erence that, instead of
rushing right in and biting the haughty bird, he sat up on his haunches
at a distance of some five or six feet and began to squeak his defiance.
The gander turned his head. Straightway he opened his long yellow bill,
gave vent to a hiss like the steam from an escape pipe, stuck out his
snaky neck close to the ground, lifted his broad gray-and-white wings,
and charged.

"Before Young Grumpy had time even to wonder if he had been imprudent or
not, the hard elbow of one of those wings caught him a blow on the ear
and knocked him head over heels. At the same time it swept him to one
side, and the gander rushed on straight over the spot where he had been
sitting.

"Young Grumpy picked himself up, startled and shaken. The thing had been
so unexpected. He would have rather liked to run away. But he was too
angry and too obstinate. He just sat up on his haunches again, intending
to make another and more successful attack as soon as his head stopped
buzzing.

"The gander, meanwhile, was surprised also. He could not understand how
his enemy had got out of the way so quickly. He stared around, and then,
turning his one eye skyward, as if he thought Young Grumpy might have
gone that way, he trumpeted a loud _honka-honka-honk--kah_.

"For some reason this strange cry broke Young Grumpy's nerve. He
scuttled for his hole his jet-black heels kicking up the straws behind
him. As soon as he began to run, of course, the gander saw him and swept
after him with a ferocious hissing. But Young Grumpy had got the start.
He dived into his hole just as the gander brought up against the fence.

"Now, the moment he found himself inside his burrow, all Young Grumpy's
courage returned. He wheeled and stuck his head out again, as much as to
say, 'Now come on, if you dare!"

"The gander came on promptly--so promptly, in fact, that the lightning
stroke of his heavy bill knocked Young Grumpy far back into the hole
again.

"In a great rage, the gander darted his head into the hole. Chattering
with indignation, Young Grumpy set his long teeth into that intruding
bill, and tried to pull it further in. The gander, much taken aback at
this turn of affairs, tried to pull it out again. For perhaps half a
minute it was a very good tug-of-war. Then the superior weight and
strength of the great bird, with all the advantage of his beating wings,
suddenly triumphed, and Young Grumpy, too pig-headed to let go his hold,