Part 5 (1/2)

”Oh!” cried Chatterer

”Gr-r-r-r! I'll eat you all up to the last hair on your tail!” growled Buster, scra a little nearer

”Oh! Oh!” cried Chatterer, and ran out to the very tip of the little branch to which he had been clinging Now if Chatterer had only known it, Buster Bear couldn't reach him way up there, because the tree was too s fellow as Buster But Chatterer didn't think of that He gave oneteeth, then he shut his eyes and juround

It was a long, long, long way down to the ground, and it certainly looked as if such a little fellow as Chatterer must be killed But Chatterer had learned fros to help him at just such times, and one of them is the power to spread his out just as far as he could, and that kept hi as fast and as hard as he otherould have done, because being spread out so flat that way, the air held him up a little And then there was his tail, that funny little tail he is so fond of jerking when he scolds

This helped hi over and over

Down, down, down he sailed and landed on his feet Of course, he hit the ground pretty hard, and for just a second he quite lost his breath But it was only for a second, and then he was scurrying off as fast as a frightened Squirrel could Buster Bear watched hirowled, ”but I guess I gave hiht him a lesson”

XVII

BUSTER BEAR GOES BERRYING

Buster Bear is a great hand to talk to himself when he thinks no one is around to overhear It's a habit However, it isn't a bad habit unless it is carried too far Any habit becomes bad, if it is carried too far

Suppose you had a secret, a real secret, so that nobody else knew and that you didn't want anybody else to know And suppose you had the habit of talking to yourself You , you know, tell that secret out loud to yourself, and soht happen to overhear! Then there wouldn't be any secret That is the way that a habit which isn't bad in itself can become bad when it is carried too far

Now Buster Bear had lived by hi to hi lonesome Of course, when he caht all his habits with hi about habits,--you always take theht this habit of talking to hihbors than he had in the Great Woods

”Let me see, let me see, what is there to teruht to be I need a change Yes, Sir, I need a change There is soot it

There is so that I used to have and don't have now Ha! I know! I need some fresh fruit That's it--fresh fruit! It otten all about it My, ood some berries would taste! Now if I were back up there in the Great Woods I could have all I could eat Uht to be soht to be a lot of 'em up there If I wasn't afraid that sohed Then he sighed again Thein the Old Pasture, the more he wanted some It seemed to him that never in all his life had he wanted berries as he did now He wandered about uneasily He was hungry--hungry for berries and nothing else By and by he began talking to hio up to the Old Pasture this very minute Seerily as he spoke Then his face brightened ”I knohat I'll do! I'll go up there at the very first peep of day to-et back to the Green Forest before there is any danger that Farmer Brown's boy or any one else I'm afraid of will see me

That's just what I'll do My, I wish to-h Buster didn't know it, so, and that some one was none other than Sammy Jay When at last Buster lay down for a nap, Sa to hiinteresting e his mind”

Sa The first Jolly Little Sunbeams had only reached the Green Meadows and had not started to creep into the Green Forest, when he saw a big, dark form steal out of the Green Forest where it joins the Old Pasture It reat hurry Sa berrying Sammy waited a little until he could see better Then he too started for the Old Pasture

XVIII

SOMEBODY ELSE GOES BERRYING

Isn't it funny hoo people will often think of the sa at the sa of it? That is just what happened the day that Buster Bear first thought of going berrying While he alking around in the Green Forest, talking to hiry he was for some berries and how sure he was that thereabout berries and about the Old Pasture too

”Will you et the berries to-morrow?”

asked Farmer Brown's boy of his mother

Of course Mrs Brown proht Faret up early in thehe dreamed of berries and berry pies He ake even before jolly, round, red Mr Sun thought it was tiet up, and he was all ready to start for the Old Pasture when the first Jolly Little Sunbea tin pail, and in the bottom of it, wrapped up in a piece of paper, was a lunch, for he meant to stay until he filled that pail, if it took all day

Now the Old Pasture is very large It lies at the foot of the Big Mountain, and even extends a little way up on the Big Mountain There is room in it foreach other, unless they roarow very thick there, and you cannot see very far in any direction