es to his nearest neighbor, Timmy the Flying
Squirrel, but Timmy was too busy to listen. When Peter Rabbit happened
along, Whitefoot tried to tell him. But Peter himself was too happy and
too eager to learn all the news in the Green Forest to listen. No one
had any interest in Whitefoot's troubles. Every one was too busy with
his own affairs.

So day by day Whitefoot the Wood Mouse grew more and more unhappy, and
when the dusk of early evening came creeping through the Green Forest,
he sat about and moped instead of running about and playing as he had
been in the habit of doing. The beautiful song of Melody the Wood Thrush
somehow filled him with sadness instead of with the joy he had always
felt before. The very happiness of those about him seemed to make him
more unhappy.

Once he almost decided to go hunt for another home, but somehow he
couldn't get interested even in this. He did start out, but he had not
gone far before he had forgotten all about what he had started for.
Always he had loved to run about and climb and jump for the pure
pleasure of it, but now he no longer did these things. He was unhappy,
was Whitefoot. Yes, sir, he was unhappy; and for no cause at all so far
as he could see.

CHAPTER XXV: Whitefoot Finds Out What The Matter Was

Pity the lonely, for deep in the heart
Is an ache that no doctor can heal by his art.
--Whitefoot.

Of all the little people of the Green Forest Whitefoot seemed to be the
only one who was unhappy. And because he didn't know why he felt so he
became day by day more unhappy. Perhaps I should say that night by night
he became more unhappy, for during the brightness of the day he slept
most of the time.

"There is something wrong, something wrong," he would say over and over
to himself.

"It must be with me, because everybody else is happy, and this is the
happiest time of all the year. I wish some one would tell me what ails
me. I want to be happy, but somehow I just can't be."

One evening he wandered a little farther from home than usual. He wasn't
going anywhere in particular. He had nothing in particular to do. He was
just wandering about because somehow he couldn't remain at home. Not far
away Melody the Wood Thrush was pouring out his beautiful evening song.
Whitefoot stopped to listen. Somehow it made him more unhappy than
ever. Melody stopped singing for a few moments. It was just then that
Whitefoot heard a faint sound. It was a gentle drumm