Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 3, Number 4, DeMotte, Jasper County, 8 June 1933 — THE CHILDREN’S STORY [ARTICLE]

THE CHILDREN’S STORY

A REAL APPETITE PETER RABBIT was provoked. He certainly was. Wasn’t it enough to provoke anyone? There he had hunted in vain for Short-Tail in order to make a call, and then Short-Tail had suddenly appeared only to disappear quite as suddenly. “That fellow doesn’t know what common politeness is,” grumbled Peter as he vainly stared this way and that. “Oh. yes, he does,” replied a familiar sharp, squeaky voice, and Short-Tail the Shrew popped out from under some leaves. “I’m not impolite, but just busy. We hunters have to work for what we get to fill our stomachs. We can’t sit down in one place and fill up the way you can." “Are you a hunter?" exclaimed Peter, his eyes popping right out with astonishment. “Certainly! Of course! What did you suppose I was?” replied Short-Tail testily. “I didn’t think much about it.” confessed Peter, “but I never in the world would have supposed you were a hunter. What do you hunt?” “Anything that walks, crawls or flies, in the worm or insect line,” replied Short-Tail, promptly, as he popped out from under a piece of bark with a fat beetle, which he proceeded to gobble as if he were half starved. “Oh,” said Peter, “I thought you meant that you hunted real folks, the same way Shadow the Weasel and Reddy Fox and all the rest of the hunters do." “I do once in a while,” replied ShortTail, as the last of the beetle vanished. “If any young mice happen along you’ll see whether or not I am a real hunter. They don’t have to be so young either. I’ve killed more than one mouse bigger than I am. I’m ready

By THORNTON W. BURGESS

for a fight with anybody my own size any time. But looking for bugs is just as much hunting as it is for Hooty the Owl to try to catch me. If you don’t believe it, just you try to catch some of those big beetles.” “No, thank you,” replied Peter, very promptly. “I’m quite willing to take your word for it and to leave them for you and Jimmy Skunk. I should think that one big beetle like the one you have just eaten would last you all day.” “Last me all day!” cried Short-Tail. “Why, that wasn’t a bite. It would take a dozen like that to make me a meal and I have to have several meals a day. It is a bad day when I don’t eat twice my own weight in food. You see anybody active as I am must have a lot of food to keep him going. I have to run about a great deal to find food enough, and the more I have to

run about the more food I have to have to keep me going." He disappeared before Peter could reply. “Twice his own weight in food in a day,” muttered Peter. “He says he eats twice his own weight in a day. I thotight I was some eater, but I guess I’m not. Twice his own weight in a day--phew!’’ “That’s nothing. Sometimes I eat three times my own weight when I’m lucky,” squeaked Short-Tail, appearing in front of Peter as abruptly as he had disappeared. This time he had a snail. “Are you going to eat that?" asked Peter. “Not now," replied Short-Tail, “I’d like to, but I guess I’d better put it away for next winter. Excuse me. please.” Short-Tall vanished with the snail. "My goodness, what an appetite!” exclaimed Peter, as he waited. ©, 1933, by T. W. Burgess.--WNU Service.