g Jack heard a queer kind of noise outside, and opened
the door to see what it was. In whisked Mrs. Squirrel; the sparrow
hopped in close beside her, and Mr. Rabbit jumped along right after
them.

"How are you getting on?" asked the gray lady. "I brought this along
because I thought it might come handy. We laid in a great deal more
than we needed for our nest last fall, and we could just as well spare
it as not."

It was a big bundle of beautiful green moss she had brought, enough to
spread all around under the tree and make a fine carpet.

"Oh, you dear, good old thing!" said Luce. "That is just exactly what
we wanted. Here, Lyd! Peg! Help me spread this down."

"Chick," said the sparrow, "will you please take charge of this?"

And there was a great long vine of shining green ivy which the sparrow
had dragged in with him from some place in the woods. Lucy was so
delighted that she fairly clapped her brown leather hands.

"Quick, Francaise!" she cried. "Take this and twist it around the
tree. Just the thing to hide poor old Norway's bare places. Oh, it's
just lovely!"

All this time Mr. Rabbit had been holding his ears very straight up,
and now he shook a couple of button-balls and some acorn-cups out of
one, and a lot of mountain-ash berries out of the other.

"Do to hang around on the tree. Look kind of odd and nice," he said.

"Well, I should think so!" Luce answered. "I never did see such good
creatures as you are; and we all thought you had gone home to bed."

Speaking of bed made the chicken gape a little, and they all remembered
how late it was. They never stopped chattering and laughing for a
minute; but they went to work harder than ever, and soon had all the
moss spread down, the ivy twined over the tree, and the button-balls,
acorn-cups, and berries hung up where they would show best.

Then Mr. Rabbit got up on the stool and nearly covered himself with
moss; Mrs. Squirrel got under the tree and stood up on her hind-feet,
with an acorn in her paws; Minx curled herself up in the funniest way
on the moss; the sparrow flew up into the tree and began pecking at the
mountain-ash berries; Francaise and Lyd and Peg all sat down as well as
they could near the squirrel and the rabbit; Jumping Jack mounted the
horse and rode around beside the tree, to stand guard; Spot stood up on
his hind-legs just in front of the stool, with Scrubby's letter in his
mouth, and the chicken hopped up on Spot's head.

Then g