His feet are white. He has rounded ears and big
black eyes with none of the ugliness in them that you always see in
the eyes of Robber. And he has long whiskers and plenty of them."
"But why is he called Trader?" asked Rabbit a bit impatiently.
"Patience, Peter, patience. I'm coming to that," chided Old Mother
Nature. "He is Trader because his greatest delight is in trading.
He is a born trader if ever there was one. He doesn't steal as
other members of his family but trades. He puts something back
in place of whatever he takes. It may be little sticks or chips
or pebbles or anything else that is handy but it is something to
replace what he has taken. You see, he is very honest. If Trader
finds something belonging to some one else that he wants he takes
it, but he tries to pay for it.
"Next to trading he delights in collecting. His home is a regular
museum. He delights in anything bright and shiny. When he can
get into the camps of men he will take anything he can move. But
being honest, he tries to leave something in return. All sorts of
queer things are found in his home--buckles cut from saddles,
spoons, knives, forks, even money he has taken from the pockets of
sleeping campers. Whenever any small object is missed from a camp,
the first place visited in search of it is the home of Trader. In
the mountains he sometimes makes piles of little pebbles just for
the fun of collecting them.
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