it was.

The sky was clear and of the deepest blue, the wind was still, and the
woods were quiet. Over in the farmer's barnyard a hen was cackling, but
in the woods not a sound could be heard. Mister Chipmunk was sitting on
his old home stump, but he had nothing to say, and Mister Tom Squirrel
had been working so hard lately, that he was too tired to talk.

"To-day would be a good day to tell the children the story of the Great
White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse!" said Mrs. Robin to Robert Robin.

"Well! Get them together, and I will tell them the story!" said Robert
Robin. "I may as well do it one time as another, and it doesn't take any
longer to do a thing when you think of it than it does to put it off and
then have to think of it again!"

So Mrs. Robin called to the children to come and hear Robert Robin tell
the story of the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse.

When the children had all gathered in the big basswood tree Robert Robin
said, "Come with me!" and led the way to the other side of the woods,
near the big stone under which Gerald Fox had his new home, and not far
from the old stump fence. Here were many sumach bushes with their
fernlike leaves and bright red bobs.

Robert Robin perched on a sumach limb, and straightened his feathers,
then he sat up very much as if he were about to sing, and said:

"I have brought you to this side of the woods to tell you the story of
the Great White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse, because it was in this
very spot that my father told me the same story, and it was in this same
place that his father told the story to him, and no one knows how many,
many years the family has gathered here by the big stone, to listen to
this same story of the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse.
Sheldon! Will you please turn around and look this way?"

"All of you children should pay the closest attention to this story. You
should not miss a single word of it, for it will be your duty to tell it
to your children, just as I am telling it to you, for this is the story
of Winter, and the story of why all robins fly southward every Fall,
and why they return to the north in the Spring!"

Then Robert Robin told them the story of the Great White Bear, and the
Little Gray Mouse.

_Robert Robin's Story_

It was many, many seasons ago, before there was any north or south,
and when there was only an east and a west, that there lived in the
deep, dark woo