bout as his car looked--a good deal broken up and hardly worth
carrying home. Then he said that very likely Mr. Man had had the same
experience with his first car, and that next year's model would be
different in several ways.

[Illustration: MR. TURTLE TOOK MR. 'POSSUM ON HIS BACK, AND EVERYBODY
SAID IT WAS FINE]

Then Mr. Turtle took Mr. 'Possum on his back, and everybody said it was
very fine for the first time, and certainly most exciting, and the
Hollow Tree people invited all the others to the Hollow Tree to
celebrate Mr. 'Possum's great invention. They stayed quite late, and
when Mr. Rabbit started home he said he would certainly write a poem on
all the events.

MR. BEAR'S EARLY SPRING CALL

AN UNWELCOME VISITOR PAYS
A VISIT TO THE HOLLOW TREE

Once upon a time when it had been a hard winter in the Big Deep Woods,
and spring was late, and there was still very little in the way of fresh
food to be had, Mr. 'Possum came in quite excited, one evening, and
after bolting the down-stairs door put a heavy prop against it, though
he called up first to see if Mr. 'Coon and Mr. Crow were both in.

"_I'm_ in," Mr. 'Coon called back. "I hunted till I was tired and
couldn't find a thing worth bringing home, except some winter parsnips
that I dug out of Mr. Man's garden."

"_I'm_ in," Mr. Crow called back. "I found a beefsteak that Mr. Man had
hung out to freeze. I'll cook it with Mr. 'Coon's parsnips. Why, is
anything the matter?"

[Illustration: MR. 'POSSUM CAME PUFFING UP THE STAIRS]

Mr. 'Possum came puffing up the stairs to the big room, and sat down
before the fire, and took off his shoes and warmed himself a little, and
lit his pipe, and said:

"Well, there _may_ be, if we don't keep that prop pretty firmly against
the down-stairs door. I met Mr. Robin while I was out, and he tells me
that a new Mr. Bear has moved over into the edge of the Big Deep Woods,
into that vacant cave down there by the lower drift. His name is
Savage--Aspetuck Savage--one of those Sinking Swamp Savages, and he's
hungry and pretty fierce. They've had a harder winter in the Swamp than
we have had up here, and when Aspetuck came out of his winter nap last
week and couldn't find anything, he started up this way. Mr. Man has
shut up all his pigs, and Mr. Robin thinks that Aspetuck is headed now
for the Hollow Tree. Somebody told him, Mr. Robin said, that we manage
to live well and generally come through the winter in pretty