"All right," said he, settling himself comfortably. "All the Owl family,
way back to the very beginning, have had very big eyes. Old Mr. Owl had
them. He could move them just as we can ours. And because they were so
big, and because he could roll them, there was very little going on that
Mr. Owl didn't see. It happened one day that Old Mother Nature took it
into her wise old head to put the little people of the Green Meadows
and the Green Forest to a test. She wanted to see just how many of them
she could trust to obey her orders. So she lined them all up in a row.
Then she made them turn so that their backs were to her.

"'Now,' said she, 'everybody is to keep eyes to the front. I am going to
be very busy back here for a few minutes, but not one of you is to peek.
I shall know if you do, and I shall see to it that you never forget it
as long as you live.'

"That sounded as if something dreadful might happen, so everybody sat
perfectly still looking straight before them. Some of them felt as if
they would die of curiosity to know what Old Mother Nature was doing,
but for a while no one thought of disobeying. Old Mr. Rabbit just itched
all over with curiosity. It seemed to him that he just must turn his
head. But for once he managed to get the best of his curiosity and
stared straight ahead.

"Now Mr. Owl had tremendous great ears, just as Hooty has to-day. You
can't see them because the feathers cover them, but they are there just
the same."

Peter nodded. He knew all about those wonderful ears and how they heard
the teeniest, weeniest noise when Hooty was flying at night.

"Those, big ears," continued Jumper, "heard every little sound that Old
Mother Nature made, and they sounded queer to Mr. Owl. 'If I roll back
my eyes without turning my head, I believe I can see what she is doing,
and she won't be any the wiser,' thought he. So he rolled his eyes back
and then looked straight ahead again. What he had seen made him want to
see more. He tried it again. Just imagine how he felt when he found that
his eyes wouldn't roll. He couldn't move them a bit. All he could do was
to stare straight ahead. It frightened him dreadfully, and he kept
trying and trying to roll his eyes, but they were fixed fast. He could
see in only one direction, the way his head was turned.

"When at last Old Mother Nature told all the little people that they
might look, Mr. Owl didn't want to look. He didn't want to face Old
Mother Nature, f