just a trace of
disappointment.

"It was Fatty Coon," several of his cousins explained at once.

And then Dickie Deer Mouse knew that he had made a mistake when he told
Fatty of his good fortune.

"I'm sorry to say that he has misled you," Dickie informed his
relations. "It's true that my front hall is very long. But the trouble
is, there's only one chamber."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XIX

THE WRONG TURN

For a few moments Dickie Deer Mouse's cousins looked terribly
disappointed. He had told them that his new house had only one chamber.
And each of the three big families had expected to have at least one
bedroom.

The elder cousins gathered in a group and talked in low tones. Dickie
could not hear what they said. He hoped that they were going to bid him
farewell and go back where they came from. But he soon saw that they had
no such idea.

The eldest of all, whom Dickie knew as Cousin Dan'l, said to him
presently:

"Cheer up! We know you'd be sorry not to have us with you during the
winter. So we'll take a look at your chamber. Perhaps it's big enough
for all of us."

Dickie tried to tell Cousin Dan'l Deer Mouse that he was afraid the
chamber would be too crowded with so many in it. But when he opened his
mouth the words, somehow, would not come. And at last he nodded his head
and crept through his doorway, while his cousins followed him one by
one.

The younger cousins pushed and crowded and quarreled, making such a
commotion that Dickie Deer Mouse could hear them plainly, though he was
some distance ahead of them.

"Those youngsters will have to keep still," he said over his shoulder to
the cousin that was nearest him.

Everybody passed the message down the line. And when the youngsters
heard it they began to laugh.

"Tell Cousin Dickie to stop us if he can," they shouted.

Their rude answer reached Dickie Deer Mouse just as he came to a place
in his front hall to which he had paid little heed before. Right at the
spot where he stood the tunnel divided itself into two passages. Before,
he had taken the one on the right. But now something told him to go the
other way. So he turned to the left, still followed closely by the
cousin that was behind him.

The whole procession came trailing after them. And the first thing
Dickie--or anybody else--knew, they all found themselves standing in the
grassy pasture once more, in the gray light of the morning.

They had passed out throug