JOHNNY CHUCK TURNS TRAMP


Johnny Chuck had turned tramp. Yes, Sir, Johnny Chuck had turned
tramp. It was a funny thing to do, but he had done it. He didn't know
why he had done it, excepting that he had become dissatisfied and
discontented and unhappy in his old home. And then, almost without
thinking what he was doing, he had told Jimmy Skunk that he could have
the house he had worked so hard to build the summer before and of
which he had been so proud. Then Johnny Chuck had swaggered away down
the Lone Little Path without once looking back at the home he was
leaving.

Where was he going? Well, to tell the truth, Johnny didn't know. He
was going to see the world, and perhaps when he had seen the world, he
would build him a new house. So as long as he was in sight of Jimmy
Skunk, he swaggered along quite as if he was used to traveling about,
without any snug house to go to at night. But right down in his heart
Johnny Chuck didn't feel half so bold as he pretended.

You see, not since he was a little Chuck and had run away from old
Mother Chuck with Peter Rabbit, had he ever been very far from his own
door-step. He had always been content to grow fat and roly-poly right
near his own home, and listen to the tales of the great world from
Jimmy Skunk and Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon and Unc' Billy Possum, all
of whom are great travelers.

But now, here he was, actually setting forth, and without a home to
come back to! You see, he had made up his mind that no matter what