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Tale of Billy Woodchuck

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<h2>XV</h2> <h2>“POP! GOES THE WEASEL!”</h2> Just as he had promised, Billy Woodchuck led his two brothers to Mr. Fox’s house late in the afternoon, to join the fife-and-drum corps, and make sweet music. The Grouse boys—all four of them—were already there and waiting to begin. And Mr. Fox was all smiles. “Let’s go further into the woods,” he said. “I know a fine place, where we won’t be disturbed.” He had noticed that old Mr. Crow was sitting in the top of a tall elm, and he did not care to have the old gentleman see what was going on. So they followed Mr. Fox. And after[77] a while he stopped close by a broad brook. He told Billy and his brothers just where to stand, and how to hold their short sticks so they would look like fifes. The Grouse boys perched themselves high up on the trunk of a dead tree, which had fallen against a big oak and lay slanting between the oak and the ground. “Come right down here!” Mr. Fox said to them. But the Grouse brothers told him that they could drum much better where they were. “What tune are we going to learn?” Billy Woodchuck asked. Mr. Fox thought for a moment. And then he said: “The first tune will be ‘Pop! Goes the Weasel.’” He hummed it to them. And soon the Grouse boys began to drum; and Billy Woodchuck and his brothers began[78] to whistle. Though they played very badly, Mr. Fox declared again and again that he was much pleased. “But I seem to be a little too near the music,” he said. “I want you all to face that way,” he went on, pointing a paw over his shoulder. “And please keep on playing while I go off and see how the tune sounds further away.” So they began to play “Pop! Goes the Weasel,” once more, while Mr. Fox, beating time all the while, backed slowly out of sight in the direction in which he had pointed. They played and played. And at last Billy Woodchuck’s lips began to feel very queer, puckered up as they were. And now and then not a single whistle came from his mouth, though he blew as hard as he knew how. He was out of breath, too.[79] And so were his brothers. Billy was wondering why Mr. Fox did not come back, when his sharp ears caught a faint sound. It was no more than a dry leaf breaking. Neither you nor I could have heard it. In spite of what Mr. Fox had said about looking straight ahead, Billy turned around. And he was always glad, afterward, that he had. For whom should he see behind him but Mr. Fox, stealing upon them with a horrid grin on his face! The music stopped short. With one frightened scream Billy Woodchuck was off. He plunged into the brook, with his brothers right at his heels. And in no time at all they had swum across to the other side and vanished in the thick bushes. At the water’s edge Mr. Fox paused. If there was one thing he hated, it was getting his feet wet. The brook was too[80] broad for him to jump; and when at last he found a place where he could cross by hopping from one stone to another, the Woodchuck boys were nowhere to be found. But the Grouse brothers still sat on the dead tree, though they had moved to its very top; and they had stopped drumming. “How did the music sound?” one of them asked. “It was the worst I ever heard,” Mr. Fox snarled. The Grouse brothers snickered. And one of them invited Mr. Fox to come up where they were. But he never even thanked them. <hr /> [81] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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