last night and the night before that and before that and before that and
before that, and I don't know what it means!"

"Don't know what what means?" asked Peter Rabbit, whose curiosity would not
let him keep still.

"Hello, Long-ears! I don't know that it's any of your business!" said
Sticky-toes.

Peter allowed that it wasn't, but that as he had so much on his own mind he
couldn't help being interested when he found that Sticky-toes had troubles
too. Then he told Sticky-toes all about how Boomer the Nighthawk had said
that he had seen Sammy Jay going to bed up in the far-away Old Pasture, and
how that very night Sammy Jay's voice had been heard screaming down in the
alders beside the Laughing Brook. Sticky-toes nodded his head.

"I heard it," said he.

"But how could Sammy Jay be down here if he went to bed way off there in
the Old Pasture? Tell me that, Sticky-toes?" said Peter Rabbit.

Sticky-toes shook his head. "Don't ask me! Don't ask me! Just tell me how
it is that I hear my own voice when I don't speak a word," said Sticky-toes
the Tree Toad.

"What's that?" exclaimed Peter Rabbit.

Then Sticky-toes poured out all his troubles to Peter Rabbit. They were
very much like the troubles of Sammy Jay. Every night Sticky-toes would
hear what sounded like his own voice coming from a tree in which he was not