Mother West Wind Where" Stories"

was a different kind of a fright. It was not for himself that he had been afraid but for one of

Johnny must be somewhere near, as he never goes far from his own doorstep. Then he changed his mind and decided to wait for Johnny to return. So he stretched himself out in some tall grass beside Johnny C

son. Just a few jumps behind Johnny's twinkling little black heels was Old Man Coyote. It looked to Peter as if Old Man Coyote certainly would catch Johnny Chuck this time. He was so

It was plain to be seen that he was trying to make up his mind whether it would be worth while to try to dig Johnny out. Present

much of your cousin, Yap-Yap the Prairie Dog, who lives out where I came from. There's a fellow who certainly knows how to make a house in the ground. He doesn't have to depend on the roots of trees to keep from b

ohnny Chuck knew nothing about his cousin, Yap-Yap, and wasn't even interested in him. So finally Peter left him and went back home to the dear Old Briar-patch. But he couldn't get Yap-Yap out of his mind, and he resolved that the first chance he got h

Johnny Chuck about his cou

prised as he felt. "Where we

ohnny Chuck's house," replied Peter

nly one dinner, but it seems I missed two. Next time I shall look around a little more sharply. Do you know, the sight

l you mentioned it," said Peter. "Does he look lik

very good-natured. "Many and many a time I have chased Yap-Yap into his house. Seems as if I can hear the rascal scolding me and

t you?" as

trouble," retorted Old Man Coyote. "Yap-Yap never has forgotten what his great-great

ell me about it, Mr.

ld Man Coyote, with a provoking grin. "

t it, Mr. Coyote. Pl

grandfather told me, and he got it from his gra

r. "It happened in the day

e lived the great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of Yap-Yap, the very first of all the Prairie Dogs, and his name was Yap-Yap too. He was own cousin to old Mr. Woodchu

r could find a big enough open space, so he never stayed very long in any one place, but kept pushing on and on, looking for a spot in the Great World that would just suit him. At last he came to the edge of the Green Fores

and looked this way or that way or the other way he could see nothing but grass and flowers, and over him was naught but the blue, blue sky. He h

he strong were hunting the small and the weak in order that they themselves might live. When Skimmer had gone, Yap-Yap grew uneasy. What if some of the big a

ttle doubt crept into his head and grew and grew. What was to prevent some one who was very hungry from digging him out? So he moved on a little way and started another hole, and this time he made it almost straight down. Every day

at any one will have the patienc

he was likely to be drowned out. Right away he set his sharp wits to work. He noticed that when the water on the surface reached the little piles of sand he had made, it ran around them. So he made a great mound of sand around his hole with the entrance in the middle and pressed it firm on the

their houses in just that way, and no one that I know