t happened?" he inquired. "The train was _afraid to
stop_!"

Everybody laughed when Mr. Crow said that. People knew him too well to be
deceived by him.

"I suppose your yellow coat frightened it," Jasper Jay jeered. "It's too
bad you didn't wear your checkered red one."

At that remark Jimmy Rabbit pricked up his long ears.

"Did you wear your red coat yesterday?" he asked Mr. Crow.

"Yes!" Mr. Crow replied gruffly. He did not like being questioned by a
mere youngster like Jimmy Rabbit.

"And you say the train stopped when you flew in front of it yesterday?"

Mr. Crow grunted. But Jimmy Rabbit knew that he meant "Yes!"

"That's it!" Jimmy Rabbit cried. And he jumped up and down in his
excitement.

"That's what?" asked Mr. Crow in a sulky tone.

"I'll tell you!" said Jimmy. "Yesterday the train stopped because it saw
your red coat. That's the way to stop a train. You wave a red flag or a
red lantern at a train and it will always stop. But I've noticed that a
train pays no attention to any other color. Now, you could wave something
green, or yellow, or blue in front of a train; and no matter how hard
you waved, it would go right on as if it never saw you at all."

"Maybe you know," Mr. Crow snapped. "And maybe you don't. I said the
train was afraid to stop. And I still think so."

Jimmy Rabbit winked at the crowd in the tree.

"I must hop along now," he told them. "I'm glad I came to see the race,
for it has been even more fun than I expected."

Then Jasper Jay gave Mr. Crow a great start.

"It's too bad--" he said--"it's too bad you can't wear your red coat any
more, Mr. Crow."

"How's that?" asked Mr. Crow quickly.

"You promised that if we didn't say it was a good joke you'd never wear a
checkered red coat again."

Now, Mr. Crow had forgotten all about that remark. And for a moment he
looked worried. Then he turned cheerful all at once.

"Look here!" he cried. "When I came back to this tree you all laughed,
didn't you?"

Everybody admitted that.

"Then there must have been a good joke somewhere," Mr. Crow said. "And I
shall wear my red coat as often as I please."

No one really cared, anyhow, whether he did or whether he didn't. But Mr.
Crow was angry with Jasper Jay. And he refused to finish the game of
checkers with him.

XV

MR. CROW'S NEW COAT

When Mr. Crow decided, one fall, that he would stay in Pleasant Valley
during the winter, instead of going South, he remembered at o