So they began to play “Pop! Goes the Weasel,” once more, while Mr. Fox, beating time all the while, backed slowly out of sight in the direction in which he had pointed.
They played and played. And at last Billy Woodchuck’s lips began to feel very queer, puckered up as they were. And now and then not a single whistle came from his mouth, though he blew as hard as he knew how. He was out of breath, too. And so were his brothers.
Billy was wondering why Mr. Fox did not come back, when his sharp ears caught a faint sound. It was no more than a dry leaf breaking. Neither you nor I could have heard it.
In spite of what Mr. Fox had said about looking straight ahead, Billy turned around. And he was always glad, afterward, that he had. For whom should he see behind him but Mr. Fox, stealing upon them with a horrid grin on his face!
The music stopped short. With one frightened scream Billy Woodchuck was off. He plunged into the brook, with his brothers right at his heels. And in no time at all they had swum across to the other side and vanished in the thick bushes.
At the water’s edge Mr. Fox paused. If there was one thing he hated, it was getting his feet wet. The brook was too broad for him to jump; and when at last he found a place where he could cross by hopping from one stone to another, the Woodchuck boys were nowhere to be found.
But the Grouse brothers still sat on the dead tree, though they had moved to its very top; and they had stopped drumming.
“How did the music sound?” one of them asked.
“It was the worst I ever heard,” Mr. Fox snarled.
The Grouse brothers snickered. And one of them invited Mr. Fox to come up where they were.