Now, Aunt Polly was a very old lady and almost blind. She could not see how Billy’s fat sides stuck out. And though she stopped and looked at him closely, she did not know him—for all he was the son of her own nephew.
“My, my!” she said. “How hungry you must be! Here—you just take this basket and go right home and have a good meal. I live ’way over there under the hill. And you can bring my basket home to-night.”
Billy Woodchuck thanked her. He felt somewhat ashamed to take the peas and lettuce and apples and clover-heads. But he remembered it was only a game. And Jimmy Rabbit had said it was all right.
Old Aunt Polly Woodchuck trudged back to the garden again. And Billy hurried back to the place where Jimmy Rabbit was waiting.
“See what I’ve brought!” he said proudly. “Now you take hold of the other side of the basket and we’ll carry it home to my mother.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Jimmy Rabbit.
“Why not?” asked Billy.
“Well—I just wouldn’t. I forgot to remember that it’s bad luck not to sit right down and eat whatever’s given you like this. And you don’t want to have bad luck.”
Billy Woodchuck was sure he didn’t.
“All right, then!” said Jimmy Rabbit. “And they say it’s bad luck if you leave a single scrap uneaten. So I’ll sit down too, and help you.”