ion--" he said--"it's my opinion that Johnnie Green took
this old hat and put it on the giant's head, after he had made him."

"Made him!" Jolly Robin repeated. "You don't mean to say that Johnnie
Green could make a giant, do you?"

"Well, he knows how to make a snow-man--so I've been told," Jimmy
Rabbit replied. "And though I've never seen one before, it's plain
that that's what this creature is."

Jolly Robin had listened with growing wonder. Spending his winters in
the South, as he did, he had never even heard of a snow-man.

"Are they dangerous--these snow-men?" he inquired anxiously.

"This one certainly isn't," Jimmy Rabbit told him. "With his head off,
he can't do any harm. And with the sun shining so warm I should say
that by to-morrow he'll be gone for good. It looks to me as if he
might be the last snow-man of the winter, for I don't believe there'll
be any more snow until next fall."

"Good!" Jolly Robin cried. "I shall come back to the orchard to live,
after all, just as I had intended." And he felt so happy that he began
to sing.

"I'm glad I brought you here to see the snow giant," he told Jimmy
Rabbit, when he had finished his song. "But when my wife and I start
to build our summer-house a little later in the spring, I hope you'll
say nothing to her about this affair. It might upset her, you know, if
she knew that a giant lost his head in the orchard--even if he was
made of snow."

"I understand!" said Jimmy Rabbit. "And I won't mention the matter to
her. You're afraid she might lose _her_ head, I suppose, if she heard
about it."

Having made a joke, Jimmy Rabbit thought it was a good time for him to
be leaving. So he said good-by and hopped briskly away.

And Jolly Robin's wife never knew that her husband and Jimmy Rabbit
had a secret that they did not tell her.

Of course, if they had told her it would have been no secret at all.

XIII

THE HERMIT

Though Jolly Robin was quite bold for his size, he had a cousin who
was actually shy. This timid relation of Jolly's belonged to the
Hermit Thrush family; and Jolly Robin always spoke of him as "The
Hermit," which was a good name for him, because he never strayed from
the depths of the swamp near Black Creek. At least, he stayed there
all summer long, until the time came for him to go South.

If Jolly Robin wanted to see this shy cousin, he had to go into the
swamp. For the Hermit never repaid any of Jolly's calls. He was afraid
of