“Perhaps not!” said Robert Robin, “but if to-night is any longer than last night, I am going to get the children together and tell them about the Great White Bear and the Little Gray Mouse!”
That afternoon the clouds covered the sky, and towards night a fine misty rain fell, so that the afternoon was dark, and it seemed to Robert Robin that night arrived long before time for it.
“It is getting dark here in the middle of the afternoon!” he said.
The next morning a fog covered all the land, and Robert Robin had good reason to think that the night was far too long.
“Some one is taking our days away from us! By this time to-morrow we will not have any light left, if it keeps on this way!”
But in the afternoon the fog banks drifted away, and the bright sun shone, so Robert Robin felt much better, and he even sang a few songs to cheer up Jim Crow and the other neighbors.
“This is a very fine day!” said Mrs. Robin. And so it was.
The sky was clear and of the deepest blue, the wind was still, and the woods were quiet. Over in the farmer’s barnyard a hen was cackling, but in the woods not a sound could be heard. Mister Chipmunk was sitting on his old home stump, but he had nothing to say, and Mister Tom Squirrel had been working so hard lately, that he was too tired to talk.
“To-day would be a good day to tell the children the story of the Great White Bear, and the Little Gray Mouse!” said Mrs. Robin to Robert Robin.
“Well! Get them together, and I will tell them the story!” said Robert Robin. “I may as well do it one time as another, and it doesn’t take any longer to do a thing when you think of it than it does to put it off and then have to think of it again!”