“So Mr. Gopher explained to Old Mother Nature how he had learned to live underground and how lately he had been trying to lay up a store of food but had found it slow work.
“Old Mother Nature was pleased to think that Mr. Gopher had made the most of his opportunities, but she didn't say so. 'I'll think it over,' said she and left him. But the very next time Mr. Gopher brushed a hand against one of his cheeks, he discovered a great pocket there. Hastily he felt of the other.
“There was another great pocket there! Then Mr. Gopher was perfectly happy. He felt that there wasn't a single thing in all the world that he could ask for to make him any happier. It is just the same way with Grubby to-day. He is perfectly happy working in the dark under the ground and very, very proud of the big pockets in his cheeks,” concluded Jimmy Skunk.
“Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you ever so much. Now I'll help you find some fat beetles,” cried Peter.
III. WHEN OLD MR. GROUSE GOT HIS SNOWSHOES
PETER RABBIT and Mrs. Grouse are very good friends. In fact they are the best of friends. For one thing they are very near neighbors. Once in a great while Mrs. Grouse comes to the dear Old Briar-patch and walks along Peter's private little paths. However, that isn't often. But up in the bramble tangle on the edge of the Green Forest they spend a great deal of time together. You see, they both fear the same enemies, and so they have a great deal to talk over, and each is always ready to help the other.
When winter comes Peter is sometimes rather lonely. You see, a lot of his feathered friends fly away to the warm, sunny Southland to spend the winter. Other friends, Johnny Chuck and Striped Chipmunk and Grandfather Frog for instance, retire and sleep all through the cold weather. Peter cannot understand what they do it for, but they do. So Peter has very few to gossip with after Jack Frost arrives. But he can always count on Mrs. Grouse. No matter how hard Jack Frost pinches, or how bitter the breath of rough Brother North Wind, somewhere in the Green Forest Mrs. Grouse is bravely doing her best to get enough to eat, and Peter knows that if he looks for her he will find her.
There was one thing about Mrs. Grouse that puzzled Peter for a long time, and this was the difference between the footprints she made in the soft damp earth after a rain in the summer and the prints she made in the snow. The first time he noticed those prints in the snow, he actually didn't know who had made them. You know how very, very curious Peter is. He followed those queer footprints, and when he found that they led right straight into the bramble tangle, he just didn't know what to think. He sat down on the edge of the bramble tangle and scratched his long right ear with his long left hind foot. When Peter does this it is a sign that he is very much puzzled about something.