Everybody hastened to pay their
respects, that is everybody but Reddy Fox. Unc' Billy and his partner,
Jimmy Skunk, told every one who called how Reddy Fox had thought that
Unc' Billy was a ghost and had been frightened almost to death, so
that he ran away as fast as his legs could take him. Unc' Billy
grinned as he told how Reddy had sat under the hollow tree and tried
to sing because he was so glad that Unc' Billy was dead, and all the
little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows laughed until
their sides ached when in a funny, cracked voice Unc' Billy sang the
song for them.
Thereafter whenever one of them caught sight of Reddy Fox at a safe
distance, he would shout:
"Ol' Bill Possum, he's gone before!
Ol' Bill Possum, he is no more!"
It got so that Reddy never came down on the Green Meadows in the
daytime, and at night he avoided meeting any one if possible, even his
old friend, Bobby Coon. And of course Reddy Fox hated Unc' Billy
Possum more than ever.
But Unc' Billy didn't care, not he! He knew that all the rest of the
little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows thought him
the smartest of them all, because of the way in which he had fooled
Bowser the Hound and Farmer Brown's boy. He liked his neighbors, he
liked the Green Forest, and so he made up his mind that this was the
place for him to stay.
But in spite of all his friends, Unc' Billy was lonesome.
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