ter allowed that it wasn't, but that as he had so much on his own mind he
couldn't help being interested when he found that Sticky-toes had troubles
too. Then he told Sticky-toes all about how Boomer the Nighthawk had said
that he had seen Sammy Jay going to bed up in the far-away Old Pasture, and
how that very night Sammy Jay's voice had been heard screaming down in the
alders beside the Laughing Brook. Sticky-toes nodded his head.

"I heard it," said he.

"But how could Sammy Jay be down here if he went to bed way off there in
the Old Pasture? Tell me that, Sticky-toes?" said Peter Rabbit.

Sticky-toes shook his head. "Don't ask me! Don't ask me! Just tell me how
it is that I hear my own voice when I don't speak a word," said Sticky-toes
the Tree Toad.

"What's that?" exclaimed Peter Rabbit.

Then Sticky-toes poured out all his troubles to Peter Rabbit. They were
very much like the troubles of Sammy Jay. Every night Sticky-toes would
hear what sounded like his own voice coming from a tree in which he was not
sitting at all, and at a time when he was keeping his mouth shut as tight
as he knew how. In fact, he had been so worried that for several nights he
hadn't said a word, yet his neighbors had complained that he had been very
noisy. He was getting so worried that he couldn't eat.

Peter Rabbit listened with his mouth wide open. It was just the same kind
of a story that Sammy Jay had told. What under the sun could be going on?
Peter couldn't understand it at all. It certainly was very, very curious.
He just must find out about it!

XIV

PETER RABBIT MEETS UNC' BILLY POSSUM

After Sticky-toes the Tree Toad had poured out his troubles, Peter went
back to the Old Briar-patch, more puzzled than ever. If Sammy Jay was
asleep in the far-away Old Pasture on the edge of the mountain, how could
he be at the same time down in the Green Forest screaming? And if
Sticky-toes the Tree Toad sat all night with his mouth shut tight, how
could the voice of Sticky-toes be heard in an altogether different tree
than the one Sticky-toes was spending the night in? Wasn't it enough to
drive any one crazy?

The more Peter studied over it, the more puzzled he grew. The next night
he started out for the Green Forest with a new plan in his head. He would
hide down among the alders by the Laughing Brook. He would see for himself
who was screaming with the voice of Sammy Jay and talking with the voice of
Sticky-toes the Tree To