Chapter 19 - Page 2

around here in the pasture all day, Dan'l," the cousin's wife complained. "If Mr. Hawk happened to come this way he'd be sure to see us."

"What do you suggest?" Cousin Dan'l asked Dickie Deer Mouse. "You see the women are nervous." And he cocked an eye up at the sky, as if he did not feel any too safe himself when he thought of Mr. Hawk.

"It seems to me," Dickie told him, "that we'd all of us better go back to our summer homes."

And then, after saying that he hoped everybody would get home without an accident, and wouldn't meet Mr. Hawk, Dickie Deer Mouse turned towards the woods and hurried away.

His parting words did not make his numerous cousins feel any happier. And since they wanted to get out of sight as soon as they could, they quickly followed Dickie's example and scurried off as fast as they could go, to spend another day in the summer houses in which they had been living.

Now, Dickie Deer Mouse had paused as soon as he had reached the rail fence at the edge of the woods. And unseen by his cousins he peeped back to find out what they might do.

When the three families scattered in three different directions Dickie Deer Mouse believed that he was well rid of them.

But by that time it had grown so light that he did not want to show himself in the pasture, not even long enough to scamper the short distance from the fence back to the front door of his new house.

So he passed another day in the last year's bird's nest.