efulness and common sense."

Peter Rabbit had been making fun of Happy Jack Squirrel because Happy
Jack said that he had too much to do to stop and play that morning. Here
it was summer, and winter was a long way off. What was summer for if not
to play in and have a good time? Yet Happy Jack was already thinking of
winter and was hunting for a new storehouse so as to have it ready when
the time to fill it with nuts should come. It was much better to play
and take sun-naps among the buttercups and daisies and just have a good
time all day long.

"Chug-a-rum!" said Grandfather Frog, "Did you ever hear how old Mr.
Squirrel learned thrift?"

"No," cried Peter Rabbit, stretching himself out in the soft grass on
the edge of the Smiling Pool. "Do tell us about it. Please do,
Grandfather Frog!"

You know Peter dearly loves a story.

All the other little meadow and forest people who were about the Smiling
Pool joined Peter Rabbit in begging Grandfather Frog for the story, and
after they had teased for it a long time (Grandfather Frog dearly loves
to be teased), he cleared his throat and began.

"Once upon a time when the world was young, in the days when old King
Bear ruled in the Green Forest, everybody had to take King Bear
presents of things to eat. That was because he was king. You know kings
never have to work like other people to get enough to eat; everybody
brings them a little of their best, and so kings have the best in the
land without the trouble of working for it. It was just this way with
old King Bear. That was before he grew so fat and lazy and selfish that
Old Mother Nature declared that he should be king no longer.

"Now in those days lived old Mr. Squirrel, the grandfather a thousand
times removed of Happy Jack Squirrel whom you all know. Of course, he
wasn't old then. He was young and frisky, just like Happy Jack, and he
was a great favorite with old King Bear. He was a saucy fellow, was Mr.
Squirrel, and he used to spend most of his time playing tricks on the
other meadow and forest people. He even dared to play jokes on old King
Bear. Sometimes old King Bear would lose his temper, and then Mr.
Squirrel would whisk up in the top of a tall tree and keep out of sight
until old King Bear had recovered his good nature.

"Those were happy days, very happy days indeed, and old King Bear was a
very wise ruler. There was plenty of everything to eat, and so nobody
missed the little they brought to old King Be