UNC' BILLY POSSUM spent the very coldest days of winter curled up in his warm, snug home in the big hollow tree in the Green Forest. Unc' Billy didn't like the cold weather. Sometimes he would stick his head out of his doorway and then, as he heard rough Brother North Wind whooping through the Green Forest, he would turn right around and go back to his bed for another nap. And all the time he would be saying:  
"Way down Souf de sun am shinin'—
 
Yas, Sah, dat am so!
 
Fo' dat lan' mah heart am pinin'—
 
Yas, Sah, dat am so!
 
"De mocking-bird he sings all day,
 
De alligators am at play,
 
De flowers dey am bloomin' fair,
 
And mah heart aches to be down there—
 
Yas, Sah, dat am so!"
 
Now Unc' Billy had prepared for the winter by getting just as fat as he knew how. He was so fat that he could hardly waddle when Jack Frost first came to the Green Forest. You see he knew that if he was very, very fat he wouldn't have to worry about getting anything to eat, not for a long time, anyway. So when the ice and snow came, and Unc' Billy decided that it was more comfortable indoors than outdoors, he was almost as fat as Johnny Chuck was when he went to sleep for the long winter.
 
Now Johnny Chuck just slept and slept and slept, without waking once the whole winter long. But Unc' Billy Possum couldn't sleep like that. He had to stick his head out every little while to see how the world was getting along without him. When the sun was bright and the air was not too cold, Unc' Billy would sometimes climb down from his hollow tree and walk about a little on the snow. But he didn't enjoy it much. It made his feet............