First the loud cannons shot off; and what do you suppose the cannons were?  Why big stones, that the squirrels and rabbits and the other animal boys held and clapped together as loud as anything.  You know stones can make a terrible racket when they are hit together real hard.  Well, it sounded like regular cannon, and the birds in the wood got awfully scared.

“Now fire your guns!” cried General Buddy Pigg, and his soldiers took sticks, and snapped them in two pieces and broke them, until they sounded like real guns, or a lot of firecrackers going off.

Oh, it was fine, and the best of it was nobody could get hurt, or burned, either.

“Now shoot them with your torpedoes!” cried General Billie Bushytail, and all at once his side began firing off torpedoes at a great rate; until you would have thought the woods were on fire.  And you would never guess what the torpedoes were, so I’ll tell you.  They were big, rose petals, blown up with air until they were like little pink and red balloons, and tied around with a string, just as you tie a paper bag around the neck, after you’ve blown it up, to burst it, and when those rose-torpedoes were cracked down on a flat stone—­my! you should have heard the noise!

Well, lots of them were fired off, and then Buddy Pigg got some empty bags, and his soldiers blew them up, and they cracked ’em down, and they went off “Boom!  Boom!” like great, big cannons.  They blew dust up in the air, to pretend it was smoke, and there was the most terrible make-believe battle you ever heard of.  But nobody was hurt, and they had lots of fun, and the best of it was that neither side won, which made everybody happy.

“Now we’ll take a rest,” said Buddy Pigg.  “I wonder what Brighteyes and the others are doing?”

“Let’s go see,” proposed Billie Bushytail.

So they all marched off through the woods, just like real soldiers, and pretty soon they came to the place where Brighteyes and Sister Sallie and all the girls were having a picnic.

“You’re just in time,” called Brighteyes.

“Come and have some lunch, and some lemonade.  You must be tired after all that fighting.”  Now wasn’t she kind, even after Buddy had laughed at the idea of a picnic being better than a battle?  Well, I just guess!  Those soldiers were glad enough to eat the lunch, and drink the lemonade, I can tell you.

So the soldiers and the girls sat there in the woods under the trees and had a fine time—­almost as good as at the make-believe battle, I think—­and after a while, just as Buddy and his chums were getting ready to go back and shoot some more stick-firecrackers and roseleaf torpedoes, what should happen but that bad fox and that mean, old, yellow, shaggy dog ran right out of the woods.

“Let’s eat everything up!” cried the fox, waving his big tail.

“Yes, and then we’ll eat the squirrels and rabbits and guinea pigs all up!” cried the dog, gnashing his teeth and blinking his eyes as bold as bold could be.