afer to get into mischief
under cover of the darkness Bobby Coon prefers the night wherein to go
abroad. Not that Bobby Coon is really bad! Oh my, no! Everybody
likes Bobby Coon. But he can no more keep out of mischief than a duck
can keep out of water.

So Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the Laughing Brook and he was very
busy, very busy indeed. He was washing his breakfast. Really, it was
his dinner, for turning night into day just turns everything
topsy-turvy. So Bobby Coon eats dinner when most of the little meadow
people are eating breakfast.

This morning he was very busy washing a luscious ear of sweet corn just
in the milk. He dipped it in the water and with one little black paw
rubbed it thoroughly. Then he looked it over carefully before, with a
sigh of contentment, he sat down to put it in his empty little stomach.
When he had finished it to the last sweet, juicy kernel, he ambled
sleepily up the Lone Little Path to the big hollow chestnut tree where
he lives, and in its great hollow in a soft bed of leaves Bobby Coon
curled himself up in a tight little ball to sleep the long, bright day
away.

One of the Merry Little Breezes softly followed him. When he had
crawled into the hollow chestnut and only his funny, ringed tail hung
out, the Merry Little Breezes tweaked it sharply just for fun, and then
danced away down the Lone Little Path to join the other Merry Little
Breezes around the Smiling Pool.

"Oh! Grandfather Frog," cried a Merry Little Breeze, "tell us why it
is that Bobby Coon always washes his food. He never eats it where he
gets it or takes it home to his hollow in the big chestnut, but always
comes to the Laughing Brook to wash it. None of the other meadow
people do that."

Now Great-Grandfather Frog is counted very wise. He is very, very old
and he knows the history of all the tribes of little meadow people way
back to the time when the frogs ruled the world.

When the Merry Little Breeze asked him why Bobby Coon always washes his
food, Grandfather Frog stopped to snap up a particularly fat, foolish,
green fly that came his way. Then, while all the Merry Little Breezes
gathered around him, he settled himself on his big green lily pad and
began:

"Once upon a time, when the world was young, old King Bear ruled in the
Green Forest. Of course old Mother Nature, who was even more beautiful
then than she is now, was the real ruler, but she let old King Bear
think he ruled so lon