Chapter 17

A SLIGHT MISTAKE

Scarcely had Dickie Deer Mouse plunged into the woods when he met Fatty Coon coming in the opposite direction.

"Hullo!" Fatty said, looking up at Dickie, who had scrambled into a tree as soon as he caught sight of Fatty's plump form. "What have you been doing in Farmer Green's pasture! I thought you always stayed in the woods--unless you happened to go to the cornfield."

"I've been looking for a winter home," Dickie explained. "And I've just found the finest one you ever saw."

"Where is it!" Fatty asked him. "I might want to pay you a call some night--when I had nothing else to do."

Dickie Deer Mouse was in such a cheerful mood that almost anything Fatty Coon might have said would have pleased him.

"My new house is just beyond the fence," Dickie explained. "But I'm afraid you can't very well visit me there," he added with a smile.

"Why not?" Fatty Coon inquired. "I'm as good a climber as anybody. I can climb the tallest tree you ever saw, without feeling dizzy. But of course I'm a bit heavier than you are. And if you've gone and picked out a nest that's a long way above the ground, among the smallest branches, it might not be safe for me to go all the way up to it."

Dickie Deer Mouse had to smile once more.

"My new home isn't as high as I am right now," he told Fatty Coon.

Fatty grunted.

"Then I'll certainly come to see you," he said, "when time hangs heavily on my hands."

"My new house isn't as high as you are right now," Dickie remarked.

And at that Fatty Coon looked puzzled. His mouth fell open; and for a few moments he stared at his small friend without saying a word.

"You must be mistaken," he replied at last. "I'm standing on the ground. And I never saw a last year's bird's nest that was lower than that."

"I shall have to explain," said Dickie, "that my new home is much finer than my old one. Now, you may not believe it, but it has a front hall that's a hundred times as long as your tail."

Fatty Coon looked around at his ringed tail, with its black tip; and then he looked up at Dickie Deer Mouse again.

"You must be mistaken!" he cried. "I'll have to take my tail to your house and measure your front hall myself before I'll believe that."

"You can't measure my hall!" Dickie Deer Mouse exclaimed.

"Who's going to stop me?" Fatty Coon growled. He was used to having his own way. And it always made him angry when anybody tried to upset his plans. "I'm going to your house in the pasture now; and I'll soon show you that you're mistaken about your front hall.... You come with me and lead the way, young