tarted for his nearest little round doorway.
Hooty the Owl reached down with his long cruel claws and--Danny
Meadow Mouse was caught at last!

X

A Strange Ride and How It Ended

Danny Meadow Mouse often had sat watching Skimmer the Swallow
sailing around up in the blue, blue sky. He had watched Ol'
Mistah Buzzard go up, up, up, until he was nothing but a tiny
speck, and Danny had wondered how it would seem to be way up
above the Green Meadows and the Green Forest and look down. It
had seemed to him that it must be very wonderful and beautiful.
Sometimes he had wished that he had wings and could go up in the
air and look down. And now here he was, he, Danny Meadow Mouse,
actually doing that very thing!

But Danny could see nothing wonderful or beautiful now. No,
indeed! Everything was terrible, for you see, Danny Meadow Mouse
wasn't flying himself. He was being carried. Yes, Sir, Danny
Meadow Mouse was being carried through the air in the cruel claws
of Hooty the Owl! And all because Danny had forgotten--forgotten
to watch up in the sky for danger.

[Illustration: _Danny was being carried through the air in the
cruel claws of Hooty the Owl!_]

Poor, poor Danny Meadow Mouse! Hooty's great cruel claws hurt him
dreadfully! But it wasn't the pain that was the worst. No,
indeed! It wasn't the pain! It was the thought of what would
happen when Hooty reached his home in the Green Forest, for he
knew that there Hooty would gobble him up, bones and all. As he
flew, Hooty kept chuckling, and Danny Meadow Mouse knew just what
those chuckles meant. They meant that Hooty was thinking of the
good meal he was going to have.

Hanging there in Hooty's great cruel claws, Danny looked down on
the snow-covered Green Meadows he loved so well. They seemed a
frightfully long way below him, though really they were not far
at all, for Hooty was flying very low. But Danny Meadow Mouse had
never in all his life been so high up before, and so it seemed to
him that he was way, way up in the sky, and he shut his eyes so
as not to see. But he couldn't keep them shut. No, Sir, he
couldn't keep them shut! He just had to keep opening them. There
was the dear old Green Forest drawing nearer and nearer. It
always had looked very beautiful to Danny Meadow Mouse, but now
it looked terrible, very terrible indeed, because over in it,
hidden away there in some dark place, was the home of Hooty the