“Stooping swiftly, Mother Nature picked up her staff and with it struck Thunderfoot on the neck, so that his head was brought low, and in fear of another blow he humped his shoulders up.  ’Thus shall you be, still big, still strong, but hump-shouldered and carrying your head low in shame, no longer Lord of the Prairies, until such time as you restore to Mrs. Meadow Lark the eggs you destroyed,’ said she, and turned her back on him.

“It was so.  From that day on, Thunderfoot ceased to rule over the Wide Prairies.  He was hump-shouldered and he carried his head low, looking and looking for the eggs he never could find to restore to Mrs. Meadow Lark.  And though his children and his children’s children became many, there never was one without the hump or who ceased to carry his head low in shame,” concluded Digger the Badger.

X

Where Limberheels got his long tail.

Have you ever seen Limberheels the Jumping Mouse when he was in a hurry?  If you have, very likely the first time you felt very much as Peter Rabbit did when he saw Limberheels for the first time.  He was hopping along across the Green Meadows with nothing much on his mind when from right under his wobbly nose something shot into the air over the tops of the grasses for eight or ten feet and then down and out of sight.  Peter rubbed his eyes.

“Did I see it, or didn’t I?  And if I did, what was it?” gasped Peter.

A squeaky little laugh answered him.  “You saw it all right, Peter, but it isn’t polite to call any one it.  He would be quite provoked if he had heard you.  That was my cousin, Limberheels,” replied a voice quite as squeaky as the laugh had been.

Peter turned to see the bright eyes of Danny Meadow Mouse twinkling at him from the entrance to a tiny little path that joined the bigger path in which Peter was sitting.

“Hello, Danny!” he exclaimed.  “Do you mean to tell me that was a relative of yours?  Since when have any of your relatives taken to flying?”

Danny chuckled.  “He wasn’t flying,” he retorted.  “He just jumped, that was all.”  Danny chuckled again, for he knows that Peter considers himself quite a jumper and is inclined to be a bit jealous of any one else who pretends to jump save his cousin, Jumper the Hare.

“Jumped!” snorted Peter.  “Jumped!  Do you expect me to believe that any Mouse can jump like that?  I didn’t get a good look at that fellow, but whoever he is I tell you he flew.  Nobody can jump like that.”

Danny chuckled again.  “Wait a minute, Peter,” said he.  He disappeared, and Peter waited.  He waited one minute, two minutes, three minutes, and then suddenly Danny poked his head out from the grass beside the path.  “Here he is, Peter,” said he, coming wholly out into the path.  “Let me introduce my cousin, Limberheels.”