h the back door of the house, without entering
the chamber at all!

As soon as Dickie's relations saw where they were they looked at one
another in a puzzled fashion.

"What's the matter?" Cousin Dan'l demanded of Dickie. "I followed the
crowd. But I saw no chamber anywhere."

Dickie Deer Mouse didn't know exactly what to say. So he merely shook
his head, hoping that the company would go away.

"Can it be possible that you've lost your bedroom?" Cousin Dan'l Deer
Mouse asked him. "Is it so small that you could have overlooked it?"

"The bedroom's none too big," Dickie replied.

"Then maybe we passed through it without noticing it," his elderly
cousin observed.

"We can't stand around here in the pasture all day, Dan'l," the cousin's
wife complained. "If Mr. Hawk happened to come this way he'd be sure to
see us."

"What do you suggest?" Cousin Dan'l asked Dickie Deer Mouse. "You see
the women are nervous." And he cocked an eye up at the sky, as if he did
not feel any too safe himself when he thought of Mr. Hawk.

"It seems to me," Dickie told him, "that we'd all of us better go back
to our summer homes."

And then, after saying that he hoped everybody would get home without an
accident, and wouldn't meet Mr. Hawk, Dickie Deer Mouse turned towards
the woods and hurried away.

His parting words did not make his numerous cousins feel any happier.
And since they wanted to get out of sight as soon as they could, they
quickly followed Dickie's example and scurried off as fast as they could
go, to spend another day in the summer houses in which they had been
living.

Now, Dickie Deer Mouse had paused as soon as he had reached the rail
fence at the edge of the woods. And unseen by his cousins he peeped back
to find out what they might do.

When the three families scattered in three different directions Dickie
Deer Mouse believed that he was well rid of them.

But by that time it had grown so light that he did not want to show
himself in the pasture, not even long enough to scamper the short
distance from the fence back to the front door of his new house.

So he passed another day in the last year's bird's nest.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XX

BEDFELLOWS

During his rambles on the following night Dickie Deer Mouse took great
care to keep out of sight of the three families of cousins that had
tried to quarter themselves in his new house in the pasture. Moreover he
said nothing to anybody ab