these edibles, the younger inhabitants of Mo were especially fond of
them, and yelled with delight whenever the King divided the crop of his
tree among them.

A few days before the King had examined the tree and found the
animal-crackers not quite ripe. Whereupon he had gone away and
forgotten all about them. And, in his absence, they had ripened to a
delicious light brown; and their forms had rounded out, so that they
hung as thickly together as peas in a pod. As they swung from their
stems, swaying backward and forward in the light breeze, they waited
and waited for some one to come and pick them. But no one came near the
tree, and the animals grew cross and restless in consequence.

"I wonder when we shall be gathered," remarked a hippopotamus-cracker,
with a yawn.

"Oh, you wonder, do you?" mockingly replied a camel-cracker hanging
near, "do you really expect any one to gather _you_, with your thick
hide and clumsy legs? Why, the children would break their teeth on you
at the first bite."

"What!" screamed the hippopotamus, in much anger, "do you dare insult
_me_, you humpbacked beast of burden?"

"Now then--now then!" interrupted a wolf-cracker that hung from a stem
just above them; "what's the use of fighting, when we are so soon to be
eaten?"

But the camel-cracker would not be appeased.