"I only wish they would just keep to themselves and on the ground where they belong, but they have the impudence to come lumbering up here into our tree." "Oh, well," replied his partner, calmly, "you must acknowledge they do not disturb our nest." "And a good thing for them, too," chattered Mr.Bushy, fiercely, smoothing out his whiskers and showing his sharp front teeth, at which Mrs.Bushy smiled gently behind her tail.
"But what are they doing now ?" she inquired.
"Oh, they are going off into the woods," said Mr.Bushy, who had issued from his hole and was sitting up on a convenient crotch.

"And I declare!" he said, in amazed tones, "they haven't thrown one snowball at me.

Something must be badly wrong with them.

Wonder what it is?
This is quite unprecedented." At this Mrs.Bushy ventured carefully out to observe the extraordinary phenomenon, for the boys were actually making their way to the gate, the smaller ones with much noisy shouting, but the big boys soberly enough engaged in earnest conversation.

It was their first day of the new master, and such a day as quite "flabbergastrated," as Don Cameron said, even the oldest of them.