one. I was
quite young, and there was a family lived not far from us who had a
young Miss 'Coon that I thought I would like to set up housekeeping
with, and when I mentioned it she was a good deal in the notion, too.
Everything seemed to be going along quite well until, one day, another
young Mr. 'Coon came along and saw Violet--that was her name--and he had
the same plan that I had. He belonged to that family over near the
Jagged Bluffs--a common, oversized lot, with no style to speak of. I had
never seen him, myself, when I first heard about his coming to call on
her, and made up my mind I would fight him the first time we met. Then I
thought I had better get a look at him and study his weak points,
without him seeing me; so I hid in the bushes one afternoon, near
Violet's house, to watch him pass. When, pretty soon, he came along and
I saw the curious shape and size of him, I decided that Violet was not
worthy of me. He was very wide forward, and his hind legs were set in a
peculiar way. I can't imagine what Violet could see in him."

Mr. 'Coon sighed and took time to fill his pipe before he went on.

"That was the war I thought of making," he went on, after a minute or
two, "and that was all there was of it. I took a walk over to see a good
friend of mine, in those days, a young Mr. Bear named Redfield,
generally called Cousin Redfield, or Reddie. Mr. Crow once told us about
some of his little-boy adventures, as you may remember. Well, I found
Cousin Redfield and told him what had happened, and he said he would go
with me and help me fight that spread-shouldered ruffian, and asked me
what were his weak points. I said I hadn't noticed any, and we decided
that we wouldn't bother with him, and went to visit a honey-tree that
Cousin Redfield had found and thought of robbing, some night. I said I
didn't think it was right to rob the bees of their honey, but that we
would go and look at it, to take my mind from less pleasant things.

"So we walked a good ways until we came to it, and it was there that I
saw the other war that I mentioned. It seems there were several swarms
of bees in that tree, it being quite a big one with a number of hollow
limbs. Every year when the young bees had made new swarms they had moved
into vacant limbs, until, I suppose, the tree had become quite full and
pretty crowded. I don't know what had started the trouble, but there was
a good deal of it going on when we got there. Perhaps some strong