ise of a hoe,--scr-r-ritch scratch, scratch, scritch. Peter
scuttered underneath the bushes. But presently, as nothing happened, he
came out, and climbed upon a wheelbarrow and peeped over. The first
thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. His back was turned towards
Peter, and beyond him was the gate!

Peter got down very quietly off the wheelbarrow, and started running as
fast as he could go, along a straight walk behind some black
currant-bushes.

Mr. McGregor caught sight of him at the corner, but Peter did not care.
He slipped underneath the gate, and was safe at last in the wood outside
the garden.

Mr. McGregor hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scare-crow to
frighten the blackbirds.

Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the
big fir-tree.

He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the
floor of the rabbit-hole, and shut his eyes. His mother was busy
cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the
second little jacket and a pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a
fortnight!

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.

His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a
doze of it to Peter!

"One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time."

But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries
for supper.

387

The next selection illustrates well the kind of
stories in the _Bedtime Story_ series of twenty
volumes by Thornton Waldo Burgess (1874--). The
books of this series are entitled _Adventures
of Johnny Chuck_, _Adventures of Buster Bear_,
_Adventures of Ol' Mistah Buzzard_, etc. These
books and the _Old Mother West Wind_ series of
eight volumes by the same author are enjoyed by
children in the second and third grades. Mr.
Burgess is an American author who has been
editor of several American magazines. (The
following selection is from _Old Mother West
Wind_, by permission of the publishers, Little,
Brown & Co., Boston.)

JOHNNY CHUCK FINDS THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

THORNTON W. BURGESS

Old Mother West Wind had stopped to talk with the Slender Fir Tree.

"I've just come across the Green Meadows," said Old Mother West Wind,
"and there I saw the Best Thing in the World."

Striped Chipmunk was sitting under the Slender Fir Tree an