g
after him. You see Jackie was frightened after it was all over, but he had
frightened the rat worse yet.

"How brave you were!" cried Jimmie, when they were at Mrs. Bow Wow's
house. "You were very brave, indeed."

"Do you really think so?" asked Jackie. "Then I must be."

"You can bite my ball all you want to," went on Jimmie, and then Peetie
came home from the store, and they all had a fine time playing catch. Now
to-morrow night I'm going to tell you about Grandfather Goosey-Gander's
tall hat, if I don't lose a penny off the front stoop.

STORY XXIX

GRANDFATHER GOOSEY-GANDER'S TALL HAT

Jimmie Wibblewobble was in the back lots, playing ball with Billie and
Johnnie Bushytail, Sammie Littletail, and Bully, the frog, besides some
other friends of his. They were having a fine time, knocking the ball this
way and that, just as if the ball didn't care what happened to it. When it
came Jimmie's turn to bat, he called out:

"Watch me knock it away over the tree," and land sakes, goodness me and a
pop-corn cake! if that ball didn't fly away over the tree, just like a
little bird. Well,--Jimmie was pretty proud, I can tell you, and he was
such a good hitter that Bully said:

"Let Jimmie knock some more balls for us to catch."

So he did, after Billie Bushytail had run to get the one that went over
the tree, and brought it back.

Well, so the game went on, and pretty soon, oh, I guess it must have been
about as long as it takes to eat two pieces of bread and butter, but not
with jam on, mind you; I guess in about that time, it was Billie
Bushytail's turn to bat. And just as he stepped up to hit the ball, if all
the boy animals didn't see something black moving along by the hedge
fence. It was black and round and shiny, this moving object was, and as
soon as Sammie Littletail saw it he cried out:

"Oh, there's a bad fox. Let's see who can hit him."

So they all caught up stones to throw at the bad fox, to drive him away.

Jimmie had the largest stone, and he could throw the straightest, so it is
no wonder he hit the tall, round, shining black thing by the hedge. But
this is the funny part of it, that black thing wasn't a fox at all. No,
siree!

It was Grandfather Goosey-Gander's new tall hat, and that wasn't at all
funny, I do assure you. And the worst part of it was that Grandfather
Goosey-Gander was under that hat! For, you know, a tall hat couldn't walk
along by a hedge, all alone its own self, now,