ther fish came his way. And being too wise
to expect that another Meadow Mouse would come traveling down the creek
on a raft, Mr. Great Blue Heron at last forsook his sport and sailed
away through the air towards the lake on the other side of Blue
Mountain.

He hadn't been gone a great while when Master Meadow Mouse might have
been seen picking his way along the bank. He was journeying upstream, on
his way home.

"It was lucky for me--" he explained to his cousin, whom he met
later--"it was lucky for me that I could swim under water. Otherwise I
shouldn't have been able to hide beneath the board and stay there until
it swung into the rushes."

"You had a narrow escape," his cousin told him. "Don't say that I didn't
warn you!"

That cousin was one of those persons that always exclaim, "I told you
so!"

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

18

Under the Snow

WINTER had come. The snow lay deep over Pleasant Valley. But Master
Meadow Mouse didn't object to that. On the contrary, he had welcomed the
snow. Even Johnnie Green, peeping out of his chamber window at the first
snowfall of the season, hadn't been any happier over it than Master
Meadow Mouse was. To Johnnie Green the snow meant fun. To Master Meadow
Mouse it meant fun and something more.

At last he could scamper about the meadow without being seen by
everybody. For he set to work at once to make tunnels beneath the snow.
They ran in every direction from his house. And he was forever pushing
them further and further.

Through those tunnels Master Meadow Mouse could look for seeds and grain
in the stubble. And while he was rambling along his network of halls he
didn't have to worry about anybody's making trouble for him, unless it
was Peter Mink, perhaps, or Grumpy Weasel.

Of course Master Meadow Mouse didn't stay under the snow all the time.
Now and then he liked to climb up into the open air. And he made many
shafts that led to the world above.

Although most of the birds had gone South to spend the winter, there
were still some that Master Meadow Mouse had to shun. Old Mr. Crow was
spending the winter on the farm. And there were Solomon Owl and his
cousin Simon Screecher, who hunted over the meadow nightly. And at dusk
sometimes a fierce hawk known as "Rough-leg" would beat his way back and
forth across the snow covered stretches in the hope of catching one of
the Meadow Mouse family unawares.

In spite of such unpleasant neighbors, the b