Jack's tail?" asked Grandfather Frog.

The Merry Little Breezes looked foolish. "Of course," they cried. "We
didn't think of that. But we are quite sure that these queer things
that prick so are not claws, and certainly they are not hair."

"Don't you be too sure," said Grandfather Frog. "You go over to the
Green Forest and look up in the treetops instead of down on the
ground; then come back and tell me what you find."

Away raced the Merry Little Breezes to the Green Forest and began to
search among the treetops. Presently, way up in the top of a big
poplar, they found a stranger. He was bigger than any of the little
meadow people, and he had long sharp teeth with which he was stripping
the bark from the tree. The hair of his coat was long, and out of it
peeped a thousand little spears just like the queer things that Happy
Jack and Peter Rabbit had told them about.

"Good morning," said the Merry Little Breezes politely.

"Mornin'," grunted the stranger in the treetop.

"May we ask where you come from?" said one of the Merry Little Breezes
politely.

"I come from the North Woods," said the stranger and then went on
about his business, which seemed to be to strip every bit of the bark
from the tree and eat it.