til Ah was safe in mah
holler tree."

"Pooh!" sneered Reddy Fox, who had been listening. "You're a coward. I
wouldn't have run! I would have waited and found out what it was. You
and Peter Rabbit would run away from your own shadows."

"You don't dare go there yourself at daybreak to-morrow!" retorted
Unc' Billy.

"I do too!" declared Reddy angrily, though he didn't have the least
intention of going.

"All right. Ah'm going to be in a tree where Ah can watch to-morrow
mo'ning and see if yo' are as brave as yo' talk," declared Unc' Billy.

Then Reddy knew that he would have to go or else be called a coward.
"I'll be there," he snarled angrily, as he slunk away.

X

UNC' BILLY POSSUM TELLS JIMMY SKUNK A SECRET

Be sure before you drop a friend
That you've done nothing to offend.

A friend is always worth keeping. Unc' Billy Possum says so, and he
knows. He ought to, for he has made a lot of them in the Green Forest
and on the Green Meadows, in spite of the pranks he has cut up and the
tricks he has played. And when Unc' Billy makes a friend, he keeps
him. He says that it is easier and a lot better to keep a friend than
to make a new one. And this is the way he goes about it: Whenever he
finds that a friend is angry with him, he refuses to be angry
himself. Instead, he goes to that friend, finds out what the trouble
is, explains it all away, and then does something nice.

Jimmy Skunk and Unc' Billy had been friends from the time that Unc'
Billy came up from ol' Virginny to live in the Green Forest. In fact,
they had been partners in stealing eggs from the hen-house of Farmer
Brown's boy. So when Jimmy Skunk, who had made a special call on
Prickly Porky to find out if he had seen the strange creature without
head, tail, or legs, told everybody that Prickly Porky had seen
nothing of such a creature, he was very much put out and quite
offended to hear that Unc' Billy was telling how Prickly Porky had
said that Peter might really have some reason for his queer story. It
seemed to him that either Prickly Porky had told an untruth or that
Unc' Billy was telling an untruth. It made him very angry.

The afternoon of the day when Unc' Billy had dared Reddy Fox to go at
sun-up the next morning to the hill where Prickly Porky lives he met
Jimmy Skunk coming down the Crooked Little Path. Jimmy scowled and was
going to pass without so much as speaking. Unc' Billy's shrewd little
eyes twinkled, and he grin