"Yes, I did tremble once in a while, when I thought of how hot Jimmy would be against me if he did get into a scrape, for by my hunting him up it looked a good deal as if I had quite a finger in the pie, whatever kind of pie it might be, though, as I've already said, I hadn't the littlest bit of an idea as to what was really in the wind, but I knew it was about time for things to begin to hum, especially if Slowly kept on doing his part as well as he had begun."
CHAPTER XVI
TROUBLE IN THE CLUB
"It took Jimmy a long time to get down to the pond, because he had to stop every now and then to rub it into me on account of the Bobby Coon business, and by the way he talked you'd thought I was the only thing in the big woods who'd not done right," Mr. Bunny said as he nursed his knee carefully, swaying his body to and fro slowly, but keeping a sharp watch around lest some one of his many enemies should creep upon him unawares.
"If it had been at any other time, except when I counted he was going to get it good and hot mighty soon, I'd have had it out with him then and on the spot, for there isn't any hedgehog that ever walked who'll be allowed to give me cheap talk about what I hadn't any finger in, except to tag on behind when the two of 'em were going toward Mr. Man's barn, and I wouldn't have done even as much as that if I hadn't known they'd call me ''fraid cat' unless I stayed with the crowd.
"Oh my! how big Jimmy did feel, and how he threw out his chest while we were going to the pond, and the more he talked the surer he was that there wasn't anything in the big woods that could so much as hold a candle to him! As I told you, I let him run on, because I had a mighty good idea of what was going to happen, and whenever we came to a big bunch of ferns I crept among them to have a chance for laughing without his seeing me, for if he'd caught a glimpse of the littlest kind of grin on my face he'd have suspected that something was up, when it would have been good-bye to Mr. Crow's plans.
"As luck would have it he never tumbled to a thing and when we got to the pond there was old Mr. Turtle lying out in the sun as if his very last day had come. He acted so sick that even though I knew he'd never had a tooth in his head I almost began to believe he really did have the toothache.
"'What's the matter, Mr. Turtle?' Jimmy asked, ruffling up his quills so's to make himself look as big as he felt, and old Slowly said, speaking as if the breath had about gone out of his body: