everybody knows it. Buster Bear could squash me
by just stepping on me, but he doesn't try it. You notice he always is
very polite when we meet. Prickly Porky and I are armed for _defence_,
but we never use our weapons for _offence_. Nobody bothers us, and we
bother nobody. That's the beauty of being prepared."

Unc' Billy thought it over for a few minutes. Then he sighed and sighed
again.

"Ah reckons yo' and Brer Porky are about the luckiest people Ah knows,"
said he. "Yes, Sah, Ah reckons yo' is just that. Ah don't fear anybody
mah own size, but Ah cert'nly does have some mighty scary times when Ah
meets some people Ah might mention. Ah wish Ol' Mother Nature had done
gone and given me something fo' to make people as scary of me as they
are of yo'. Ah cert'nly believes in preparedness after seein' yo', Brer
Skunk. Ah cert'nly does just that very thing. Have yo' found any nice
fresh aiggs lately?"

XIV

A LITTLE SOMETHING ABOUT EGGS

"An egg," says Jimmy Skunk, "is good;
It's very good indeed to eat."
"An egg," says Mrs. Grouse, "is dear;
'Twill hatch into a baby sweet."

So in the matter of eggs, as in a great many other matters, it all
depends on the point of view. To Jimmy Skunk and Unc' Billy Possum eggs
are looked on from the viewpoint of something to eat. Their stomachs
prompt them to think of eggs. Eggs are good to fill empty stomachs. The
mere thought of eggs will make Jimmy and Unc' Billy smack their lips.
They say they "love" eggs, but they don't. They "like" them, which is
quite different.

But Mrs. Grouse and most of the other feathered people of the Green
Forest and the Green Meadows and the Old Orchard really do "love" eggs.
It is the heart instead of the stomach that responds to the thought of
eggs. To them eggs are almost as precious as babies, because they know
that some day, some day very soon, those eggs will become babies. There
are a few feathered folks, I am sorry to say, who "love" their own eggs,
but "like" the eggs of other people--like them just as Jimmy Skunk and
Unc' Billy Possum do, to eat. Blacky the Crow is one and his cousin,
Sammy Jay, is another.

So in the springtime there is always a great deal of matching of wits
between the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows and
the Old Orchard. Those who have eggs try to keep them a secret or to
build the nests that hold them where none who like to eat them can get
them; and those who have an