and charged.

"Before Young Grumpy had time even to wonder if he had been imprudent or
not, the hard elbow of one of those wings caught him a blow on the ear
and knocked him head over heels. At the same time it swept him to one
side, and the gander rushed on straight over the spot where he had been
sitting.

"Young Grumpy picked himself up, startled and shaken. The thing had been
so unexpected. He would have rather liked to run away. But he was too
angry and too obstinate. He just sat up on his haunches again, intending
to make another and more successful attack as soon as his head stopped
buzzing.

"The gander, meanwhile, was surprised also. He could not understand how
his enemy had got out of the way so quickly. He stared around, and then,
turning his one eye skyward, as if he thought Young Grumpy might have
gone that way, he trumpeted a loud _honka-honka-honk--kah_.

"For some reason this strange cry broke Young Grumpy's nerve. He
scuttled for his hole his jet-black heels kicking up the straws behind
him. As soon as he began to run, of course, the gander saw him and swept
after him with a ferocious hissing. But Young Grumpy had got the start.
He dived into his hole just as the gander brought up against the fence.

"Now, the moment he found himself inside his burrow, all Young Grumpy's
courage returned. He wheeled and stuck his head out again, as much as to
say, 'Now come on, if you dare!"

"The gander came on promptly--so promptly, in fact, that the lightning