manded. "I declare if it isn't a
Possum! Where did you kill him? Was he the cause of all that racket
among the chickens?"

Farmer Brown's boy took Unc' Billy into the kitchen and dropped him on a
chair. Mrs. Brown came over to look at him closer. "Poor little fellow,"
said she. "Poor little fellow. It was too bad he got into mischief and
had to be killed. I don't suppose he knew any better. Somehow it always
seems wrong to me to kill these little creatures just because they get
into mischief when all the time they don't know that they are in
mischief." She stroked Unc' Billy gently.

The eyes of Farmer Brown's boy twinkled. He went over to a corner and
pulled a straw from his mother's broom. Then he returned to Unc' Billy
and began to tickle Unc' Billy's nose. Mrs. Brown looked puzzled. She
was puzzled.

"What are you doing that for?" she asked.

"Just for fun," replied Farmer Brown's boy and kept on tickling Unc'
Billy's nose. Now Unc' Billy could stand having his tail pinched, and
being carried head down, and being dropped on the ground, but this was
too much for him; he wanted to sneeze. He had _got_ to sneeze. He did
sneeze. He couldn't help it, though it were to cost him his life.

"Land of love!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, jumping back and clutching her
skirts in both hands as if she expected Unc' Billy would try to take
refuge behind them. "Do you mean to say that that Possum is alive?"

"Seems that way," replied Farmer Brown's boy as Unc' Billy sneezed
again, for that straw was still tickling his nose. "I should certainly
say it seems that way. The old sinner is no more dead than I am. He's
just pretending. He fooled you all right, Mother, but he didn't fool me.
I haven't hurt a hair of him. You ought to know me well enough by this
time to know that I wouldn't hurt him."

He looked at his mother reproachfully, and she hastened to apologize.
"But what could I think?" she demanded. "If he isn't a dead-looking
creature, I never have seen one. What are you going to do with him,
son?"

"Take him over to the Green Forest after breakfast and let him go,"
replied Farmer Brown's boy.

This is just what he did do, and Unc' Billy wasted no time in getting
home. It was a long time before he met Jimmy Skunk again. When he did,
Jimmy was his usual good-natured self, and Unc' Billy was wise enough
not to refer to eggs.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMY SKUNK***

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