Happy-Go-Lucky Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the Laughing Brook just as round, red Mr. Sun popped up from behind the Purple Hills and Old Mother West Wind turned all her Merry Little Breezes out to romp on the Green Meadows.  
Bobby Coon had been out all night. You see Bobby Coon is very apt to get into mischief, and because usually it is safer to get into mischief under cover of the darkness Bobby Coon prefers the night wherein to go abroad. Not that Bobby Coon is really bad! Oh my, no! Everybody likes Bobby Coon. But he can no more keep out of mischief than a duck can keep out of water.
 
So Bobby Coon sat on the edge of the Laughing Brook and he was very busy, very busy indeed. He was washing his breakfast. Really, it was his dinner, for turning night into day just turns everything topsy-turvy. So Bobby Coon eats dinner when most of the little meadow people are eating breakfast.
 
This morning he was very busy washing a luscious ear of sweet corn just in the milk. He dipped it in the water and with one little black paw rubbed it thoroughly. Then he looked it over carefully before, with a sigh of contentment, he sat down to put it in his empty little stomach. When he had finished it to the last sweet, juicy kernel, he ambled sleepily up the Lone Little Path to the big hollow chestnut tree where he lives, and in its great hollow in a soft bed of leaves Bobby Coon curled himself up in a tight little ball to sleep the long, bright day away.
 
One of the Merry Little Breezes softly followed him. When he had crawled into the hollow chestnut and only his funny, ringed tail hung out, the Merry Little Breezes tweaked it sharply just for fun, and then danced away down the Lone Little Path to join the other Merry Little Breezes around the Smiling Pool.
 
"Oh! Grandfather Frog," cried a Merry Little Breeze, "tell us why it is that Bobby Coon always washes his food. He never eats it where he gets it or takes it home to his hollow in the big chestnut, but always comes to the Laughing Brook to wash it. None of the other meadow people do that."
 
Now Great-Grandfather Frog is counted very wise. He is very, very old and he knows the history of all the tribes of little meadow people way back to the time when the frogs ruled the world.
 
When the Merry Little Breeze asked him why Bobby Coon always washes his food, Grandfather Frog stopped to snap up a particularly fat, foolish, green fly that came his way. Then, while all the Merry Little Breezes gathered around him, he settled himself on his big green lily pad and began:
 
"Once upon a time, when the world was young, old King Bear ruled in the Green Forest. Of course old Mother Nature, who was even more beautiful then than she is now, was the real ruler, but she let old King Bear think he ruled so long as he ruled wisely.
 
"All the little Green Forest folk and all the little people of the Green Meadows used to take presents of food to old King Bear, so that he never had to hunt for things to eat. He grew fatter and fatter and fatter until it seemed as if his skin must burst. And the fatter he grew the lazier he grew."
 
Grandfather Frog paused with an expectant far-away look in his great bulging eyes. Then he leaped into the air so far that when he came down it was with a great splash in the Smiling Pool. But as he swam back to his big lily pad the leg of a foolish green fly could be seen sticking out of one corner of his big mouth, and he settled himself with a sigh of great contentment.
 
"Old King Bear," continued Grandfather Frog, just as if there had been no interruption, "grew fatter and lazier every day, and like a great many other fat and lazy people who have nothing to do for themselves but are always waited on by others, he grew shorter and shorter in temper and harder and harder to please.
 
"Now perhaps you don't know it, but the Bear family and the Coon family are very closely related. In fact, they are second cousins. Old Mr. Coon, Bobby Coon's father with a thousand greats tacked on before, was young then, and he was very, very proud of being related to old King Bear. He began to pass some of his old playfellows on the Green Meadows without seeing them. He spent a great deal of time brushing his coat and combing his whiskers and caring for his big ringed tail. He held his head very high and he put on such airs that pretty soon he could see no one at all but members of his own family and of the royal family of Bear.
 
"Now as old King Bear grew fat and lazy he grew fussy, so that he was no longer content to take everything brought him, but picked out the choicest portions for himself and left the rest. Mr. Coon took charge of all the things brought as tribute to old King Bear and of course where there were so many goo............