When you find a friend in trouble
Pass along a word of cheer.
Often it is very helpful
Just to feel a friend is near.
Peter Rabbit.
“Hello, Peter Rabbit! What are you doing way up here, and what are you looking so mournful about?”
Peter gave a great start of pleased surprise. That was the first friendly voice he had heard for days and days.
“Hello yourself, Tommy Tit!” shouted Peter joyously. “My, my, my, but I am glad to see you! But what are you doing up here in the Old Pasture yourself?”
Tommy Tit the Chickadee hung head down from the tip of a slender branch of a maple-tree and winked a saucy bright eye at Peter. “I've got a secret up here,” he said.
Now there is nothing in the world Peter Rabbit loves more than a secret. But he cannot keep one to save him. No, Sir, Peter Rabbit can no more keep a secret than he can fly. He means to. His intentions are the very best in the world, but—
Alas! alack! poor Peter's tongue Is very, very loosely hung. And so, because he MUST talk and WILL talk every chance he gets, he cannot keep a secret. People who talk too much never can.
“What is your secret?” asked Peter eagerly.
Tommy Tit looked down at Peter, and his sharp little eyes twinkled. “It's a nest with six of the dearest little babies in the world in it,” he replied.
“Oh, how lovely!” cried Peter. “Where is it, Tommy Tit?”
“In a hollow birch-stub,” replied Tommy, his eyes twinkling more than ever.
“But where is the hollow birch-stub?” persisted Peter.
Tommy laughed. “That's my real secret,” said he, “and if I should tell you it wouldn't be a secret at all. Now tell me what you are doing up here in the Ol............