. They knew that if Tommy Fox tried
to dig them out of their underground home, he would find the passage
between the roots too small to squeeze through.

Dickie Deer Mouse smiled as he saw what the builders of his house had
done. They had made everything exactly to suit him. He knew that he
could have done no better himself; in fact he knew that he couldn't have
done nearly so well. For he was no digger. But he told himself that
there was no reason why he should feel sad about that, so long as others
were kind enough to dig a fine home and leave it for him to live in.

Then he slipped into the woods, feeling so happy that he had to stop and
relate his good fortune to the first person he met.

And that was where Dickie Deer Mouse made a slight mistake.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XVII

A SLIGHT MISTAKE

Scarcely had Dickie Deer Mouse plunged into the woods when he met Fatty
Coon coming in the opposite direction.

"Hullo!" Fatty said, looking up at Dickie, who had scrambled into a tree
as soon as he caught sight of Fatty's plump form. "What have you been
doing in Farmer Green's pasture! I thought you always stayed in the
woods--unless you happened to go to the cornfield."

"I've been looking for a winter home," Dickie explained. "And I've just
found the finest one you ever saw."

"Where is it!" Fatty asked him. "I might want to pay you a call some
night--when I had nothing else to do."

Dickie Deer Mouse was in such a cheerful mood that almost anything Fatty
Coon might have said would have pleased him.

"My new house is just beyond the fence," Dickie explained. "But I'm
afraid you can't very well visit me there," he added with a smile.

"Why not?" Fatty Coon inquired. "I'm as good a climber as anybody. I can
climb the tallest tree you ever saw, without feeling dizzy. But of
course I'm a bit heavier than you are. And if you've gone and picked out
a nest that's a long way above the ground, among the smallest branches,
it might not be safe for me to go all the way up to it."

Dickie Deer Mouse had to smile once more.

[Illustration: Dickie escapes from Tommy Fox]

"My new home isn't as high as I am right now," he told Fatty Coon.

Fatty grunted.

"Then I'll certainly come to see you," he said, "when time hangs heavily
on my hands."

"My new house isn't as high as you are right now," Dickie remarked.

And at that Fatty Coon looked puzzled. His mouth fell open; and for a
few moments he s