“Knowing how scarce food was and the uncertainty of when he would get the next meal, Mr. Wolverine always made it a point on these occasions to stuff himself until it was a wonder his skin didn’t burst.  If there was more than he could eat, he would take a nap right there, and because of fear of him the rightful owner of the food would not dare take what was left.  When he awoke Mr. Wolverine would finish what remained.

“Those who secured more food than they could eat and tried to store away the rest found that no matter how cunningly they chose a hiding-place for it and covered their tracks, Mr. Wolverine was sure to find it.  In fact, he made a business of robbing storehouses, and the habit of greediness became so strong that he would stuff himself at one storehouse and immediately start for another.  When it did happen that he couldn’t eat all he found and yet didn’t want to stay until he could finish it, he would tear to bits all that remained and scatter it all about.  You know I told you he had a mean disposition.

“Even when good times returned and there was no possible excuse for such greed, Mr. Wolverine continued to stuff himself until it seemed that instead of eating in order to live, as the rest of us do, he lived in order to eat.  Of course it wasn’t long before some one called him a glutton, and presently he was named Glutton, and no one called him anything else.  Glutton by name and a glutton in habit he remained as long as he lived.  Both name and habits he handed down to his children and they to their children.  So it is that today there is no more cunning thief, no greedier rascal, and no one with a meaner disposition in all the Great Woods of the Far North than Glutton the Wolverine.”

“Queer how a habit will stick, isn’t it?” said Peter thoughtfully.

“Particularly a bad habit,” added Honker.

VII

WHERE OLD MRS.  ’GATOR MADE THE FIRST INCUBATOR

Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Quack the Mallard Duck are great friends.  They have been great friends ever since Peter tried to help Mrs. Quack when she and Mr. Quack had spent a whole summer on a little pond hidden deep in the Green Forest because Mr. Quack had a broken wing and so he and Mrs. Quack simply couldn’t keep on to their home in the Far North for which they had started.  During that long summer Peter had become very well acquainted with them.  In fact he visited them very often, for as you know, Peter is simply brimming over with curiosity, and there were wonderful things which Mr. and Mrs. Quack could tell him, for they are great travelers.

Now once, as Mrs. Quack was telling Peter about the far-away Southland where she and Mr. Quack and many other birds spend each winter, she mentioned Old Ally the ’Gator.  People who live where he does call him just ’Gator, but you and I would call him Alligator.