eir heads outside the door while she was gone.
Then she started out to hunt for their dinner, still muttering as she went.

Old Mrs. Possum was quite right. Unc' Billy had forgotten all about that
dinner. You see he had something else on his mind. While he had been
playing with his children, he had thought that he heard a voice way off in
the distance, and it had sounded very, very much like the voice of an old
friend from way down South in "Ol' Virginny." He had listened and listened
but didn't hear it again, and yet he was sure he had heard it that once.
The very thought that that old friend of his might be somewhere in the
Green Forest excited Unc' Billy so that it fairly made him homesick. He
just _had_ to go look for him.

So all the rest of that day Unc' Billy Possum walked and walked through the
Green Forest, peering up in the tree-tops and looking into the bushes until
his neck ached. But nowhere did he catch a glimpse of his old friend. The
longer he looked, the more excited he grew.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Jimmy Skunk, meeting Unc' Billy on the
Crooked Little Path near the top of the hill.

"Nuffin, nuffin, Sah! Ah'm just walking fo' mah health," replied Unc' Billy
over his shoulder, as he hurried on. You see he didn't like to tell any one
what he thought he had heard, for fear that it might not be true, and then
they would laugh at him.

"Didn't suppose Unc' Billy ever worried about his health," muttered Jimmy
Skunk with a puzzled look, as he watched Unc' Billy disappear.

Just as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun dropped out of sight behind the Purple
Hills, Unc' Billy gave it up and turned toward home. His neck ached from
looking up in the tree-tops, and his feet were sore from walking. And just
then Unc' Billy for the first time thought of that dinner that old Mrs.
Possum had sent him to get. Unc' Billy sat down and mopped his brow in
dismay.

"Ah 'specks Ah'm in fo' it this time, sho' enough!" he said.

IV

UNC' BILLY COMES HOME

Unc' Billy Possum crept along in the darkest shadows he could find as he
drew near to the great hollow tree which is his home.

"Ah 'specks Ah'm in fo' it. Ah 'specks Ah sho'ly am in fo' it this time,"
he kept muttering.

So Unc' Billy crept along in the black shadows until he got where he could
look up and see his own doorway. Then he sat down and watched a while. All
was still. There wasn't a sound in the great hollow tree.

"Perhaps mah ol' woman am