Chapter 6 - Page 2

shameful, Peter, that you should be so ignorant. And so if you will promise not to ask for another story while I am here, I will tell you about Glutton the Wolverine."

Of course Peter promised. He wanted that story so much that he would have promised anything. So Honker told the story, and here it is just as Peter heard it.

"Once upon a time long, long, long ago, the first Wolverine was sent out to find a place for himself in the Great World just as every one else had been sent out. Old Mother Nature had told him that he was related to Mr. Weasel and Mr. Mink and Mr. Fisher and Mr. Skunk, but no one would have guessed it just to look at him. In fact, some of his new neighbors were inclined to think that he was related to Old King Bear. Certainly he looked more like King Bear than he did like little Mr. Weasel. But for his bushy tail he would have looked still more like a member of the Bear family. He was clumsy-looking. He was rather slow moving, but he was strong, very strong for his size. And he had a mean disposition. Yes, Sir, Mr. Wolverine had a mean disposition. He had such a mean disposition that he would snarl at his own reflection in a pool of water.

"Now you know as well as I do that no one with a mean disposition has any friends. It was so with Mr. Wolverine. When his neighbors found out what a mean disposition he had, they let him severely alone. They would go out of their way to avoid meeting him. This made his disposition all the meaner. He didn't really care because his neighbors would have nothing to do with him. No, he didn't really care, for the simple reason that he didn't want anything to do with them. But just the same it made him angry to have them show that they didn't want to have anything to do with him. Every time he would see one of them turn aside to avoid meeting him, he would snarl under his breath, and his eyes would glow with anger; he would resolve to get even.

"Being slow in his movements because of his stout build, he early realized that he must make nimble wits make up for the lack of nimble legs. He also learned very early in life that patience is a virtue few possess, and that patience and nimble wits will accomplish almost anything. So, living alone in the Great Forest, he practised patience until no one in all the Great World could be more patient than he. No one knew this because, you see, everybody kept away from him. And all the time he was practising patience, he was studying and studying the other people of the Great Forest, both large and small, learning all their habits, how they lived, where they lived, what they ate, and all about them.

"'One never knows when such knowledge may be useful,' he would say to himself. 'The more I know about other people and the less they know about me the better.'

"So Mr. Wolverine kept out of sight as much as possible, and none knew how he lived or where he lived or anything