Mother Black Bear sighed as she saw Mrs. Porcupine making for her maple tree.

“If she wants it, I suppose she will have to have it,” she told the cubs. “Wisdom is the better part of valor.”

“What is wisdom?” asked Woof, the larger of the fat cubs.

“Wisdom,” said Mother Black Bear, “in this case is giving up our tree rather than having a fight with Mrs. Porcupine about it.”

“But we got here first,” shrilled Twinkly Eyes, the smaller cub. “She has no right to it.”

“That makes no difference with Mrs. Porcupine,” growled Mother Black Bear. “She has no sense of right and wrong. She is too well armed with those awful quills to value other people’s rights. She just about has things all her own way in the Deep Woods, because few of us care to fight with her. It’s lucky that all she wants is her own stubborn way. She is a ve-ge-tarian, you know. She eats no meat.

“Just why she should decide on our maple tree—of all the trees she has to choose between—is more than I can see. Though, of course, it IS easy for the little ones to climb.”

“Will they have to climb up there in the sun and dry off, too?” asked Twinkly Eyes.

“Where else would they get any sun?” asked Woof, gazing up at the forest roof. In this part of the woods the trees all grew so high and so close together that their upper branches interlaced, so that one only got a patch of the sky here and there.

Woof, peering through the green gloom, could see Mrs. Porcupine and the three little Porcupines slowly making toward their maple.

“Don’t let her have it,” he begged Mother Black Bear, who loved nothing better than to see a scrap. “You could lick her, Mother!”

“Well, no, I shouldn’t like to try it, not with you youngsters along,” she answered, swinging her long head from side to side uneasily, as she prepared to lead the way to the ground. “Your father might, but I shouldn’t like to try it.”

“Why, the old ‘Unk Wunk!’”

“First she chased us out of our pond, now out of our tree,” complained Twinkly Eyes. “Can’t we bluff her off, the way I did Writho, the black snake?”

“I should say not,” said Mother Black Bear in alarm. “Nothing on this earth could frighten Mrs. Porcupine. Come along here,” and she reached up and gave each cub a spank that sent them hurrying to the ground. It was not a moment too soon, for as they landed on one side of the trunk the Porcupine family started up the other, though for all the sign they made, Mother Black Bear and the cubs didn’t even exist.

But the latter’s peace of mind was short-lived.

“We are certainly going to have a thunder-storm,” exclaimed Mother Black Bear, as she sniffed the air.

“Are you scared, Mother?” asked Twinkly Eyes.

“Well, that all depends on how fast you cubs can beat it out of these woods!”