tly excited. "There!" he cried! "You heard that when
you was standing right in front of me and talking to me, Jerry Muskrat. You
know that I wasn't making a sound! I told you that I hadn't been screaming
in the night, and this proves it!"

Jerry Muskrat looked as if he couldn't believe his own ears. Just then the
voice of Sticky-toes the Tree Toad began to Croak "It's going to rain! It's
going to rain! It's going to rain!" The voice seemed to come out of that
very same hemlock-tree. Everybody noticed it and looked up at the tree, and
while they were all trying to see Sticky-toes, something dropped plop right
into their midst. It was Sticky-toes himself, and he had dropped from
another tree altogether.

"You hear it!" he shrieked, dancing up and down he was so angry. "You hear
it! It isn't me, is it? That's my voice, yet it isn't mine, because I'm
right here! How can I be here and over there too? Tell me that!"

No one could tell him, and Sticky-toes continued to scold and sputter and
swell himself up with anger. But everybody forgot Sticky-toes when they
heard the voice of Blacky the Crow calling "Caw, caw, caw!" from the very
same hemlock-tree. Now no one knew that Blacky the Crow had come to the
party, for Blacky never goes abroad at night.

"Come out, Blacky!" they all shouted. But no Blacky appeared. Instead out
of that magic hemlock-tree poured a beautiful song, so beautiful that when
it ended everybody clapped their hands. After that there was a perfect
flood of music, as if all the singers of the Green Forest and the Green
Meadows were in that hemlock-tree. There was the song of Mr. Redwing and
the song of Jenny Wren, and the sweet notes of Carol the Meadowlark and the
beautiful happy song of Little Friend the Song Sparrow. No one had ever
heard anything like it, and when it ended every one shouted for more. Even
Sticky-toes the Tree Toad forgot his ill temper.

Instead of more music, out from the hemlock-tree flew a stranger. He was
about the size of Sammy Jay and wore a modest gray suit with white
trimmings. He flew over to a tall stump in the moonlight, and no sooner had
he alighted than up beside him scrambled Unc' Billy Possum. Unc' Billy wore
his broadest grin.

"Mah friends of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows, Ah wants yo'alls to
know mah friend, Mistah Mocking-bird, who has come up from mah ol' home way
down in 'Ol' Virginny.' He has the most wonderful voice in all the world,
and when he wants