was the big
man of the party, was also a first rate poet, and liked to read his own
poetry better than anything. So, when he thought of that, he said:

"I'll tell you. We'll have a poetry club."

And of course that made Mr. Rabbit wake up right away.

"What's that?" he said. "What kind of a thing is a poetry club?"

"Why," said Mr. Crow, "it's a place where the members each write a poem
and read it at the next meeting. You're the only real, sure enough poet,
of course, and will be president, and write the best poem, but the rest
of us can try, and you can tell us our mistakes. I've heard that Mr. Man
has them, and they're ever so much fun."

Jack Rabbit thought so, too, and all the others liked the plan. So they
elected Mr. Rabbit president and then went to work on their poems. They
couldn't have the first meeting very soon, for it took longer to write
poems in those days than it does now, so before they got half ready the
news got out some way, and even Mr. Dog had heard of it.

[Illustration: POOR MR. DOG.]

Poor Mr. Dog! It made him really quite ill to think he wasn't on very
good terms with the Hollow Tree people, for he thought he could write
pretty nice poetry, too, and he wanted to belong to that club worse than
anything he could think of. He wanted to so bad that at last he told Mr.
Robin that if they'd just let him come he'd promise anything they asked.

They didn't want to let him, though, until Mr. Crow, who always felt
kind of sorry for Mr. Dog, said he didn't see why Mr. Dog shouldn't come
and look in through the window shutters, and that they could nail a seat
for him on a limb just outside. They could pull him up to it with a rope
and he could sit there and listen and applaud the poems all through
without being able to do any damage to the poets, and he would be glad
enough to be let down by the time they got done reciting.

So they sent him an invitation, and Mr. Dog was as happy as a king. He
went right to work on his poem, and he worked all night and walked up
and down the yard all day trying to think up rhymes for "joyful" and
"meeting," and a lot of other nice words. Even when he was asleep he
dreamed about it, and said over some of the lines out loud and jerked
his paws about as if he were reciting it and making motions. You see,
Mr. Dog hadn't always done just right by the Hollow Tree people, and he
was anxious to make a good impression and fix up things. He fixed
himself all up, too, whe