the hen-house, when all the time he was already in there.

Unc' Billy laughed under his breath as Farmer Brown's boy closed the
door of the hen-house and went off whistling. "Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!
Hee, hee!" Unc' Billy broke off short, right in the very middle of his
laugh. He had just thought of something, and it wasn't funny at all.
With all those traps set at every opening to the hen-house, no one
could get in without getting caught, and of course no one who was in
could get out without getting caught!

The joke wasn't on Farmer Brown's boy, after all; it was on Unc' Billy
Possum. But Unc' Billy couldn't see that it was any joke at all. Unc'
Billy was a prisoner, a prisoner in Farmer Brown's hen-house, and he
didn't know how ever he was going to get out of there.

"It's a long way home," said Unc' Billy mournfully, as he peeped out
of a crack toward the Green Forest.




XIX

WHAT THE SNOW DID


Unc' Billy Possum did a lot of thinking. He was a prisoner, just as
much a prisoner as if he were in a cage. Now Unc' Billy Possum
wouldn't have minded being a prisoner in the hen-house but for two
things; he was dreadfully afraid that his old friend and partner,