ing down he
dug up towards the sunshine and the blue sky.

My, how his short legs did fly and his stout little claws dug into the
soft earth! His little forepaws flew so fast that if you had been
there you could hardly have seen them at all. And with his strong hind
legs he kicked the sand right back into the face of Reddy Fox.

All the little meadow people gathered around the hole where Johnny
Chuck and Reddy Fox had disappeared. They were very anxious, very
anxious indeed. Would Reddy Fox catch Johnny Chuck? And what would he
do to him? Was all their fun to end in something terrible to
sunny-hearted, merry Johnny Chuck, whom everybody loved?

All of a sudden, pop! right out of the solid earth among the daisies
and buttercups, just like a jack-in-the-box, came Johnny Chuck! He
looked very warm and a little tired, but he was still chuckling as he
scampered across to another hole of Grandfather Chuck's.

By and by something else crawled out of the hole Johnny Chuck had made.
Could it be Reddy Fox? Where were his white waistcoat and beautiful
red coat? And was that thing dragging behind him his splendid tail?

He crept out of the hole and then just lay down and panted for breath.
He was almost too tired to move. Then he began to spit sand out of his
mouth and blow it out of his nose and try to wipe it out of his eyes.
The long hair of his fine coat was filled full of sand and no one would
ever have guessed that this was Reddy Fox.

"Haw! haw! haw!" shouted Blacky the Crow.

Then everybody shouted "Haw! haw! haw!" and began to roll in the grass
and hold on to their sides once more; everybody but Reddy Fox. When he
could get his breath he didn't look this way or that way, but just
sneaked off to his home under the big hickory.

[Illustration: Then everybody shouted "Haw! haw! haw!"]

And when Old Mother West Wind came with her big bag to take the Merry
Little Breezes to their home behind the Purple Hills, Johnny Chuck
waddled back up the Lone Little Path chuckling to himself, for that
little feeling of discontent was all gone. He had found that after all
he could do something better than anybody else on the Green Meadows,
for in his heart he knew that none could dig so fast as he.

VII

JOHNNY CHUCK'S SECRET

Johnny Chuck pushed up the last bit of gravel from the hole he had dug
between the roots of the old apple tree in a corner of the Green
Meadows. He smoothed it down on the big, yellow m