rhaps he did and then again perhaps he didn't," replied Bobby Coon,
carefully washing an ear of sweet milky corn that he had brought down to
the Laughing Brook from Farmer Brown's corn-field, for Bobby Coon is very,
very neat and always washes his food before eating. "For my part," he
continued, "I believe that Boomer the Nighthawk just made up that story to
help Sammy Jay fool us."

"But that would be a wrong story, and I don't believe that Boomer would do
anything like that!" cried Peter.

Just then there was a shrill scream of "Thief! thief! thief!" over in the
alder bushes. It certainly sounded like Sammy Jay's voice.

"What did I tell you? Now what do you think?" cried Bobby Coon.

Peter didn't know what to think, and he said so. He left Bobby to eat his
corn and spent the rest of the night telling every one he met what Boomer
the Nighthawk had said, but of course no one believed it, and every one
laughed at him, for hadn't they heard Sammy Jay screaming that very night?

So now Peter sat in the Old Briar-patch thinking and thinking, when he
should have been asleep. Finally he yawned and stretched and then started
along one of his private little paths.

"I'll just run up to the Green Forest and try to find Sammy Jay," he said.

So Peter hunted and hunted all through the Green Forest for Sammy Jay, and
asked everybody he met if they had seen Sammy. But no one had, though every
one took pains to tell Peter that they had heard Sammy in the night. At
last Peter found Sticky-toes the Tree Toad. He was muttering and grumbling
to himself, and he didn't see Peter. Peter stopped to listen, which was, of
course, a very wrong thing to do, and what he heard gave Peter an idea.

XIII

STICKY-TOES THE TREE TOAD POURS OUT HIS TROUBLES

Sticky-toes was quite upset. There was no doubt about it. Either he had
gotten out of the wrong side of his bed that morning, or his breakfast had
disagreed with him, or something had happened to make him lose his temper
completely.

"Don't know what it means! Don't know what it means! Don't know what it
means!" croaked Sticky-toes the Tree Toad, over and over again. "Heard it
last night and the night before that and before that and before that and
before that, and I don't know what it means!"

"Don't know what what means?" asked Peter Rabbit, whose curiosity would not
let him keep still.

"Hello, Long-ears! I don't know that it's any of your business!" said
Sticky-toes.

Pe