MEADOW MOUSE SMELLS A RAT! Grandfather Frog told the story: "Back then there was a great deal of trouble, for someone was stealing -- yes, stealing! Mr. Rabbit complained first. But no one really believed what Mr. Rabbit said, for he had a bad name for telling things which were not so. No one paid much heed to what Mr. Rabbit said until Happy Jack Squirrel went the big chestnut tree where he stores his nuts and discovered half had been stolen! "It was a terrible time, for everyone suspected everyone else, and no one on the Green Meadows was happy. "One evening Mr. Meadow Mouse went for a stroll and along his way he met his cousin, Mr. Wharf Rat. "'Will you do a favor for me?' Mr. Wharf Rat asked. "Mr. Meadow Mouse said he would, of course. He was fond of Mr. Wharf Rat. "'Just tote this bag down to the chestnut tree.' "Now no one had ever suspected Mr. Meadow Mouse of stealing -- no indeed! Striped Chipmunk would have gone his way and thought no more about it, had it not happened that there was a hole in the bag and from it something dropped at his feet. "'Good night, ' said Mr. Meadow Mouse, once more shouldering the bag. "'Good night, ' said Striped Chipmunk. "No sooner had Mr. Meadow Mouse disappeared in the darkness down the Crooked Little Path than Striped Chipmunk hurried to his granary. Someone had been there and stolen all his acorns. . . !" Burgess used his outdoor observations of nature as plots for his stories. In Burgess' first book, Old Mother West Wind (1910), the reader meets many of the characters found in later books and stories. The characters in the Old Mother West Wind series include Peter Rabbit (known briefly as Peter Cottontail), Jimmy Skunk, Sammy Jay, Bobby Raccoon, Little Joe Otter, Grandfather Frog, Billy Mink, Jerry Muskrat, Spotty the Turtle, Old Mother West Wind, and her Merry Little Breezes.