ur stomach."

"What shall I do?" asked Solomon Owl. "Insects are scarce at this season
of the year. Of course, there are frogs--but I don't seem to care for them.
And there are fish--but they're not easy to get, for they don't come out of
the water and sit on the bank, as the frogs do."

"How about pullets?" Aunt Polly inquired.

At that Solomon Owl let out a long row of hoots, because he was pleased.

"The very thing!" he cried. "That's what I've been wanting all this time.
And I never guessed it.... I'll pay you for your advice the next time I
see you," he told Aunt Polly. And Solomon Owl hurried away before she
could stop him. Since he had no intention of visiting her on ground-hog
day, he knew it would be spring before he saw Aunt Polly Woodchuck again.

The old lady scolded a bit. And it did not make her feel any pleasanter to
hear Solomon's mocking laughter, which grew fainter and fainter as he left
the pasture behind him. Then she went inside her house, for she was fast
growing sleepy. And she wanted to set things to rights before she began
her long winter's nap.

Meanwhile, Solomon Owl roamed restlessly through the woods. There was only
one place in the neighborhood where he could get a pullet. That was at
Farmer Green's chicken house. And for some reason he did not care to visit
the farm buildings until it grew darker.

So he amused himself by making the woods echo with his strange cry,
"_Whoo-whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo, to-whoo-ah!_" And now and then he threw in a
few "_wha-whas_," just for extra measure.

Many of the forest folk who heard him remarked that Solomon Owl seemed to
be in extra fine spirits.

"Probably it's the hunter's moon that pleases him!" Jimmy Rabbit remarked
to a friend of his. "I've always noticed that old Solomon makes more noise
on moonlight nights than at any other time."

The hunter's moon, big and yellow and round, was just rising over Blue
Mountain. But for once it was not the moon that made Solomon Owl so
talkative. He was in fine feather, so to speak, because he was hoping to
have a fat pullet for his supper. And as for the moon, he would have been
just as pleased had there been none at all that night. For Solomon Owl
never cared to be seen when he visited Farmer Green's chicken house.

VII
THE BLAZING EYES

It was some three hours after sunset when Solomon Owl at last reached
Farmer Green's place. All was quiet in the chicken house because the hens
and roosters a