spot in the Great World that would just suit him. At last he came to the
edge of the Green Forest, and before him, as far as he could see,
stretched the Green Meadows. At least it was like the Green Meadows,
only a million thousand times as big as the Green Meadows we are on now,
Peter, and was really the Great Prairie.

"Yap-Yap looked and looked, then he drew a long breath of pure joy and
started out across the green grass. On and on he went, until when he sat
up and looked this way or that way or the other way he could see nothing
but grass and flowers, and over him was naught but the blue, blue sky.
He had found the great open space of which he had dreamed, and he was
happy. So he ate and slept and played with the Merry Little Breezes and
grew fat.

"Then one day came Skimmer the Swallow and brought him news of the hard
times which had come to the rest of the Great World and how as a result
the big and the strong were hunting the small and the weak in order that
they themselves might live. When Skimmer had gone, Yap-Yap grew uneasy.
What if some of the big and strong people he had known should come out
there in quest of food and should find him? There was no place in which
to hide. There was no cave or hollow log.

"Yap-Yap looked at the strong claws Old Mother Nature had given him and
an idea came to him. He would dig a hole in the ground. So he dug a hole
on a long slant very much like the hole of Johnny Chuck; but when it was
finished a little doubt crept into his head and grew and grew. What was
to prevent some one who was very hungry from digging him out? So he
moved on a little way and started another hole, and this time he made it
almost straight down. Every day he made that hole deeper until it was
many feet deep. Then he made a turn in it and dug a long tunnel, at the