“At this point the one-eyed gander came waddling up from the goose pond.  He was lonely and bad-tempered, for his two wives had been killed by a fox that spring, and the Boy had not yet found him a new mate.  Young Grumpy looked at the big gray bird and recalled the little unpleasantness of their previous encounter.

“‘Oh, ho!’ said he to himself—­if woodchucks ever do talk to themselves—­’I’ll just give that ugly chap beans, like I did the other day.’  And he went scurrying across the yard to see about it.

“To his surprise, the gander paid him no attention whatever.  You see, he was on the side of the gander’s blind eye.

“Now, Young Grumpy was so puzzled by this indifference that, instead of rushing right in and biting the haughty bird, he sat up on his haunches at a distance of some five or six feet and began to squeak his defiance.  The gander turned his head.  Straightway he opened his long yellow bill, gave vent to a hiss like the steam from an escape pipe, stuck out his snaky neck close to the ground, lifted his broad gray-and-white wings, and charged.

“Before Young Grumpy had time even to wonder if he had been imprudent or not, the hard elbow of one of those wings caught him a blow on the ear and knocked him head over heels.  At the same time it swept him to one side, and the gander rushed on straight over the spot where he had been sitting.

“Young Grumpy picked himself up, startled and shaken.  The thing had been so unexpected.  He would have rather liked to run away.  But he was too angry and too obstinate.  He just sat up on his haunches again, intending to make another and more successful attack as soon as his head stopped buzzing.

“The gander, meanwhile, was surprised also.  He could not understand how his enemy had got out of the way so quickly.  He stared around, and then, turning his one eye skyward, as if he thought Young Grumpy might have gone that way, he trumpeted a loud honka-honka-honk—­kah.

“For some reason this strange cry broke Young Grumpy’s nerve.  He scuttled for his hole his jet-black heels kicking up the straws behind him.  As soon as he began to run, of course, the gander saw him and swept after him with a ferocious hissing.  But Young Grumpy had got the start.  He dived into his hole just as the gander brought up against the fence.

“Now, the moment he found himself inside his burrow, all Young Grumpy’s courage returned.  He wheeled and stuck his head out again, as much as to say, ’Now come on, if you dare!”

“The gander came on promptly—­so promptly, in fact, that the lightning stroke of his heavy bill knocked Young Grumpy far back into the hole again.

“In a great rage, the gander darted his head into the hole.  Chattering with indignation, Young Grumpy set his long teeth into that intruding bill, and tried to pull it further in.  The gander, much taken aback at this turn of affairs, tried to pull it out again.  For perhaps half a minute it was a very good tug-of-war.  Then the superior weight and strength of the great bird, with all the advantage of his beating wings, suddenly triumphed, and Young Grumpy, too pig-headed to let go his hold, was jerked forth once more into the open.