INQUISITIVE MR. POSSUM

[Ill.u.s.tration: Inquisitive Mr. Possum]

It was Mr. Owl who gave the wood folk the warning by calling out one night, "To whom it may concern!" At least the wood people knew that was what he meant, but anyone else might have thought he just cried "To whoo! To whoo!"

So when all the animals both great and small had gathered around his tree he told them that in his opinion it was to be a very, very hard winter.

That of course meant that they must begin right away to lay up stores for the cold, snowed-in days, and everyone bestirred himself at once to do this.

Even Mrs. Rabbit, who seldom made much preparation for the winter days, began to do up preserves; all the small bunnies were sent out with their baskets to gather corn and beans and beet tops and all sorts of good things. "If we cannot get them green," said Mrs. Rabbit to her neighbor, Mrs. Squirrel, "we can eat them stewed; but of course we much prefer them in their natural state."

Mrs. Squirrel, to encourage her neighbor in laying up winter stores, gave her a big basketful of walnuts which Mrs. Rabbit pickled, and some say those were the first walnuts ever pickled.

But this story is not about pickled walnuts; it is about the nice preserves that Mrs. Rabbit put up and the accident that befell Mr.

Possum.

Everybody that pa.s.sed Mrs. Rabbit's home for many days found it hard to get by her door, for such spicy, nice-smelling odors as came through the open windows made everyone feel hungry.

Mr. Possum was especially interested when he found that Mrs. Rabbit was, among other things, putting up a great deal of canned corn, and he decided that when it was dark he would just take a peek into her pantry window and see how many cans she had.

Right in front of the window was a tree and one limb hung low enough so that Mr. Possum with a little care could easily swing himself from it and reach the pantry window.

Now this might have been safe enough if the limb had been a good one, but it wasn't, and when Mr. Possum ran along it, before he could even get ready to swing, "crackle, snap," went the limb and down went Mr.

Possum into a barrel of whitewash Mrs. Rabbit had ready to use on her little house.

And that was not the worst of it. When he ran home, so scared he didn't remember running at all after it was over, Mrs. Possum didn't know him, but thought he was some terrible white creature come to carry on her children, and slammed the door right in his face.

All night Mr. Possum had to sit outside, the whitewash dripping from his coat, and in the morning, bright and early, all the little Bunnies and Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit, as well, were standing in front of the house, looking at him.

Mrs. Rabbit wanted to know what he meant by carrying off some of her whitewash. "I tracked you right to your own door-yard, so you need not deny it," she said.

Mr. Possum did not try to deny it, for what was the use. He was all covered in the white stuff? But he did try to tell Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit that it was all an accident, that he was just running along the limb and off it broke and he happened to fall into the whitewash.

Mrs. Possum had found out it was her husband by this time, of course, and she came out to say that what Mrs. Rabbit could think they wanted of her whitewash was more than she could tell.

Mrs. Rabbit wiggled her nose and looked very wise. "Well," she said, "if that is true, Mr. Possum, that it was all an accident, why, of course, that is all there is to it; but you must admit that it did look suspicious."

Mr. Possum admitted that it did, and off ran the Rabbit family for home; but it was a long time before Mr. Possum could go abroad again, for the white coat he wore was to be plainly seen in the daytime or at night.

WHAT THE FLOWERS TOLD MARTHA

[Ill.u.s.tration: What the Flowers told Martha]

Martha was visiting her grandmother, who lived in the country. At the back of the farmhouse was a very large porch, and in the front of that a garden in which grew all kinds of flowers.

One afternoon, when everyone else was taking a nap, Martha sat on the porch. It was warm and a bee was buzzing around the flowers. Every little while he would fly around Martha's head.

"I wish I had someone to play with," thought Martha. "Everybody is asleep and I am lonesome."

"The flowers want you to come into the garden," buzzed the bee.

Martha listened, for she could not believe the bee was really speaking to her, but she heard again, "The flowers want you to come into the garden."

Martha walked down the path to the Rose Bush. "I'll find out if that bee is telling the truth," she said.

"I am so glad you came," said a Rose, and as Martha looked it seemed that she could almost see the face of a little girl in its petals. "I wanted some one to talk to," said the Rose.

"So did I," said a Lily.

"We all are glad to see you," said a Tulip, "for we never have anyone to talk to."

"I never knew before that you could talk," said Martha.

"Of course we can," said the Rose, "but we are tired of telling stories to one another."

"Oh! can you tell stories?" asked Martha as she seated herself on the ground beside the flowers.

"Yes, indeed!" said the Rose. "I'll tell mine first."

"Did you ever hear how the Rose happened to have thorns?" she asked.

Martha said she never did, and the Rose said, "I will tell you."

"Before I bloomed here I lived in the warm climates, and although you may not think it I also lived in the land where Jack Frost dwells. But I love best the land where the nightingale lives and tells me of his love. One night when he was singing and telling me that my perfume was the sweetest in the garden and my damask cheek the softest, a Thorn Bush which grew near and had tried many times to win him from me began to tell how sweet were his notes and how graceful his form."

"'Do come and sing in my bush,' she said, 'and let me show you how strong I am. You will be safer in my bush than on the swaying branches of the Rose.'

"But the nightingale would not leave me, and told the Thorn Bush it was far too bold and its sharp points far too treacherous. 'You are not so fragrant as the Rose,' he said, 'and my love is all for her.'

"'You shall pay for this,' screamed the Thorn Bush, angrily, 'and you will find that your beautiful Rose has thorns as well as I.' But the nightingale only sang lower and more sweetly to me, and we forgot the Thorn Bush in our happiness.

"The cruel Thorn, however, did not forget or forgive, and one day she twined herself around my roots and pressed into my tender stems until she was a part of me. I tried to cry out, but her strength was greater than mine. That night, when the nightingale came to sing his love song, she raised one of her sharp thorns and pierced his foot.

"'You see your beautiful Rose has hidden thorns,' she said, 'and she is no more to be desired than I am.'

"'I should be a poor lover were I not willing to suffer for the one I love,' replied the nightingale as he came closer and sang to me even in his pain.

"'I will always love you,' he said; 'I know you are not to blame for the thorns you wear, and that my love for you brought this upon you. I will never leave you.' And he sang to me all through the night, and in the morning a deep, red Rose bloomed where the nightingale's bleeding foot had rested, and the Thorn Bush was more angry than ever when she beheld its beauty.

"'You shall never be free,' she said to me; 'every Rose shall wear a thorn.'

"The nightingale still sings to me and never fails to tell me of his undying love."

"That is a very pretty story," said Martha as the Rose finished, "and I am glad to know about that Thorn, for I have wondered many times why a flower so beautiful as you had that sharp point under your soft leaves."