"Very good, Sah, very good. Ah cert'nly am obliged to yo'all for yo' serenade," said a voice that seemed to come out of the tree at Reddy's back.

Reddy Fox sprang up as if some one had stuck a pin into him. Every hair stood on end, as he looked up at Unc' Billy's doorway. Then his teeth began to chatter with fright. Looking out of Unc' Billy's doorway and grinning down at him was something that looked for all the world like Unc' Billy himself.

"It must be his ghost!" said Reddy, and tucking his tail between his legs, he started up the Crooked Little Path as fast as his legs could take him.

Reddy never once looked back. If he had, he might have seen Unc' Billy Possum climb down from the hollow tree and shake hands with Jimmy Skunk, who had just come along.

"How did Ah do it? Why, Ah just pretended Ah was daid, when Farmer Brown's boy caught me," explained Unc' Billy. "Of course he' wouldn't kill a daid Possum. So when he tossed me down on the chopping-block and turned his back, Ah just naturally came to life again, and here Ah am."

Unc' Billy Possum grinned broader than ever, and Jimmy Skunk grinned, too.

III

UNC' BILLY POSSUM SENDS FOR HIS FAMILY

THE news that Unc' Billy Possum wasn't dead at all but was back in his hollow tree in the Green Forest soon spread through all the Green Forest and over the Green Meadows. Everybody hastened to pay their respects, that is everybody but Reddy Fox. Unc' Billy and his partner, Jimmy Skunk, told every one who called how Reddy Fox had thought that Unc' Billy was a ghost and had been frightened almost to death, so that he ran away as fast as his legs