need be. Although Grumpy Weasel might follow them, there was a
back door they could rush out of. And since they knew their way about
their underground halls better than he did they did not worry greatly.

"We're sorry--" said the biggest brother, who was called Billy
Woodchuck--"we're sorry you don't like our music. And we'd like to know
what's the matter with it; for we always strive to please."

"It's not so much the way you whistle," Grumpy snarled, "though your
whistling is bad enough, it's so cheerful. What I find fault with
especially is the tune. It's insulting to me. And you can't deny it."

Well, the Woodchuck brothers looked at one another in a puzzled fashion.

"Never again let me hear you whistling, 'Pop! Goes the Weasel,'" Grumpy
warned them. That was the name of the Woodchuck brothers' favorite air,
and the one they could whistle best. And any one could see that they
were quite upset.

"Why don't you like that tune?" Billy Woodchuck asked Grumpy Weasel
politely.

"It's that word 'pop,'" Grumpy said. "It reminds me of a pop-gun. And a
pop-gun reminds me of a real gun. And that's something I don't want to
think about."

Well, the Woodchuck brothers looked at one another again. But this time
they smiled.

"You've misunderstood," Billy Woodchuck told Grumpy Weasel. "This is a
different kind of _pop_. It means that when you enter a hole you _pop_
into it in a jiffy, without taking all day to do it."

For a wonder Grumpy Weasel was almost pleased.

"That's true!" he cried. "I couldn't be slow if I wanted to be!" And he
actually asked the Woodchuck brothers to whistle "Pop! Goes the Weasel"
once more.

But Grumpy Weasel never thought of thanking them.

XIX

HIDING FROM HENRY HAWK

In the spring Grumpy Weasel was always glad to see the birds coming back
from the South. But it must not be supposed that it was because he liked
to hear them sing (for he didn't!).

Nor should any one make the mistake of thinking that Grumpy Weasel loved
the birds. The only reason why he welcomed them was because he liked to
hunt them, and rob their nests.

But there were two birds that Grumpy didn't care to have in Pleasant
Valley. He often wished that Solomon Owl and Henry Hawk would leave the
neighborhood and never return. That was because they liked to hunt him.

Especially did Grumpy Weasel dislike Henry Hawk, who had an unpleasant
habit of sitting motionless on a limb in the top of some great tree.
F