FOR Buddy Jim knew that he was going to have a very lonely day! There was no doubt about it. He liked well enough being in the country, when he could tramp about after Old Bob the gardener, and plant things, and pull up other things, and learn the name of every thing and the reason for it.

Old Bob the gardener said every day that he had never before seen a "city chap" who learned so easily to tell the weeds from the plants, and who knew just which things to take from the garden to feed to his pet rabbits.

But Old Bob the gardener was going to town for a whole long day! And there was nothing to do; and even if there had been anything to do, there was nobody to do it with; and he was just plain lonesome; but he s'posed he'd have to feed his rabbits; so he started to the garden for some weeds.

Just then Mother called: "Buddy Jim! Are you there?" "Yes, Mother," said Buddy Jim, running back to the porch where Mother was standing in her pretty, cool-looking pink dress, with her hair blowing in little curls around her face.

Buddy Jim loved to look at his Mother. She was so pretty!

"Buddy," said his Mother, "do you think you could go down to the edge of the Fir thicket and get me some more Fir tips for the Porch pillows?"

"Why, yes, Mother, of course I can, and I will, too, just as soon as I have fed my rabbits," said Buddy Jim.

"That's a good son," said Mother, "and you'd better go around to the kitchen and ask Mary the maid for a basket and some blunt-pointed scissors. And be careful about poison ivy, son; there's a bunch of it down near the edge of the Fir thicket that Bob the gardener has not had time to destroy."

"Don't worry, Mother," said Buddy Jim, "I know that stuff when I see it, and I'll be sure to keep away from it." And the little boy whistled to Old Dog Sandy to come along, happy that he had found something to do.

It was lots of fun running across the fields to the woods. The grass was long and wet with the dew of the morning, and it curled around Buddy Jim's little bare legs just as though it loved to have little bare-legged boys wade through it. Old Dog Sandy thought it was wonderful to chase the big gray Grasshoppers that flew up in all directions, with a ch-r-r-r, that sounded just like a pin-wheel on the Fourth of July.

Pretty soon they came to the Fir thicket, where all the young Fir trees were standing like tall young ladies in pale green dresses ready to go to church on a Sunday morning.

Buddy began carefully to cut off the pale green tips of the boughs as his Mother had shown him, while Old Dog Sandy roamed through the bushes amusing himself.

Buddy Jim's basket was almost full of the fragrant Fir tips, and he was just going to whistle for Old Dog Sandy, to come home with him, when there was a dreadful commotion from inside of the Fir thicket. It was Old Dog Sandy barking for all he was worth, in a way that Buddy knew meant, "Come here, quickly, and see what I've found!"

So Buddy Jim put his basket down and ran into the Fir thicket, where he found Old Dog Sandy doing his best to climb an old dead Fir tree, which was much taller than the rest of the trees, at the same time barking his very fiercest at something that was perched up on a limb of the tree. Something that was very much alive, and looked like a big round pin-cushion stuck full of pins, points up.

"Hello!" said Buddy Jim, "What's the matter here?" "Matter enough, I should say," chattered a very indignant little voice, "and you'd better call off that foolish old dog of yours if you want to save him trouble. He'll be a sorry dog if he bites me!"

"Don't be afraid of Sandy," said Buddy Jim. "He is an old dog. I've had him always, and his bark is worse than his bite; besides, he can't climb a tree anyway; he just thinks he can!"

The round Pin-cushiony Person in the tree just laughed. "Bless your heart," he said, "I'm not afraid of Old Dog Sandy; I'm just being polite to him because he's a City dog and doesn't know any better than to try to bite me; any country dog would know better."

"You go outside and lie down, Sandy," said Buddy Jim, and when the old dog had gone, growling deep down in his throat because he did not want to go, he turned to the Pin-cushiony Person and said, "Now tell me what your name is and why Sandy would be a sorry dog if he should bite you."

"You must have read about me in books," said the Pin-cushiony Person, "and if you would think a bit you would know that my name is Prickly Porcupine. My pins are stuck in very loosely, so if a dog bites me he gets something to remember me by. He gets a mouthful of pins that do not come out very easily and I don't get hurt very much. Sometimes, just for fun, I let one start to bite me, and just as he thinks he has me I hit him in the mouth with my tail, and he goes home in a hurry to ask his master to pull my pins out!"

"I don't call that being very friendly," said Buddy Jim. "It isn't very friendly for dogs to try to bite me, either, just because they're bigger than I am," said the Pin-cushiony Person. "Mother Nature made me the way I am, so I'd have some way of defending myself. I'm so fat, and my legs are so short that I do not run very well, and besides, I don't feel like running away from my enemies."

"Well, I don't blame you for that," said Buddy Jim. "Nobody likes to run, even if the other fellow is the biggest. I don't! I know just how you feel about that. But do tell me. What do you do all the time? Do you live all alone?"

"Not all the time," answered the Pin-cushiony Person, "I have a family; but we are rather independent people and like to be alone. Days I sleep mostly, unless I am disturbed, as I was by your Old Dog Sandy just now, and nights I go out for food."

"What do you eat?" asked Buddy Jim. "I'm almost afraid to tell you," said the Pin-cushiony Person, "for fear that you'll tell old Bob the gardener, but I live in this Fir thicket because it is so near to the farm of your Father."

"Why should Bob the gardener care?" asked Buddy Jim. "Well you see," said the Pin-cushiony Person, "I go out at night and I nibble a bit here, and a bit there, from old Bob's garden, and I know how very particular he is about his garden and so I know if he ever catches me at it I shall be driven away from the Fir thicket."

"Do people hunt you much?" asked Buddy Jim. "Not very much nowadays" answered the Pin-cushiony Person, "but I've heard old Grandfather Porcupine tell stories to the Young Ones. He said his Grandfather had told him about the times when the Red Men lived in the forests, and used to hunt our people with bows and arrows. And how the Red Women used to cook us to feed their children, and to use our quills that Mother Nature had given us to defend ourselves with to trim their dresses and moccasins." "But those dreadful days are all over," he went on, "and now about all we have to fear are the eagles and the larger animals." "Aren't they afraid of your sharp pins?" asked Buddy Jim. "Some of them are, after they get one mouthful," answered the Pin-cushiony Person, "but Old Man Fisher is always hungry and willing to take a chance of getting stuck full of pins. But if you don't mind, Buddy Jim, I'm a bit sleepy—it always makes me drowsy to talk—so I'll say Goodbye and just turn over and have my nap out."

"Goodbye, old Mr. Porcupine," said Buddy Jim, "and good luck to you." And he picked up his basket of Fir tips and whistled to Old Dog Sandy, who was still growling.

"Old Dog Sandy and I ran on to Old Prickly Porcupine down in the Fir thicket today," said Buddy Jim to Old Bob the gardener, that night. "And Old Dog Sandy wanted to bite him."

"He would have been a sorry old dog if he had," said Old Bob the gardener.

But Old Dog Sandy just opened one eye, and tapped the ground with his tail.

He was thinking that some day when there was nobody looking, he was going back to that Fir thicket alone! And he was going to show that old Pin-cushiony Person!