d to have you for a friend and next time I won't run away."

"Show him how you can jump," interrupted Danny Meadow Mouse. "He
wouldn't believe me when I told him that you didn't fly."

Limberheels grinned rather sheepishly. "Of course I didn't fly," said
he. "No animal can fly but Flitter the Bat. I just jumped like this."

With a tremendous spring from his long hind legs Limberheels leaped,
while Peter Rabbit stared, his mouth wide open with astonishment. He
hadn't dreamed that any one could jump so far in proportion to his size
as this slim, trim little cousin of Danny's. Later, after Limberheels
had jumped for Peter's benefit until he was tired and had gone to hunt
for a lunch of grass seeds, Peter wanted to know all about Limberheels.

"Never in my life have I seen such jumping," he declared. "And never
have I seen such a tail. I thought Whitefoot the Wood Mouse had a fine
tail, but it doesn't compare with that of Limberheels."

"It is a fine tail," replied Danny, whose own tail, as you know, is
very short.

"It is a fine tail," he repeated rather wistfully. "Would you like to
hear where he got it?"

"I know," retorted Peter with a grin. "He got it from his father, who
got it from his father, and so on way back to the days when the world
was young." Then, seeing a look of disappointment on Danny's face, and
eager for a story as usual, he added: "But I would like to know how such
a tail as that came in the family."

Danny brightened up at once. "It's funny how things come about in this
world," he began. "The great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of
Limberheels, the first one, you know, was quite an ordinary Mouse when
Old Mother Nature made him and started him out to make his way in the
Great World. He was little, one of the smallest of the family, and his
tail was short, no longer than mine. His hind legs were like those of
all his relatives. He ran about just as his relatives did. He was so
small and kept out of sight so much that he didn't even have a name.
There was nothing about him to suggest a name.

"For a long time he was contented and happy. Then one day he happened to
see Mr. Hare jump. It seemed to him the most wonderful thing in the
world that any one should be able to jump like that. So he began to
spend most of his spare time where he could watch Mr. Hare. One day Old
Mother Nature happened along unseen by him, as he was watching Mr. Hare
jump, and she overheard him say very, very wistfully, '