"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Jimmy Skunk. "Do you call that resting! That's a
joke, Jenny Wren. Resting! Why, you couldn't sit still and rest if you
tried!"

"I could so! I'm resting right now, so there, Jimmy Skunk!" protested
Jenny Wren in a very indignant tone of voice, and hopped all over the
little bush while she was speaking. "I guess if you knew what I know,
you'd be excited too."

"Well, I guess the quickest way for me to know is for you to tell me,"
replied Jimmy. "I'm just aching to be excited."

Jimmy grinned, for you know Jimmy Skunk never does get excited and never
hurries, no matter what happens.

"You'll have to keep right on aching then," replied Jenny Wren, with a
saucy flirt of her funny little tail. "There's great news in the Old
Briar-patch, and I'm the only one that knows it, but I've promised not
to tell."

Jimmy pricked up his ears. "News in the Old Briar-patch must have
something to do with Peter Rabbit," said he. "What has Peter done now?"

"I'll never tell! I'll never tell!" cried Jenny Wren, growing so excited
that it seemed to Jimmy as if there was danger that she would turn
herself inside out. "I promised not to and I never will!" Then, for fear
that she would in spite of herself, she flew on her way home.

Jimmy watched her out of sight with a puzzled frown. "If I didn't know
that she gets so terribly excited over nothing, I'd think that there