tairs they didn't think anything about it--not at the
time--or if they did they only thought he was picking out the best
pieces to burn. They played "Drop the Handkerchief", too, and when they
got through Mr. Rabbit performed some tricks with the handkerchief and
the button that made even Mr. 'Possum pay attention because they were so
wonderful.

There was one trick especially that Mr. Rabbit did a great many times
because they liked it so much, and were so anxious to guess how it was
done. Mr. Rabbit told them it was a trick that had come down to him from
his thirty-second great-grandfather, and must never be told to any one.

[Illustration: WOULD FIND IT ON THE MANTEL-SHELF OR PERHAPS ON MR.
CROW'S BALD HEAD]

It was a trick where he laid the button in the centre of the
handkerchief and then folded the corners down on it, and pressed them
down each time so that they could see that the button was still there,
and he would let them press on it, too, to prove it, and then when he
would lift up the handkerchief by the two corners nearest him there
would be no button at all, and he would find it on the mantel-shelf or
perhaps on Mr. Crow's bald head, or in Mr. 'Possum's pocket, or some
place like that. But one time, when Mr. Rabbit had done it over and
over, and maybe had grown a little careless, he lifted the handkerchief
by the corners nearest him, and there was the button sticking fast,
right in the centre of the handkerchief, for it had a little beeswax on
it, to make it stick to one of the corners next to Mr. Rabbit, and by
some mistake Mr. Rabbit had turned the button upside down!

Then they all laughed, and all began to try it for themselves, and Mr.
Rabbit laughed too, though perhaps he didn't feel much like it, and told
them that they had learned one of the greatest secrets in his family,
and that he would now tell them the adage that went with it if they
would promise never to tell either the secret or the adage, and they all
promised, and Mr. Rabbit told them the adage, which was:

"When beeswax grows on the button-tree,
No one knows what the weather'll be."

"That," said Mr. Rabbit, "is a very old adage. I don't know what it
means exactly, but I'm sure it means something, because old adages
always do mean something, though often nobody can find out just what
it is, and the less they seem to mean the better they are, as adages.
There are a great many old adages in our family, and they have often got
m