"

And the next time you stand watching a big cornfield in late summer or
early fall, when the wind is running across the green and silver,
listen with your littlest and newest ears. Maybe you will hear the
corn fairies going pla-sizzy pla-sizzy-sizzy, softer than an eye wink,
softer than a Nebraska baby's thumb.

[Illustration]

How the Animals Lost Their Tails and
Got Them Back Traveling From
Philadelphia to Medicine Hat

Far up in North America, near the Saskatchewan river, in the Winnipeg
wheat country, not so far from the town of Moose Jaw named for the jaw
of a moose shot by a hunter there, up where the blizzards and the
chinooks begin, where nobody works unless they have to and they nearly
all have to, there stands the place known as Medicine Hat.

And there on a high stool in a high tower on a high hill sits the Head
Spotter of the Weather Makers.

When the animals lost their tails it was because the Head Spotter of
the Weather Makers at Medicine Hat was careless.

The tails of the animals were stiff and dry because for a long while
there was dusty dry weather. Then at last came rain. And the water
from the sky poured on the tails of the animals and softened them.

Then the chilly chills came whistling with icy mittens and they froze
all the tails stiff. A big wind blew up and blew and blew till all the
tails of the animals blew off.

It was easy for the fat stub hogs with their fat stub tails. But it
was not so easy for the blue fox who uses his tail to help him when he
runs, when he eats, when he walks or talks, when he makes pictures or
writes letters in the snow or when he puts a snack of bacon meat with
stripes of fat and lean to hide till he wants it under a big rock by a
river.

[Illustration: There on a high stool in a high tower, on a high hill
sits the Head Spotter of the Weather Makers]

It was easy enough for the rabbit who has long ears and no tail at all
except a white thumb of cotton. But it was hard for the yellow
flongboo who at night lights up his house in a hollow tree with his
fire yellow torch of a tail. It is hard for the yellow flongboo to
lose his tail because it lights up his way when he sneaks at night on
the prairie, sneaking up on the flangwayers, the hippers and
hangjasts, so good to eat.

The animals picked a committee of representatives to represent them in
a parleyhoo to see