol' Mistah Buzzard.
+
+"Do I know Miser? I should say I do!" replied Old Man Coyote. "I've
+tried to catch him enough times to know him. He kept a junk shop very
+near where I used to live way out west. Do you know him, Mr. Buzzard?"
+
+"Ah cert'nly does," chuckled Ol' Mistah Buzzard. "Ah cert'nly does. Ah
+never did see such a busy fellow as he is. Ah done see his junk shop
+many times, and always it done be growin' bigger. Ah wonders, Brer Coyote,
+if yo' ever heard the story of his Great-great-ever-so-great-gran'-daddy,
+the first of the family, and how and where he started the business that's
+been kept in the family ever since."
+
+"No," said Old Man Coyote, "I never did, and I've wondered about it a
+great deal."
+
+Peter Rabbit almost forgot that he was hiding. He was so eager to hear
+that story that he was right on the point of speaking up and begging Ol'
+Mistah Buzzard to tell it when he remembered Old Man Coyote. Just in the
+nick of time he clapped a hand over his mouth. It seemed to Peter a
+long, long time before Old Man Coyote said:
+
+"I'd like to hear that story, Mr. Buzzard, if it isn't too much to ask
+of you."
+
+"Not at all, Brer Coyote; not at all. Ah'll be mor'n pleased to tell it
+to yo'. Ah cert'nly will," said Ol' Mistah Buzzard, and Peter settled
+himself comfortably to listen.
+
+"Yo' see it was this way," began Ol' Mistah Buzzard. "Ah got it from mah
+gran'daddy, and he got it from his gran'daddy, and his gran'daddy got it
+from--"
+
+"I know," interrupted Old Man Coyote. "It was handed down from your
+greatest-great-grandfather, who lived in the days when the world was
+young and what you are going to tell me about happened. Isn't that it?"
+
+"Yes, Suh," replied Ol' Mistah Buzzard. "Yes, Suh, that's it. Ol' Mother
+Nature treat 'em all alike in those days. She's a right smart busy
+person, and she ain't got no time fo' to answer foolish questions. No,
+Suh, she ain't. So, quick as she get a new kind of critter made, she
+turn him loose and tell him if he want to live he got to be right smart
+and find out for hisself how to do it. Ah reckons yo' know all about
+that, Brer Coyote."
+
+Old Man Coyote nodded, and Ol' Mistah Buzzard scratched his bald head
+gently as if trying to stir up his memory. Peter Rabbit almost squealed
+aloud in his impatience while he waited for Ol' Mistah Buzzard to go on.
+
+"When Ol' Mother Nature made Brer Trade Rat in the beginning and turned
+him loose in the Great World, he was just plain Mistah Rat and nothing
+more, same as his no 'count cousin, Robber the Brown Rat," continued Ol'
+Mistah Buzzard. "He had to win a name for hisself same as ev'ybody else.
+He had mighty sharp wits, had this Mistah Rat, and directly he found he
+had to shift for hisself he began to study and study and study what he
+gwine to do to live well and be happy. He watched his neighbors to see
+what they did, and it didn't take him long to find out that if he would
+be respected he must have a home. Those without homes were mostly no
+'count folks, same as they are today.
+
+"So Brer Rat made a nest close to the trunk of a tree on the edge of the
+Green Forest, a soft, warm nest, and in collectin' the stuff to make it
+of he learned the joy of bein' busy. Person'ly, yo' understand, Ah
+thinks he was all wrong. Ah never am so happy as when Ah can take a
+sun-bath with nothin' to do. But Brer Rat was never so happy as when he
+was busy, and when he got that li'l nest finished time began to hang
+heavy on his hands. Yes, Suh, it cert'nly did. Just because he didn't
+have anything else to do he began to add a little more to his house. One
+day he stepped on a thorn. 'Ouch!' cried Brer Rat, and then right away
+forgot the pain in a new idea. He would cover his house with thorns,
+leavin' just a little secret entrance for hisself! Then he would be
+safe, wholly safe from his big neighbors, some of whom had begun to look
+at him with such a hungry look in their eyes that they made him right
+smart uncomfortable. So he spent his time, did Brer Rat, in huntin' for
+the longest and sharpest thorns and in cuttin' the branches on which
+they grew. These he carried to his house and piled them around it and on
+it until it had become a great pile with sharp thorns stickin' out in
+every direction, and the hungriest of the big people of the forest
+passed it at a respectful distance.
+
+"When Brer Rat had all the thorns he needed and more, he began to
+collect other things and added these to his pile. Yo' see, he had found
+that it was great fun to collect things; to find the queerest things he
+could and bring them home and look at them and wonder about them. So
+little by little his house became a sort of junk shop, the very first
+one in all the Great World. Bright stones and shells, bones, anything
+that caught his bright eyes and pleased them, he brought home. When he
+was tired of huntin' fo' food or more strange things he would sit and
+gloat over his treasures and play with them. And then the first thing he
+knew he had a name. Yes, Suh, he had a name. He was called Miser.
+
+"Of course Brer Miser hadn't lived ve'y long befo' he found out that
+one law of the Great World was that things belonged to whoever could get
+them and keep them. He saw that some thought themselves ve'y smart when
+they stole from their neighbors. Brer Miser didn't like this at all. He
+was ve'y, ye'y honest, was Brer Miser. Perhaps he wasn't really much
+tempted, not fo' a long time anyway.
+
+"But at last came a time when he was tempted. Quite by accident he found
+one of Mr. Squirrel's storehouses. In it were some nuts different from
+any he ever had seen befo'. 'Brer Squirrel won't mind if Ah taste just
+one,' said he, and did it. It tasted good; it tasted ve'y good indeed.
+Brer Miser began to wish he had some nuts like those. When he got home
+he couldn't think of anything but how good those nuts tasted. He knew
+that all he had to do was to watch until Brer Squirrel was away and
+then go he'p hisself. He knew that was just what any of his neighbors
+would do in his place. But Brer Miser couldn't make it seem just right
+any way he looked at it. He was too honest, was Brer Miser, to do
+anything like that.
+
+"He was sitting staring at his treasures but thinking about those nuts
+when an idea popped into his head, an idea that made him smile until Ah
+reckons he most split his cheeks. 'Ah knows what Ah'll do,' said he.
+'Ah'll just he'p mahself to some of those nuts and Ah'll leave something
+of mine in place of them. That's what Ah'll do.'
+
+"And that's what he did do. He picked out a bright shell of which he was
+very fond and he left it in Brer Squirrel's storehouse to pay fo' the
+nuts that he took. After that he always helped himself to anything he
+wanted, but he always left something to pay fo' it. It wasn't long befo'
+his neighbors found out what he was doing, and then they called him
+Miser the Trade Rat. Whenever anybody found something he didn't want
+hisself, he took it to the little junk shop of Miser the Trade Rat and
+traded it fo' something else, or left it where Miser would find it,
+knowing that Miser would leave something in its place.
+
+"And it's been just so with Miser's family ever since. There is one Rat
+who is a credit to his family instead of a disgrace," concluded Ol'
+Mistah Buzzard.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+WHERE YAP-YAP THE PRAIRIE DOG USED HIS WITS
+
+
+Peter Rabbit had just had a great fright. He is used to having great
+frights, but this time it was a different kind of a fright. It was not
+for himself that he had been afraid but for one of his old friends and
+neighbors. Now that it was over, Peter drew a little breath of sheer
+relief.
+
+You see it was this way: Peter had started over for a call on Johnny
+Chuck. When he reached Johnny Chuck's house he found no one at home. At
+first he thought he would go look for Johnny, for he knew that Johnny
+must be somewhere near, as he never goes far from his own doorstep. Then
+he changed his mind and decided to wait for Johnny to return. So he
+stretched himself out in some tall grass beside Johnny Chuck's house,
+intending to jump out and give Johnny a scare when he came home. Hardly
+had he settled himself when he heard Johnny coming, and he knew by the
+sounds that Johnny was running from some danger.
+
+Very, very carefully Peter raised his head to see. Then he ducked it
+again and held his breath. Johnny Chuck was running as Peter never had
+seen him run before and with very good reason. Just a few jumps behind
+Johnny's twinkling little black heels was Old Man Coyote. It looked to
+Peter as if Old Man Coyote certainly would catch Johnny Chuck this time.
+He was so frightened for Johnny that he quite forgot that he himself
+might be in danger. Head first through his doorway plunged Johnny, and
+Old Man Coyote's teeth snapped together on nothing.
+
+Old Man Coyote backed away a few steps and sat down with his head on one
+side as he studied Johnny Chuck's house in the ground. It was plain to
+be seen that he was trying to make up his mind whether it would be worth
+while to try to dig Johnny out. Presently Johnny came half-way up his
+long hall where he could look out. Then he began to scold Old Man
+Coyote. Old Man Coyote grinned.
+
+"I give up, Johnny Chuck," said he. "You did well when you made your
+home between the roots of this old tree. If it wasn't for those roots,
+I certainly would dig you out. As it is you are safe. You remind me very
+much of your cousin, Yap-Yap the Prairie Dog, who lives out where I came
+from. There's a fellow who certainly knows how to make a house in the
+ground. He doesn't have to depend on the roots of trees to keep from
+being dug out. Well, I guess it is a waste of time to hang around here.
+You'll make just as good a dinner some other time as you would now, so
+I'll wait until then." Old Man Coyote grinned wickedly and trotted off.
+
+Now at the mention of Yap-Yap the Prairie Dog, the long ears of Peter
+Rabbit had pricked up at once. It was the first time he had heard of
+Yap-Yap, and when at last Johnny Chuck ventured out Peter was as full of
+questions as a pea-pod is of peas. But Johnny Chuck knew nothing about
+his cousin, Yap-Yap, and wasn't even interested in him. So finally Peter
+left him and went back home to the dear Old Briar-patch. But he couldn't
+get Yap-Yap out of his mind, and he resolved that the first chance he
+got he would ask Old Man Coyote about him. The chance came that very
+night. Old Man Coyote came along by the dear Old Briar-patch and stopped
+to peer in and grin at Peter. Peter grinned back, for he knew that under
+those friendly brambles he was quite safe.
+
+"I heard what you said to Johnny Chuck about his cousin, Yap-Yap," said
+Peter.
+
+Old Man Coyote looked as surprised as he felt. "Where were you?" he
+demanded gruffly.
+
+"Lying flat in the grass close by Johnny Chuck's house," replied Peter,
+and grinned more broadly than ever.
+
+"And to think I didn't know it!" sighed Old Man Coyote. "When I failed
+to catch Johnny Chuck, I thought I had missed only one dinner, but it
+seems I missed two. Next time I shall look around a little more sharply.
+Do you know, the sight of Johnny Chuck always makes me homesick, he
+reminds me so much of his cousin, Yap-Yap, and the days when I was
+young."
+
+"I didn't know that Johnny Chuck had a cousin until you mentioned it,"
+said Peter. "Does he look like Johnny? Won't you tell me about him, Mr.
+Coyote?"
+
+"Seeing that I haven't anything in particular to do, I don't know but I
+will," replied Old Man Coyote, who happened to be feeling very
+good-natured. "Many and many a time I have chased Yap-Yap into his
+house. Seems as if I can hear the rascal scolding me and calling me
+names right this minute. He used to get me so provoked that it was all I
+could do to keep from trying to dig him out."
+
+"Why didn't you?" asked Peter.
+
+"Because it would have meant a waste of time, sore feet, and nothing to
+show for my trouble," retorted Old Man Coyote. "Yap-Yap never has
+forgotten what his great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather learned when he
+first took to living on the open prairie."
+
+"What did he learn? Tell me about it, Mr. Coyote," begged Peter.
+
+"He learned to use his wits," replied Old Man Coyote, with a provoking
+grin. "He learned to use his wits, that's all."
+
+"Please tell me about it, Mr. Coyote. Please," begged Peter.
+
+"Once upon a time," began Old Man Coyote, "so my grandfather told me,
+and he got it from his grandfather, who got it from his grandfather,
+who--"
+
+"I know," interrupted Peter. "It happened in the days when the world was
+young."
+
+Old Man Coyote looked at Peter very hard as if he had half a mind not to
+tell the story, but Peter looked so innocent and so eager that he began
+again. "Once upon a time lived the great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather
+of Yap-Yap, the very first of all the Prairie Dogs, and his name was
+Yap-Yap too. He was own cousin to old Mr. Woodchuck, who of course
+wasn't old then, and the two cousins looked much alike, save that
+Yap-Yap was a little smaller than Mr. Woodchuck and perhaps a little
+smarter looking.
+
+"From the very beginning Yap-Yap was a keen lover of the great open
+spaces. Trees were all very well for those who liked them, but he
+preferred to have nothing above him but the blue, blue sky. It seemed to
+him that he never could find a big enough open space, so he never stayed
+very long in any one place, but kept pushing on and on, looking for a
+spot in the Great World that would just suit him. At last he came to the
+edge of the Green Forest, and before him, as far as he could see,
+stretched the Green Meadows. At least it was like the Green Meadows,
+only a million thousand times as big as the Green Meadows we are on now,
+Peter, and was really the Great Prairie.
+
+"Yap-Yap looked and looked, then he drew a long breath of pure joy and
+started out across the green grass. On and on he went, until when he sat
+up and looked this way or that way or the other way he could see nothing
+but grass and flowers, and over him was naught but the blue, blue sky.
+He had found the great open space of which he had dreamed, and he was
+happy. So he ate and slept and played with the Merry Little Breezes and
+grew fat.
+
+"Then one day came Skimmer the Swallow and brought him news of the hard
+times which had come to the rest of the Great World and how as a result
+the big and the strong were hunting the small and the weak in order that
+they themselves might live. When Skimmer had gone, Yap-Yap grew uneasy.
+What if some of the big and strong people he had known should come out
+there in quest of food and should find him? There was no place in which
+to hide. There was no cave or hollow log.
+
+"Yap-Yap looked at the strong claws Old Mother Nature had given him and
+an idea came to him. He would dig a hole in the ground. So he dug a hole
+on a long slant very much like the hole of Johnny Chuck; but when it was
+finished a little doubt crept into his head and grew and grew. What was
+to prevent some one who was very hungry from digging him out? So he
+moved on a little way and started another hole, and this time he made it
+almost straight down. Every day he made that hole deeper until it was
+many feet deep. Then he made a turn in it and dug a long tunnel, at the
+end of which he hollowed out a comfortable bedroom and lined it with
+grass. When it was finished he was quite satisfied.
+
+"'I don't believe,' said he, 'that any one will have the patience to dig
+to the bottom of this.'
+
+"So at night he slept in his bed at the end of his long hall far below
+the surface, but all day he spent above ground, for he dearly loved the
+sunshine. All went well until there came a time of heavy rains. Then
+Yap-Yap discovered that the water ran down his hole, and if he didn't do
+something, he was likely to be drowned out. Right away he set his sharp
+wits to work. He noticed that when the water on the surface reached the
+little piles of sand he had made, it ran around them. So he made a great
+mound of sand around his hole with the entrance in the middle and
+pressed it firm on the inside so that the rain would not wash it down
+in. Then, although the water stood all around, it no longer ran down in
+his house. In fair weather that mound was a splendid place on which to
+sit and watch for danger. So once more Yap-Yap was happy and care-free,
+all because he had used his wits.
+
+"And from that day to this the Prairie Dogs have made their houses in
+just that way, and no one that I know cares to try to dig one out,"
+concluded Old Man Coyote.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+WHERE YELLOW-WING GOT HIS LIKING FOR THE GROUND
+
+
+Peter Rabbit was hopping along on the edge of the Green Meadows, looking
+for a new patch of sweet clover. It was very beautiful that morning, and
+Peter was in the best of spirits. It was good just to be alive. Every
+once in a while Peter would jump up and kick his long heels together
+just from pure happiness. He was so happy that he didn't pay particular
+attention to where he was going or what was about him. The result was
+that Peter got a fright. Right from under his very nose something sprang
+out of the grass so suddenly and so wholly unexpectedly that Peter very
+nearly tumbled over backward. He made two long jumps off to one side and
+then turned to see what had startled him so. But all he saw was an old
+feathered acquaintance headed towards the Old Orchard. He seemed to
+bound along through the air much as Peter bounds along over the ground
+when he is in a hurry. It was Yellow-Wing the Flicker.
+
+Peter grinned and looked a little foolish. He felt a little foolish. You
+know it always makes you feel foolish to be frightened when there is
+nothing to be afraid of. Peter watched Yellow-Wing until he disappeared
+among the trees of the Old Orchard, from which presently his voice
+sounded clear and loud, and in it there was a mocking note as if
+Yellow-Wing were laughing at him. Peter suspected that he was. But
+Peter was feeling too happy to mind being laughed at. In fact, he
+chuckled himself. It was something of a joke to be frightened by one who
+was so wholly harmless. Peter recalled how many times he had frightened
+other people and thought it the best of jokes.
+
+Peter went on until he found a new patch of sweet clover. Then he forgot
+all about Yellow-Wing. He was too busy filling that big stomach of his
+to think of anything else. When he couldn't find room for another leaf
+of clover he went home to the dear Old Briar-patch, and there in his
+favorite spot he settled himself to rest and think or dream as the case
+might be. Presently his thoughts returned to Yellow-Wing, and he
+chuckled again at the memory of his fright that morning. And then for
+the first time it struck Peter as queer that Yellow-Wing should have
+been out there on the Green Meadows on the ground. He often had seen
+Yellow-Wing on the ground, but until that moment there never had seemed
+anything queer about that. Now, however, it suddenly came to Peter that
+Yellow-Wing belonged in trees, not on the ground.
+
+Peter scratched his long left ear with his long left hind foot, which
+was a sign that he was thinking of something that puzzled him. "He
+belongs to the Woodpecker family," thought Peter, "and never have I seen
+any of his relatives on the ground. They get all their food in the
+trees. Now why is Yellow-Wing so different from his relatives?"
+
+The more Peter thought about it, the queerer it seemed that a Woodpecker
+should spend so much time on the ground, or visit the ground at all,
+for that matter. But just wondering about it didn't get him anywhere,
+and at last Peter decided that the only way to find out would be to ask
+questions. So Peter made up his mind to watch for Yellow-Wing and ask
+him all about it the first chance he got.
+
+The chance came the very next day in the very same place where Peter had
+been so startled. This time he was on the watch and saw Yellow-Wing very
+busy about something. Peter stole up within speaking distance.
+
+"Good morning, Yellow-Wing," said he. "I wonder if you will tell me
+something."
+
+It was Yellow-Wing's turn to be startled, for he had not seen Peter
+approaching. He half lifted his wings to fly, but when he saw who it
+was, he changed his mind.
+
+"It all depends on what it is you want me to tell you," he replied
+rather shortly.
+
+"It is just this," replied Peter. "Why do you spend so much time on the
+ground?"
+
+"That's easily answered," laughed Fellow-Wing. "I do it because it is
+the easiest way to get enough to eat."
+
+Peter looked as surprised as he felt. "I thought that all your family
+got their living in the trees!" he exclaimed.
+
+"All do but me," replied Yellow-Wing a wee bit testily. "But I don't
+have to do what they do just because they do it. No, Siree, I'm
+independent! Do you like ants, Peter?"
+
+"What?" exclaimed Peter.
+
+"I asked if you like ants," repeated Yellow-Wing.
+
+"I've never tried them," Peter replied, "but I've heard Old Mr. Toad
+say they are very nice."
+
+"They are," said Yellow-Wing. "They are more than nice--they are
+de-li-cious. It is because of them that I spend so much time on the
+ground. Ants changed the habits of the Flicker branch of the Woodpecker
+family. I wouldn't be surprised if we became regular ground birds one of
+these days."
+
+Peter looked puzzled. He kept turning it over in his mind as he watched
+Yellow-Wing plunge his long stout bill into an ant hill and then gobble
+up the ants as they came rushing out to see what the trouble was.
+
+"I don't see how ants could change the habits of anybody," he ventured
+after a while.
+
+Yellow-Wing's eyes twinkled. "Why don't you learn to eat them?" he
+demanded. "If you would, they might change _your_ habits. The beginning
+of the change in the habits of my folks began a long time ago."
+
+"Way back in the beginning of things, when the world was young?" asked
+Peter.
+
+"No, not quite so far back as that," replied Yellow-Wing.
+"Great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, who was the first Flicker, was,
+of course, a member of the Woodpecker family, and he got his living in
+regular Woodpecker fashion. It never entered his head to look for food
+anywhere but in the trees, and I don't suppose that it ever entered his
+head to set foot on the ground. It was the same with his children and
+his children's children for a long time.
+
+"But though they lived as true Woodpeckers should, the Flickers always
+were a bit sharper-witted and more independent than most of their
+relatives. For one thing they had discovered that ants were fine eating
+and that great numbers of them were to be found running up and down the
+trunks of certain trees. So the Flickers used to look for these trees
+and feast on the ants. It saved a lot of labor. A stomachful of ants
+could be picked from the trunk of a tree in the time it would take to
+dig out one worm in the wood, to say nothing of the saving of hard work.
+
+"One day a few years ago my great-great-great-grandfather, so the story
+goes, had stuffed himself with ants from the trunk of a tree and had
+settled himself for a rest. From where he sat he could see a procession
+of ants going up and down the tree, and he got to wondering where they
+all came from and where they all went to. So he watched and presently
+discovered that that double line of ants led out along the ground from
+the foot of the tree. This made him still more curious and he followed
+it, flying along just over it. He had gone but a short distance when he
+came to a little mound of sand, and there the line of ants ended.
+Grandfather Flicker flew up in a tree from which he could look right
+down on that mound, and it didn't take him long to discover that those
+ants were going in and out of little holes in that mound.
+
+"'As I live, that must be their home!' exclaimed he. 'That place is
+alive with them. What a place to fill one's stomach! I never was on the
+ground in my life, but the next time I'm hungry, I'm going to see what
+the ground is like. I won't have to stay on it long to get my dinner
+here.'
+
+"Grandfather Flicker was as good as his word. When he was ready for
+another meal, he flew down to that ant hill. He found that when he
+plunged his bill into it, the ants fairly poured out to see what was
+happening, and all he had to do was to thrust out his long sticky tongue
+and lick them up. Never in all his life before had he filled his stomach
+so easily. After that, instead of wasting time hunting for worms and
+insects in the trees where he could find only one at a time, Grandfather
+Flicker kept his eyes open for ant hills on the ground. He taught his
+children to do the same thing. That was the beginning of the change of
+habits with the Flickers. Ever since we have spent more and more time on
+the ground, so that now we feel quite at home there. We still get some
+of our food in the trees by way of variety, and we make our homes there,
+but a good big part of our food we get just as I am doing now."
+
+With this Yellow-Wing once more plunged his bill into the ant hill and
+licked up a dozen ants who had come rushing out to see what was going
+on. And so once more the curiosity of Peter Rabbit was satisfied, and he
+had learned something.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+WHERE LITTLE CHIEF LEARNED TO MAKE HAY
+
+
+No one in all the Great World thinks more of the present and less of the
+future than does careless, happy-go-lucky Peter Rabbit. Everybody who
+knows Peter at all knows that Peter doesn't waste any time worrying over
+what may happen in a day that may never be. So Peter isn't thrifty as
+are Happy Jack Squirrel and Chatterer the Red Squirrel and Whitefoot the
+Wood Mouse and Paddy the Beaver and Striped Chipmunk.
+
+"I've got enough to eat today, and enough is enough, so what is the use
+of working when I don't have to?" says Peter. "I don't believe in
+working today so that I won't have to work tomorrow, because when
+tomorrow comes there may be no need of working, and then I would feel
+that I had wasted all this good time today." No, Peter isn't the least
+bit thrifty.
+
+It is the same way with Peter's big cousin, Jumper the Hare. The truth
+is the whole family is happy-go-lucky. Happy Jack Squirrel says that
+every blessed one of them is shiftless. It does look that way. It is a
+pity that Peter and Jumper never have learned a lesson from Little Chief
+Hare, who is commonly supposed to be a relative of theirs, although, as
+a matter of fact, he is neither a Hare nor a Rabbit, but is a Pika,
+which is another family altogether. He is also called a Coney and
+sometimes the Calling Hare. But if you want sure-enough proof that he
+is neither a Rabbit nor a Hare, just watch him, if you are lucky enough
+to have a chance, cut and dry and store away a great pile of hay for
+winter use. No true member of Peter's family ever would think of doing
+such a thing as that, more is the pity.
+
+Peter never has seen Little Chief, because Little Chief lives high up on
+a mountain of the Far West among the rocks where Peter would never go,
+even if he could, but he has heard all about him. Old Man Coyote told
+him all about him, and he got the story from his grandfather, who got it
+from his grandfather, who had one time visited the great mountain where
+Little Chief's ever-so-great-grandfather lived in the very place where
+Little Chief lives now. Old Man Coyote had chased Peter into the dear
+Old Briar-patch one cold winter day, and as he peered through the
+brambles at Peter he noticed that Peter was very thin, very thin indeed.
+Old Man Coyote grinned.
+
+"I'm just as well pleased not to have caught you this time, Peter," said
+he. "You wouldn't make much of a dinner just now. When I dine I want
+something more than skin and bones. It must be that you are having as
+hard work as I am to get a living these days."
+
+"I am," replied Peter. "With all this snow and ice on the ground, there
+is nothing to eat but bark and such tender twigs as I can reach, and
+they are not very filling. But they'll keep me alive until better times
+come, and then perhaps I'll get fat enough to suit you." It was Peter's
+turn to grin.
+
+Old Man Coyote grinned back good-naturedly. "I should think, Peter,"
+said he, "that when there is so much sweet grass and clover in the
+summer, you would make some of it into hay and store it away for winter,
+as Little Chief Hare does. There's the thrifty little hay-maker for
+you!"
+
+"Who is Little Chief, and where did he learn to make hay?" demanded
+Peter, his ears standing straight up with curiosity.
+
+Old Man Coyote likes to tell a story once in a while, and having nothing
+else to do just then, he sat down just outside the dear Old Briar-patch
+and told Peter all about Little Chief and his hay-making.
+
+"Of course," said he, "Little Chief's father taught him how to make hay,
+and his father's father taught him, and so on way back to the days when
+the world was young and Old Mother Nature made the first Pika or Coney,
+whichever you please to call him, and set him free on a great mountain
+to prove whether he was worthy to live or was so helpless that there was
+no place for him in the Great World. Now Mr. Pika, who was promptly
+called Little Chief, no one remembers now just why, was exactly like
+Little Chief of today. He was just about a fourth as big as you, Peter.
+In fact, he looked a lot like one of your babies, excepting his legs and
+his ears. His legs were short and rather weak, and his ears were short
+and rounded. He was very gentle and timid. He had neither the kind of
+teeth and claws for fighting nor long legs for running away, and it did
+seem as if Little Chief's chances of a long life and a happy one were
+very slim indeed, especially as it happened that he was set free to
+shift for himself just at the beginning of the hard times, when the big
+and strong had begun to hunt the small and weak.
+
+"For a while Little Chief had a hard time of it and so many narrow
+escapes that his heart was in his mouth most of the time. In trying to
+keep out of the way of his enemies he kept climbing higher and higher up
+the mountain, for the higher he got the fewer enemies he found. At last
+he came to a big rock-slide above where the trees grew, and where there
+was nothing but broken stone and big rocks. The sun lay there very warm,
+and Little Chief crept out among the stones to take a sun-bath; as he
+squatted there it would have taken keen eyes indeed to tell him from a
+stone himself, though he didn't know this.
+
+"After he had had a good rest, and jolly Mr. Sun had moved so that
+Little Chief was no longer in the warm rays, Little Chief decided to
+look about a little. It didn't take him long to discover that there were
+wonderful little winding galleries and hiding-places down among the
+stones. These led to little cracks and caves deep down in the mountain
+side. Little Chief was tickled almost to death.
+
+"'This is the place for me!' he cried. 'No one ever will think to look
+for me up here, and if they should they couldn't find me, for no one,
+not even King Bear, could pull away these stones fast enough to catch
+me. All day long I can enjoy the sun, and at night I can sleep in
+perfect safety in one of these little caves.'
+
+"So Little Chief made his home in the rock-slide high up on the mountain
+and was happy, for it was just as he thought it would be--no one
+thought of looking in that bare place for him. For food he ate the pea
+vines and grasses and other green things that grew just at the edge of
+the rock-slide and was perfectly happy. One day he decided he would take
+some of his dinner into his little cave and eat it there. So he cut a
+little bundle of pea vine and other green things. He left his little
+bundle on a flat rock in the sun while he went to look for something
+else and then forgot all about it. It didn't enter his head again until
+a few days later he happened along by that flat rock and discovered that
+little bundle. The pea vines and grasses were quite dry, just like the
+hay Farmer Brown's boy helps his father store away in the barn every
+summer.
+
+"'I guess I don't want to eat that,' said Little Chief, 'but it will
+make me a very nice bed.' So he carried it home and made a bed of it.
+There wasn't quite enough, so the next day he cut some more and carried
+it home at once. But this, being green, soon soured and smelled so badly
+that he was forced to take it out and throw it away. That set him to
+thinking. Why was the first he had brought in so dry and sweet and
+pleasant? Why didn't it spoil as the other had done? He cut some more
+and spread it out on the big flat rock and once again he forgot. When he
+remembered and went to look at it two or three days later, he found it
+just like the first, dry and sweet and very pleasant to smell. This he
+took home to add to his bed. Then he took home some more that was green,
+and this spoiled just as the other had done.
+
+"Little Chief was puzzling over this as he squatted on a rock taking a
+sun-bath. The sun was very warm and comforting. After a while the rock
+on which he sat grew almost hot. Little Chief had brought along a couple
+of pieces of pea vine on which to lunch, but not being hungry he left
+them beside him on the rock. By and by he happened to glance at them.
+They had wilted and already they were beginning to dry. An idea popped
+into his funny little head.
+
+"'It's the sun that does it!' he cried.
+
+"Up he jumped and scampered away to cut some more and spread it out on
+the rocks. Then he discovered that the pea vine which he spread in the
+sun dried as he wanted it to, while any that happened to be left in the
+shadow of a rock didn't dry so well. He had learned how to make hay. He
+was the first hay-maker in the Great World. He soon had more than
+enough for a bed, but he kept on making hay and storing it away just
+for fun. Then came cold weather and all the green things died. There was
+no food for Little Chief. He hunted and hunted, but there was nothing.
+Then because he was so hungry he began to nibble at his hay. It tasted
+good, very good indeed. It tasted almost as good as the fresh green
+things. Little Chief's heart gave a great leap. He had food in plenty!
+He had nothing to worry about, for his hay would last him until the
+green things came again, as come they would, he felt sure.
+
+"And so it proved. And that is how Little Chief the Pika learned to make
+hay while the sun shone in the days of plenty. He taught his children
+and they taught their children, and Little Chief of today does it just
+as his great-great-ever-so-great-grand-daddy did. I don't see why you
+don't do the same thing, Peter. You would make me a great deal finer
+dinner if you did."
+
+"Perhaps that is the reason I don't," replied Peter with a grin.
+
+[Illustration: "Little Chief's father taught him how to
+make hay." _Page 67._]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+WHERE GLUTTON THE WOLVERINE GOT HIS NAME
+
+
+Glutton the Wolverine is a dweller in the depths of the Great Forests of
+the Far North, and it is doubtful if Peter Rabbit would ever have known
+that there is such a person but for his acquaintance with Honker the
+Goose, who spends his summers in the Far North, but each spring and fall
+stops over for a day or two in a little pond in the Green Forest, a pond
+Peter often visits. This acquaintance with Honker and Peter's
+everlasting curiosity have resulted in many strange stories. At least
+they have seemed strange to Peter because they have been about furred
+and feathered people whom Peter has never seen. And one of the strangest
+of these is the story of how Glutton the Wolverine got his name.
+
+Of course you know what a glutton is. It is one who is very, very, very
+greedy and eats and eats as if eating were the only thing in life worth
+while. It is one who is all the time thinking of his stomach. No one
+likes to be called a glutton. So when Honker the Goose happened to
+mention Glutton, it caused Peter to prick up his ears at once.
+
+"Who's a glutton?" he demanded.
+
+"I didn't say any one was a glutton," replied Honker. "I was speaking of
+Glutton the Wolverine who lives in the Great Forests of the Far North,
+and whom everybody hates."
+
+"Is Glutton his name?" asked Peter, wrinkling his brows in perplexity,
+for it seemed a very queer name for any one.
+
+"Certainly," replied Honker. "Certainly that is his name, and a very
+good name for him it is. But then of course it is because he _is_ a
+glutton that he is named Glutton. Rather I should say that is the reason
+the first Wolverine was named Glutton. The name has been handed down
+ever since, and it fits Mr. Wolverine of today quite as well as ever it
+did his great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather."
+
+"Tell me about it," Peter begged. "Please tell me about it."
+
+"Tell you about what?" asked Honker, pretending not to understand.
+
+"About how the first Wolverine got the name of Glutton," replied Peter
+promptly. "There must have been a very good reason, and if there was a
+very good reason, there must be a story. Please, Honker, tell me all
+about it."
+
+Honker swam a little way out from shore, and with head held high and
+very still, he looked and listened and listened and looked until he was
+quite certain that no danger lurked near. Then he swam back to where
+Peter was sitting on the bank.
+
+"Peter," said he, "I never in all my born days have seen such a fellow
+for questions as you are. If I lived about here, I think I should swim
+away every time I saw you coming. But as I only stop here for a day or
+two twice a year, I guess I can stand it. Besides, you really ought to
+know something about some of the people who live in the Great Forest. It
+is shameful, Peter, that you should be so ignorant. And so if you will
+promise not to ask for another story while I am here, I will tell you
+about Glutton the Wolverine."
+
+Of course Peter promised. He wanted that story so much that he would
+have promised anything. So Honker told the story, and here it is just as
+Peter heard it.
+
+"Once upon a time long, long, long ago, the first Wolverine was sent out
+to find a place for himself in the Great World just as every one else
+had been sent out. Old Mother Nature had told him that he was related to
+Mr. Weasel and Mr. Mink and Mr. Fisher and Mr. Skunk, but no one would
+have guessed it just to look at him. In fact, some of his new neighbors
+were inclined to think that he was related to Old King Bear. Certainly
+he looked more like King Bear than he did like little Mr. Weasel. But
+for his bushy tail he would have looked still more like a member of the
+Bear family. He was clumsy-looking. He was rather slow moving, but he
+was strong, very strong for his size. And he had a mean disposition.
+Yes, Sir, Mr. Wolverine had a mean disposition. He had such a mean
+disposition that he would snarl at his own reflection in a pool of
+water.
+
+"Now you know as well as I do that no one with a mean disposition has
+any friends. It was so with Mr. Wolverine. When his neighbors found out
+what a mean disposition he had, they let him severely alone. They would
+go out of their way to avoid meeting him. This made his disposition all
+the meaner. He didn't really care because his neighbors would have
+nothing to do with him. No, he didn't really care, for the simple reason
+that he didn't want anything to do with them. But just the same it made
+him angry to have them show that they didn't want to have anything to do
+with him. Every time he would see one of them turn aside to avoid
+meeting him, he would snarl under his breath, and his eyes would glow
+with anger; he would resolve to get even.
+
+"Being slow in his movements because of his stout build, he early
+realized that he must make nimble wits make up for the lack of nimble
+legs. He also learned very early in life that patience is a virtue few
+possess, and that patience and nimble wits will accomplish almost
+anything. So, living alone in the Great Forest, he practised patience
+until no one in all the Great World could be more patient than he. No
+one knew this because, you see, everybody kept away from him. And all
+the time he was practising patience, he was studying and studying the
+other people of the Great Forest, both large and small, learning all
+their habits, how they lived, where they lived, what they ate, and all
+about them.
+
+"'One never knows when such knowledge may be useful,' he would say to
+himself. 'The more I know about other people and the less they know
+about me the better.'
+
+"So Mr. Wolverine kept out of sight as much as possible, and none knew
+how he lived or where he lived or anything about him save that he had a
+mean disposition. Patiently he watched the other people, especially
+those of nimble wits who lived largely by their cunning and
+cleverness--Mr. Fox, Mr. Coyote, Mr. Lynx and his own cousins, Mr. Mink
+and Mr. Weasel. From each one he learned something, and at last he was
+more cunning and more clever than any of them or even than all of them,
+for that matter.
+
+"Living alone as he did, and having a mean disposition, he grew more and
+more sullen and savage until those who at first had avoided him simply
+because of his mean disposition now kept out of his way through fear,
+for his claws were long and his strength was great and his teeth were
+sharp. It didn't take him long to discover that there were few who did
+not fear him, and he cunningly contrived to increase this fear, for he
+had a feeling that the time might come when it would be of use to him.
+
+"The time did come. As you know, there came a time when food was scarce,
+and everybody, or almost everybody, had hard work to get enough to keep
+alive. Mr. Wolverine didn't. The fact is, Mr. Wolverine lived very well
+indeed. He simply reaped the reward of his patience in learning all
+about the ways of his neighbors, of his nimble wits and of the fear
+which he inspired. Instead of hunting for food himself, he depended on
+his neighbors to hunt for him. They didn't know they were hunting for
+him, but somehow whenever one of them had secured a good meal, Mr.
+Wolverine was almost sure to happen along. A growl from him was enough,
+and that meal was left in his possession.
+
+"Knowing how scarce food was and the uncertainty of when he would get
+the next meal, Mr. Wolverine always made it a point on these occasions
+to stuff himself until it was a wonder his skin didn't burst. If there
+was more than he could eat, he would take a nap right there, and because
+of fear of him the rightful owner of the food would not dare take what
+was left. When he awoke Mr. Wolverine would finish what remained.
+
+"Those who secured more food than they could eat and tried to store away
+the rest found that no matter how cunningly they chose a hiding-place
+for it and covered their tracks, Mr. Wolverine was sure to find it. In
+fact, he made a business of robbing storehouses, and the habit of
+greediness became so strong that he would stuff himself at one
+storehouse and immediately start for another. When it did happen that he
+couldn't eat all he found and yet didn't want to stay until he could
+finish it, he would tear to bits all that remained and scatter it all
+about. You know I told you he had a mean disposition.
+
+"Even when good times returned and there was no possible excuse for
+such greed, Mr. Wolverine continued to stuff himself until it seemed
+that instead of eating in order to live, as the rest of us do, he lived
+in order to eat. Of course it wasn't long before some one called him a
+glutton, and presently he was named Glutton, and no one called him
+anything else. Glutton by name and a glutton in habit he remained as
+long as he lived. Both name and habits he handed down to his children
+and they to their children. So it is that today there is no more cunning
+thief, no greedier rascal, and no one with a meaner disposition in all
+the Great Woods of the Far North than Glutton the Wolverine."
+
+"Queer how a habit will stick, isn't it?" said Peter thoughtfully.
+
+"Particularly a bad habit," added Honker.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+WHERE OLD MRS. 'GATOR MADE THE FIRST INCUBATOR
+
+
+Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Quack the Mallard Duck are great friends. They
+have been great friends ever since Peter tried to help Mrs. Quack when
+she and Mr. Quack had spent a whole summer on a little pond hidden deep
+in the Green Forest because Mr. Quack had a broken wing and so he and
+Mrs. Quack simply couldn't keep on to their home in the Far North for
+which they had started. During that long summer Peter had become very
+well acquainted with them. In fact he visited them very often, for as
+you know, Peter is simply brimming over with curiosity, and there were
+wonderful things which Mr. and Mrs. Quack could tell him, for they are
+great travelers.
+
+Now once, as Mrs. Quack was telling Peter about the far-away Southland
+where she and Mr. Quack and many other birds spend each winter, she
+mentioned Old Ally the 'Gator. People who live where he does call him
+just 'Gator, but you and I would call him Alligator.
+
+At the mention of Old Ally, all Peter's curiosity was awakened, for Mrs.
+Quack had said that foolish young ducks sometimes mistook him for an old
+log floating in the water and didn't find out the difference until his
+great mouth flew open and he swallowed them whole. At that Peter's eyes
+threatened to pop right out of his head and every time he visited that
+little pond he pestered Mrs. Quack with questions about Old Ally the
+'Gator and Mrs. 'Gator. It seemed as if he couldn't think of anything
+else. And when Mrs. Quack just happened to mention that little 'Gators
+are hatched from eggs just as her own children are, it was almost too
+much for Peter to believe.
+
+"What?" he squealed, hopping up and down in excitement. "Do you mean to
+tell me that anything as big as Old Ally, big enough to swallow you
+whole, can come from an egg? I don't believe it! Besides, only birds lay
+eggs."
+
+  "Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack,
+   Peter, you must take that back!"
+
+cried Mrs. Quack.
+
+"Why must I take it back?" demanded Peter.
+
+"Because as usual you've let your tongue run loose, and that is a bad
+habit, Peter. It certainly is a bad habit. How about the Snake family?"
+
+"Oh!" said Peter, looking very foolish. "I forgot all about the Snakes.
+They do lay eggs."
+
+"And how about Spotty the Turtle? Didn't he come from an egg?" persisted
+Mrs. Quack.
+
+Peter looked more foolish than before, if that were possible. "Y-e-s,"
+he replied slowly and reluctantly.
+
+"Then don't be so quick to doubt a thing just because you've never seen
+it," retorted Mrs. Quack. "I've seen Mrs. 'Gator build her nest more
+than once, and I've seen her eggs, and I've seen the baby 'Gators; and
+what is more, I'm not in the habit of telling things that I don't know
+are so."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Quack." Peter was very humble. "I do indeed.
+Please forgive me. Is--is Mrs. 'Gator's nest at all like yours?"
+
+Peter seemed so truly sorry for having doubted her that Mrs. Quack
+recovered her good nature at once. "No," said she, "it isn't. If I
+hadn't seen her make it, I wouldn't have known it was a nest. You see,
+one spring I got hurt so that I couldn't take my usual long journey to
+the Far North and had to spend the summer way down in the Southland
+where I always lived in the winter, and that is how I happened to learn
+about Mrs. 'Gator's nest and eggs and a lot of other things. Mrs. 'Gator
+is lazy, but she is smart. She's smart enough to make Mr. Sun do her
+work. What do you think of that?"
+
+Right away Peter was all excitement. You see, that sounded as if there
+might be a story behind it. "I never have heard of such a thing!" he
+cried. "How did she learn to do such a smart thing as that? Of course I
+don't for a minute believe that she herself discovered a way to get Mr.
+Sun to work for her. Probably it was her ever-so-great-grandmother who
+first did it. Isn't that so, Mrs. Quack?"
+
+Mrs. Quack nodded. "You've guessed it, Peter," said she. "It all
+happened way, way back in the days when the world was young."
+
+"Tell me about it! Please, please tell me about it, Mrs. Quack, and the
+first chance I get, I'll do something for you," begged Peter.
+
+Mrs. Quack carefully went over all her feathers to see that every one
+was in place, for she is very particular about how she looks. When she
+was quite satisfied, she turned to Peter, fidgeting on the bank.
+
+"Way back in the days when the world was young," said she, "Old Mother
+Nature made the first Alligators before she made the first birds, or the
+first animals, so Old Ally and Mrs. 'Gator, who live way down south now,
+belong to a very old family and are proud of it. In the beginning of
+things there was very little dry land, as you may have heard, so old Mr.
+and Mrs. 'Gator, who of course were not old then, were made to live in
+the water with the fish. Old Mother Nature was experimenting then. She
+was planning to make a great deal more land, and she wanted living
+creatures on it, so she gave the 'Gators legs and feet instead of fins,
+and lungs to breathe air instead of gills for breathing in the water as
+fish do. Then, having many other things to attend to, she told them
+they would have to take care of themselves, and went about her business.
+
+"It didn't take Mr. and Mrs. 'Gator long to discover that their legs
+were not of much use in the water, for they used their powerful tails
+for swimming. Then one day Mrs. 'Gator crawled out on land and right
+away discovered what those legs were for. She could go on dry land while
+fishes could not. It didn't take her long to find out that nothing was
+quite so fine as a sun-bath, as she lay stretched out on the bank, so
+she and Mr. 'Gator spent most of their time on sunny days taking
+sun-baths.
+
+"One day Old Mother Nature came along and whispered a wonderful secret
+to Mrs. 'Gator. 'I am going to give you some eggs,' whispered Old
+Mother Nature, 'some eggs of your very own, and if you watch over them
+and keep them warm, out of each one a baby 'Gator will some day creep.
+But if you let those eggs get cold, there will be no babies. Don't
+forget that you must keep them warm.'
+
+"Old Mother Nature was as good as her word. She gave Mrs. 'Gator twenty
+beautiful white eggs, and Mrs. 'Gator was perfectly happy. Those eggs
+were the most precious things in all the Great World. It seemed as if
+she never would grow tired of looking at them and admiring them and of
+dreaming of the day when her babies should come out of them. It was very
+pleasant to lie there in the sun and dream of the babies to come from
+those wonderful eggs. Suddenly, right into the midst of those pleasant
+dreams, broke the memory of what Old Mother Nature had said about
+keeping those eggs warm. All in a twinkling happiness was turned to
+worry.
+
+"'What can I do? What can I do?' Mrs. 'Gator kept saying over and over.
+'However can I keep them warm when Mr. Sun goes to bed at night? Oh,
+dear! Oh, dear! My beautiful eggs never, never will turn to darling
+babies! What can I do?'
+
+"All this time Mr. 'Gator was a great deal more interested in making
+himself comfortable than he was in those eggs. He had picked out a place
+where all day long Mr. Sun poured down his warmest rays, and he had dug
+a place to sprawl out in comfortably. The sand he had thrown in a pile
+at one side. When Mrs. 'Gator went to consult Mr. 'Gator about those
+precious eggs and her worries when the cool of evening had come, she
+happened to put one foot in that loose pile of sand, and she found that
+while the sand on the outside was already cool, that down inside the
+pile was still warm. A clever idea came to her like a flash.
+
+"First she sent Mr. 'Gator into the water to get his supper. Then she
+scooped a hole in that pile of warm sand, and in it she put her precious
+eggs and carefully covered them up with sand. When this was done she
+stretched out close by to keep watch and see that nothing disturbed
+those treasures. That was a very anxious night for Mrs. 'Gator. The sand
+on which she lay grew very cool. When at last day came and Mr. Sun once
+more began to shine, she opened that pile of sand and great was her joy
+to find that inside it was still warm. When Mr. 'Gator came crawling out
+of the water to spend the day in that comfortable bed he had dug, she
+chased him away and was so cross that he went off grumbling and dug
+another bed. Mrs. 'Gator waited until Mr. Sun had made the sand very
+warm indeed, and then she made a great mound of it, and in the middle
+of it were her precious eggs. Night and day she kept guard, and all the
+time she worried lest those eggs should not be warm enough. Then one day
+twenty baby 'Gators dug their way out of that mound of sand. Yes, Sir,
+they did.
+
+"All this happened long, long ago when the world was young, and ever
+since then 'Gators have lived only way down south, where it is very warm
+and where Mr. Sun will hatch their eggs for them. And today it is done
+just as I've told you, for I've seen with my own eyes Mrs. 'Gator build
+her nest, cover her eggs, and then lie around while Mr. Sun did the work
+for her. What do you think of that?"
+
+"I think that if you hadn't told me that you had seen it with your own
+eyes, Mrs. Quack, I should think it a fairy story," replied Peter.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+WHERE MR. QUACK GOT HIS WEBBED FEET
+
+
+Twice every year, in the early spring and in the late fall, Peter Rabbit
+watches the Smiling Pool with a great deal of eagerness. Can you guess
+why? It is because two very good friends of Peter's are in the habit of
+stopping there for a few days for rest and refreshment before continuing
+the long journey which they are obliged to make. They are Mr. and Mrs.
+Quack, the Mallard Ducks. Peter is very fond of them, and when the time
+for their arrival draws near, Peter watches for them with a great deal
+of anxiety. You see they have told him something of the terrible
+dangers which they always encounter on these long journeys, and so Peter
+is always afraid that something terrible may have happened to them, and
+it is a great relief when he finds them swimming about in the Smiling
+Pool.
+
+One reason Peter is so fond of Mr. and Mrs. Quack is because they always
+have a story for him. Sometimes it is a story of adventure, a tale of
+terrible danger and narrow escapes. Sometimes it is about their home in
+the far Northland, and again it is about the wonderful Southland where
+they spend the winter. But the story that Peter likes best is the one
+about where and how the Quack family got their funny, webbed feet. Mr.
+Quack doesn't think those feet funny at all, but Peter does. He never
+grows tired of watching Mr. and Mrs. Quack use them, because, you know,
+they are used so differently from other feet. And always he goes back to
+the dear Old Briar-patch with renewed admiration for the wisdom of Old
+Mother Nature.
+
+Peter noticed those feet the first time he met Mr. and Mrs. Quack. He
+couldn't help but notice them. It happened that Mr. and Mrs. Quack were
+out on the bank of the Smiling Pool as Peter came hurrying over in his
+usual way, lipperty-lipperty-lip. They heard him coming and not knowing
+at first who it was they at once started for the water. Peter never will
+forget the funny way in which they waddled. He never had seen anybody
+quite so awkward. But when they reached the water he forgot to laugh. He
+simply stared open-mouthed in astonishment. You see there they were as
+graceful as they had been awkward on land. Afterward, when Peter had
+become acquainted with them and they were the best of friends, he
+ventured to speak of their queer feet.
+
+"Do you know," said he, "you have the most interesting feet of anybody I
+know of. They are so broad that the first time I saw them I couldn't
+believe my own eyes. I didn't suppose anybody had such broad feet. I
+suppose there is some special reason why they are so broad and why your
+legs are so short. Do you know how Mother Nature happened to give you
+feet so different from the feet of other birds, Mr. Quack?"
+
+Mr. Quack chuckled. "I tell you what it is, Peter," said he, "if you'll
+tell me why it is you have such long hind legs and such a funny short
+tail, I'll tell you why it is that Mrs. Quack and I have such broad
+feet, though I must confess that I don't see anything odd about them."
+
+Peter agreed at once. He told Mr. and Mrs. Quack all about what happened
+to his grandfather a thousand times removed, the very first Rabbit, way
+back when the world was young, and how ever since then all Rabbits have
+had long hind legs and short tails. When he had finished Mr. Quack
+thoughtfully scratched his handsome green head, looked at his reflection
+in the Smiling Pool to make sure that he was looking his very best,
+looked behind to see that the feathers in the tip of his tail had the
+proper curl, and then gazed off over the Green Meadows with a far-away
+look in his eyes as if he were looking way back to the time he was to
+tell about. At last, just as Peter Rabbit was beginning to lose patience
+Mr. Quack began.
+
+"It must be, Peter," said he, "that my
+great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather lived just about the same time as
+your great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, way back in the days when
+the world was young. Perhaps they knew each other. Perhaps they were
+acquainted just as you and I are now. Anyway, according to what has been
+handed down in the family, Grandfather Quack was very much such a
+looking fellow as I am now, except in the matter of his bill and feet.
+His bill was not broad like mine but more like the bills of other birds,
+and his feet were like the feet of Mr. Grouse and Bob White. They were
+made for scratching, and there was nothing between the toes. You see,
+Old Mother Nature was experimenting. She made everybody a little
+different from everybody else and then started them forth in the Great
+World to shift for themselves and to find out what they really needed
+that they hadn't got.
+
+"Old Mr. Quack, my great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather, soon
+discovered one thing, and that was that his legs were too short for him
+to get around very fast. When he walked, everybody laughed at him. When
+he tried to run, they laughed harder than ever. He didn't mind this so
+very much, though he did a little. Nobody likes to be laughed at,
+especially when it is because of something they cannot help. But what he
+did mind was the fact that his neighbors could run about so much faster
+than he that they got all the best of the food, and quite often he went
+hungry.
+
+"One day he happened to be sitting on the bank of the Smiling Pool,
+thinking the matter over and wondering what he had best do, when Mr.
+Fox stole up behind him and startled him so that he lost his balance and
+tumbled down the bank into the water. This frightened him more than
+ever, and he flapped about and squawked and squawked and flapped until
+Mr. Fox nearly split his sides laughing at him. And when he was quite
+out of breath, Mr. Quack discovered that he was making all this fuss for
+nothing. He didn't sink, but floated on the water, and what was more the
+water didn't get under his feathers at all. When he tried to walk, of
+course he couldn't, and he had a funny feeling because his feet didn't
+touch anything and felt so very useless. But he kept moving them back
+and forth, and pretty soon he discovered that he moved ahead. Of course
+he moved very slowly, because his feet were not made for use in the
+water, but he moved, and that was enough. He knew then that he could get
+back to land. Then he tried his wings and he found that he could rise
+into the air from the water quite as easily as from the land. Right then
+and there all fear of the water left him. In fact, he liked it.
+
+"Little by little, Grandfather Quack began to understand that he had
+made a great discovery. He had discovered the safest place in all the
+Great World for him. Out on the water he was safe from Mr. Fox and Mr.
+Wolf and all the other four-footed hunters. So he took to spending most
+of his time on the water or near it. When he wanted a nap, he would hide
+among the rushes that grew in the water. 'If only I didn't have to leave
+the water for food!' sighed Grandfather Quack. 'If only I could find
+food here, I would never leave the water.'
+
+"At the time he was squatting at the very edge of the Smiling Pool.
+Presently he noticed a funny water bug crawling on the bottom where the
+water was only an inch or two deep. 'I wonder if that fellow is good to
+eat,' thought he, and almost without thinking he plunged his head under
+water and caught the bug. It was good. Grandfather Quack at once started
+to look for more, and while doing this he discovered that there were a
+great many seeds from the rushes scattered about in the mud at the
+bottom of the Smiling Pool, and that these also were good to eat. Then
+quite by accident he got hold of a tender root in the mud and found that
+this was especially good.
+
+"This was enough for Grandfather Quack. He had found that he could get
+plenty to eat without leaving the Smiling Pool. Moreover, he didn't have
+to share it with anybody, because there was no one else who thought of
+looking for food there. He knew when he was well off. So Grandfather
+Quack grew fat and was happy. The only things that bothered him were the
+slowness with which he had to pick up seeds, one at a time, and the
+slowness with which he could paddle about, for you couldn't really call
+it swimming. But in spite of these things he was happy and made the best
+of his lot.
+
+"One day he tugged and tugged at a root with his head under water. When
+at last he had to bring his head up for a breath, whom should he
+discover but Old Mother Nature watching him from the opposite bank.
+'Come over here, Mr. Quack, and tell me all about it,' she commanded.
+
+"Grandfather Quack started across the Smiling Pool, but because his feet
+were not made for swimming, it took him a long time to get there. Old
+Mother Nature smiled as she watched him. 'You look better on the water
+than you do on land,' said she. 'In fact, I believe that is just where
+you belong. Now tell me how you happened to take to the water.'
+
+"Grandfather Quack told her the whole story and how Old Mother Nature
+did laugh when he described how frightened he was when he fell in that
+time. Suddenly she reached out and caught him by the bill. 'I don't
+think much of that bill for poking about in the mud,' said she. 'How
+will this do?' She let go, and Grandfather Quack found he had a broad
+bill just suited for getting food out of the mud. Then Old Mother Nature
+bade him hold forth first one foot and then the other. Between the toes
+she stretched a tough skin clear to the toe nails. 'Now let me see you
+swim,' said she.
+
+"Grandfather Quack tried. He kicked one foot and then the other, and to
+his great joy he shot along swiftly. When he drew his feet back for
+another kick his toes closed together, and so his feet came through the
+water easily. But when he kicked back they were wide spread, and the
+skin between them pushed against the water, and drove him ahead. It was
+wonderful! It was splendid! He hurried over to Old Mother Nature, and
+with tears of joy in his eyes he thanked her. And from that day to this
+members of my family have had the same broad bills and webbed feet, and
+have lived on the water," concluded Mr. Quack.
+
+[Illustration: Peter noticed those feet the first time he met Mr. and
+Mrs. Quack. _Page 111._]
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+WHERE THUNDERFOOT THE BISON GOT HIS HUMP
+
+
+Thunderfoot the Bison, often called Buffalo, is not a handsome fellow,
+as you very well know if you have seen him or a picture of him. His head
+is carried low, very near the ground, and on his shoulders is a great
+hump. No, you wouldn't call him handsome. You would hardly call him
+good-looking even. In fact, you would, I suspect, call him homely.
+Certainly there is nothing about him to suggest pride. Yet according to
+the story Digger the Badger once told Peter Rabbit, pride and nothing
+less was the cause of that big hump which makes Thunderfoot appear so
+clumsy and homely.
+
+Peter Rabbit, as you know, is very fond of stories. In this respect he
+is very like some other folks I know. Anyway, he never misses a chance
+for a story if he can help it. He had discovered that Digger the Badger
+and Old Man Coyote, both of whom had come to the Green Meadows from the
+Far West, were full of stories about their neighbors of the distant
+prairies, folk whom Peter never had seen. Sometimes when he had nothing
+else to do, Old Man Coyote would come over to the dear Old Briar-patch
+and tell stories to Peter, who sat safe behind the brambles. Perhaps Old
+Man Coyote hoped that Peter would become so interested that he would
+forget and come out of the dear Old Briar-patch. But Peter never did.
+
+But most of the stories of the people of the Far West Peter got from
+Digger the Badger because, you see, he wasn't afraid to go beg for them.
+He knew that Digger couldn't catch him if he wanted to, and so when
+Grandfather Frog hadn't a story for him, Peter would go tease Digger for
+one. It was thus that he heard about Thunderfoot the Bison and where he
+got that great hump of his.
+
+"I don't suppose," said Peter, "that there are any very big people out
+there on those prairies where you used to live any more than there are
+here on the Green Meadows. All the very big people seem to prefer to
+live in the Green Forest."
+
+"It is that way now, I must admit," said Digger the Badger, "but it
+wasn't so in the old days, in the good old days when there were no
+terrible guns, and Thunderfoot and his followers shook the ground with
+their feet." Digger shook his head sadly.
+
+Instantly Peter pricked up his ears. "Who was Thunderfoot?" he demanded.
+
+Digger looked at Peter with such a look of pity for Peter's ignorance
+that Peter felt almost ashamed. "He doesn't live here and never did, so
+far as I have heard, so how should I know anything about him?" he added
+a wee bit defiantly.
+
+"If that's the case," replied Digger, "it is time you learned about the
+Lord of the Prairies."
+
+"But I want to know about Thunderfoot first!" cried Peter. "You can tell
+me about the Lord of the Prairies another time."
+
+"Were you born stupid or have you grown so?" asked Digger impatiently.
+Then without waiting for an answer he added: "Thunderfoot was the Lord
+of the Prairies. He ruled over the Wide Prairies just as Old King Bear
+ruled in the Green Forest. He ruled by might. He ruled because no one
+dared deny him the right to rule. He ruled because of his great size and
+his great strength. And all who lived on the Wide Prairies looked up to
+him and admired him and bowed before him and paid him the utmost
+respect. When he and his followers ran the earth shook, and the noise
+was like thunder, and everybody hastened to get out of the way and to
+warn his neighbors, crying: 'Here comes my Lord of the Prairies! Make
+way! Make way!' And truly Thunderfoot and his followers were a
+magnificent sight, so my great-grandfather told me, and he had it from
+his great-grandfather, who was told so by his great-grandfather, who saw
+it all with his own eyes. But that was in the days before Thunderfoot's
+head was brought low, and he was given the great hump which none of his
+descendants have ever been able to get rid of."
+
+"Tell me about that hump and where my Lord of the Prairies, Thunderfoot
+the Bison, got it!" begged Peter, with shining eyes. That there was a
+story he hadn't the least doubt.
+
+Digger the Badger flattened himself out on the ground, and into his eyes
+crept a dreamy, far-away look as if he were seeing things a great, great
+way off. "Way back In the days when the world was young, so my
+great-grandfather said," he began, "Thunderfoot, the first Bison, was
+given the Wide Prairies for a kingdom by Old Mother Nature and strode
+forth to take possession. Big was he, the biggest of all living
+creatures thereabouts. Strong was he with a strength none cared to test.
+And he was handsome. He held his head proudly. All who lived on the Wide
+Prairies admired him with a great admiration and hastened to pay homage
+to him.
+
+"For a long time he ruled wisely. All the other people brought their
+disputes to him to be settled, and so wisely did he decide them that the
+fame of his wisdom spread even beyond the Wide Prairies and was talked
+about in the Green Forest. The humblest of his subjects could come to
+him freely and be sure of a hearing and that justice would be done. Big
+as he was and mighty as he was, he took the greatest care never to
+forget the rights of others.
+
+"But there came a time when flattery turned his head, as the saying is.
+Mr. Coyote and Mr. Fox were the chief flatterers, and in all the Great
+World there were no smoother tongues than theirs. They never lost an
+opportunity to tell him how handsome he was, and how mighty he was, and
+how they admired him and looked up to him, and how unequaled was his
+wisdom. You see, being themselves dishonest and mischief-makers, they
+frequently were in trouble with their neighbors and would have to appear
+before Thunderfoot for judgment. Even when it went against them they
+praised the wisdom of it, admitting that they were in the wrong and
+begging forgiveness, all of which was very flattering to Thunderfoot.
+
+"Little by little, without knowing it, he yielded to the flattery of
+Mr. Coyote and Mr. Fox. He liked to hear the pleasant things they said.
+Little by little it became easier to find them in the right than in the
+wrong when they were accused of wronging their neighbors. Of course they
+flattered him still more. They hinted to him that it was beneath the
+dignity of one so big and strong and handsome to take notice of the very
+small and humble people like Mr. Meadow Mouse and Mr. Toad and Mr.
+Meadow Lark and others of his subjects.
+
+"Gradually the little people of the Wide Prairies began to notice a
+change in Thunderfoot. He became proud and vain. He openly boasted of
+his strength and fine appearance. When he met them he passed them
+haughtily, not seeing them at all, or at least appearing not to. No
+longer did he regard the rights of others. No longer did he watch out
+not to crush the nest of Mrs. Meadow Lark or to step on the babies of
+Danny Meadow Mouse. It came about that when the thunder of his feet was
+heard, those with homes on the ground shivered with fright and hoped
+that my Lord of the Prairies would not come their way.
+
+"One day, as he raced over the Wide Prairies for no reason but that he
+felt like running, Mr. Meadow Lark flew to meet him. Mr. Meadow Lark was
+in great distress. 'Turn aside, my Lord!' he begged. 'Turn aside, my
+Lord of the Prairies, for before you lies my nest with four precious
+eggs, and I fear you will step on them!'
+
+"Thunderfoot the Bison, Lord of the Wide Prairies, tossed his head. 'If
+you will build your nest where it can be trodden on, you can't expect me
+to look out for it,' said he. 'If anything so unfortunate happens to it,
+it is your own fault, and you mustn't blame me.' And he neither looked
+down to see where he was putting his feet nor turned aside so much as an
+inch. On he galloped, and presently with a cry of fright out from
+beneath his feet flew Mrs. Meadow Lark, and at the very next step he
+trod on the little nest in the grass and crushed the four eggs.
+
+"Mr. Coyote, who was racing beside him on one side and saw what had
+happened, grinned. Mr. Fox, who was racing beside him on the other side
+and saw what had happened, grinned. Seeing them grin, Thunderfoot
+himself grinned. Thus grinning heartlessly, they continued to run until
+they came to a place where Mother Nature walked among the flowers of
+the Wide Prairies. Mr. Coyote and Mr. Fox, whose heads were not held so
+high, saw her in time to put their tails between their legs and slink
+away. Thunderfoot, holding his head high, failed to see her until he was
+so close to her that it was with difficulty he stopped before running
+her down.
+
+"'My Lord of the Prairies seems in fine spirits,' said Mother Nature
+softly. 'Is all well with my Lord?'
+
+"Thunderfoot tossed his head proudly. 'All is well,' said he.
+
+"'I am sorry that others cannot say as much,' replied Mother Nature, and
+all the softness was gone from her voice, and it was sharp. 'I seem to
+hear the sobs of a broken-hearted little Meadow Lark,' she continued.
+'Little though she be and humble, she is as much to me as is my Lord of
+the Prairies who has made her suffer.'
+
+"Stooping swiftly, Mother Nature picked up her staff and with it struck
+Thunderfoot on the neck, so that his head was brought low, and in fear
+of another blow he humped his shoulders up. 'Thus shall you be, still
+big, still strong, but hump-shouldered and carrying your head low in
+shame, no longer Lord of the Prairies, until such time as you restore to
+Mrs. Meadow Lark the eggs you destroyed,' said she, and turned her back
+on him.
+
+"It was so. From that day on, Thunderfoot ceased to rule over the Wide
+Prairies. He was hump-shouldered and he carried his head low, looking
+and looking for the eggs he never could find to restore to Mrs. Meadow
+Lark. And though his children and his children's children became many,
+there never was one without the hump or who ceased to carry his head low
+in shame," concluded Digger the Badger.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+WHERE LIMBERHEELS GOT HIS LONG TAIL.
+
+
+Have you ever seen Limberheels the Jumping Mouse when he was in a hurry?
+If you have, very likely the first time you felt very much as Peter
+Rabbit did when he saw Limberheels for the first time. He was hopping
+along across the Green Meadows with nothing much on his mind when from
+right under his wobbly nose something shot into the air over the tops of
+the grasses for eight or ten feet and then down and out of sight. Peter
+rubbed his eyes.
+
+"Did I see it, or didn't I? And if I did, what was it?" gasped Peter.
+
+A squeaky little laugh answered him. "You saw it all right, Peter, but
+it isn't polite to call any one it. He would be quite provoked if he had
+heard you. That was my cousin, Limberheels," replied a voice quite as
+squeaky as the laugh had been.
+
+Peter turned to see the bright eyes of Danny Meadow Mouse twinkling at
+him from the entrance to a tiny little path that joined the bigger path
+in which Peter was sitting.
+
+"Hello, Danny!" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell me that was a
+relative of yours? Since when have any of your relatives taken to
+flying?"
+
+Danny chuckled. "He wasn't flying," he retorted. "He just jumped, that
+was all." Danny chuckled again, for he knows that Peter considers
+himself quite a jumper and is inclined to be a bit jealous of any one
+else who pretends to jump save his cousin, Jumper the Hare.
+
+"Jumped!" snorted Peter. "Jumped! Do you expect me to believe that any
+Mouse can jump like that? I didn't get a good look at that fellow, but
+whoever he is I tell you he flew. Nobody can jump like that."
+
+Danny chuckled again. "Wait a minute, Peter," said he. He disappeared,
+and Peter waited. He waited one minute, two minutes, three minutes, and
+then suddenly Danny poked his head out from the grass beside the path.
+"Here he is, Peter," said he, coming wholly out into the path. "Let me
+introduce my cousin, Limberheels."
+
+As he spoke the grass beside him rustled, and out crept some one beside
+whom Danny Meadow Mouse looked big, clumsy and homely. One glance was
+enough to tell Peter that the stranger was a sure-enough member of the
+Mouse family, but such a member as he never had seen before. He was trim
+and slender. He wore a reddish-brown coat with a white waistcoat. But
+the things that made Peter stare very impolitely were his tail and his
+legs. His tail was nearly twice as long as his body, slim and tapering,
+and his hind legs were very long, while his fore legs were short. It
+took only one glance to convince Peter that here was a born jumper. Any
+one built like that _must_ jump.
+
+"You two must become acquainted and be friends," continued Danny Meadow
+Mouse. "Peter is one of my best friends, Limberheels. He wouldn't hurt a
+flea. I'm sure that from now on he will be one of your best friends."
+
+"I'll be happy to," said Peter promptly. "Danny has been telling me what
+a wonderful jumper you are. Would you mind showing me how you jump? I
+guess you jumped right in front of me a few minutes ago, but I was so
+surprised that I didn't really see you."
+
+"I guess I did," replied Limberheels rather timidly. "You see, I didn't
+hear you coming until you were almost on top of me, and then I didn't
+know who it was so I got away as quickly as I could. I'll be ever so
+glad to have you for a friend and next time I won't run away."
+
+"Show him how you can jump," interrupted Danny Meadow Mouse. "He
+wouldn't believe me when I told him that you didn't fly."
+
+Limberheels grinned rather sheepishly. "Of course I didn't fly," said
+he. "No animal can fly but Flitter the Bat. I just jumped like this."
+
+With a tremendous spring from his long hind legs Limberheels leaped,
+while Peter Rabbit stared, his mouth wide open with astonishment. He
+hadn't dreamed that any one could jump so far in proportion to his size
+as this slim, trim little cousin of Danny's. Later, after Limberheels
+had jumped for Peter's benefit until he was tired and had gone to hunt
+for a lunch of grass seeds, Peter wanted to know all about Limberheels.
+
+"Never in my life have I seen such jumping," he declared. "And never
+have I seen such a tail. I thought Whitefoot the Wood Mouse had a fine
+tail, but it doesn't compare with that of Limberheels."
+
+"It is a fine tail," replied Danny, whose own tail, as you know, is
+very short.
+
+"It is a fine tail," he repeated rather wistfully. "Would you like to
+hear where he got it?"
+
+"I know," retorted Peter with a grin. "He got it from his father, who
+got it from his father, and so on way back to the days when the world
+was young." Then, seeing a look of disappointment on Danny's face, and
+eager for a story as usual, he added: "But I would like to know how such
+a tail as that came in the family."
+
+Danny brightened up at once. "It's funny how things come about in this
+world," he began. "The great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of
+Limberheels, the first one, you know, was quite an ordinary Mouse when
+Old Mother Nature made him and started him out to make his way in the
+Great World. He was little, one of the smallest of the family, and his
+tail was short, no longer than mine. His hind legs were like those of
+all his relatives. He ran about just as his relatives did. He was so
+small and kept out of sight so much that he didn't even have a name.
+There was nothing about him to suggest a name.
+
+"For a long time he was contented and happy. Then one day he happened to
+see Mr. Hare jump. It seemed to him the most wonderful thing in the
+world that any one should be able to jump like that. So he began to
+spend most of his spare time where he could watch Mr. Hare. One day Old
+Mother Nature happened along unseen by him, as he was watching Mr. Hare
+jump, and she overheard him say very, very wistfully, 'How I wish I
+could jump like that! I wish I had long hind legs like Mr. Hare.'
+
+"Old Mother Nature's kindly eyes twinkled. 'That's easily arranged,'
+said she. 'If you think long hind legs will be of more use to you than
+the ones you have, you shall have them.'
+
+"The next morning when little Mr. Mouse awoke, he discovered that in the
+night something had happened to his hind legs. They were very long and
+strong, regular jumping legs like those of Mr. Hare. Of course he was in
+such a great hurry to try them that he couldn't wait for his breakfast.
+He began by making little short hops, and in no time at all he was
+getting about splendidly. At last he got up his courage to try a long
+jump. Up in the air he shot, and then something happened. Yes, Sir,
+something happened. He couldn't kept his balance. He turned two or
+three somersaults and landed on his back.
+
+"'I guess,' said he to himself, 'I've got to _learn_ to make long
+jumps.' So he kept trying and trying, but always with the same
+result--he never knew when, where, or how he was going to land. As long
+as he made short jumps he had no trouble, but every time he tried a long
+jump he lost his balance, and try as he would he couldn't discover why.
+So at last he gave up trying and contented himself with short jumps.
+Finally Old Mother Nature came that way again.
+
+"'How do you like your long hind legs?' she asked.
+
+"'Very much, thank you,' replied little Mr. Mouse politely.
+
+"'Let me see you jump,' said Old Mother Nature.
+
+"Little Mr. Mouse made half a dozen little jumps. They were not much
+more than hops. 'You don't call that jumping, do you?' laughed Old
+Mother Nature. 'With such long, strong legs as I've given you, you ought
+to be one of the best jumpers anywhere about. Now let me see you make a
+long jump.'
+
+"Little Mr. Mouse tried his best to think of some excuse, but he
+couldn't. So he made a long jump, and the usual thing happened--he
+turned two or three somersaults and landed on his back. Old Mother
+Nature looked astonished. Then she laughed until she had to hold her
+sides. 'Do it again,' she commanded.
+
+"With the most shamefaced air that you can imagine, little Mr. Mouse
+jumped again. Old Mother Nature watched him closely. 'Come here to me,'
+said she as he scrambled to his feet after his tumble. 'It's all my
+fault,' said she kindly, as he obeyed her. 'It was very stupid of me.
+What you need is a long tail to balance you on a long jump. That short
+tail is all right for short jumps, but it won't do for long jumps. It
+won't do at all. I should have thought of that when I made your legs
+long.'
+
+"She reached down and took hold of the tip of that little short tail and
+drew it out until it was long, almost twice as long as the body of
+little Mr. Mouse. 'Now jump,' she commanded, 'and jump with all your
+might.'
+
+"A little fearfully but with the beginning of a little hope Mr. Mouse
+jumped with all his might. Away he sailed straight and true and landed
+lightly on his feet so far from where he had left the ground that he
+could hardly believe his own eyes as he looked back. Mother Nature was
+smiling.
+
+"'There you are, Mr. Limberheels. I guess that that will make you quite
+the most wonderful jumper of all my children,' said she.
+
+"And so it was that little Mr. Mouse, all at one time, became possessed
+of a long tail, a name, and the ability to out jump all his neighbors,"
+concluded Danny Meadow Mouse. "Do you know," he added wistfully,
+"sometimes I envy my cousin Limberheels."
+
+"I envy him myself," declared Peter.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+WHERE OLD MR. GOBBLER GOT THE STRUTTING HABIT
+
+
+Peter Rabbit never will forget the first time he saw Big Tom Gobbler. It
+was very early one spring morning, when Peter was not yet old enough to
+have made the acquaintance of all the people who live in the Green
+Forest, and when it seemed as if the chief thing in life with him was to
+satisfy his curiosity about the ways of the Great World. Several times
+when he had been hopping along, lipperty-lipperty-lip, through the Green
+Forest just after sun-up, he had heard a strange sound quite unlike any
+other of all the many sounds his long ears had learned to know. He knew
+that it was the voice of some one who lived in the Green Forest, but
+though he had looked and looked he had been unable to discover the owner
+of that voice.
+
+On this particular morning Peter happened to be sitting under some ferns
+on the edge of a little open space among the trees when again he heard
+that strange voice. It seemed to come from somewhere back in the woods
+in the very direction from which he had just come. "Gobble-obble-obble!"
+said the voice, and again a moment later "Gobble-obble-obble!"
+
+Peter was just preparing to go back to see if he could find the owner of
+that voice when the noise of great wings caused him to look up just in
+time to see a bigger bird than he ever had even dreamed of coming
+swiftly over the tree-tops. With his eyes popping out and his mouth wide
+open with astonishment, Peter saw the great bird set its wings and sail
+down into the little opening on the edge of which Peter was sitting. The
+instant this great bird was on the ground, he stood as still as if he
+were made of stone, his long neck stretched up. Only the shine of a pair
+of the sharpest eyes Peter ever had seen showed that he was alive.
+
+Peter held his breath, and it was so still that you could have heard a
+leaf drop had you been there. When at last the stranger moved, it was
+his head only. He turned it suddenly to the right and a moment later to
+the left. It was plain that he was listening for suspicious sounds. All
+the time his bright eyes searched the edge of the opening until Peter,
+although he was well hidden, felt that he must be seen. At last,
+satisfied that all was safe, the stranger drew in his neck and began to
+walk about, pecking at the ground here and there and swallowing what he
+picked up, though what it was Peter couldn't tell.
+
+A sound seemed to catch the stranger's quick ears, for he stopped and
+stared very hard at a little clump of brush. Peter stared at it too. At
+first he saw nothing, but presently he saw a head poked out, and this
+also was a stranger. Peter glanced at the big stranger in the opening,
+and for a minute he wondered if it could be that something was wrong
+with his eyes. Never had he seen such a change in anybody. This stranger
+didn't look like the same bird at all. He was swelled up until Peter was
+afraid he would burst. His tail was spread out like a great fan. His
+head was laid back on his humped shoulders. His wings were dropped until
+the stiffly spread feathers brushed the ground. His head and neck were
+as red as blood, and there were no feathers on either. All the feathers
+of his body were ruffed out so that the sun shone on them and made them
+shimmer and shine in colors that seemed to constantly change.
+
+Back and forth in front of the brush from which the other stranger was
+peeping very shyly this great bird strutted. He would stand still so
+that the sun would fall full on his shining coat and show it off to the
+best advantage, and at the same time he would draw in a great deal of
+air and then puff it out all at once. Then he would walk a few steps,
+turn, drag his wings on the ground to make them rustle, wheel, and run
+a few steps. Never had Peter seen such vanity, such conceit, such
+imposing, puffed-up pride. He watched until he grew tired, and then he
+stole away and hurried over to the Smiling Pool to tell Grandfather Frog
+all about it and ask who these strangers were.
+
+"Chug-a-rum!" exclaimed Grandfather Frog, opening his big mouth very
+wide to laugh at Peter and his excitement. "That was Big Tom Gobbler,
+and he was doing all that for the benefit of Mrs. Gobbler, who was
+hiding in that brush. It was her head you saw. Big Tom is the most
+conceited fellow in the Green Forest. He dearly loves to strut. He is
+just like his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. The
+Gobblers never have gotten over strutting since Old Mr. Gobbler, the
+first of the family, got the habit."
+
+"Tell me about it. Please, Grandfather Frog, tell me about it," begged
+Peter. "How did Old Mr. Gobbler get the habit?"
+
+Grandfather Frog chuckled. "He got it from admiring his own reflection
+in a pool of water," said he. "You see, in those days way back when the
+world was young, people had more time to form habits than they do now.
+With plenty to eat and little to do, they had more time to think about
+themselves than they do now. Old Mr. Gobbler soon discovered that he was
+the biggest of all the birds in that part of the Great World where he
+lived, and this discovery was, I suspect, the beginning of his vanity.
+Then one day as he was walking along, he came to a little pool of water.
+It was very clear, and there wasn't a ripple on the surface. There for
+the first time Mr. Gobbler saw his reflection. The more he looked, the
+better he liked his own appearance. He spread his tail just to see how
+it would look in the water. Then he puffed himself out and strutted.
+
+"'There is nobody to compare with me,' thought he, and strutted more
+than ever.
+
+"After that he used to steal away every day to admire himself in that
+little pool of water. He tried new ways of strutting and of puffing
+himself out. After a while he was no longer content to admire himself.
+He wanted others to admire him. So the first chance he got he began to
+strut and show off all his grand airs before Mrs. Gobbler. At first she
+paid no attention to him. At least that is the way she appeared. She
+would turn her back on him and walk off into the bushes. This made Old
+Mr. Gobbler very angry until he discovered that she would tiptoe back
+and watch him admiringly when she thought he didn't know it. That made
+him strut all the more.
+
+"At first all the neighbors used to gather around and admire him and
+tell him how handsome he was until his head was quite turned, as the
+saying is, and he spent most of his time strutting and showing off. Then
+he took to bragging and boasting that there was no bird to compare with
+him. Thus he became quite unbearable, and all his neighbors would turn
+their backs on him when they saw him coming. Only Mrs. Gobbler continued
+to watch in secret and to admire him.
+
+"Now in those days Mr. Gobbler didn't have a red head and neck. One day
+Old Mother Nature happened along when Mr. Gobbler was strutting and
+boasting how big and brave he was. He didn't see her, and she watched
+him quietly for a few minutes. Then she slipped away and hunted up Mr.
+Wolf.
+
+"'I want you to steal over where Mr. Gobbler is strutting,' said she,
+'and suddenly spring out at him as if you intended to catch him.'
+
+"Mr. Wolf grinned and trotted off to do her bidding. He found Mr.
+Gobbler swelled up until he looked as if he must burst, and bragging to
+Mrs. Gobbler.
+
+"'I'm the biggest of all the birds,' bragged Mr. Gobbler. 'I'm afraid of
+no one. While you have me with you, my dear, you have nothing in all the
+Great World to fear.'
+
+"Just then out sprang Mr. Wolf with all his long, sharp teeth showing.
+Mr. Gobbler gave a yelp of fright. He lost his swelled-up appearance as
+suddenly as a bubble flattens out when it is pricked. With a frantic
+beating of his wings he took to the air. Being in such a fright, he
+didn't see where he was going, and struck his head against a sharp twig,
+which tore the skin, for there were no feathers to protect it, and made
+it bleed. The blood ran all over his head and down his neck, though he
+really was hardly hurt at all. From the top of a tall tree he looked
+down. There stood Old Mother Nature, looking up at him.
+
+"'Mr. Gobbler,' said she, 'you have acquired a bad habit, a very bad
+habit. Hereafter, whenever you become vain and strut, your head and neck
+shall become as red as they now are, as a reminder to you and all who
+see you of how silly it is to be vain and boastful.'
+
+"And so it was. And so it is with Big Tom Gobbler to this day. There is
+nothing in the world more foolish than vanity," concluded Grandfather
+Frog.
+
+[Illustration: "Don't call me Striped Chipmunk, and don't call me
+Gopher!" said he. _Page 172._]
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+WHERE SEEK-SEEK GOT HIS PRETTY COAT
+
+
+Peter Rabbit never will forget the first time he saw Seek-Seek the
+Ground Squirrel, often wrongly called Gopher or Gopher Squirrel, but
+whose real name is Spermophile, which means seed eater. Peter won't
+forget that meeting, because of the funny mistake he made and the
+foolish feeling he had as a result of it. You see, Peter didn't know
+that there was such a person as Seek-Seek. He was hopping along across
+the Green Meadows in his usual happy-go-lucky way when, right in front
+of him, he saw what at first he took to be a stake, a small stake,
+driven in the ground. But as he drew nearer, it suddenly moved. It
+wasn't a stake at all, but a very lively small person in a striped coat
+who had been sitting up very straight and motionless.
+
+"Hello, Striped Chipmunk! What are you doing way out here so far from
+the old stone wall?" exclaimed Peter.
+
+The small person in the striped coat whirled and faced Peter with
+snapping eyes. "Don't call me Striped Chipmunk, and don't call me
+Gopher!" said he very fiercely for so small a person. "I am neither one.
+I am Seek-Seek the Ground Squirrel, and I'll thank you to call me by my
+own name. I am getting everlastingly tired of being called the names of
+other people."
+
+Peter looked very foolish. "I beg your pardon," said he. "I do indeed.
+I'm sorry. Perhaps you don't know it, but you look very much like
+Striped Chipmunk, who is one of my best friends. You look so much like
+him that I thought you must be him. I wonder if you are related to him."
+
+"Certainly I'm related to him, or he is related to me, whichever way you
+please to put it," snapped Seek-Seek. "We are cousins. But he is a Rock
+Squirrel, and I am a Ground Squirrel which is altogether different. You
+don't find me where there are rocks and stones in the way if I know it.
+Besides, if you used your eyes, you would see that we are not dressed
+alike either. Just because we both happen to wear stripes is no reason
+why we should be mistaken for each other."
+
+Peter looked at Seek-Seek more closely than he had, and at once he made
+a discovery. "Why!" he exclaimed, "your coat has more stripes than
+Striped Chipmunk's has, hasn't it?"
+
+"I should hope so," retorted Seek-Seek.
+
+"And it has little rows of spots, too!" cried Peter. "If I had noticed
+those spots at first, I wouldn't have made such a foolish mistake. I do
+believe that your coat is prettier than Striped Chipmunk's, and I had
+thought his as pretty as a coat can be."
+
+Seek-Seek looked rather pleased, though he tried not to. "Huh!" he
+sniffed. "Of course it's prettier. It took you a long time to find it
+out. I wouldn't trade coats with Striped Chipmunk or anybody else of my
+acquaintance."
+
+"Neither would I if I were in your place," declared Peter. "I wish Old
+Mother Nature had given me a coat like that." He said this so wistfully
+that Seek-Seek, who had started to laugh, turned his head so that Peter
+might not know it. "I'm afraid it wouldn't look so well on one as big as
+you," he replied. "Anyway, you wouldn't be able to hide from your
+enemies as you can now."
+
+"That's so," said Peter thoughtfully. "I would be easily seen in a coat
+like that, for a fact. I hadn't thought of that. I guess Old Mother
+Nature knows best. I--I wonder how she ever happened to think of a coat
+like yours."
+
+Seek-Seek chuckled. He had quite forgotten that he had felt offended
+because Peter had mistaken him for his cousin, Striped Chipmunk. He
+enjoyed Peter's admiration of his coat. He is naturally rather
+talkative, and like most folks he enjoyed talking about himself.
+
+"This coat," said he, "has been in the family a very great while. Of
+course, I don't mean this particular coat that I am wearing," he
+hastened to add, as he saw Peter beginning to grin. "I mean this style
+of coat has been in the family a very long time. My father was dressed
+just as I am. So was his father and--"
+
+"I know," interrupted Peter. "You were going to say that so were all
+your grandfathers way back to the days when the world was young, and Old
+Mother Nature made the very first one of your family. It's funny to me
+that all the interesting things happened such a long time ago. Now
+wasn't that what you were going to say?"
+
+Seek-Seek admitted that it was, and looked a little disappointed that
+Peter had guessed it. But a second later he felt better when Peter
+asked him very politely but very earnestly for the story of how the
+first Ground Squirrel got such a pretty coat. "There is a story. I know
+there is a story," declared Peter. "Won't you tell it to me please,
+Seek-Seek?"
+
+Now Peter didn't want to hear it any more than Seek-Seek wanted to tell
+it, so while Peter squatted down comfortably, Seek-Seek sat up very
+straight and began the story.
+
+"First of all, you must know that Seek-Seek is an old family name which
+has been handed down just as the pattern of my coat has been. The very
+first of all my great-great-grandfathers was called Seek-Seek. When Old
+Mother Nature made Seek-Seek she must have had two families in mind at
+one time, the Marmot family and the Squirrel family, for she made him a
+little like each, so that in his looks he sort of fitted in between the
+two. Mother Nature told him that he was a member of the Squirrel family
+and set him free to find a place for himself in the Great World.
+
+"Now it didn't take Grandfather Seek-Seek long to find out that though
+he might be a member of the Squirrel family, Old Mother Nature had
+failed to furnish him with the right kind of claws for climbing trees,
+as most of his cousins did. True, he could climb a little, but it was
+not easy, and he felt anything but comfortable off the ground. But if
+those claws were of little use for climbing they were splendid tools for
+digging, just as are the claws of the Marmot family. So Old Mother
+Nature must have been thinking of the Marmots when she fashioned those
+claws.
+
+"At first Seek-Seek wandered about trying to find a place for himself
+in the Great World. Being a Squirrel, he tried to live as did his
+cousins, Mr. Red Squirrel and Mr. Gray Squirrel, but on account of those
+claws he didn't make much of a success of it. Then one day he met Mr.
+Chipmunk. They stopped and stared at each other in surprise because, you
+know, their coats were so much alike. At that time Seek-Seek was wearing
+plain stripes, just as Striped Chipmunk does to this day.
+
+"'What do you mean by stealing my coat?' demanded Mr. Chipmunk angrily.
+
+"'I was just about to ask you the same question,' retorted Seek-Seek.
+
+"Mr. Chipmunk had a sharp reply right on the tip of his tongue, but he
+checked it just in time. 'What's the use of quarreling over something
+neither of us had anything to do with?' said he. 'It must be that we are
+cousins. Where do you live?'
+
+"Seek-Seek explained that he didn't live anywhere in particular but was
+trying to find his place in the Great World. He told how he had tried to
+live like the other Squirrels and failed. 'I know! I know all about it,'
+interrupted Mr. Chipmunk. 'I've been all through it. The place for us is
+on the ground or at least close to it. Come see how I live.'
+
+"So Seek-Seek went with Mr. Chipmunk and saw how he lived among the
+rocks and stones. For a time he tried living there too, but he didn't
+like the rocks and stones much better than he did the trees. Besides,
+all the neighbors were forever mistaking him for Mr. Chipmunk because
+they looked so much alike, and he didn't like this. One day he wandered
+out on the Green Meadows. It was very lovely out there among the grasses
+and flowers. He wandered farther and farther, and the farther he
+wandered the better he liked it. By and by he came to the home of
+Yap-Yap the Prairie Dog, who is one of the Marmot family, as you know.
+
+"'A home like that would suit me,' thought Grandfather Seek-Seek
+wistfully, as he journeyed on. 'I wonder if I could dig one. I believe
+I'll try.'
+
+"So when he found a place to suit him he began to dig. There were no
+stones to hurt his feet and dull his nails, and he actually enjoyed
+digging. So he dug and dug until he had a wonderful underground home.
+All about were plenty of seeds and tender grasses to eat, and he was
+happy. He had found his place in the Great World. Then one day along
+came Old Mother Nature. 'Hello, Mr. Chipmunk,' she exclaimed, as she
+caught sight of his striped coat, 'what are you doing way out here?'
+
+"Then she discovered her mistake. 'Dear me,' said she, 'this will never
+do at all. If I can't tell my own children apart, how can I expect
+others to? Your coat is altogether too much like that of Mr. Chipmunk. I
+must change it. I certainly must change it.'
+
+"She leaned over and lightly tapped Seek-Seek right down the length of
+the broadest brown stripe of his coat. Wherever her finger touched a
+little spot of yellow was left. Then she did the same thing to each of
+the other brown stripes. When she had finished Grandfather Seek-Seek had
+a coat exactly like the one I am now wearing, and his cup of happiness
+was filled to the brim. From that day on he never was mistaken for Mr.
+Chipmunk or any one else. That's the story of my coat, and now I must
+get busy collecting seeds for my storehouse," concluded Seek-Seek. "Come
+and see me again, Peter Rabbit."
+
+"I will," replied Peter, as he started for the dear Old Briar-patch to
+tell Mrs. Peter all about Seek-Seek and his pretty coat.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WHERE OLD MR. OSPREY LEARNED TO FISH
+
+
+Peter Rabbit had seen a very strange thing. It was strange to Peter,
+anyway. It gave him something to think about, and this, I am sure you
+will agree, was a most excellent thing, for it kept him out of mischief
+for a while. He had been over to the Smiling Pool for a call on Jerry
+Muskrat and had just started back for the dear Old Briar-patch when he
+chanced to look over in the direction of the Big River. Coming straight
+towards him, but high in the air, was a big bird, a bird with broad
+wings. Peter didn't have to look twice to know that it was a member of
+the Hawk family. At first he thought it was Redtail. Then he caught a
+flash of white, and he thought it was Whitetail the Marsh Hawk, in spite
+of the fact that it didn't fly like him. Peter didn't stop to think of
+that. It was enough for him that a member of the Hawk family was headed
+that way, and he didn't care a twitch of his funny little tail which
+member it was. He felt that the stomach of one was quite as undesirable
+a place for Peter Rabbit as the stomach of another, and he had no
+intention of filling any if he could help it.
+
+He remembered that there was an old house of Johnny Chuck's under the
+Big Hickory-tree on the bank of the Smiling Pool, and he wasted no time
+in getting there, lipperty-lipperty-lip, as fast as he could go. He
+would stay there until the way was clear to get home to the dear Old
+Briar-patch. As soon as he was safe in the old house of Johnny Chuck, he
+turned and poked his head out of the doorway. He wanted to see if any
+one would be caught. He hoped not, but if any one was caught, he wanted
+to see. You know Peter never misses anything if he can help it. On came
+Mr. Hawk, and when he was right over the Smiling Pool, he turned and
+made a short circle high in the air. Then Peter saw that he had a white
+waist-coat and was a stranger.
+
+"I wonder who he is?" thought Peter, staring very hard. "He's bigger
+than either Redtail or Whitetail. I hope he isn't going to make his home
+here, because we have trouble enough as it is."
+
+Suddenly Mr. Hawk paused high up in the air, then closed his wings and
+shot straight down like an arrow. Plunge! Peter couldn't believe his own
+eyes. Mr. Hawk actually had disappeared in the Smiling Pool! A second
+later there was a great splashing, and out of the water rose Mr. Hawk,
+flapping his great wings heavily, scattering spray in all directions.
+Up, up he went, and then Peter saw that in his great claws was a fish.
+Peter watched him fly away with the fish, and when he felt that it was
+quite safe to do so, he came out. Over on the end of an old log among
+the bulrushes sat Jerry Muskrat just where Peter had left him. It was
+very plain that Jerry hadn't been the least bit frightened by Mr. Hawk.
+Peter couldn't understand it. His eyes fairly popped out of his head
+with excitement and curiosity.
+
+"Who was that?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"That? Why, that was Plunger the Osprey, though some people call him
+Fish Hawk," replied Jerry. "I thought everybody knew him. Why did you
+run away, Peter? He wouldn't hurt you."
+
+"Huh! I wouldn't trust _any_ Hawk!" snapped Peter.
+
+"Which goes to show how little you know!" retorted Jerry Muskrat.
+"Plunger never bothers anybody but the fish, but he surely is a terror
+to them. Old Mother Nature knew what she was doing when she made
+fishermen out of that family, didn't she?"
+
+"She certainly did, though I've never heard how she came to do it. How
+did it happen, Jerry?" Peter was doing some fishing himself. He was
+fishing for a story.
+
+Jerry Muskrat grinned. "Think you'll sleep any better if I tell you?"
+he inquired.
+
+Peter grinned back and nodded. So Jerry Muskrat told him this story:
+
+"Way back in the days when the world was young, and the
+great-great-ever-so-great-grandfathers of all the little people of the
+Green Meadows and the Green Forest of today were being started out in
+life by Old Mother Nature, they had everything to learn. The Great World
+was a new place, and they were new in it. No one knew exactly his place
+or what was expected of him, and Old Mother Nature was too busy to be
+bothered with questions. She expected each one to work out for himself a
+way in which to make himself useful, or at least to take care of
+himself, without bothering her. If he couldn't do that, she didn't want
+him around at all, and the sooner something happened to him the better.
+So the Great World began to be peopled with birds and animals.
+
+"It didn't take them long to learn that it wouldn't be possible for all
+to live if they all ate the same kind of food. So some learned to eat
+one thing and some another, and all went happily until there came a time
+when all food was scarce, and more stomachs were empty than full. You've
+heard about that hard time and sad time?"
+
+Peter nodded, and Jerry took a drink of water and then went on with his
+tale.
+
+"Of course, that was really a very dreadful time, for it was then that
+the strong began to hunt the weak, and fear was born into the world. And
+yet I guess it wasn't wholly bad. Nothing is, so far as I can find out.
+Anyway, because of that hard time, everybody became a little smarter
+than before. You know an empty stomach sharpens wit, and fear puts a
+fine edge on it. Now Mr. Osprey, who was one of the biggest of the
+cousins of old King Eagle, couldn't get over a feeling of meanness
+whenever he hunted those smaller than himself. One day he caught little
+Mr. Sparrow when little Mr. Sparrow was so busy that he forgot to watch
+out.
+
+"'I'm powerful sorry, Mr. Sparrow,' apologized Mr. Osprey, 'but there's
+an emptiness just about your size in my stomach, and it won't give me
+any peace of mind until it's filled. I hate to make a neighbor
+uncomfortable, and I'll be just as quick and accommodating about this
+little matter as I can. If you'll just shut your eyes, you won't see
+anything unpleasant, and I won't be a minute in getting that peace of
+mind I've been without so long. I just must have it, or I wouldn't
+bother you at all. I hope you won't hold it against me, Mr. Sparrow.'
+
+"Mr. Osprey was so nice and polite about it that little Mr. Sparrow
+perked up a little and started his wits working. He tried to be just as
+nice and polite as Mr. Osprey. 'I know just how you feel, Mr. Osprey,'
+said he, in a trembling voice, 'and during these hard times I've had
+that same ailment of the mind because of lonesomeness of the stomach,
+which is troubling you. So long as that emptiness is filled, I don't
+suppose it matters to you if I shouldn't happen to fill it.'
+
+"'Not at all,' replied Mr. Osprey.
+
+"'Mr. Osprey,' said little Mr. Sparrow very earnestly, 'if I were in
+your place, I never would go hungry. No, Sir, I never would go hungry.
+And I certainly never, never would trouble any of my neighbors who wear
+feathers. I certainly would feel most happy if Old Mother Nature had
+given me what she has given you. Indeed I would.'
+
+"Mr. Osprey looked down at little Mr. Sparrow and blinked at him in a
+puzzled way. 'What has Old Mother Nature given me that you would be
+happy to have?' he asked.
+
+"'Fishhooks!' replied little Mr. Sparrow, pointing to Mr. Osprey's great
+claws, 'the finest fishhooks in the world. You don't hear Billy Mink or
+Little Joe Otter or Mr. Heron complaining about hard times. Why? Because
+they don't know what hard times are. There are plenty of fish to be
+caught, and when they are hungry they go fishing. Fish are very filling
+and satisfying, I've heard say. When I flew across the Smiling Pool a
+little while ago, I saw a fat fish taking a sun-bath right close to the
+top of the water. Seemed like he was just waiting for some one with
+hooks to come along and snatch him right out of the water.'
+
+"'Where'd you say that fish was?' asked Mr. Osprey.
+
+"'If you'll let me go, I'll show you,' replied little Mr. Sparrow.
+
+"So Mr. Osprey let little Mr. Sparrow go, but he followed him right
+close. Mr. Sparrow led the way straight to the Smiling Pool. Sure
+enough, there was the big fish taking a sun-bath. Mr. Osprey hardly wet
+his feet putting those big hooks into that fish. He flew away with it,
+and presently he was rid of that emptiness in his stomach and had back
+his peace of mind. After that, whenever he was hungry, he went fishing
+instead of hunting the birds and the animals. By practice he learned how
+to use those big fishhooks of his and became one of the smartest of all
+fishermen. He and little Mr. Sparrow became great friends, in fact, such
+friends that when Mr. Osprey built a great nest, little Mr. Sparrow
+built his right in the side of it, and there he was perfectly safe from
+others who might be hunting him. And it's been just that way ever since.
+If you wore scales instead of fur, and lived in the water instead of on
+the land, Peter Rabbit, you would have reason to fear Plunger the
+Osprey, but as it is, you are safer when he is about than when he isn't.
+There comes old Redtail the Hawk. You'd better get out of sight, Peter."
+
+Peter did.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+WHERE OLD MR. BOB-CAT LEFT HIS HONOR
+
+
+Of all those who are forever trying to catch Peter Rabbit, he fears none
+more than Yowler the Bob-cat. And from that fear has grown hate. You
+will find it true all through life that hate often springs from great
+fear. Peter isn't much given to hate, but he does hate Yowler the
+Bob-cat. It is partly because of his fear of Yowler, but it is still
+more because he feels that Yowler is not fair in his hunting. He has no
+honor. There are many others whom Peter fears,--Reddy Fox, Old Man
+Coyote, Hooty the Owl,--and with very good reason. But Peter considers
+that these hunt him fairly. He knows when and where to be on the watch
+for them.
+
+But with Yowler it is altogether different. Yowler hides beside one of
+Peter's favorite little paths, and there he waits patiently for
+unsuspecting Peter to come along. He waits and watches much as Black
+Pussy, who is a cousin of Yowler, waits and watches at a mousehole.
+Peter feels that it doesn't give him a chance, and everybody is entitled
+to at least a chance to live.
+
+"I hate him! hate him! hate him!" exclaimed Peter fiercely, as he
+crawled under the very middle of a great pile of brush after the
+narrowest of narrow escapes. He had been hopping along one of his
+favorite little paths without a thought of danger. Presently he came to
+a little branch path. There he hesitated. He had intended to keep on
+along the main path, but suddenly he had a feeling that it would be
+better to take the branch path. He knew no reason why he shouldn't keep
+on as he had planned. It was just a feeling that it would be better to
+take the other path, a feeling without any real reason. So he hesitated
+and finally turned down the little branch path. As he did so he caught a
+glimpse of a brown form moving stealthily from behind a log farther up
+the main little path. It was moving swiftly in the direction of the
+little branch path. That glimpse was enough for Peter. That stealthy
+form could be but one person--Yowler the Bob-cat. He turned and darted
+back the way he had come and then off to one side to the great pile of
+brush under which he had crawled.
+
+"Who is it you hate?" asked a voice.
+
+For just a second Peter was startled, then he recognized the voice of
+Mrs. Grouse, one of his very best friends. "Yowler the Bob-cat," said he
+as fiercely as before.
+
+"I don't love him myself," replied Mrs. Grouse. "I suspected that he was
+somewhere about, and that is why I am here. Did you see him?"
+
+"Yes," said Peter, "I saw him. He was hiding beside my favorite little
+path, and it is a wonder I didn't hop straight into his jaws. That
+fellow doesn't hunt fairly. He doesn't give us a chance. He hasn't any
+honor."
+
+"Honor!" exclaimed Mrs. Grouse. "Honor! Of course he hasn't any honor.
+There hasn't been any honor in Yowler's family since old Mr. Bob-cat,
+the first of all the Bob-cats, left his honor in Turkey Wood, way back
+in the days when the world was young, and failed to get it again. Honor!
+Of course Yowler hasn't any. What could you expect?"
+
+At once Peter was all ears. "I've never heard about that," said he.
+"Tell me about it, Mrs. Grouse. We've got to stay right where we are for
+a long time to make sure that Yowler has given us up and gone away, so
+you will have plenty of time to tell me the story. Where was Turkey
+Wood, and how did old Mr. Bob-cat happen to leave his honor there?"
+
+"He didn't happen to; he did it deliberately," replied Mrs. Grouse. "You
+see, it was like this: In the beginning of things, when Old Mother
+Nature made the first little people and the first big people of the
+Green Forest and the Green Meadows, she was too busy to watch over them
+all the time, so for a while she put them on their honor not to harm one
+another or interfere with one another in any way, for she wanted them to
+live in peace and happiness and raise families to people the Great
+World.
+
+"Now it chanced that Mr. and Mrs. Gobbler, the first of the Turkey
+family, chose a certain little grove of trees in which to make their
+home, and it became known as Turkey Wood. There, in course of time, Mrs.
+Turkey made her nest on the ground, well hidden among some bushes, and
+in it laid twelve big eggs. It was the day on which she laid the twelfth
+big egg that old Mr. Bob-cat, who, of course, wasn't old then, took it
+into his head to prowl about in Turkey Wood. Already Mr. Bob-cat had
+begun to form a sneaky habit of stealth. He was very fond of watching
+his neighbors to find out what they were about, and it was this fondness
+of minding the business of other people instead of his own that was
+making him sneaky and stealthy, for of course he didn't want any one to
+know what he was doing.
+
+"It happened that as he stole into Turkey Wood, Mrs. Gobbler left her
+nest to get a bite to eat. Mr. Bob-cat saw her, but she didn't see him.
+He crouched flat until she was out of sight.
+
+"'She seemed mighty careful about how she slipped out of those bushes,'
+thought Mr. Bob-cat. 'She acted as if she didn't want to be seen. I
+wonder why. I wonder if she has a secret hidden in those bushes. I
+suppose the way to find out is to look.'
+
+"First making sure that no one saw him, Mr. Bob-cat crept in his sneaky
+way into the bushes, and it didn't take him long to find that nest with
+the twelve big eggs. He didn't know what they were, for they were the
+first eggs he had ever seen. He stared at them and wondered if they were
+good to eat. He glanced this way and that way to be sure that no one was
+watching him.
+
+"'Don't touch them,' warned something inside of him. 'These belong to
+Mrs. Gobbler, and Old Mother Nature has put you on your honor not to
+interfere with others or their affairs.'
+
+"'It won't do any harm just to touch them and see what they are like,'
+said another little tempting voice inside of him.
+
+"'Remember your honor,' warned the first little voice.
+
+"'Bother my honor! I'm not going to do any harm,' muttered Mr. Bob-cat,
+and picked up one of the eggs in his mouth. He tried it with his teeth
+to see if it was hard, and of course he put his teeth right through the
+shell. He started to put it back in a hurry, but just then he noticed a
+good taste in his mouth. The inside of that egg was good to eat, very
+good indeed!
+
+"'One won't be missed,' thought Mr. Bob-cat, and then, fearing that Mrs.
+Gobbler would return, he bounded away, taking the egg with him.
+
+"When Mrs. Gobbler returned, she did miss that egg. She looked all about
+for it, but there was nothing to show what had become of it. With a
+troubled mind she began to sit on her eggs. She was so worried that she
+didn't leave them until she simply _had_ to get something to eat.
+
+"Meanwhile Mr. Bob-cat had eaten that egg, and it had tasted so good
+that he could think of nothing but how he could get another. So at the
+first opportunity he sneaked back to Turkey Wood, and without making a
+sound crept in among the bushes until he could see Mrs. Gobbler sitting
+on her eggs. There he lay and watched and watched until Mrs. Gobbler
+left to get something to eat. No sooner was she out of sight than Mr.
+Bob-cat stole to the nest.
+
+"'Remember your honor,' warned the little voice inside.
+
+"'Bother honor. I'd rather have an egg,' muttered Mr. Bob-cat, and
+pulled one out of the nest. He bit a hole in one end and sucked out the
+contents. It was so good he took another. This led to a third, and
+finally Mr. Bob-cat had sucked every one of those eggs. Then silently he
+sneaked away--away from Turkey Wood to a distant part of the Green
+Forest. Behind him in Turkey Wood he left a nestful of empty shells and
+his honor.
+
+"'Nobody knows who did it, and nobody ever will find out,' thought Mr.
+Bob-cat, but all the time he knew that he had left his honor behind, and
+this made him more sneaky than ever. He never would meet any one face to
+face. You know that is something that one who has lost his honor never
+can do. It wasn't long before all his neighbors knew that he was without
+honor, and so would have nothing to do with him. They shunned him. He
+grew to be more and more of a sneak. And all the time he believed that
+no one knew what he had done or where he had left his honor.
+
+"But Old Mother Nature knew. Of course Mrs. Gobbler told her what had
+happened to her eggs. Old Mother Nature told her to make a new nest and
+hide it more carefully than before, which Mrs. Gobbler did and hatched
+out ten fine young Gobblers. Meanwhile Old Mother Nature went about her
+business, but all the time she was watching to see who would fail to
+look her straight in the face. The first time she met Mr. Bob-cat he
+tried to slip past unseen. When Old Mother Nature stepped in front of
+him, he couldn't look her in the face, try as he would.
+
+"'Ah-ha!' said she. 'You are the one who left his honor in Turkey Wood.
+From this time forth you shall be an outcast, friendless and alone,
+hated by every one.'
+
+"And so it was, and has been ever since. And so it is with Yowler today.
+You said truly, Peter, that he hasn't any honor. Isn't it dreadful?"
+
+And Peter agreed that it is.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+WHERE DIPPY THE LOON GOT THE NAME OF BEING CRAZY
+
+
+As you all know, Peter Rabbit is out and about at a time when most folks
+are snugly tucked in bed. The fact is, Peter is very fond of roaming
+around at night. He says he feels safer then in spite of the fact that
+some of his smartest enemies are also out and about, among them Hooty
+the Owl and Reddy Fox and Old Man Coyote. The two latter also hunt by
+day when the fancy takes them or they have been so unsuccessful at night
+that their stomachs won't give them any peace, and Peter is sure that
+though they can see very well at night, they can see still better in
+the light of day. Anyway, that is one of the reasons he gives for his
+own liking for roaming after jolly, round, red Mr. Sun has gone to bed
+behind the Purple Hills.
+
+Now it happened one moonlight night that Peter had ventured way over
+almost to the Big River. He had heard Hooty the Owl's fierce hunting
+call far off in the Green Forest. He had heard Reddy Fox barking up in
+the Old Pasture. So Peter felt quite safe. He felt so safe that he had
+almost forgotten that there could be such a thing as fear. And then,
+from the direction of the Big River, there came such a sound as Peter
+never had heard before. It was a sound that made his heart seem to quite
+stop beating for an instant. It was a sound that sent cold chills racing
+and chasing all over him. It was a sound that made him wish with all
+his might that he was that instant right in the heart of the dear Old
+Briar-patch instead of way over there near the bank of the Big River.
+
+He didn't waste much time getting back to the dear Old Briar-patch, once
+he was sure his heart hadn't really stopped beating. The way he went
+across the Green Meadows, lipperty-lipperty-lip, lipperty-lipperty-lip,
+was positive proof that in spite of his fright his heart was quite all
+right. He didn't run a little way, stop, run a little farther and stop
+again, as is his usual way. He kept lipperty-lipperty-lipping without a
+single stop until he reached the edge of the dear Old Briar-patch and
+once more felt really safe. Two or three times he had felt that he must
+stop to get his breath, but each time that sound, that dreadful sound,
+had seemed to be following right at his heels, and he had suddenly
+discovered that he didn't need to stop after all.
+
+But having reached the dear Old Briar-patch Peter stopped and panted for
+breath while he anxiously watched for the appearance of some unknown
+enemy following him. It was then that he realized that that sound came
+from the Big River, and that whoever made it had not left the Big River
+at all. It made Peter feel a wee bit foolish as he thought how he had
+been sure that there was danger right at his very heels all the way
+home, when all the time there hadn't been any danger at all.
+
+Peter sat there and listened, and despite the fact that he now felt
+absolutely safe, the cold chills ran over him every time he heard it.
+It was a voice; Peter was sure of that. It was a voice, but such a voice
+as Peter never in his life had heard before. It was quite as bad if not
+worse than the voice of Old Man Coyote. In a way it reminded him of Old
+Man Coyote's voice, but while Old Man Coyote's voice sounded like many
+voices in one, it was not so fearsome as this voice, for this voice
+sounded like a human voice, yet wasn't. Something inside Peter told him
+that it wasn't a human voice, in spite of its sounding so.
+
+The next morning Peter ran over to the Smiling Pool to ask Grandfather
+Frog if he had any idea who could have such a voice as that. When he
+tried to tell Grandfather Frog what that voice was like, he couldn't. He
+just couldn't describe it.
+
+"It was the lonesomest and craziest sound I've ever heard," declared
+Peter, "and that is all I can tell you. It was crazier than the voice of
+Old Man Coyote."
+
+"That is all you need tell me," chuckled Grandfather Frog. "That was the
+voice of Dippy the Loon. And let me tell you something, Peter: you are
+not the first one to think his voice has a crazy sound. Oh, my, no! No,
+indeed! Why, a lot of people think Dippy _is_ crazy, and when any one
+does queer things they say of him that he is 'crazy as a Loon.'
+
+"But is he crazy?" asked Peter.
+
+"Chug-a-rum!" exclaimed Grandfather Frog. "Chug-a-rum! Not half so
+crazy as you are, Peter, coming over here to the Smiling Pool in
+broad daylight. He likes to be thought crazy, just as his
+great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather did before him, that's all.
+Everybody thought his great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather was crazy,
+and it paid Mr. Loon to have them think so. So he did his best to make
+them keep thinking so."
+
+"Tell me about it. Do please tell me about it, Grandfather Frog," begged
+Peter. "Please, please, please."
+
+Now how could Grandfather Frog resist that? He couldn't. He didn't even
+try to. He just cleared his throat once or twice and began.
+
+"Once on a time, long, long ago, lived the very first of all the Loons,
+the ever-and-ever-and-ever-so-great-grandfather of Dippy, whose voice
+frightened you so last night."
+
+"How did you know it frightened me?" exclaimed Peter, for he had taken
+care not to tell Grandfather Frog anything about that.
+
+Grandfather Frog chuckled and went right on with his story. "Right from
+the beginning Mr. Loon was a mighty independent fellow. It didn't take
+him long to find out that Old Mother Nature had too much to do to waste
+any time on those who didn't try to take care of themselves, and that
+those would live longest who were smartest and most independent. He had
+sharp eyes, had old Mr. Loon, just as Dippy has today, and he used them
+to good account. He saw at once that with so many birds and animals
+living on the land it was likely to get crowded after a while, and that
+when such became the case, it was going to be mighty hard work for some
+to get a living. So Mr. Loon went to Mother Nature and told her that if
+she had no objections he would like a pair of swimming feet and would
+live on the water.
+
+"Now Old Mother Nature had just fitted out Mr. Duck with a pair of
+webbed feet that he might swim, so she was quite prepared to fit Mr.
+Loon out in like manner.
+
+"'I suppose,' said she, 'that you want a bill like Mr. Duck's.'
+
+"Mr. Loon shook his head. 'Thank you,' said he, 'but I would prefer a
+sharp bill to a broad one.'
+
+"'How is that?' exclaimed Mother Nature. 'Mr. Duck has been delighted
+with his bill ever since I gave it to him.'
+
+"'And with good reason,' replied Mr. Loon. 'Did I propose to live as Mr.
+Duck lives, I should want a bill just like his, but I find that fish are
+more to my liking. Also I have noticed that there are fewer who eat
+fish.'
+
+"So Mother Nature gave him the kind of bill he wanted, and Mr. Loon
+went about his business. He managed to get fish enough to keep from
+going hungry, but he found that the only way he could do it was to sit
+perfectly still until a fish swam within reach and then strike swiftly.
+In fact, his fishing was much like that of Mr. Heron, save that the
+latter stood instead of sitting. Success was chiefly the result of luck
+and patience.
+
+"Now this sort of thing was not at all to the liking of Mr. Loon. He
+gloried in his strength and he wanted to hunt for his fish and catch
+them in fair chase instead of waiting for them to unsuspectingly swim
+within reach. He practised and practised swimming and diving, but he
+soon made up his mind that he never would be able to move through the
+water fast enough to catch a fish unless there was some change. He
+watched the fish swim, and he saw that the power which drove them
+through the water came from their tails. Mr. Loon grew very thoughtful.
+
+"The next time Mother Nature came around to see how everybody was
+getting on, to hear complaints, and to grant such requests as seemed
+wise, Mr. Loon was on hand. 'If you please,' said he when his turn came,
+'I would like my legs moved back to the lower end of my body.'
+
+"Mother Nature was surprised. She looked it. 'But you'll hardly be able
+to walk at all with your legs there!' she exclaimed.
+
+"Mr. Loon said that he knew that, and that he didn't want to walk. He
+would far rather spend all his time on the water. So Mother Nature
+granted his request. Mr. Loon thanked her and started for the water. He
+couldn't keep his balance. He simply flopped along, while all his
+neighbors, who had heard his queer request, jeered at him and called him
+crazy. He just didn't pay any attention, but flopped along until he
+reached the water. Then he swam away swiftly. When he was quite by
+himself with none to see, he dived, and as he had hoped, he found that
+he could drive himself through the water at great speed. He practised a
+while and then he went fishing. When he caught his first fish in a fair
+chase, he was so delighted that he shrieked and shouted and laughed in
+the wildest fashion far into the night. And those who had heard his
+strange request and thought him crazy were sure of it, as they listened
+to his wild laughter.
+
+"So little by little it was spread about among all the other people
+that Mr. Loon was crazy, and he was left much to himself, which was
+just what he desired. He was quick to note that the sound of his voice
+sent shivers over some of his neighbors, and so he would shriek and
+laugh just to drive them away. It pleased him to have them think him
+crazy, and he kept it up.
+
+"So it is with Dippy today, and last night you ran from the voice of a
+crazy Loon who isn't crazy at all, but likes to make people think he
+is," concluded Grandfather Frog.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+WHERE BIG-HORN GOT HIS CURVED HORNS
+
+
+It was Digger the Badger who told Peter Rabbit the story of the great
+Ram who was the first of all the wild Sheep who live on the tops of the
+mountains bounding the great plains of the Far West on which Digger was
+born. It happened that Farmer Brown's flock of Sheep were grazing in the
+Old Pasture in plain sight of Digger as he sat on his doorstep watching
+his shadow grow longer. At the head of the flock was a Ram whose horns
+curved around in almost a circle, and whom Peter Rabbit often had
+admired.
+
+Peter happened along as Digger sat there on his doorstep watching his
+shadow grow longer, so he sat down at a safe and respectful distance and
+helped Digger watch his shadow grow longer. Peter delights in doing
+things like this, because it isn't hard work at all. It is only when
+there is real work concerned that Peter loses interest. A lot of people
+are just like Peter in this respect.
+
+Peter gazed over at the Old Pasture and he, too, saw Farmer Brown's
+Sheep and the big Ram with the curving horns at his head. For a long
+time Peter had greatly admired those horns, though he never had told any
+one so. He had admired those horns because they were different from any
+other horns Peter ever had seen. They looked perfectly useless for
+fighting because they curved so that the points never could be made to
+hurt any one, but just the same Peter admired them. Now as he watched he
+spoke aloud, without thinking what he was doing.
+
+"I wish I had a pair of horns like those," said he wistfully.
+
+Digger the Badger stopped watching his shadow, and turned to stare at
+Peter. Then he laughed until finally he choked. Peter looked at him in
+surprise.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Mr. Badger?" asked he. "What is there to
+laugh at?"
+
+"Only you, Peter. Only you," replied Digger faintly, for he had laughed
+so hard that he had almost lost his voice. "I am afraid you would find a
+pair of horns like those rather heavy, Peter, rather heavy."
+
+Peter grinned. "Of course I didn't really mean that," said he. "Of
+course not. I was just thinking how nice it would be to have such fine
+horns, if one were big enough to have horns. I don't believe there are
+any other such horns in all the Great World."
+
+"And that shows how little you know about the Great World, Peter,"
+retorted Digger the Badger.
+
+"Did you ever see such horns before?" demanded Peter.
+
+"No, I never did," confessed Digger, "but I've heard my grandfather
+tell of Sheep that live on the tops of the great mountains as free
+as Light-foot the Deer or any other of the Green Forest people,
+and with horns so large that they, the Sheep, are called Big-Horns.
+From what I have heard my grandfather say, those horns over there of
+Mr. Ram's are nothing to brag about. No, Sir, they are nothing to brag
+about. One of those wild, free cousins of Mr. Ram over there would
+laugh at those horns. But they are funny horns, and they've been
+like that always since the days of the first great Ram, the
+great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of all the Sheep, so my
+grandfather told me. It was way back in those long-ago days that they
+became curved and quite useless for fighting, and all because of old
+Big-Horn going about with a chip on his shoulder."
+
+Peter pricked up his ears. "That was a funny thing for Big-Horn to be
+doing," said he. "What under the sun did he have a chip on his shoulder
+for? And what harm was there in that, even if he did?"
+
+Once more Digger began to laugh. "Peter," said he, "you certainly are
+the funniest fellow I know. Of course old Big-Horn didn't really have a
+chip on his shoulder. That is just a saying, Peter, just a saying. When
+any one goes about looking for trouble and ready to quarrel at the least
+pretext, he is said to be carrying a chip on his shoulder and daring
+anybody to knock it off."
+
+"Oh!" said Peter.
+
+"And so," continued Digger, "Big-Horn didn't have anything to do with a
+really, truly chip, but just went about always trying to get somebody to
+fight with him. It wasn't that Big-Horn was ugly. He wasn't. You see Old
+Mother Nature had given him great strength. Yes, Sir, for his size
+Big-Horn was very strong, and in that strength be took great pride. And
+Mother Nature had given him a pair of very large and strong horns with
+which to defend himself if there should be need. Those horns were almost
+straight, and with Big-Horn's great strength behind them, they were
+truly dangerous weapons. He didn't think of that. No, Sir, he didn't
+think of that. He was just brimming full of life, and he dearly loved to
+try his strength against the strength of others. It got so that the
+instant he saw anybody, down would go his head and at them he would go
+full tilt.
+
+"It was great fun--for him. Sometimes he got the worst of it, as when
+Old King Bear stepped aside at the very last instant and hit him such a
+clip with his great paw that Big-Horn was sent rolling over and over and
+lost his breath for a few minutes. But usually it was the other who got
+the worst of it, for those great, sharp-pointed horns of Big-Horn's tore
+and hurt. Indeed, even when he tried to be gentle with those smaller
+than himself he was forever hurting some one.
+
+"Finally some of his neighbors wished to go to Old Mother Nature and
+complain about Big-Horn, but others were against this plan because they
+knew that Old Mother Nature was quite loaded down with cares and worries
+as it was. So instead they called a meeting to which everybody except
+Big-Horn was invited. If Big-Horn could have heard all that was said
+about him, his ears surely would have burned. Every one was of the
+opinion that something must be done, but just what no one could suggest.
+At last, just when it seemed that the meeting would break up without
+anything being done, Old Man Coyote stepped forward. Now Old Man Coyote
+already was known as a very clever fellow, more clever even than Mr.
+Fox, though it would never have done to say so where it would get back
+to the ears of Mr. Fox.
+
+"'Friends and neighbors,' said Old Man Coyote, 'it seems to me a very
+simple matter to teach Neighbor Big-Horn a lesson that he will not soon
+forget. Being rather bashful, I haven't liked to suggest it before,
+because I thought surely some one else would do it. I suggest that some
+one be selected to fight Big-Horn, and when that one can fight no
+longer, some one else be selected to fight him, and so on until he gets
+tired, and some one can whip him. Then I think he will have had enough
+of fighting.'
+
+"Up spoke Mr. Fox and he winked at his neighbor on the right and he
+winked at his neighbor on the left. 'That is a very good idea of
+Neighbor Coyote's,' said he, 'a very good idea indeed, and I suggest
+that Mr. Coyote be selected for the honor of being the first one to
+fight Big-Horn.' Mr. Fox grinned in a sly way, and everybody else
+grinned, for everybody knew that Old Man Coyote never was known to fight
+when there was a chance to run away. So with one accord everybody agreed
+with Mr. Fox, and Old Man Coyote was selected as the first one to face
+Big-Horn. To everybody's surprise, Old Man Coyote made no objections.
+Instead he expressed himself as highly honored, and said that he hoped
+to do so well that there would be no need for others to fight Big-Horn.
+So it was arranged that Big-Horn should be invited to fight Old Man
+Coyote the very next day.
+
+"You may be sure that everybody was on hand the next day to see that
+fight. No one expected Old Man Coyote to appear. But he did. Yes, Sir,
+he did. He was right on hand at the appointed time. Big-Horn hadn't been
+told whom he was to fight, and when he found that it was Old Man Coyote,
+he was disappointed. You see, there was no anger in Big-Horn's fighting;
+he fought just for the love of using his great strength and big horns.
+Fighting was fun to him, and he wanted some one who would stand up to
+him. As soon as it was explained to him that when he had disposed of Old
+Man Coyote there would be some one else for him to fight (Mr. Deer had
+offered to be the next), he felt better. Mr. Deer had horns and was
+somewhere near his size.
+
+"Old Man Coyote slipped around until he had his back to a great rock.
+'I'm ready any time,' said he.
+
+"Big-Horn, who had been stamping with impatience, lowered his head so
+that his horns pointed straight at Old Man Coyote. He grinned as he did
+it, for he saw that with that great rock behind him, Old Man Coyote
+would have no chance to run away as he always had done in the past.
+Everybody else saw the same thing, and wondered what could have happened
+to make Old Man Coyote so stupid as to do such a thing as that, he who
+always had been accounted so clever. But they had hardly time to think
+of this, for with a snort Big-Horn bounded forward. All the others held
+their breath as they saw those great horns driving straight at Old Man
+Coyote, who was crouched with his back to the great rock. Then everybody
+closed their eyes for a second, for nobody wanted to see Old Man Coyote
+killed, and everybody _knew_ that that was what was going to happen.
+
+"Then there was a crash, and everybody's eyes flew open. There lay
+Big-Horn on the ground, looking mighty puzzled, as if he wasn't quite
+sure what had happened. And there sat Old Man Coyote, grinning at him!
+They were still staring at Old Man Coyote as if they couldn't believe
+their own eyes when some one cried, 'Look at the horns of Big-Horn!'
+
+"Instead of being long and straight, those great horns were curved over
+and round into almost a circle, and there was no longer danger from
+their sharp points. What had happened? Why, at just the right instant
+Old Man Coyote had leaped over Big-Horn, and Big-Horn had butted into
+that great rock with all his might. He had hit so hard, biff! bang! that
+he had bent his horns, just as crafty, clever Old Man Coyote had hoped
+he would.
+
+"When Old Mother Nature heard of the affair and saw those bent horns,
+she chuckled at the cleverness of Old Man Coyote and decided to leave
+those horns just as they were for the safety of Big-Horn's neighbors.
+And so they remained as long as Big-Horn lived, and just so have been
+the horns in his family from that day to this," concluded Digger, and
+once more began to watch his shadow grow longer.
+
+
+
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