hollow log, and Jimmy Skunk wasn't showing so much as the tip of his
nose, as he lay just inside the doorway of an old house under the
roots of a big stump. Only Prickly Porky was to be seen, and he seemed
to be asleep in his favorite tree. Everything seemed to be just as old
Granny Fox had seen it a hundred times before.

At last the Jolly Little Sunbeams began to dance through the Green
Forest, chasing out the Black Shadows. Redeye the Vireo awoke and at
once began to sing, as is his way, not even waiting to get a mouthful
of breakfast. Prickly Porky yawned and grunted. Then he climbed down
from the tree he had been sitting in, walked slowly over to another,
started to climb it, changed his mind, and began to poke around in the
dead leaves. Old Granny Fox arose and slowly stretched. She glanced at
Prickly Porky contemptuously. She had seen him act in this stupid,
uncertain way dozens of times before. Then slowly, watching out
sharply on both sides of her, without appearing to do so, she walked
down the hill to the hollow at the foot.

Now old Granny Fox can be very dignified when she wants to be, and she
was now. She didn't hurry the least little bit. She carried her big,
plumey tail just so. And she didn't once look behind her, for she felt
sure that there was nothing out of the way there, and to have done so
would have been quite undignified. She had reached the bottom of the
hill and was walking along the hollow, smiling to herself to think how
easily some people are frightened, when her sharp ears caught a sound
on the hill behind her. She turned like a flash and then--well, for a
minute old Granny Fox was too surprised to do anything but stare.
There, rolling down the hill straight towards her, was the very thing
Reddy had told her about.