gehog, and of
course he had to know what we'd been talking about.

"I wanted to keep the whole thing a secret, so Bobby's folks shouldn't
know what a spectacle he'd been making of himself, but that didn't
satisfy the foolish fellow, and he must needs up and tell Jimmy all
we'd said.

"Now if you know Jimmy Hedgehog a little bit, you know he's forever
trying to stir up other people so that there'll be a row, and then if
there's the least bit of a chance that he may get hurt, he rolls
himself up into a little ball, with all his quills sticking straight
out, when even Butcher Weasel wouldn't dare to touch him. Of course it
didn't take him many seconds to understand that here was the best kind
of chance for getting poor Bobby into a scrape, and he said, as if he
thought I was to blame for having said anything against the foolish
scheme:

"'Bobby isn't the coward you are, Bunny Rabbit, and if he says he'll
have fun with Mr. Towser to-night, he means it. I'd like to see one of
the Coon family go back on his word. If he goes, you and I will go
with him, and then we can tell all the club members how brave he is.'

"Of course this was the kind of talk to make Bobby stick to his word,
though he must have begun to understand by that time how foolish he
was, and if you'll believe me, I didn't dare to say straight up and
down that I wouldn't have anything to do with the silly business, for
fear Jimmy would be forever telling at the club that I was the worst
kind of coward to be found in the big woods--which I'm free to admit
privately is the fact."

Once more Mr. Bunny paused in his story-telling to gaze pensively at
the ferns, which were now bending the tips of their plumes beneath the
heat of the sun, and it seemed no more than right that he should have
ample time in which to reflect upon Bobby Coon's folly and his own
timidity.

CHAPTER XII

FOLLY, NOT BRAVERY

There was no necessity of reminding Mr. Bunny Rabbit that he had been
telling a story, for, after gazing pensively at the ferns a few
seconds, he continued meditatively, as if giving words to his thoughts
rather than speaking to any one:

"Never again, not if I live to be as old as an elephant, and Mr. Crow
declares that elephants stay and stay alive till the hills grow to be
mountains, will I ever be so foolish as to take part in any silly
thing simply because of being afraid to say that I don't dare stick my
nose in where it doesn't belong. A fellow