Then he heard the croakings of dozens of frogs, and it frightened him so that he slid back into the nursery with his brothers.
The mother was trying to catch a frog to eat. Now she jumped this way, and now she jumped that way. Such a jounce as the babies felt when she gave a spring for a big green fellow sitting on a log.
She caught him, too, but the jounce almost knocked the breath out of the twelve soft bodies in her pocket.
Every day the babies stayed outside the nursery for a longer time, though they were always ready to hurry back at the mother’s first warning grunt.
They kept growing bigger, too, till one night they could not all crowd into the pocket. Then they cuddled together on her back, with their tails twisted around hers.
In this way they rode through the woods when she went hunting. They watched with their bright eyes while she turned over rotting logs with her snout to catch the grubs underneath.
Sometimes she rooted in the ground for sprouting acorns, or nipped off mouthfuls of tender grass. Once she caught a young rabbit. Then how excited the little opossums were! And how they all squeaked and hissed together as they rode trotting home.
By this time they had cut their teeth,—fifty sharp little teeth in each hungry mouth. Then the mother picked some sweet red berries, and taught the hungry babies how to eat them. They learned to chew the juicy roots that she dug in the field.
The babies were greedy little things. She was a good and patient mother. Of course, as long as they were small enough to stay in her pocket she carried them everywhere with her. Even when they grew as large as rats they rode on her back through the woods. These twelve fat babies were so heavy that sometimes she staggered and stumbled under the load.
One night when all the babies were trotting along on their own feet they saw gleaming red eyes in the dark bushes before them. Something round and furry snarled and sprang at them.