ay-break feeling quite out of sorts.

But when he awoke, right in the middle of the day, a happy thought
popped into his head.

He was so excited by it that he couldn't go to sleep again, though the
sun was shining brightly.

XVIII

SAVING THE DAY

Benny Badger kept his bright idea to himself. But his neighbors knew
that he must have thought of something, because he seemed so
good-natured all at once.

"He has a secret," they told one another. But they couldn't find out
what it was. Though they asked Benny Badger point blank what he intended
to do, he refused to tell them. He only smiled, and looked very wise.
And indeed he felt just as wise as he looked.

For a time a good many of his friends spied upon him. Hidden behind
whatever was handy, they watched Benny Badger.

But they soon grew tired of that. So far as they could see, he did
nothing but dig holes. And certainly that was nothing new for him. So
his friends went about their own affairs, leaving Benny to dig as many
holes as he pleased.

Now, it pleased him to dig more holes, and bigger holes, than he had
ever dug before. And he dug them all on the _other_ side of the prairie
dog village--on the side toward the rancher's home.

Benny seemed to have no fixed plan as to _how_ he should dig the
holes--whether in a straight row, or in a circle, or any other way. His
one idea seemed to be to dig a plenty--to dig as many as anybody could
possibly want for any purpose whatsoever.

Now and then some passer-by would stop and look at Benny for a few
minutes, and snicker.

"Are you looking for buried gold?" Mr. Coyote asked him.

"What's the matter--have you been digging so fast that you can't stop?"
Mr. Fox inquired.

Even the prairie dogs--timid as they were--ventured to jeer at Benny
Badger and demanded whether he had gone crazy. But Benny Badger never
paused to answer anybody. He smiled a good deal, however, as if he knew
something that nobody else suspected.

Every morning at dawn he went home to rest. And every evening at sunset
he returned to the same place, just beyond the prairie dog village, to
take up his work where he had left it.

The only remark Benny would make when anyone insisted on talking with
him was that he couldn't waste his time gossiping, because _he had to
save the day_.

That seemed a strange statement. No one knew exactly what Benny Badger
meant by it. To be sure, he saved each day for sleeping--for he worked
only