going to please them. My little
cousins said they never saw their ma so mad before or since. She made
Uncle Lovejoy take off all his nice clothes, and the young man, too, and
she cooked the game chicken for dinner. Then, right after dinner, she
picked up a bag of shinney sticks that Uncle Lovejoy had brought home,
and she says to him and the young man:"

[Illustration]

"'Now you get out in the garden,' she says, 'both of you, and try to
earn back some of this money you've been spending.' And Uncle Lovejoy
didn't feel very much like it, but he went, and so did the young man.
So did Aunt Melissy, and she used up most of those shinney sticks on
Uncle Silas and the young man before fall, and Uncle Silas never saw any
of his nice clothes again, though they had the best garden they ever did
have, so my little cousins said.

"And that," said Mr. 'Possum, leaning back in his chair to smoke,
"that's why I've always been afraid to try family life. It's easier to
please one than two, especially when the other one is a spry, stirring
person like Aunt Melissy Lovejoy."

"What became of all the good clothes?" asked Jack Rabbit, who was always
very stylish.

"Why, I've heard," said Mr. 'Possum, "that Aunt Melissy made some of
them over for my little cousins, and that she traded off the rest of
them to a pedler for patent medicine to give Uncle Silas for a weak
mind, and I think he needed it some myself for trying to please her in
the first place."

Mr. Rabbit nodded.

"It takes all kind of people to make a world," he said.

Mr. 'Coon yawned and rubbed his eyes. The others were fast asleep.

THE HOLLOW TREE POETRY CLUB

MR. CROW PLANS AN ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE FOREST PEOPLE

[Illustration: HAD TO SCRATCH HIS HEAD AND THINK PRETTY HARD.]

Once upon a time, when it was getting along toward fall in the Hollow
Tree where Jack Rabbit and Mr. Robin and the others had come to live
with the 'Coon and 'Possum and the old black Crow, there began to be
long evenings, and the Hollow Tree people used to think of new ways to
pass the time. They tried games at first, and sleight of hand tricks.
Then they tried doing things, and Mr. Turtle carried them all together
twice around the big parlor room on his back. But even that wasn't so
funny after the first evening, and Mr. Crow, who did most of the
thinking, had to scratch his head and think pretty hard what to do next.

All at once he happened to remember that Jack Rabbit, who