The winter was fast going. And one fine day in February Fatty Coon out of his mother's house to enjoy the warm sunshine—and see what he could find to eat.  
Fatty was much thinner than he had been in the fall. He had spent so much of the time sleeping that he had really eaten very little. And now he hardly knew himself as he looked at his sides. They no longer stuck out as they had once.
 
After nosing about the and the woods all the afternoon Fatty that there was no use in trying to get a meal there. The ground was covered with snow. And except for rabbit tracks—and a few squirrels'—he could find nothing that even suggested food. And looking at those tracks only made him hungrier than ever.
 
For a few minutes Fatty thought deeply. And then he turned about and went straight Farmer Green's place. He waited behind the fence just beyond Farmer Green's house; and when it began to grow dark he crept across the barnyard.
 
As Fatty passed a small, low building he noticed a delicious smell. And he stopped right there. He had gone far enough. The door was open a little way. And after one quick look all around—to make sure there was nobody to see him—Fatty slipped inside.
 
It was almost dark inside Farmer Green's smokehouse—for that was what the small, low building was called. It was almost dark; but Fatty could see just as well as you and I can see in the daytime. There was a long row of hams hung up in a line. them were white ashes, where Farmer Green had built wood fires, to smoke the hams. But the fires were out, now; and Fatty was in no danger of being burned.
 
The hams were what Fatty Coon had smelled. And the hams were what Fatty intended to eat. He decided that he would eat them all—though of course he could never have done that—at least, not in one night; nor in a week, either. But when it came to eating, Fatty's courage never failed him. He would have tried to eat an elephant, if he had had the chance.
 
Fatty did not stop to look long at that row of hams. He clim............