tions. Sometimes he wondered
if he would know the Green Forest when he reached it, and then he would
remember how Ol' Mistah Buzzard dearly loves to fly round and round high
up in the blue, blue sky.

"All Ah done got to do is to keep on going till Ah see Brer Buzzard,"
thought he. So he traveled and traveled without speaking to any one, and
always looking up in the blue, blue sky. Then one day he saw a black speck
high up in the blue, blue sky, and it went round and round and round and
round. Finally it dropped down, down, down until it disappeared among the
trees.

"It's Brer Buzzard and that must be the Green Forest where Unc' Billy
Possum lives," thought the lone traveler, and chuckled. "Ah reckon Ah'll
give Unc' Billy a surprise. Yes, Sah, Ah reckon so."

And all the time Unc' Billy Possum and Ol' Mistah Buzzard knew nothing at
all about the coming of their old friend and neighbor, but thought him
far, far away down in Ol' Virginny where they had left him.

II

UNC' BILLY POSSUM GROWS EXCITED

Unc' Billy Possum sat at the foot of the great hollow tree in which his
home is. Unc' Billy felt very fine that morning. He had had a good
breakfast, and you know a good breakfast is one of the best things in the
world to make one feel fine. Then Unc' Billy's worries were at an end, for
Farmer Brown's boy no longer hunted with his dreadful gun through the Green
forest or on the Green Meadows. Then, too, old Granny Fox and Reddy Fox had
moved way, way off to the Old Pasture on the edge of the mountain, and so
Unc' Billy felt that his eight little Possums could play about without
danger.

So he sat with his back to the great hollow tree, wondering if it wouldn't
be perfectly safe for him to slip up to Farmer Brown's hen-house in the
dark of the next night for some fresh eggs. He could hear old Mrs. Possum
cleaning house and scolding the little Possums who kept climbing up on her
back. As he listened, Unc' Billy grinned and began to sing in a queer
cracked voice:

"Mah ol' woman am a plain ol' dame--
'Deed she am! 'Deed she am!
Quick with her broom, with her tongue the same--
'Deed she am! 'Deed she am!
But she keeps mah house all spick and span;
She has good vittles fo' her ol' man;
She spanks the chillun, but she loves 'em, too;
She sho' am sharp, but she's good and true--
'Deed she am! 'Deed she am!"

"You'all better stop lazing and hustle about fo' something fo' dinner,"
said ol