It was a rainy day and Gertrude McCluck was walking around checking her small farm. The hen had just left the horse barn when she went to visit the three little chickens that lived in the goat house.

Gertrude walked into the house to find the chickens gone. She found them outside, huddled in the corner. Runt, the tiny black rooster, was missing! She walked over to the cold, wet chicks and inquired about Runt.

"We were sleeping and something came and ate him!" they all cried.

Gertrude walked back and looked over the small barn. There was a pile of black feathers in the corner, and a little hole in the building. She then uncovered Runt's foot, a small bone, and three small piles of scat. Whatever ate Runt had stayed the night in the barn. Gertrude looked around for holes in the fence, but there were none. Beside herself, she set off to interrogate Fern the Fox.

Determined to find who had Runt for dinner, Gertrude walked over to a small log den near the river. Inside was Fern Fox. "Hello, Gertrude," the fox said as he looked lazily at the hen.

"Where were you last night, Fern?" demanded Gertrude.

The fox said, "I was here, in my den. Yesterday's turkey filled me up."

The defeated hen saw the fresh turkey carcass, so she left the riverbank to find Wind Weasel. Gertrude found the fat weasel on a little stump.

"Where were you last night?" exclaimed Gertrude, "Runt, our little barnyard favorite, was eaten last night!"

The weasel looked at the hen with her beady eyes and replied, "Out hunting rabbits. I passed the barn," she admitted, "but it was not I who ate your scrawny excuse for a bird. I would have helped myself to all three."

Gertrude pondered Wind's response and agreed that the weasel would have slaughtered all the birds. It couldn't have been Wind Weasel.

So, who could it have been? The hole was far too small for Bob Bear. Then Gertrude thought of the scat. Who had left those piles? Then she remembered a time in the past when Suzie did not collect the eggs for a day, and Pot the Possum had helped himself to the eggs, and had left behind the same piles. It must have been him! After all, Runt was so small; he was not much bigger than a new chick, plenty of dinner for a 'possum.

Gertrude found Pot asleep on the ground. She clucked loudly to wake him up.

"Huh? What ya want?" he asked.

"Where were you last night?" she clucked.

The opossum thought and then defensively stammered, "On the garbage bin."

Gertrude retorted, "I don't believe you, the garbage was picked up yesterday!"

With a bowed head, the opossum quietly told Gertrude it would never happen again. If he made a meal of chicken, it would only be the eggs.