ard. Everything was very quiet up there.
Those who had gone up there to decide what sort of rain they wanted
were sitting; around under the pine-trees, looking very sour and
saying nothing. The ground was torn up a little in spots, and I
thought I could see scattered around little patches of hair and little
pieces of hide. I judged from that that the arguments they had used
were very serious. I watched them from behind the bushes a little
while, and then Brother Bear walked out into the open and declared
that any one who didn't want the rain to be a trash-mover was anything
but a nice fellow. At this Brother Coon, who lived in the low
grounds, remarked that anybody who wanted anything more than a drizzle
was not well raised at all.

"Then I soon found out what the trouble was. Brother Bear, living on
the uplands, wanted a big rain; Brother Coon, who lived in the low
grounds, wanted a little rain; Brother Fox wanted a tolerably heavy
shower; and Brother Mink just wanted a cloudy night to coax the frogs
out. Some wanted a freshet, some wanted a drizzle, and some wanted a
fog.

"They wouldn't agree because they couldn't agree," continued Brother
Rabbit, "and finally they slunk off to their homes one at a time. So I
didn't have to make any rain at all."

"But you couldn't have made it rain," said Sweetest Susan placidly.

"I didn't say I could," replied Mr. Rabbit. "I told them I would make
the rain if they would agree among themselves."

"But you took what they brought you?" suggested Sweetest Susan in a
tone that was intended for a rebuke.

[Illustration: BROTHER BEAR ARGUING THE RAIN QUESTION]

"Well," Mr. Rabbit answered, "you know what the old saying is--'Fools
have to pay for their folly.' They might as well have paid me as to
pay somebody else. That's the way I looked at it in those days. I
don't know how I'd look at it now, because I'm not so nimble footed as
I used to be, nor so full of mischief."

"If there had been many more such fools in your neighborhood,"
remarked Mr. Thimblefinger, "you could have set up a grocery-store."

There was a little pause, and then Mrs. Meadows, looking around,
exclaimed:--

"Just look yonder, will you?"

Chickamy Crany Crow had two sticks, and with these she was playing on
an imaginary fiddle. Tickle-My-Toes had the broom, and this, he
pretended, was a banjo.

The two queer-looking creatures wagged their heads from side to side
and patted the ground with their feet,