FARMER BROWN'S BOY CHOPS DOWN A TREE


"There was an old Possum lived up in a tree;
Hi, ho, see the chips fly!
The sliest old thief that you ever did see;
Hi, ho, see the chips fly!
He ate and he ate in the dark of the night,
And when the day came not an egg was in sight,
But now that I know where he's making his bed,
I'll do without eggs and will eat him instead!
Hi, ho, see the chips fly!"

Farmer Brown's boy sang as he swung his keen axe, and the chips did
fly. They flew out on the white snow in all directions. And the louder
Farmer Brown's boy sang, the faster the chips flew. Farmer Brown's boy
had come to the Green Forest bright and early that morning, and he
had made up his mind that he would take home a fat Possum for dinner.
He didn't have the least doubt about it, and that is why he sang as he
made the chips fly. He had tracked that Possum right up to that tree,
and there were no tracks going away from it. Right up near the top he
could see a hollow, just such a hollow as a Possum likes. All he had
to do was to cut the tree down and split it open, and Mr. Possum would
be his.

So Farmer Brown's boy swung his axe, chop, chop, chop, and the chips
flew out on the white snow, and Farmer Brown's boy sang, never once
thinking of how the Possum he was after might feel. Of course it was
Unc' Billy Possum whose tracks he had followed. He had seen them
outside of the hen-house, just as Unc' Billy had been afraid that he