owards the stone wall as fast as he
could jump! And the whole flock was following him, with Aunt Nancy
puffing hard among the stragglers, doing her best to keep up.

Over the wall went Snowball. Over the wall went all the rest. Aunt Nancy
was the last to leap down upon the ledge where Snowball had stopped. And
he could see that she was upset. He edged away from her. But she
shouldered her friends aside (she was a huge person!) and walked
straight up to him.

"You're a spoiled child," she told Snowball. "Here you've gone and led
us over this wall again! And I just told you I didn't want to run
anywhere--over this wall least of all places!"

Snowball felt much ashamed.

"I--I didn't mean to do it," he faltered. "Something set my feet
a-going. I _had_ to go along with them!"

"Is that so?" she cried in dismay. "My goodness! You've been and gone
and got the habit of being leader! And you can't stop! . . . I don't know
what I'm going to do!" she wailed. "There'll be nothing left of me if
this keeps up. I'll be nothing but fleece and bones if I have to run so
much."

Somehow her friends didn't seem alarmed. Aunt Nancy was very fat. In
fact she was so very, very fat that nobody thought she _could_ waste
away. And everybody smiled a little.

But she didn't notice that. And then a squeaky voice piped up:

"Is there an earthquake?"

It was Uncle Jerry Chuck peeping out of his hole, with his teeth
chattering so fast that it seemed as if they must all drop out of his
mouth.

"There's no earthquake," Aunt Nancy told him. "We just jumped off the
wall upon this ledge--that's all."

"I was sure there was an earthquake," he said. "And the last quake was
the worst of all."

There were more smiles then, for Aunt Nancy herself had been the last of
the flock to plump down off the wall.

"I wish--" said Uncle Jerry Chuck--"I wish, when you folks jump the
wall, you'd pick out a different place. You disturb me a dozen times a
day. I'm losing lots of sleep on your account. And if I continue to lose
my rest I'll be nothing but fur and bones."

Well, Uncle Jerry was fat, too. He looked as if it would do him a world
of good to be thinner. But Aunt Nancy felt sorry for him.

"Whoever leads the way over the wall must pick out another spot," she
declared, looking straight at Snowball as she spoke. "It's a shame to
annoy this gentleman."

Everybody agreed with her good-naturedly. And Snowball said meekly that
if he found himself