etter look out for yourself."

The old owl looked in for a moment, and then without a word she flew
back to her nest as fast as she could. Teddy ran over to the chimney and
listened. He heard the old owl brush into the hollow above, and then he
heard her saying in a frightened voice: "Husband, husband, what do you
think! A gamblesome elf has come to live in old Granddaddy Thistletop's
house."

"Oh, my tail-feathers!" cried old Father Owl aghast. "This is bad
business; we'll be having trouble and mischief all the time now. It
would have been better if we had let old Thistletop stay. What shall we
do?"

"Do! do!" cried old Mother Owl in an exasperated voice; "what is there
to do, I should like to know, but to get the children away? I wouldn't
keep them in the same tree with that gamblesome elf--no, not a night
longer--for all the mice you could offer me."

"But how can we get them away?" asked old Father Owl. "They can't fly."

"No, we can't fly!" cried all the little owls. "Oh, what shall we do?
Ow! Ow!"

"Can't fly! They've got to fly," said Mother Owl, "and you and I must
help them. Back to the old tree we go this very night."

After that there was a great to-do up in the hollow. Teddy watched
it all lying on his stomach in the door of the knot-hole, for it was
moonlight by this time and almost as bright as day.

The little owls got up on the edge of the hollow and there they sat,
teetering and flapping and afraid to fly. Their mother grew crosser and
crosser, and at last she got back of them and gave them a push, and
then down they went, fluttering and tumbling and bumping into the
tree-trunks.

The Father Owl sailed about from branch to branch, calling, "Who-o-o-o!
Who-o-o! Come on! Spread your wings and go like this. Who-o-o-o!" and
then he would sail on to another bush; but the Mother Owl flew down
beside them and showed them how to spread their wings, and pushed them
with her beak, and gradually the fluttered farther and farther into the
darkling woods, their cries growing fainter and then dying away until
all Teddy could hear was the Father Owl's voice, very faint and far
away. "Who-o-o! Who-o-o!" Then it too died away, and the woods were
still.

After a while the moon set and Teddy began to feel very sleepy.

Then a little breeze sprang up; the light grew clearer and the east was
red, and at last the sun peeped over the top of the hill opposite.

As the first beam struck old Granddaddy Thistletop'