Unc' Billy agreed, and side by side they sat as still as if they were made of wood or stone. The black shadows came early to the alders beside the Laughing Brook, and soon it was very dark, so dark that Peter and Unc'

Billy, whose eyes are meant for seeing in the dark as well as in the light, had hard work to make out much. It grew later and later, and still there was not a sound of the voice of either Sammy Jay or Sticky-toes the Tree Toad. Peter began to get hungry. The more he thought about it, the hungrier he grew. He was just about ready to give it up, when the moonbeams began to creep in among the alder trees just as they had crept through the Green Forest the night that Sammy Jay kept awake all night.

The moonbeams crept farther and farther into the thicket of alder trees and bushes where Peter Rabbit and Unc' Billy Possum were hiding. Then it was that they heard the voice of Sticky-toes the Tree Toad. At any rate, Peter was sure that it was the voice of Sticky-toes until a fierce, angry whisper came down to him from the branch of an alder just over his head. Peter looked up. There sat Sticky-toes himself, but his voice was coming from an alder on the other side of the Laughing Brook.

"Do you hear that? Do you hear that? There's my voice over there, and here I am here! What do you make of it?" whispered Sticky-toes.

Peter didn't know what to make of it. All he could do was to gaze at Sticky-toes as if he thought Sticky-toes was a ghost. Just then the voice of Sammy Jay, or what sounded for all the world like Sammy's voice, screamed "Thief! thief! thief!" from the very spot where they had just heard the voice of Sticky-toes.

Peter turned to ask Unc' Billy Possum what he thought, but Unc' Billy wasn't there.

XVI

UNC' BILLY POSSUM DOES A LITTLE SURPRISING HIMSELF

When Unc' Billy Possum first heard what sounded like the voice of Sticky-toes the Tree Toad, he had thought, just as Peter Rabbit did, that Sticky-toes was over in an alder tree on the other side of the Laughing Brook. But when he heard a whisper right over their heads and looked up to see Sticky-toes himself, Unc' Billy almost chuckled out loud.

"Yo' can't fool Uncle Billy, So don't go fo' to try!

Ah knows yo', yes, Ah knows yo'-- Ah knows yo', Mistah Sly."

He said that to himself and quite under his breath, for all the time that Peter Rabbit and Sticky-toes the Tree Toad were whispering together, Unc'

Billy Possum was stealing away under the alder bushes. Unc' Billy is very soft-footed, oh, very soft-footed indeed, when he wants to be. You see one must needs be very soft-footed to steal eggs in Farmer Brown's hen-house.

So Unc' Billy stole away without making a sound, and when Peter Rabbit turned to speak to him, there was no Unc' Billy there.

Peter rubbed his eyes and stared all around, this way and that way, but no sign of Unc' Billy could he see. This so surprised Peter Rabbit that he felt queer all over. First there was the voice of Sticky-toes over on the other side of the Laughing Brook, when all the time Sticky-toes wasn't there at all. Now here Unc' Billy Possum had disappeared, just as if the earth had swallowed him up.

"This isn't any place for me!" said Peter Rabbit, and off he started for the Green Meadows as fast as he could go, lipperty-lipperty-lip!

All this time Unc' Billy Possum had been crawling along without the tiniest sound. When he came to the Laughing Brook, he went up a way until he found a big tree with a branch stretching clear across. Of course Unc' Billy could have swum across, but he didn't feel like swimming that night, so he climbed up the big tree, ran out along the branch, let himself down by the tail, and then dropped. He was across the Laughing Brook without even wetting his feet.

Unc' Billy didn't waste any time. Just as soft-footed as before, he crept along in the darkest shadows, until he was right under the alder tree from which the complaining voice of Sticky-toes the Tree Toad seemed to come.

Unc' Billy listened, and the longer he listened, the broader grew the smile on Unc' Billy's shrewd face.

"Thief! thief! thief!"

It certainly sounded for all the world like Sammy Jay's voice, and it was right over Unc' Billy's head. Unc' Billy peered up through the alders. The leaves were so thick that he could not see very well, but what he did see was enough. It was a long tail, a tail of feathers hanging down. It wasn't Sammy Jay's tail, either.

"Don' yo'all think that yo'all have joked enough?" asked Unc' Billy, trying hard to keep from chuckling aloud.

A cry of "Thief" stopped right in the middle, and two sharp eyes looked down in surprise at Unc' Billy.

XVII

THE MEETING OF TWO OLD FRIENDS

"Why, Unc' Billy Possum! What are yo'all doing way up here?" cried the owner of the long tail and sharp eyes.

"This is mah home now. Ah done moved up here," replied Unc' Billy. "'Pears to me that the question is what am yo'all doing way off up here? Ah thought Ah sho'ly done hear your voice the other day, and Ah most wore mah po' feet out looking fo' yo'. Ah thought Ah was mistaken, but now Ah reckon that Ah was right, after all. My, but Ah am right smart glad to see yo'!"

"Thank yo', Unc' Billy," replied the owner of the long tail and the sharp eyes.

"Ah reckon yo' can't be any more glad to see me, than Ah am to see yo'.

Fact is, Ah was getting right smart lonesome. Ah done been lying low daytimes, because, yo' know, Ah'm a stranger up here, and Ah was afraid that strangers might not be welcome in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows."

"'Pears like if all Ah hear am true, that yo' haven't done much lying low nights. Ah reckon yo' done make up fo' those lonesome feelings. Yes, Sah, Ah reckon so. Mah goodness, man, yo' done set everybody to running around like they was crazy!" exclaimed Unc' Billy.

The owner of the long tail and sharp eyes threw back his head and laughed, and his laugh was like the most beautiful music. It made Unc' Billy feel good just listening to it.

"Sammy Jay done moved away to the Ol' Pasture since things were so unpleasant here because everybody said he screamed all night," continued Unc' Billy Possum. "He sat up all of one night just to make sho' that he didn't scream in his sleep, and he didn't make a sound the whole night long. The next mo'ning everybody said that he had been screaming just the same, and po' Sammy Jay just moved away. Yo' ought to be ashamed to play such jokes." Unc' Billy grinned as he said it.

"Thief! thief!" came in Sammy Jay's voice right out of the mouth of the owner of the long tail and sharp eyes. Then both little rascals laughed fit to kill themselves.

"Yo' come over to my house," said Unc' Billy. "My ol' woman sho' will be right smart glad to see yo', and she's gwine to be powerful surprised, deed she am! She done been laughing at me fo' a week, because Ah was sho' Ah done hear yo' that day."

So off the two started to see old Mrs. Possum, and for the rest of that night Sticky-toes the Tree Toad listened in vain for the sound of his own voice when his lips were closed tight.

XVIII

THE MISCHIEF-MAKERS

There was a dreadful time on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest. Oh, dear, dear, dear! It really was dreadful! First Sammy Jay had been accused of screaming in the night and keeping honest little meadow and forest people awake when they wanted to sleep. And all the time Sammy Jay hadn't made a sound. Then Sticky-toes the Tree Toad had been accused of being noisy, when all the time he was sitting with his mouth closed as tight as tight could be.

All this was bad enough, but now things were so much worse that it was getting so that no one would have anything to do with any one else. Those who had been the very best of friends would pa.s.s without speaking. You see, everybody on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest knows everybody else by their voice. So when Jimmy Skunk, happening along near the Smiling Pool, heard Mrs. Redwing's voice, he didn't waste any time trying to see Mrs.

Redwing. Instead, he went straight over and told Johnny Chuck the unkind things that he had overheard Mrs. Redwing saying about Johnny.

In the same way Bobby c.o.o.n heard the voice of Blacky the Crow in Farmer Brown's corn-field, and when Bobby listened, he heard some things not at all nice about himself. And so it was, all over the Green Meadows and through the Green Forest. It seemed as if almost everybody was heard talking about some one else, and never saying nice things.

The only one who still managed to keep on good terms with everybody was Unc' Billy Possum. No one had ever heard him saying unkind things about others and so, because now there were so few others to talk to, everybody was glad to see Unc' Billy coming, and he soon was the best liked of all the little meadow and forest people. He went about trying to smooth out the troubles, and to see him you never, never would have guessed that he had anything to do with making them. My, my, no, indeed!

But every night when the moon was up, Unc' Billy would have a caller, who would come and sit just outside the doorway of Unc' Billy's house and scream "Thief! thief! thief!" Then out would pop Unc' Billy's sharp little face, and then his fat little body would follow, and he and his friend with the long tail and the sharp eyes, for of course you have guessed that is who it was, would put their heads together and laugh and chuckle as if they were enjoying the best joke ever was. Then they would whisper and sometimes talk right out loud, when they felt sure that no one was near to hear.

What were they talking about? Why, about the trouble on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest, and what a joke it all was, and what was the best way to keep it up. You see, the reason that no one heard Unc' Billy saying mean things or heard any mean things said about Unc' Billy was because it was Unc' Billy himself and his friend with the long tail and the sharp eyes who were making all the trouble. Yes, Sir, they were the mischief-makers.

It was great fun to fool everybody so. They never once stopped to think how very, very uncomfortable it kept everybody feeling.

XIX