<div><h1 id='ch29'>CHAPTER XXIX<br/> <span class='sub-head'>THE FARMER MAKES FRIENDS WITH BILLY</span></h1></div>
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<p class='line0'>Friendship is most surely won</p>
<p class='line0'>By kindly deeds for others done.</p>
<p class='line0'>                  <span class='it'>Billy Mink.</span></p>
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<p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>The</span> farmer did a lot of thinking
after he guessed that it was Billy
Mink who had driven all the Rats
out of his barn into his house.
“If I could get that little brown
rascal over here to the house,”
thought the farmer, “I would soon
be rid of those robber Rats. But
how am I going to do it? If he
doesn’t know that those Rats are
over here, he certainly will not
venture any nearer to the house
than that woodpile. And if he
cannot get into the henhouse to
steal my chickens, he won’t stay
around here very long, because he
will have little to eat. The thing
for me to do is see that he has
plenty to eat and learns where it
comes from.”</p>
<p class='pindent'>So the very first thing the
farmer did the next morning was to
put some scraps of fresh meat just
outside the woodpile. It didn’t
take Billy Mink long to find them.
Of course the farmer was out of
sight. He was in the barn, peeping
through a crack. He saw
Billy come out from under the
wood and sniff at the pieces of
meat. It was clear that Billy was
suspicious. He went all around
those scraps of meat, and the
farmer could tell by the way he
moved that Billy suspected a trap.</p>
<p class='pindent'>But Billy found no trap. Of
course not, because there was no
trap. At last he ventured to seize
one of those scraps of meat and
darted back into the woodpile with
it. A few minutes later he was
out again, just as cautious as before.
So, one by one, he took the
scraps of meat under the woodpile.
The farmer smiled as he saw the
last scrap disappear. He knew
that Billy had enough for a good
meal and that with a stomach well
filled he would probably take a
nap.</p>
<p class='pindent'>This is just what Billy did. All
the time he kept wondering about
those scraps of meat and how they
had happened to be so handy.
“It’s queer,” thought Billy, “how
that meat happened to be right
there. I wonder if that farmer
could have dropped it. If he did,
I hope he’ll do it again.” With
this, Billy went to sleep.</p>
<p class='pindent'>Just at dusk Billy awoke. He
was hungry again. He began to
think of those hens over in the
henhouse. Then he remembered
the trap he had found over there
and decided he would keep away
from the henhouse. He decided
that he would go over to the big
barn to see if any of those Rats
had returned. And then, all of a
sudden, he remembered the easy
breakfast he had had that morning.
Instantly Billy popped his head out
from under the woodpile. He
didn’t really expect to find any
more scraps of meat, and you can
guess just how surprised and
pleased he was when he found that
there were some more scraps just
where he had found his breakfast
that morning. For the first time
Billy suspected that they might
have been put there especially for
him, and in his heart he began to
have a friendly feeling for that
farmer.</p>
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