s. I would, if Peter Rabbit
were here. If I tell you the story, Peter will be sure to hear of it,
and then he will give me no peace until I tell it to him, and I don't
like to tell stories twice."

"But he is here!" cried one of the Little Breezes. "He's right over
behind that little clump of tall grass."

"Humph! I thought he wasn't very far away," grunted Grandfather Frog,
with a twinkle in his great, goggly eyes.

Peter crept out of his hiding-place, looking rather shamefaced and
very foolish. Then the Merry Little Breezes settled themselves on the
lily-pads in a big circle around Grandfather Frog, and Peter sat down
as close to the edge of the bank of the Smiling Pool as he dared to
get. After what seemed to them a very long time, Grandfather Frog
swallowed the legs of the last foolish green fly, opened his big
mouth, and began:

"Of course you all know that long, long ago, when the world was young,
things were very different from what they are now, very different
indeed. The great-great-ever-so-great grandfather of Jimmy Skunk was
slimmer and trimmer than Jimmy is. He was more like his cousins, Mr.
Weasel and Mr. Mink. He was just as quick moving as they were. Yes,
Sir, Mr. Skunk was very lively on his feet. He had to be to keep out
of the way of his big neighbors, for in those days he didn't have any
means of protecting himself, as Jimmy has now. He was dressed all in
black. You know it wasn't until Old Mother Nature found out that he
was taking advantage of that black suit to get into mischief on dark
nights that she gave him white stripes, so that the darker the night,
the harder it would be for him to keep from being seen.

"Now Mr. Skunk was very smart and shrewd, oh, very! When the hard
times came, which made so many changes in the lives of the people who
lived in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows, Mr. Skunk was very
quick to see that unless he could think of some way to protect
himself, it was only a matter of time when he would furnish a dinner
for one of his fierce big neighbors, and of course Mr. Skunk had no
desire to do that. It was then that he asked Old Mother Nature to give
him a bag of perfume so strong that it would make everybody ill but
himself. Mother Nature thought it all over, and then she did, but she
made him promise that he would never use it unless he was in great
danger.

"Mr. Skunk had to try his new defence only once or twice before his
enemies took the greatest care to