As he spoke the grass beside him rustled, and out crept some one beside whom Danny Meadow Mouse looked big, clumsy and homely.  One glance was enough to tell Peter that the stranger was a sure-enough member of the Mouse family, but such a member as he never had seen before.  He was trim and slender.  He wore a reddish-brown coat with a white waistcoat.  But the things that made Peter stare very impolitely were his tail and his legs.  His tail was nearly twice as long as his body, slim and tapering, and his hind legs were very long, while his fore legs were short.  It took only one glance to convince Peter that here was a born jumper.  Any one built like that must jump.

“You two must become acquainted and be friends,” continued Danny Meadow Mouse.  “Peter is one of my best friends, Limberheels.  He wouldn’t hurt a flea.  I’m sure that from now on he will be one of your best friends.”

“I’ll be happy to,” said Peter promptly.  “Danny has been telling me what a wonderful jumper you are.  Would you mind showing me how you jump?  I guess you jumped right in front of me a few minutes ago, but I was so surprised that I didn’t really see you.”

“I guess I did,” replied Limberheels rather timidly.  “You see, I didn’t hear you coming until you were almost on top of me, and then I didn’t know who it was so I got away as quickly as I could.  I’ll be ever so glad to have you for a friend and next time I won’t run away.”

“Show him how you can jump,” interrupted Danny Meadow Mouse.  “He wouldn’t believe me when I told him that you didn’t fly.”

Limberheels grinned rather sheepishly.  “Of course I didn’t fly,” said he.  “No animal can fly but Flitter the Bat.  I just jumped like this.”

With a tremendous spring from his long hind legs Limberheels leaped, while Peter Rabbit stared, his mouth wide open with astonishment.  He hadn’t dreamed that any one could jump so far in proportion to his size as this slim, trim little cousin of Danny’s.  Later, after Limberheels had jumped for Peter’s benefit until he was tired and had gone to hunt for a lunch of grass seeds, Peter wanted to know all about Limberheels.

“Never in my life have I seen such jumping,” he declared.  “And never have I seen such a tail.  I thought Whitefoot the Wood Mouse had a fine tail, but it doesn’t compare with that of Limberheels.”

“It is a fine tail,” replied Danny, whose own tail, as you know, is very short.

“It is a fine tail,” he repeated rather wistfully.  “Would you like to hear where he got it?”

“I know,” retorted Peter with a grin.  “He got it from his father, who got it from his father, and so on way back to the days when the world was young.”  Then, seeing a look of disappointment on Danny’s face, and eager for a story as usual, he added:  “But I would like to know how such a tail as that came in the family.”