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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mrs. Peter Rabbit, by Thornton W. Burgess
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mrs. Peter Rabbit
+
+Author: Thornton W. Burgess
+
+
+Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5791]
+This file was first posted on September 1, 2002
+Last Updated: April 24, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. PETER RABBIT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MRS. PETER RABBIT
+
+By Thornton W. Burgess
+
+
+Illustrations by Harrison Cady
+
+1919
+
+
+
+
+TO MY DAUGHTER
+
+WHOSE ASSISTANCE IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME HAS BEEN INVALUABLE
+IT IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I PETER RABBIT LOSES HIS APPETITE
+
+II PETER RABBIT PLANS A JOURNEY
+
+III HOOTY THE OWL CHANGES HIS HUNTING GROUNDS
+
+IV THE SHADOW WITH SHARP CLAWS
+
+V IN THE OLD PASTURE
+
+VI PETER RABBIT IS STILL LONESOME
+
+VII PETER FINDS TRACKS
+
+VIII THE STRANGE TRACKS IN THE OLD PASTURE
+
+IX AN UNPLEASANT SURPRISE
+
+X PETER RABBIT ALMOST DECIDES TO RETURN HOME
+
+XI PETER RABBIT HAS A SUDDEN CHANGE OF MIND
+
+XII PETER LEARNS SOMETHING FROM TOMMY TIT
+
+XIII LITTLE MISS FUZZYTAIL
+
+XIV SOME ONE FOOLS OLD JED THUMPER
+
+XV A PLEASANT SURPRISE FOR PETER
+
+XVI PETER RABBIT'S LOOKING-GLASS
+
+XVII PETER MEETS MISS FUZZYTAIL
+
+XVIII TOMMY TIT PROVES A FRIEND INDEED
+
+XIX OLD MAN COYOTE PAYS A DEBT
+
+XX LITTLE MISS FUZZYTAIL WHISPERS "YES"
+
+XXI PETER AND LITTLE MISS FUZZYTAIL LEAVE THE OLD PASTURE
+
+XXII SAMMY JAY BECOMES CURIOUS
+
+XXIII PETER INTRODUCES MRS. PETER
+
+XXIV DANNY MEADOW MOUSE WARNS PETER RABBIT
+
+XXV PETER RABBIT'S HEEDLESSNESS
+
+XXVI PETER RABBIT LISTENS TO MRS. PETER
+
+XXVII MISTAH MOCKER PLAYS A JOKE ON MRS. PETER
+
+XXVIII NEWS FROM THE OLD BRIAR-PATCH
+
+XXIX JIMMY SKUNK VISITS PETER RABBIT
+
+XXX REDDY FOX LEARNS THE SECRET
+
+XXXI BLACKY THE CROW HAS SHARP EYES
+
+XXXII PETER RABBIT'S NURSERY
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+Every one who could walk, creep, or fly headed for the Old Briar-patch
+..... Frontispiece
+
+He dodged and jumped, and all the time the shadow followed him
+
+That night Old Man Coyote started for the Old Pasture
+
+"The quickest way for me to know is for you to tell me," replied Jimmy
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PETER RABBIT LOSES HIS APPETITE
+
+     Good appetite, you'll always find,
+     Depends upon your state of mind.
+     --Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit had lost his appetite. Now when Peter Rabbit loses his
+appetite, something is very wrong indeed with him. Peter has boasted
+that he can eat any time and all the time. In fact, the two things that
+Peter thinks most about are his stomach and satisfying his curiosity,
+and nearly all of the scrapes that Peter has gotten into have been
+because of those two things. So when Peter loses his appetite or his
+curiosity, there is surely something the matter with him.
+
+Ever since Old Man Coyote had come to live on the Green Meadows, Peter
+had been afraid to go very far from the dear Old Briar-patch where he
+makes his home, and where he always feels safe. Now there wasn't any
+reason why he should go far from the dear Old Briar-patch. There was
+plenty to eat in it and all around it, for sweet clover grew almost up
+to the very edge of it, and you know Peter is very fond of sweet clover.
+So there was plenty for Peter to eat without running any risk of danger.
+With nothing to do but eat and sleep, Peter should have grown fat and
+contented. But he didn't.
+
+Now that is just the way with a lot of people. The more they have and
+the less they have to worry about, the more discontented they become,
+and at last they are positively unhappy. There was little Danny Meadow
+Mouse, living out on the Green Meadows; he was happy all the livelong
+day, and yet he had no safe castle like the dear Old Briar-patch where
+he could always be safe. Every minute of every day Danny had to keep his
+eyes wide open and his wits working their very quickest, for any minute
+he was likely to be in danger. Old Man Coyote or Reddy Fox or Granny
+Fox or Digger the Badger or Mr. Blacksnake was likely to come creeping
+through the grass any time, and they are always hungry for a fat Meadow
+Mouse. And as if that weren't worry enough, Danny had to watch the sky,
+too, for Old Whitetail the Marsh Hawk, or his cousin Redtail, or Blacky
+the Crow, each of whom would be glad of a Meadow Mouse dinner. Yet in
+spite of all this, Danny was happy and never once lost his appetite.
+
+But Peter Rabbit, with nothing to worry him so long as he stayed in the
+Old Briar-patch, couldn't eat and grew more and more unhappy.
+
+"I don't know what's the matter with me. I really don't know what's
+the matter with me," said Peter, as he turned up his nose at a patch
+of sweet, tender young clover. "I think I'll go and cut some new paths
+through the Old Briar-patch."
+
+Now, though he didn't know it, that was the very best thing he could do.
+It gave him something to think about. For two or three days he was very
+busy cutting new paths, and his appetite came back. But when he had made
+all the paths he wanted, and there was nothing else to do, he lost his
+appetite again. He just sat still all day long and moped and thought and
+thought and thought. The trouble with Peter Rabbit's thinking was that
+it was all about himself and how unhappy he was. Of course, the more he
+thought about this, the more unhappy he grew.
+
+"If I only had some one to talk to, I'd feel better," said he to
+himself. That reminded him of Johnny Chuck and what good times they used
+to have together when Johnny lived on the Green Meadows. Then he thought
+of how happy Johnny seemed with his little family in his new home in the
+Old Orchard, in spite of all the worries his family made him. And right
+then Peter found out what was the matter with him.
+
+"I believe I'm just lonesome," said Peter. "Yes, Sir, that's what's the
+matter with me.
+
+    "It isn't good to be alone,
+     I've often heard my mother say.
+     It makes one selfish, grouchy, cross,
+     And quite unhappy all the day.
+     One needs to think of other folks,
+     And not of just one's self alone,
+     To find the truest happiness,
+     And joy and real content to own.
+
+"Now that I've found out what is the trouble with me, the question is,
+what am I going to do about it?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PETER RABBIT PLANS A JOURNEY
+
+
+It's a long jump that makes no landing.
+--Peter Rabbit.
+
+"The trouble with me is that I'm lonesome," repeated Peter Rabbit as he
+sat in the dear Old Briar-patch. "Yes, Sir, that's the only thing that's
+wrong with me. I'm just tired of myself, and that's why I've lost my
+appetite. And now I know what's the matter, what am I going to do about
+it? If I were sure, absolutely sure, that Old Man Coyote meant what he
+said about our being friends, I'd start out this very minute to call
+on all my old friends. My, my, my, it seems an age since I visited the
+Smiling Pool and saw Grandfather Frog and Jerry Muskrat and Billy Mink
+and Little Joe Otter! Mr. Coyote sounded as if he really meant to leave
+me alone, but, but--well, perhaps he did mean it when he saw me sitting
+here safe among the brambles, but if I should meet him out in the open,
+he might change his mind and--oh, dear, his teeth are terrible long and
+sharp!"
+
+Peter sat a little longer, thinking and thinking. Then a bright idea
+popped into his head. He kicked up his heels.
+
+"I'll do it," said he. "I'll make a journey! That's what I'll do! I'll
+make a journey and see the Great World.
+
+    "By staying here and sitting still
+     I'm sure I'll simply grow quite ill.
+     A change of scene is what I need
+     To be from all my trouble freed."
+
+Of course if Peter had really stopped to think the matter over
+thoroughly he would have known that running away from one kind of
+trouble is almost sure to lead to other troubles. But Peter is one
+of those who does his thinking afterward. Peter is what is called
+impulsive. That is, he does things and then thinks about them later, and
+often wishes he hadn't done them. So now the minute the idea of making
+a journey popped into his head, he made up his mind that he would do it,
+and that was all there was to it. You see, Peter never looks ahead. If
+he could get rid of the trouble that bothered him now, which, you know,
+was nothing but lonesomeness, he wouldn't worry about the troubles he
+might get into later.
+
+Now the minute Peter made up his mind to make a journey, he began to
+feel better. His lost appetite returned, and the first thing he did was
+to eat a good meal of sweet clover.
+
+"Let me see," said he, as he filled his big stomach, "I believe I'll
+visit the Old Pasture. It's a long way off and I've never been there,
+but I've heard Sammy Jay say that it's a very wonderful place, and I
+don't believe it is any more dangerous than the Green Meadows and the
+Green Forest, now that Old Man Coyote and Reddy and Granny Fox are all
+living here. I'll start tonight when I am sure that Old Man Coyote is
+nowhere around, and I won't tell a soul where I am going."
+
+So Peter settled himself and tried to sleep the long day away, but
+his mind was so full of the long journey he was going to make that he
+couldn't sleep much, and when he did have a nap, he dreamed of wonderful
+sights and adventures out in the Great World.
+
+At last he saw jolly, round, red Mr. Sun drop down to his bed behind
+the Purple Hills. Old Mother West Wind came hurrying back from her day's
+work and gathered her children, the Merry Little Breezes, into her big
+bag, and then she, too, started for her home behind the Purple Hills. A
+little star came out and winked at Peter, and then way over on the edge
+of the Green Forest he heard Old Man Coyote laugh. Peter grinned. That
+was what he had been waiting for, since it meant that Old Man Coyote was
+so far away that there was nothing to fear from him.
+
+Peter hopped out from the dear, safe Old Briar-patch, looked this way
+and that way, and then, with his heart in his mouth, started towards the
+Old Pasture as fast as he could go, lipperty--lipperty--lip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOOTY THE OWL CHANGES HIS HUNTING GROUNDS
+
+
+ A full stomach makes a pleasant Day;
+ An empty stomach turns the whole world gray.
+                           Peter Rabbit.
+
+Hooty the owl sat on the tip-top of a tall dead tree in the Green Forest
+while the Black Shadows crept swiftly among the trees. He was talking to
+himself. It wouldn't have done for him to have spoken aloud what he was
+saying to himself, for then the little people in feathers and fur on
+whom he likes to make his dinner would have heard him and known just
+where he was. So he said it to himself, and sat so still that he looked
+for all the world like a part of the tree on which he was sitting. What
+he was saying was this:
+
+"Towhit, towhoo! Towhit, towhoo! Will some one tell me what to do?
+ My children have an appetite
+ That keeps me hunting all the night,
+ And though their stomachs I may stuff
+ They never seem to have enough.
+ Towhit, towhoo! Towhit, towhoo!
+ Will some one tell me what to do?"
+
+When it was dark enough he gave his fierce hunting call--"Whooo-hoo-hoo,
+whoo-hoo!"
+
+Now that is a terrible sound in the dark woods, very terrible indeed
+to the little forest people, because it sounds so fierce and hungry. It
+makes them jump and shiver, and that is just what Hooty wants them
+to do, for in doing it one of them is likely to make just the least
+scratching with his claws, or to rustle a leaf. If he does, Hooty, whose
+ears are very, very wonderful, is almost sure to hear, and with his
+great yellow eyes see him, and then--Hooty has his dinner.
+
+The very night when Peter Rabbit started on his journey to the Old
+Pasture, Hooty the Owl had made up his mind that something had got to
+be done to get more food for those hungry babies of his up in the big
+hemlock-tree in the darkest corner of the Green Forest. Hunting was very
+poor, very poor indeed, and Hooty was at his wits' end to know what he
+should do. He had hooted and hooted in vain in the Green Forest, and
+he had sailed back and forth over the Green Meadows like a great black
+shadow without seeing so much as a single Mouse.
+
+"It's all because of Old Man Coyote and Granny and Reddy Fox," said
+Hooty angrily. "They've spoiled the hunting. Yes, Sir, that's just what
+they have done! If I expect to feed those hungry babies of mine, I
+must find new hunting grounds. I believe I'll go up to the Old Pasture.
+Perhaps I'll have better luck up there."
+
+So Hooty the Owl spread his broad wings and started for the Old Pasture
+just a little while after Peter Rabbit had started for the same place.
+Of course he didn't know that Peter was on his way there, and of course
+Peter didn't know that Hooty even thought of the Old Pasture. If he had,
+perhaps he would have thought twice before starting. Anyway, he would
+have kept a sharper watch on the sky. But as it was his thoughts were
+all of Old Man Coyote and Granny Fox, and that is where Peter made a
+very grave mistake, a very grave mistake indeed, as he was soon to find
+out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE SHADOW WITH SHARP CLAWS
+
+ Now what's the use, pray tell me this,
+   When all is said and done;
+ A thousand things and one to learn
+   And then forget the one?
+ For when that one alone you need,
+   And nothing else will do,
+ What good are all the thousand then?
+   I do not see; do you?
+                              Peter Rabbit.
+
+Forgetting leads to more trouble than almost anything under the sun.
+Peter Rabbit knew this. Of course he knew it. Peter had had many a
+narrow escape just from forgetting something. He knew just as well as
+you know that he might just as well not learn a thing as to learn it and
+then forget it. But Peter is such a happy-go-lucky little fellow that
+he is very apt to forget, and forgetting leads him into all kinds of
+difficulties, just as it does most folks.
+
+Now Peter had learned when he was a very little fellow that when he went
+out at night, he must watch out quite as sharply for Hooty the Owl as
+for either Granny or Reddy Fox, and usually he did. But the night he
+started to make a journey to the Old Pasture, his mind was so full of
+Old Man Coyote and Granny and Reddy Fox that he wholly forgot
+Hooty the Owl. So, as he scampered across the Green Meadows,
+lipperty--lipperty--lip, as fast as he could go, with his long ears
+and his big eyes and his wobbly nose all watching out for danger on the
+ground, not once did he think that there might be danger from the sky
+above him.
+
+It was a moonlight night, and Peter was sharp enough to keep in the
+shadows whenever he could. He would scamper as fast as he knew how from
+one shadow to another and then sit down in the blackest part of each
+shadow to get his breath, and to look and listen and so make sure that
+no one was following him. The nearer he got to the Old Pasture, the
+safer he felt from Old Man Coyote and Granny and Reddy Fox. When he
+scampered across the patches of moonshine his heart didn't come up in
+his mouth the way it had at first. He grew bolder and bolder. Once or
+twice he stopped for a mouthful of sweet clover. He was tired, for he
+had come a long way, but he was almost to the Old Pasture now, and it
+looked very dark and safe, for it was covered with bushes and brambles.
+
+"Plenty of hiding places there," thought Peter. "It really looks as safe
+as the dear Old Briar-patch. No one will ever think to look for me way
+off here."
+
+Just then he spied a patch of sweet clover out in the moonlight. His
+mouth began to water. "I'll just fill my stomach before I go into the
+Old Pasture, for there may not be any clover there," said Peter.
+
+"You'd better be careful, Peter Rabbit," said a wee warning voice inside
+him.
+
+"Pooh!" said Peter. "There's nothing to be afraid of way up here!"
+
+A shadow drifted across the sweet clover patch. Peter saw it. "That must
+be made by a cloud crossing the moon," said Peter, and he was so sure of
+it that he didn't even look up to see, but boldly hopped out to fill his
+stomach. Just as he reached the patch of clover, the shadow drifted over
+it again. Then all in a flash a terrible thought entered Peter's head.
+He didn't stop to look up. He suddenly sprang sideways, and even as he
+did so, sharp claws tore his coat and hurt him dreadfully. He twisted
+and dodged and jumped and turned this way and that way, and all the time
+the shadow followed him. Once again sharp claws tore his coat and made
+him squeal with pain.
+
+[Illustration: HE DODGED AND JUMPED, AND ALL THE TIME THE SHADOW
+FOLLOWED HIM.]
+
+At last, when his breath was almost gone, he reached the edge of the Old
+Pasture and dived under a friendly old bramble-bush.
+
+"Oh," sobbed Peter, "I forgot all about Hooty the Owl! Besides, I didn't
+suppose he ever came way up here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN THE OLD PASTURE
+
+
+     Brambles never scratch those who understand
+     and are considerate of them.
+     --Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit sat under a friendly bramble-bush on the edge of the
+Old Pasture and panted for breath, while his heart went pit-a-pat,
+pit-a-pat, as if it would thump its way right through his sides. Peter
+had had a terrible fright. There were long tears in his coat, and he
+smarted and ached dreadfully where the cruel claws of Hooty the Owl had
+torn him. And there he was in a strange place, not knowing which way to
+turn, for you know he never had visited the Old Pasture before.
+
+But Peter had had so many narrow escapes in his life that he had learned
+not to worry over dangers that are past. Peter is what wise men call a
+phi-los-o-pher. That is a big word, but its meaning is very simple. A
+philosopher is one who believes that it is foolish to think about things
+that have happened, except to learn some lesson from them, and that the
+best thing to do is to make the most of the present. Peter had learned
+his lesson. He was sure of that.
+
+"I never, never will forget again to watch out for Hooty the Owl," said
+he to himself, as he nursed his wounds, "and so perhaps it is a good
+thing that he so nearly caught me this time. If he hadn't, I might have
+forgotten all about him some time when he could catch me. I certainly
+wouldn't have watched out for him way up here, for I didn't think he
+ever came up to the Old Pasture. But now I know he does, Mr. Hooty'll
+have to be smarter than he's ever been before to catch me napping again.
+My, how I do smart and ache! I know now just how Danny Meadow Mouse felt
+that time Hooty caught him and dropped him into the Old Briar-patch.
+Ouch! Well, as my mother used to say:
+
+    'Yesterday has gone away;
+     Make the most of just to-day.'
+
+Here I am up in the Old Pasture, and the question is, what shall I do
+next?"
+
+Peter felt a queer little thrill as he peeped out from under the
+friendly bramble-bush. Very strange and wonderful it seemed. Of course
+he couldn't see very far, because the Old Pasture was all overgrown with
+bushes and briars, and they made the very blackest of black shadows in
+the moonlight. Peter wondered what dangers might be awaiting him there,
+but somehow he didn't feel much afraid. No, Sir, he didn't feel much
+afraid. You see those briars looked good to him, for briars are always
+friendly to Peter and unfriendly to those who would do harm to Peter. So
+when he saw them, he felt almost at home.
+
+Peter drew a long breath. Then he cried "Ouch!" You see, he had
+forgotten for a minute how sore he was. He was eager to explore this new
+wonderland, for Sammy Jay had told him wonderful tales about it, and he
+knew that here old Granny Fox and Reddy Fox had found safety when Farmer
+Brown's boy had hunted for them so hard on the Green Meadows and in
+the Green Forest. He felt sure that there must be the most splendid
+hiding-places, and it seemed as if he certainly must start right out to
+see them, for you know Peter is very, very curious. But the first move
+he made brought another "Ouch" from him, and he made up a wry face.
+
+"I guess the best thing for me to do is to stay right where I am," said
+he, "for here I am safe under this friendly old bramble."
+
+So with a sigh Peter settled down to make himself as comfortable as
+he could, and once, as far, far away on the Green Meadows he heard the
+voice of Old Man Coyote, Peter even smiled.
+
+"I haven't anything to fear from him, anyway, for he'll never think of
+coming way up here," said he.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PETER RABBIT IS STILL LONESOME
+
+
+     A sympathetic word or two
+     A wond'rous help is, when you're blue.
+     So pity him who sits alone
+     His aches and troubles to bemoan.
+                                         Peter Rabbit.
+
+All the rest of that night Peter sat under a friendly old bramble-bush
+on the edge of the Old Pasture and nursed the sore places made by the
+claws of Hooty the Owl. At last jolly, round, red Mr. Sun began to climb
+up in the blue, blue sky, just as he does every day. Peter looked up at
+him, and he felt sure that Mr. Sun winked at him. Somehow it made him
+feel better. The fact is, Peter was beginning to feel just a wee, wee
+bit homesick. It is bad enough to be in a strange place alone, but to
+be sore and to smart and ache as Peter did makes that lonesome feeling
+a whole lot harder to bear. It is dreadful not to have any one to speak
+to, but to look around and not see a single thing you have ever seen
+before,--my, my, my, it certainly does give you a strange, sinking
+feeling way down inside!
+
+Before that long night was over Peter felt as if his heart had gone way
+down to his very toes. Yes, Sir, that's the way he felt. Every time
+he moved at all he cried "Ouch!" He just knew that he was growing more
+stiff and sore every minute. Then he began to wonder what he should do
+for something to eat, for he was in a strange place, you remember. And
+that made him think of all his private little paths through the dear Old
+Briar-patch, the little paths he had made all himself, and which no one
+used but himself, excepting Danny Meadow Mouse when he came for a visit.
+
+"Perhaps I shall never, never see them again," moaned Peter, and two big
+tears filled his eyes and were just ready to drop.
+
+At that moment he looked up and saw jolly, round, red Mr. Sun wink.
+Peter tried to wink back, and that made the two tears fall. But there
+were no more tears to follow. You see that wink had made all the
+difference in the world, Peter's heart had jumped right back where it
+belonged. Mr. Sun was one of his oldest friends and you know
+
+    When trouble comes, a friendly face
+    Makes bright the very darkest place.
+
+And so, just as he made bright all the Old Pasture, Mr. Sun also made
+bright the dark little corners in Peter's heart just because he was an
+old friend. To be sure Peter was still lonesome, but it was a different
+kind of lonesomeness. He hadn't anybody to talk to, which is always a
+dreadful thing to Peter, but he had only to look up to catch a friendly
+wink, and somehow that not only made him feel better inside but it
+seemed to make his aches and smarts better too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PETER FINDS TRACKS
+
+
+ Every day is different from every other day,
+ And always there is something new to see along the way.
+                                        Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit had sat still just as long as he could. He was stiff and
+lame and sore from the wounds made by Hooty the Owl, but his curiosity
+wouldn't let him sit still a minute longer. He just HAD to explore the
+Old Pasture. So with many a wry face and many an "Ouch" he limped out
+from the shelter of the friendly old bramble-bush and started out to see
+what the Old Pasture was like.
+
+Now Hooty the Owl had taught Peter wisdom. With his torn clothes and his
+aches and smarts he couldn't very well forget to be careful. First he
+made sure that there was no danger near, and this time he took pains to
+look all around in the sky as well as on the ground. Then he limped out
+to the very patch of sweet clover where Hooty had so nearly caught him
+the night before.
+
+"A good breakfast," said Peter, "will make a new Rabbit of me." You know
+Peter thinks a great deal of his stomach. So he began to eat as fast as
+he could, stopping every other mouthful to look and listen. "I know it's
+a bad habit to eat fast," said he, "but it's a whole lot worse to have
+an empty stomach." So he ate and ate and ate as fast as he could make
+his little jaws go, which is very fast indeed.
+
+When Peter's stomach was stuffed full he gave a great sigh of relief and
+limped back to the friendly old bramble-bush to rest. But he couldn't
+sit still long, for he just had to find out all about the Old Pasture.
+So pretty soon he started out to explore. Such a wonderful place as it
+seemed to Peter! There were clumps of bushes with little open spaces
+between, just the nicest kind of playgrounds. Then there were funny
+spreading, prickly juniper-trees, which made the very safest places to
+crawl out of harm's way and to hide. Everywhere were paths made by cows.
+Very wonderful they seemed to Peter, who had never seen any like them
+before. He liked to follow them because they led to all kinds of queer
+places.
+
+Sometimes he would come to places where tall trees made him think of the
+Green Forest, only there were never more than a few trees together. Once
+he found an old tumble-down stone wall all covered with vines, and he
+shouted right out with delight.
+
+"It's a regular castle!" cried Peter, and he knew that there he would be
+safe from every one but Shadow the Weasel. But he never was wholly safe
+from Shadow the Weasel anywhere, so he didn't let that thought worry
+him. By and by he came to a wet place called a swamp. The ground was
+soft, and there were little pools of water. Great ferns grew here just
+as they did along the bank of the Laughing Brook, only more of them.
+There were pretty birch-trees and wild cherry-trees. It was still and
+dark and oh, so peaceful! Peter liked that place and sat down under a
+big fern to rest. He didn't hear a sound excepting the beautiful silvery
+voice of Veery the Thrush. Listening to it, Peter fell asleep, for he
+was very tired.
+
+By and by Peter awoke. For a minute he couldn't think where he was. Then
+he remembered. But for a long time he sat perfectly still, thinking of
+his adventures and wondering if he would be missed down on the Green
+Meadows. Then all of a sudden Peter saw something that made him sit up
+so suddenly that he cried "Ouch!" for he had forgotten all about how
+stiff and sore he was.
+
+What do you think Peter saw? Tracks! Yes, Sir, he saw tracks, Rabbit
+tracks in the soft mud, and Peter knew that he hadn't made them!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE STRANGE TRACKS IN THE OLD PASTURE
+
+
+ Who has attentive ear and eye
+ Will learn a lot if he but try.
+                              Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit stared and stared at the tracks in the soft mud of the
+swamp in the Old Pasture. He would look first at the tracks, then at his
+own feet, and finally back at the tracks again. He scratched his long
+right ear with his long right hind foot. Then he scratched his long left
+ear with his long left hind foot, all the time staring his hardest at
+those strange tracks. They certainly were the tracks of a Rabbit, and it
+was equally certain that they were not his own.
+
+"They are too big for mine, and they are too small for Jumper the
+Hare's. Besides, Jumper is in the Green Forest and not way off up here,"
+said Peter to himself. "I wonder--well, I wonder if he will try to drive
+me away."
+
+You see Peter knew that if he had found a strange Rabbit in his dear Old
+Briar-patch he certainly would have tried his best to drive him out, for
+he felt that the Old Briar-patch belonged to him. Now he wondered if
+the maker of these tracks would feel the same way about the Old Pasture.
+Peter looked troubled as he thought it over. Then his face cleared.
+
+"Perhaps," said he hopefully, "he is a new comer here, too, and if he
+is, I'll have just as much right here as he has. Perhaps he simply has
+big feet and isn't any bigger or stronger than I am, and if that's the
+case I'd like to see him drive me out!"
+
+Peter swelled himself out and tried to look as big as he could when he
+said this, but swelling himself out this way reminded him of how stiff
+and sore he was from the wounds given him by Hooty the Owl, and he made
+a wry face. You see he realized all of a sudden that he didn't feel much
+like fighting.
+
+"My," said Peter, "I guess I'd better find out all about this other
+fellow before I have any trouble with him. The Old Pasture looks big
+enough for a lot of Rabbits, and perhaps if I don't bother him, he won't
+bother me. I wonder what he looks like. I believe I'll follow these
+tracks and see what I can find."
+
+So Peter began to follow the tracks of the strange Rabbit, and he was so
+interested that he almost forgot to limp. They led him this way and they
+led him that way through the swamp and then out of it. At the foot of a
+certain birch-tree Peter stopped.
+
+"Ha!" said he, "now I shall know just how big this fellow is."
+
+How was he to know? Why, that tree was a kind of Rabbit measuring-stick.
+Yes, Sir, that is just what it was. You see, Rabbits like to keep a
+record of how they grow, just as some little boys and girls do, but as
+they have no doors or walls to stand against, they use trees. And
+this was the measuring-tree of the Rabbit whose tracks Peter had been
+following. Peter stopped at the foot of it and sat down to think it
+over. He knew what that tree meant perfectly well. He had one or two
+measuring-trees of his own on the edge of the Green Forest. He knew,
+too, that it was more than a mere measuring-tree. It was a kind of "no
+trespassing" sign. It meant that some other Rabbit had lived here for
+some time and felt that he owned this part of the Old Pasture. Peter's
+nose told him that, for the tree smelled very, very strong of Rabbit--of
+the Rabbit with the big feet. This was because whoever used it for a
+measuring-tree used to rub himself against it as far up as he could
+reach.
+
+Peter hopped up close to it. Then he sat up very straight and stretched
+himself as tall as he could, but he wisely took care not to rub against
+the tree. You see, he didn't want to leave his own mark there. So he
+stretched and stretched, but stretch as he would, he couldn't make his
+wobbly little nose reach the mark made by the other Rabbit.
+
+"My sakes, he is a big fellow!" exclaimed Peter. "I guess I don't want
+to meet him until I feel better and stronger than I do now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AN UNPLEASANT SURPRISE
+
+
+ Legs are very useful when you want to run away;
+ Long, sharp teeth are splendid if to fight you want to stay;
+ But a far, far greater blessing, whether one may stay or quit,
+ Is a clever, trusty, quick and ever ready wit.
+                                            Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit sat in a snug hiding-place in the Old Pasture and thought
+over what he had found out about the strange Rabbit whose tracks he had
+followed. They had led him to a rubbing or measuring-tree, where the
+strange Rabbit had placed his mark, and that mark was so high up on the
+tree that Peter knew the strange Rabbit must be a great deal bigger than
+himself.
+
+"If he's bigger, of course he is stronger," thought Peter, "and if he is
+both bigger and stronger, of course it won't be the least bit of use
+for me to fight him. Then, anyway, I'm too stiff and sore to fight. And
+then, he has no business to think he owns the Old Pasture, because he
+doesn't. I have just as much right here as he has. Yes, Sir, I have just
+as much right in this Old Pasture as he has, and if he thinks he can
+drive me out he is going to find that he was never more mistaken in his
+life! I'll show him! Yes, Sir-e-e, I'll show him! I guess my wits are as
+sharp as his, and I wouldn't wonder if they are a little bit sharper."
+
+Foolish Peter Rabbit! There he was boasting and bragging to himself of
+what he would do to some one whom he hadn't even seen, all because he
+had found a sign that told him the Old Pasture, in which he had made up
+his mind to make his new home, was already the home of some one else.
+Peter was like a lot of other people; he wasn't fair. No, Sir, he wasn't
+fair. He let his own desires destroy his sense of fair play. It was all
+right for him to put up signs in the dear Old Briar-patch and the Green
+Forest, warning other Rabbits that they must keep away, but it was all
+wrong for another Rabbit to do the same thing in the Old Pasture. Oh,
+my, yes! That was quite a different matter! The very thought of it made
+Peter very, very angry. When he thought of this other Rabbit, it was
+always as the stranger. That shows just how unfair Peter was, because,
+you see, Peter himself was really the stranger. It was his first visit
+to the Old Pasture, while it was very plain that the other had lived
+there for some time.
+
+But Peter couldn't or wouldn't see that. He had counted so much on
+having the Old Pasture to himself and doing as he pleased, that he was
+too upset and disappointed to be fair. If the other Rabbit had been
+smaller than he--well, that might have made a difference. The truth is,
+Peter was just a wee bit afraid. And perhaps it was that wee bit of fear
+that made him unfair and unjust. Anyway, the longer he sat and thought
+about it, the angrier he grew, and the more he bragged and boasted to
+himself about what he would do.
+
+"I'll just keep out of sight until my wounds are healed, and then we'll
+see who owns the Old Pasture!" thought Peter.
+
+No sooner had this thought popped into his head than he received a
+surprise, such an unpleasant surprise! It was three heavy thumps right
+behind him. Peter knew what that meant. Of course he knew. It meant that
+he must run or fight. It meant that he had been so busy thinking about
+how smart he was going to be that he had forgotten to cover his own
+tracks, and so the maker of the big tracks he had followed had found him
+out.
+
+Thump! Thump! Thump! There it was again. Peter knew by the sound that
+it was of no use to stay and fight, especially when he was so sore and
+stiff. There was nothing to do but run away. He simply had to. And that
+is just what he did do, while his eyes were filled with tears of rage
+and bitterness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PETER RABBIT ALMOST DECIDES TO RETURN HOME
+
+
+ I have no doubt that you've been told
+ How timid folks are sometimes bold.
+                                    Peter Rabbit.
+
+In all his life Peter Rabbit had never been so disappointed. Here he was
+in the Old Pasture, about which he had dreamed and thought so long, and
+in reaching which he had had such a narrow escape from Hooty the Owl,
+and yet he was unhappy. The fact is, Peter was more unhappy than he
+could remember ever to have been before. Not only was he unhappy, but
+he was in great fear, and the worst of it was he was in fear of an enemy
+who could go wherever he could go himself.
+
+You see, it was this way: Peter had expected to find some enemies in the
+Old Pasture. He had felt quite sure that fierce old Mr. Goshawk was to
+be watched for, and perhaps Mr. Redtail and one or two others of the
+Hawk family. He knew that Granny and Reddy Fox had lived there once upon
+a time and might come back if things got too unpleasant for them on
+the Green Meadows, now that Old Man Coyote had made his home there. But
+Peter didn't worry about any of these dangers. He was used to them, was
+Peter. He had been dodging them ever since he could remember, A friendly
+bramble-bush, a little patch of briars, or an old stone wall near was
+all that Peter needed to feel perfectly safe from these enemies, But
+now he was in danger wherever he went, for he had an enemy who could
+go everywhere he could, and it seemed to Peter that this enemy was
+following him all the time. Who was it? Why, it was a great big old
+Rabbit with a very short temper, who, because he had lived there for
+a long time, felt that he owned the Old Pasture and that Peter had no
+right there.
+
+Now, In spite of all his trouble, Peter had seen enough of the Old
+Pasture to think it a very wonderful place, a very wonderful place
+indeed. He had seen just enough to want to see more. You know how very
+curious Peter is. It seemed to him that he just couldn't go back to the
+dear Old Briar-patch on the Green Meadows until he had seen everything
+to be seen in the Old Pasture. So he couldn't make up his mind to go
+back home, but stayed and stayed, hoping each day that the old gray
+Rabbit would get tired of hunting for him, and would let him alone.
+
+But the old gray Rabbit didn't do anything of the kind. He seemed to
+take the greatest delight in waiting until Peter thought that he had
+found a corner of the Old Pasture where he would be safe, and then in
+stealing there when Peter was trying to take a nap, and driving him out.
+Twice Peter had tried to fight, but the old gray Rabbit was too big for
+him. He knocked all the wind out of poor Peter with a kick from his big
+hind legs, and then with his sharp teeth he tore Peter's coat.
+
+Poor Peter! His coat had already been badly torn by the cruel claws of
+Hooty the Owl, and Old Mother Nature hadn't had time to mend it when he
+fought with the old gray Rabbit. After the second time Peter didn't try
+to fight again. He just tried to keep out of the way. And he did, too.
+But in doing it he lost so much sleep and he had so little to eat that
+he grew thin and thin and thinner, until, with his torn clothes, he
+looked like a scarecrow.
+
+ And still he hated to give in
+  When there was still so much to see.
+ "Persistence, I was taught, will win,
+   And so I will persist," said he.
+
+And he did persist day after day, until at last he felt that he really
+must give it up. He had stretched out wearily on a tiny sunning-bank in
+the farthest corner of the Old Pasture, and had just about made up his
+mind that he would go back that very night to the dear Old Briar-patch
+on the Green Meadows, when a tiny rustle behind him made him jump to his
+feet with his heart in his mouth. But instead of the angry face of the
+old gray Rabbit he saw--what do you think? Why, two of the softest,
+gentlest eyes peeping at him from behind a big fern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PETER RABBIT HAS A SUDDEN CHANGE OF MIND
+
+
+ Whatever you decide to do
+ Make up your mind to see it through.
+                                Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit stared at the two soft, gentle eyes peeping at him from
+behind the big fern just back of the sunning-bank in the far corner of
+the Old Pasture. He had so fully expected to see the angry face of the
+big, gray, old Rabbit who had made life so miserable for him that for a
+minute he couldn't believe that he really saw what he did see. And so he
+just stared and stared. It was very rude. Of course it was. It was very
+rude indeed. It is always rude to stare at any one. So it was no wonder
+that after a minute the two soft, gentle eyes disappeared behind one
+of the great green leaves of the fern. Peter gave a great sigh. Then he
+remembered how rude he had been to stare so.
+
+"I--I beg your pardon," said Peter in his politest manner, which is very
+polite indeed, for Peter can be very polite when he wants to be. "I beg
+your pardon. I didn't mean to frighten you. Please forgive me."
+
+With the greatest eagerness Peter waited for a reply. You know it was
+because he had been so lonesome that he had left his home in the dear
+Old Briar-patch on the Green Meadows. And since he had been in the Old
+Pasture he had been almost as lonesome, for he had had no one to talk
+to. So now he waited eagerly for a reply. You see, he felt sure that
+the owner of such soft, gentle eyes must have a soft, gentle voice and a
+soft, gentle heart, and there was nothing in the world that Peter needed
+just then so much as sympathy. But though he waited and waited, there
+wasn't a sound from the big fern.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know who I am. I'm Peter Rabbit, and I've come up
+here from the Green Meadows, and I'd like very much to be your friend,"
+continued Peter after a while. Still there was no sound. Peter peeped
+from the corner of one eye at the place where he had seen the two soft,
+gentle eyes, but there was nothing to be seen but the gently waving leaf
+of the big fern. Peter didn't know just what to do. He wanted to hop
+over to the big fern and peep behind it, but he didn't dare to. He was
+afraid that whoever was hiding there would run away.
+
+"I'm very lonesome; won't you speak to me?" said Peter, in his gentlest
+voice, and he sighed a deep, doleful sort of sigh. Still there was no
+reply. Peter had just about made up his mind that he would go over to
+the big fern when he saw those two soft, gentle eyes peeping from under
+a different leaf. It seemed to Peter that never in all his life had he
+seen such beautiful eyes. They looked so shy and bashful that Peter held
+his breath for fear that he would frighten them away.
+
+After a time the eyes disappeared. Then Peter saw a little movement
+among the ferns, and he knew that whoever was there was stealing away.
+He wanted to follow, but something down inside him warned him that It
+was best to sit still. So Peter sat just where he was and kept perfectly
+still for the longest time.
+
+But the eyes didn't appear again, and at last he felt sure that whoever
+they belonged to had really gone away. Then he sighed another great
+sigh, for suddenly he felt more lonesome than ever. He hopped over
+to the big fern and looked behind it. There in the soft earth was a
+footprint, the footprint of a Rabbit, and it was SMALLER than his own.
+It seemed to Peter that it was the most wonderful little footprint he
+ever had seen.
+
+"I believe," said Peter right out loud, "that I'll change my mind. I
+won't go back to the dear Old Briar-patch just yet, after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+PETER LEARNS SOMETHING FEOM TOMMY TIT
+
+
+ When you find a friend in trouble
+   Pass along a word of cheer.
+ Often it is very helpful
+   Just to feel a friend is near.
+                              Peter Rabbit.
+
+"Hello, Peter Rabbit! What are you doing way up here, and what are you
+looking so mournful about?"
+
+Peter gave a great start of pleased surprise. That was the first
+friendly voice he had heard for days and days.
+
+"Hello yourself, Tommy Tit!" shouted Peter joyously. "My, my, my, but
+I am glad to see you! But what are you doing up here in the Old Pasture
+yourself?"
+
+Tommy Tit the Chickadee hung head down from the tip of a slender branch
+of a maple-tree and winked a saucy bright eye at Peter. "I've got a
+secret up here," he said.
+
+Now there is nothing in the world Peter Rabbit loves more than a secret.
+But he cannot keep one to save him. No, Sir, Peter Rabbit can no more
+keep a secret than he can fly. He means to. His intentions are the very
+best in the world, but--
+
+Alas! alack! poor Peter's tongue Is very, very loosely hung. And so,
+because he MUST talk and WILL talk every chance he gets, he cannot keep
+a secret. People who talk too much never can.
+
+"What is your secret?" asked Peter eagerly.
+
+Tommy Tit looked down at Peter, and his sharp little eyes twinkled.
+"It's a nest with six of the dearest little babies in the world in it,"
+he replied.
+
+"Oh, how lovely!" cried Peter. "Where is it, Tommy Tit?"
+
+"In a hollow birch-stub," replied Tommy, his eyes twinkling more than
+ever.
+
+"But where is the hollow birch-stub?" persisted Peter.
+
+Tommy laughed. "That's my real secret," said he, "and if I should tell
+you it wouldn't be a secret at all. Now tell me what you are doing up
+here in the Old Pasture, Peter Rabbit."
+
+Peter saw that it was of no use to tease Tommy Tit for his secret, so
+instead he poured out all his own troubles. He told how lonesome he had
+been in the dear Old Briar-patch on the Green Meadows because he didn't
+dare to go about for fear of Old Man Coyote, and how at last he had
+decided to visit the Old Pasture. He told how Hooty the Owl had nearly
+caught him on his way, and then how, ever since his arrival, he had been
+hunted by the big, gray, old Rabbit so that he could neither eat nor
+sleep and had become so miserable that at last he had made up his mind
+to go back to the dear Old Briar-patch.
+
+"Ho!" interrupted Tommy Tit, "I know him. He's Old Jed Thumper, the
+oldest, biggest, crossest Rabbit anywhere around. He's lived in the Old
+Pasture so long that he thinks he owns it. It's a wonder that he hasn't
+killed you."
+
+"I guess perhaps he would have only I can run faster than he can,"
+replied Peter, looking a little shamefaced because he had to own up that
+he ran away instead of fighting.
+
+Tommy Tit laughed. "That's the very wisest thing you could have done,"
+said he. "But why don't you go back to the dear Old Briar-patch in the
+Green Meadows?"
+
+Peter hesitated and looked a wee bit foolish. Finally he told Tommy
+Tit all about the two soft, gentle eyes he had seen peeping at him from
+behind a big fern, and how he wanted to know who the eyes belonged to.
+
+"If that's all you want to know, I can tell you," said Tommy Tit,
+jumping out into the air to catch a foolish little bug who tried to
+fly past. "Those eyes belong to little Miss Fuzzy-tail, and she's the
+favorite daughter of Old Jed Thumper. You take my advice, Peter Rabbit,
+and trot along home to the Old Briar-patch before you get into any
+more trouble. There's my wife calling. Yes, my dear, I'm coming!
+Chickadee-dee-dee!"
+
+And with a wink and a nod to Peter Rabbit, off flew Tommy Tit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+LITTLE MISS FUZZYTAIL
+
+
+Foolish questions waste time, but wise questions lead to knowledge.
+--Peter Rabbit.
+
+"Little Miss Fuzzytail!" Peter said it over and over again, as he sat on
+the sunning-bank in the far corner of the Old Pasture, where Tommy Tit
+the Chickadee had left him.
+
+"It's a pretty name," said Peter. "Yes, Sir, it's a pretty name. It's
+the prettiest name I've ever heard. I wonder if she is just as pretty.
+I--I--think she must be. Yes, I am quite sure she must be." Peter was
+thinking of the soft, gentle eyes he had seen peeping at him from behind
+the big fern, and of the dainty little footprint he had found there
+afterward. So he sat on the sunning-bank, dreaming pleasant dreams and
+wondering if he could find little Miss Fuzzytail if he should go look
+for her.
+
+Now all the time, although Peter didn't know it, little Miss Fuzzytail
+was very close by. She was right back in her old hiding-place behind the
+big fern, shyly peeping out at him from under a great leaf, where she
+was sure he wouldn't see her. She saw the long tears in Peter's coat,
+made by the cruel claws of Hooty the Owl, and she saw the places where
+her father, Old Jed Thumper, had pulled the hair out with his teeth. She
+saw how thin and miserable Peter looked, and tears of pity filled the
+soft, gentle eyes of little Miss Fuzzytail, for, you see, she had a very
+tender heart.
+
+"He's got a very nice face," thought Miss Fuzzytail, "and he certainly
+was very polite, and I do love good manners. And Peter is such a nice
+sounding name! It sounds so honest and good and true. Poor fellow! Poor
+Peter Rabbit!" Here little Miss Fuzzytail wiped her eyes. "He looks so
+miserable I do wish I could do something for him. I--I--oh, dear, I do
+believe he is coming right over here! I guess I better be going. How he
+limps!"
+
+Once more the tears filled her soft, gentle eyes as she stole away,
+making not the least little sound. When she was sure she was far enough
+away to hurry without attracting Peter's attention, she began to run.
+
+"I saw him talking to my old friend Tommy Tit the Chickadee, and I
+just know that Tommy will tell me all about him," she thought, as she
+scampered along certain private little paths of her own.
+
+Just as she expected, she found Tommy Tit and his anxious little wife,
+Phoebe, very busy hunting for food for six hungry little babies snugly
+hidden in a hollow near the top of the old birch-stub. Tommy was too
+busy to talk then, so little Miss Fuzzytail sat down under a friendly
+bramble-bush to rest and wait, and while she waited, she carefully
+washed her face and brushed her coat until it fairly shone. You see, not
+in all the Old Pasture, or the Green Forest, was there so slim and trim
+and neat and dainty a Rabbit as little Miss Fuzzytail, and she was very,
+very particular about her appearance.
+
+By and by, Tommy Tit stopped to rest. He looked down at Miss Fuzzytail
+and winked a saucy black eye. Miss Fuzzytail winked back. Then both
+laughed, for they were very good friends, indeed.
+
+"Tell me, Tommy Tit, all about Peter Rabbit," commanded little Miss
+Fuzzytail. And Tommy did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SOME ONE FOOLS OLD JED THUMPER
+
+
+     You cannot judge a person's temper by his size.
+     There is more meanness in the head of a Weasel
+     than in the whole of a Bear.
+     --Peter Rabbit.
+
+Old Jed Thumper sat in his bull-briar castle in the middle of the Old
+Pasture, scowling fiercely and muttering to himself. He was very angry,
+was Old Jed Thumper. He was so angry that presently he stopped muttering
+and began to chew rapidly on nothing at all but his temper, which is a
+way angry Rabbits have.
+
+The more he chewed his temper, the angrier he grew. He was big and stout
+and strong and gray. He had lived so long in the Old Pasture that he
+felt that it belonged to him and that no other Rabbit had any right
+there unless he said so. Yet here was a strange Rabbit who had had the
+impudence to come up from the Green Meadows and refused to be driven
+away. Such impudence!
+
+Of course it was Peter Rabbit of whom Old Jed Thumper was thinking. It
+was two days since he had caught a glimpse of Peter, but he knew that
+Peter was still in the Old Pasture, for he had found fresh tracks each
+day. That very morning he had visited his favorite feeding ground, only
+to find Peter's tracks there. It had made him so angry that he had lost
+his appetite, and he had gone straight back to his bull-briar castle to
+think it over. At last Old Jed Thumper stopped chewing on his temper. He
+scowled more fiercely than ever and stamped the ground impatiently.
+
+"I'll hunt that fellow till I kill him, or drive him so far from the
+Old Pasture that he'll never think of coming back. I certainly will!" he
+said aloud, and started forth to hunt.
+
+Now it would have been better for the plans of Old Jed Thumper if he had
+kept them to himself instead of speaking aloud. Two dainty little ears
+heard what he said, and two soft, gentle eyes watched him leave the
+bull-briar castle. He started straight for the far corner of the Old
+Pasture where, although he didn't know it, Peter Rabbit had found a warm
+little sunning-bank. But he hadn't gone far when, from way off in the
+opposite direction, he heard a sound that made him stop short and prick
+up his long ears to listen. There it was again--thump, thump! He was
+just going to thump back an angry reply, when he thought better of it.
+
+"If do that," thought he, "I'll only warn him, and he'll run away, just
+as he has before."
+
+So instead, he turned and hurried in the direction from which the thumps
+had come, taking the greatest care to make no noise. Every few jumps he
+would stop to listen. Twice more he heard those thumps, and each time
+new rage filled his heart, and for a minute or two he chewed his temper.
+
+"He's down at my blueberry-patch," he muttered.
+
+At last he reached the blueberry-patch. Very softly he crept to a place
+where he could see and not be seen. No one was there. No, Sir, no one
+was there! He waited and watched, and there wasn't a hair of Peter
+Rabbit to be seen. He was just getting ready to go look for Peter's
+tracks when he heard that thump, thump again. This time it came from his
+favorite clover-patch where he never allowed even his favorite daughter,
+little Miss Fuzzytail, to go. Anger nearly choked him as he hurried in
+that direction. But when he got there, just as before no one was to be
+seen.
+
+So, all the morning long, Old Jed Thumper hurried from one place to
+another and never once caught sight of Peter Rabbit. Can you guess why?
+Well, the reason was that all the time Peter was stretched out on his
+warm sunning-bank getting the rest he so much needed. It was some one
+else who was fooling Old Jed Thumper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A PLEASANT SURPRISE FOR PETER
+
+
+ Sticks will break and sticks will bend,
+ And all things bad will have an end.
+                                     Peter Rabbit.
+
+All morning, while someone was fooling Old Jed Thumper, the cross old
+Rabbit who thought he owned the Old Pasture, Peter Rabbit lay stretched
+out on the warm little sunning-bank, dreaming of soft, gentle eyes and
+beautiful little footprints. It was a dangerous place to go to sleep,
+because at any time fierce Mr. Goshawk might have come that way, and if
+he had, and had found Peter Rabbit asleep, why, that would have been the
+end of Peter and all the stories about him.
+
+Peter did go to sleep. You see, the sunning-bank was so warm and
+comfortable, and he was so tired and had had so little sleep for such
+a long time that, in spite of all he could do, he nodded and nodded and
+finally slipped off into dreamland.
+
+Peter slept a long time, for no one came to disturb him. It was past
+noon when he opened his eyes and blinked up at jolly, round, red Mr.
+Sun. For a minute he couldn't remember where he was. When he did, he
+sprang to his feet and hastily looked this way and that way.
+
+"My gracious!" exclaimed Peter. "My gracious, what a careless fellow I
+am! It's a wonder that Old Jed Thumper didn't find me asleep. My, but
+I'm hungry! Seems as if I hadn't had a good square meal for a year."
+
+Peter stopped suddenly and began to wrinkle his nose. "Um-m!" said he,
+"if I didn't know better, I should say that there is a patch of
+sweet clover close by. Um-m, my, my! Am I really awake, or am I still
+dreaming? I certainly do smell sweet clover!"
+
+Slowly Peter turned his head In the direction from which the delicious
+smell seemed to come. Then he whirled around and stared as hard as ever
+he could, his mouth gaping wide open in surprise. He blinked, rubbed his
+eyes, then blinked again. There could be no doubt of it; there on the
+edge of the sunning-bank was a neat little pile of tender, sweet clover.
+Yes, Sir, there it was!
+
+Peter walked all around it, looking for all the world as if he couldn't
+believe that it was real. Finally he reached out and nibbled a leaf of
+it. It WAS real!
+
+There was no doubt in Peter's mind then. Some one had put it there while
+Peter was asleep, and Peter knew that it was meant for him. Who could it
+have been?
+
+Suddenly a thought popped into Peter's head. He stopped eating and
+hopped over to the big fern from behind which he had first seen the two
+soft, gentle eyes peeping at him the day before. There in the soft earth
+was a fresh footprint, and it looked very, very much like the footprint
+of dainty little Miss Fuzzytail!
+
+Peter's heart gave a happy little jump. He felt sure now who had put
+the clover there. He looked wistfully about among the ferns, but she was
+nowhere to be seen. Finally he hopped back to the pile of clover and ate
+it, every bit, and it seemed to him that it was the sweetest, tenderest
+clover he had ever tasted in all his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PETER RABBIT'S LOOKING-GLASS
+
+
+ If people by their looks are judged,
+   As judged they're sure to be,
+ Why each should always look his best,
+   I'm sure you will agree.
+                                Peter Rabbit.
+
+For the first time in his life Peter Rabbit had begun to think about his
+clothes. Always he had been such a happy-go-lucky fellow that it never
+had entered his head to care how he looked. He laughed at Sammy Jay for
+thinking so much of that beautiful blue-and-white coat he wears, and he
+poked fun at Reddy Fox for bragging so much about his handsome suit. As
+for himself, Peter didn't care how he looked. If his coat was whole, or
+in rags and tags, it was all the same to Peter. But now Peter, sitting
+on the edge of his sunning-bank in the far corner of the Old Pasture,
+suddenly realized that he wanted to be good-looking. Yes, Sir, he wanted
+to be good-looking. He wished that he were bigger. He wished that he
+were the biggest and strongest Rabbit in the world. He wished that he
+had a handsome coat. And it was all because of the soft, gentle eyes of
+little Miss Fuzzytail that he had seen peeping out at him so often. He
+felt sure that it was little Miss Fuzzytail herself who had left the
+pile of sweet clover close by his sunning-bank the other day while he
+was asleep.
+
+The fact is, Peter Rabbit was falling in love. Yes, Sir, Peter Rabbit
+was falling in love. All he had seen of little Miss Fuzzytail were her
+soft, gentle eyes, for she was very shy and had kept out of sight. But
+ever since he had first seen them, he had thought and dreamed of nothing
+else, until it seemed as if there were nothing in the world he wanted so
+much as to meet her. Perhaps he would have wanted this still more if he
+had known that it was she who had fooled her father, Old Jed Thumper,
+the big, gray, old Rabbit, so that Peter might have the long nap on the
+sunning-bank he so needed.
+
+"I've just got to meet her. I've just got to!" said Peter to himself,
+and right then he began to wish that he were big and fine-looking.
+
+"My, I must be a sight!" he thought, "I wonder how I do look, anyway. I
+must hunt up a looking-glass and find out."
+
+Now when Peter Rabbit thinks of doing a thing, he wastes very little
+time. It was that way now. He started at once for the bit of swamp where
+he had first seen the tracks of Old Jed Thumper. He still limped from
+the wounds made by Hooty the Owl. But in spite of this he could travel
+pretty fast, and it didn't take him long to reach the swamp.
+
+There, just as he expected, he found a looking-glass. What was it like?
+Why, it was just a tiny pool of water. Yes, Sir, it was a quiet pool of
+water that reflected the ferns growing around it and the branches of the
+trees hanging over it, and Peter Rabbit himself sitting on the edge of
+it. That was Peter's looking-glass.
+
+For a long time he stared into it. At last he gave a great sigh. "My,
+but I am a sight!" he exclaimed.
+
+He was. His coat was ragged and torn from the claws of Hooty the Owl
+and the teeth of Old Jed Thumper. The white patch on the seat of his
+trousers was stained and dirty from sitting down in the mud. There were
+burrs tangled in his waistcoat. He was thin and altogether a miserable
+looking Rabbit.
+
+"It must be that Miss Fuzzytail just pities me. She certainly can't
+admire me," muttered Peter, as he pulled out the burrs.
+
+For the next hour Peter was very busy. He washed and he brushed and he
+combed. When, at last, he had done all that he could, he took another
+look in his looking-glass, and what he saw was a very different looking
+Rabbit.
+
+  "Though I am homely, lank and lean,
+   I can at least be neat and clean,"
+
+said he, as he started back for the sunning-bank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+PETER MEETS MISS FUZZYTAIL
+
+
+ That this is true there's no denying--
+ There's nothing in the world like trying.
+                                       Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit was feeling better. Certainly he was looking better. You
+see, just as soon as Old Mother Nature saw that Peter was trying to look
+as well as he could, and was keeping himself as neat and tidy as he knew
+how, she was ready to help, as she always is. She did her best with the
+rents in his coat, made by the claws of Hooty the Owl and the teeth of
+Old Jed Thumper, and so it wasn't long before Peter's coat looked nearly
+as good as new. Then, too, Peter was getting enough to eat these days.
+Days and days had passed since he had seen Old Jed Thumper, and this had
+given him time to eat and sleep.
+
+Peter wondered what had become of Old Jed Thumper. "Perhaps something
+has happened to him," thought Peter. "I--I almost hope something has."
+Then, being ashamed of such a wish, he added, "Something not very
+dreadful, but which will keep him from hunting me for a while and trying
+to drive me out of the Old Pasture."
+
+Now all this time Peter had been trying to find little Miss Fuzzytail.
+He was already in love with her, although all he had seen of her were
+her two soft, gentle eyes, shyly peeping at him from behind a big fern.
+He had wandered here and sauntered there, looking for her, but although
+he found her footprints very often, she always managed to keep out of
+his sight, You see, she knew the Old Pasture so much better than he
+did, and all the little paths in it, that she had very little trouble in
+keeping out of his way. Then, too, she was very busy, for it was she who
+was keeping her cross father, Old Jed Thumper, away from Peter, because
+she was so sorry for Peter. But Peter didn't know this. If he had, I am
+afraid that he would have been more in love than ever.
+
+The harder she was to find, the more Peter wanted to find her. He spent
+a great deal of time each day brushing his coat and making himself look
+as fine as he could, and while he was doing it, he kept wishing over and
+over again that something would happen so that he could show little Miss
+Fuzzytail what a smart, brave fellow he really was.
+
+But one day followed another, and Peter seemed no nearer than ever to
+meeting little Miss Fuzzytail. He was thinking of this one morning
+and was really growing very down-hearted, as he sat under a friendly
+bramble-bush, when suddenly there was a sharp little scream of fright
+from behind a little juniper-tree.
+
+Somehow Peter knew whose voice that was, although he never had heard it
+before. He sprang around the little juniper-tree, and what he saw filled
+him with such rage that he didn't once stop to think of himself. There
+was little Miss Fuzzytail in the clutches of Black Pussy, Farmer Brown's
+cat, who often stole away from home to hunt in the Old Pasture. Like a
+flash Peter sprang over Black Pussy, and as he did so he kicked with
+all his might. The cat hadn't seen him coming, and the kick knocked
+her right into the prickly juniper-tree. Of course she lost her grip on
+little Miss Fuzzytail, who hadn't been hurt so much as frightened.
+
+By the time the cat got out of the juniper-tree, Peter and Miss
+Fuzzytail were sitting side by side safe in the middle of a bull-briar
+patch.
+
+"Oh? how brave you are!" sobbed little Miss Fuzzytail.
+
+And this is the way that Peter Rabbit at last got his heart's desire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TOMMY TIT PROVES A FRIEND INDEED
+
+
+     Nothing in all the world is so precious as a true friend.
+     Peter Rabbit.
+
+After Peter Rabbit had saved little Miss Fuzzytail from Black Pussy, the
+cat who belonged way down at Farmer Brown's house and had no business
+hunting in the Old Pasture, he went with her as near to her home as she
+would let him. She said that it wasn't necessary that he should go a
+single step, but Peter insisted that she needed him to see that no more
+harm came to her. Miss Fuzzytail laughed at that, for she felt quite
+able to take care of herself. It had been just stupid carelessness on
+her part that had given Black Pussy the chance to catch her, she said,
+and she was very sure that she never would be so careless again. What
+she didn't tell Peter was that she had been so busy peeping at him and
+admiring him that she had quite forgotten to watch out for danger for
+herself.
+
+Finally she said that he could go part way with her. But when they were
+almost within sight of the bull-briar castle of her father, Old Jed
+Thumper, the big, gray Rabbit who thought he owned the Old Pasture, she
+made Peter turn back. You see, she was afraid of what Old Jed Thumper
+might do to Peter, and--well, the truth is she was afraid of what he
+might do to her if he should find out that she had made friends with
+Peter.
+
+So Peter was forced to go back, but he took with him a half promise that
+she would meet him the next night up near his sunning-bank in the far
+corner of the Old Pasture.
+
+After that there were many pleasant days for Peter Rabbit. Sometimes
+little Miss Fuzzytail would meet him, and sometimes she would shyly hide
+from, him, but somehow, somewhere, he managed to see her every day, and
+so all the time in Peter's heart was a little song:
+
+  "The sky is blue; the leaves are green;
+   The golden sunbeams peep between;
+   My heart is joyful as can be,
+   And all the world looks bright to me."
+
+And then one day Old Jed Thumper found out all about how his daughter,
+little Miss Fuzzytail, and Peter Rabbit had become such good friends.
+Old Jed Thumper went into a terrible rage. He chewed and chewed with
+nothing in his mouth, that is, nothing but his temper, the way an angry
+Rabbit will. He vowed and declared that if he never ate another mouthful
+he would drive Peter Rabbit from the Old Pasture.
+
+My, my, my, those were bad days for Peter Rabbit! Yes, Sir, those
+certainly were bad days! Old Jed Thumper had found out how little Miss
+Fuzzytail had been fooling him by making him think Peter was in parts
+of the Old Pasture in quite the opposite direction from where he really
+was. Worse still, he found Peter's favorite sunning-bank in the far
+corner of the Old Pasture and would hide near it and try to catch
+Peter every time Peter tried to get a few minutes' rest there. He did
+something worse than that.
+
+One day he saw fierce Mr. Goshawk hunting. He let Mr. Goshawk almost
+catch him, and then ducked under a bramble-bush. Then he showed himself
+again and once more escaped in the same way. So he led fierce Mr.
+Goshawk to a point where Mr. Goshawk could look down and see Peter
+Rabbit stretched out on his sunning-bank, trying to get a little rest.
+Right; away Mr. Goshawk forgot all about Old Jed Thumper and sailed
+up in the sky from where he could swoop down on Peter, while Old Jed
+Thumper, chuckling to himself wickedly, hid where he could watch what
+would happen.
+
+That certainly would have been the last of Peter Rabbit if it hadn't
+been for Tommy Tit the Chickadee. Tommy saw Mr. Goshawk and just in time
+warned Peter, and so Mr. Goshawk got only his claws full of soft earth
+for his pains, while Old Jed Thumper once more chewed on nothing in rage
+and disappointment. Dear me, dear me, those certainly were dreadful days
+for Peter Rabbit and little Miss Fuzzytail. You see, all the time little
+Miss Fuzzytail was terribly worried for fear Peter would be caught.
+
+[Illustration with caption: THAT NIGHT OLD MAN COYOTE STARTED FOR THE
+OLD PASTURE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+OLD MAN COYOTE PAYS A DEBT
+
+
+ Some little seeds of goodness
+   You'll find in every heart,
+ To sprout and keep on growing
+   When once they get a start.
+                              Peter Rabbit.
+
+Matters went from bad to worse with Peter Rabbit and little Miss
+Fuzzytail. Peter would have made up his mind to go back to his old home
+in the dear Old Briar-patch on the Green Meadows, but he felt that he
+just couldn't leave little Miss Fuzzytail, and little Miss Fuzzytail
+couldn't make up her mind to go with Peter, because she felt that she
+just couldn't leave the Old Pasture, which always had been her home. So
+Peter spent his days and nights ready to jump and run from Jed Thumper,
+the gray old Rabbit who thought he owned the Old Pasture, and who had
+declared that he would drive Peter out.
+
+Now Peter, as you know, had an old friend in the Old Pasture, Tommy Tit
+the Chickadee. One day Tommy took it into his head to fly down to the
+Green Meadows. There he found everybody wondering what had become of
+Peter Rabbit, for you remember Peter had stolen away from the dear Old
+Briar-patch in the night and had told no one where he was going.
+
+Now one of the first to ask Tommy Tit if he had seen Peter Rabbit was
+Old Man Coyote. Tommy told him where Peter was and of the dreadful time
+Peter was having, Old Man Coyote asked a lot of questions about the
+Old Pasture and thanked Tommy very politely as Tommy flew over to the
+Smiling Pool to call on Grandfather Frog and Jerry Muskrat.
+
+That night, after jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had gone to bed behind the
+Purple Hills, and the Black Shadows had crept over the Green Meadows,
+Old Man Coyote started for the Old Pasture, Now, he had never been there
+before, but he had asked so many questions of Tommy Tit, and he is so
+smart anyway, that it didn't take him long to go all through the Old
+Pasture and to find the bull-briar castle of Old Jed Thumper, who was
+making life so miserable for Peter Rabbit, He wasn't at home, but Old
+Man Coyote's wonderful nose soon found his tracks, and he followed them
+swiftly, without making a sound. Pretty soon he came to a bramble-bush,
+and under it he could see Old Jed Thumper. For just a minute he
+chuckled, a noiseless chuckle, to himself. Then he opened his mouth
+and out came that terrible sound which had so frightened all the little
+people on the Green Meadows when Old Man Coyote had first come there to
+live.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho! Hee, hee, hee! Ha, ho, hee, ho!"
+
+Old Jed Thumper never had heard anything like that before. It frightened
+him so that before he thought what he was doing he had jumped out from
+under the bramble-bush. Of course this was just what Old Man Coyote
+wanted. In a flash he was after him, and then began such a race as the
+Old Pasture never had seen before. Round and round, this way and that
+way, along the cow paths raced Old Jed Thumper with Old Man Coyote at
+his heels, until at last, out of breath, so tired that it seemed to him
+he couldn't run another step, frightened almost out of his senses, Old
+Jed Thumper reached his bull-briar castle and was safe.
+
+Then Old Man Coyote laughed his terrible laugh once more and trotted
+over to the tumble-down stone-wall in which his keen nose told him Peter
+Rabbit was hiding.
+
+"One good turn deserves another, and I always pay my debts, Peter
+Rabbit," said he. "You did me a good turn some time ago down on the Green
+Meadows, when you told me how Granny and Reddy Fox were planning to make
+trouble for me by leading Bowser the Hound to the place where I took my
+daily nap, and now we are even. I don't think that old gray Rabbit will
+dare to poke so much as his nose out of his bull-briar castle for
+a week. Now I am going back to the Green Meadows, Good night, Peter
+Rabbit, and don't forget that I always pay my debts."
+
+"Good night, and thank you, Mr. Coyote," said Peter, and then, when Old
+Man Coyote had gone, he added to himself in a shame-faced way: "I didn't
+believe him when he said that he guessed we would be friends."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+LITTLE MISS FUZZYTAIL WHISPERS "YES"
+
+
+ Love is a beautiful, wonderful thing.
+   There's nothing quite like it on all the
+     green earth.
+
+ 'Tis love in the heart teaches birdies to sing,
+   And gives the wide world all its joy and
+     its mirth.
+                                        Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit was finding this out. Always he had been happy, for
+happiness had been born in him. But the happiness he had known before
+was nothing to the happiness that was his when he found that he loved
+little Miss Fuzzytail and that little Miss Fuzzytail loved him, Peter
+was sure that she did love him, although she wouldn't say so. But love
+doesn't need words, and Peter had seen it shining in the two soft,
+gentle eyes of little Miss Fuzzytail. So Peter was happy in spite of the
+trouble that Old led Thumper, the big, gray Rabbit who was the father of
+little Miss Fuzzytail, had made for him in the Old Pasture.
+
+He had tried very hard, very hard indeed, to get little Miss Fuzzytail
+to go back with him to the dear Old Briar-patch on the Green Meadows,
+but in spite of all he could say she couldn't make up her mind to leave
+the Old Pasture, which, you know, had been her home ever since she was
+born. And Peter couldn't make up his mind to go back there and leave
+her, because--why, because he loved her so much that he felt that he
+could never, never be happy without her. Then, when Old Jed Thumper was
+hunting Peter so hard that he hardly had a chance to eat or sleep, had
+come Old Man Coyote the Wolf and given Old Jed Thumper such a fright
+that for a week he didn't dare poke so much as his nose out of his
+bull-briar castle.
+
+Now, although Old Man Coyote didn't know it, his terrible voice had
+frightened little Miss Fuzzytail almost as much as it had Old Jed
+Thumper. You see, she never had heard it before, She didn't even know
+what it was, and all that night she had crouched in her most secret
+hiding-place, shivering and shaking with fright. The next morning Peter
+had found her there. She hadn't slept a wink, and she was still too
+frightened to even go look for her breakfast.
+
+"Oh, Peter Rabbit, did you hear that terrible noise last night?" she
+cried.
+
+"What noise?" asked Peter, just as if he didn't know anything about it.
+
+"Why, that terrible voice!" cried little Miss Fuzzytail, and shivered at
+the thought of it.
+
+"What was it like?" asked Peter.
+
+"Oh, I can't tell you," said little Miss Fuzzy tall, "It wasn't like
+anything I ever had heard before. It was something like the voice of
+Hooty the Owl and the voice of Dippy the Loon and the voice of a little
+yelping dog all in one, and it was just terrible!"
+
+"Oh?" replied Peter, "you must mean the voice of my friend. Old Man
+Coyote. He came up here last night just to do me a good turn because I
+once did him a good turn."
+
+Then he told all about how Old Man Coyote had come to the Green Meadows
+to live, and how he was smarter than even old Granny Fox, but he didn't
+tell her how he himself had once been frightened almost out of a year's
+growth by that terrible voice, or that it was because he hadn't really
+believed that Old Man Coyote was his friend that had led him to leave
+the Old Briar-patch and come up to the Old Pasture.
+
+"Is--is he fond of Rabbits?" asked little Miss Fuzzytail.
+
+Peter was quite sure that he was.
+
+"And do you think he'll come up here hunting again?" she asked.
+
+Peter didn't know, but he suspected that he would.
+
+"Oh, dear," wailed little Miss Fuzzytail. "Now, I never, never will feel
+safe again!"
+
+Then Peter had a happy thought. "I tell you what," said he, "the safest
+place in the world for you and me is my dear Old Briar-patch, Won't you
+go there now?"
+
+Little Miss Fuzzytail sighed and dropped a tear or two. Then she nestled
+up close to Peter. "Yes," she whispered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PETER AND LITTLE MISS FUZZYTAIL LEAVE THE OLD PASTURE
+
+
+ A danger past is a danger past,
+   So why not just forget it?
+ Watch out instead for the one ahead
+   Until you've safely met it,
+                                        Peter Rabbit.
+
+As soon as little Miss Fuzzytail had agreed to go with him to make her
+home in the dear Old Briar-patch down on the Green Meadows, Peter Rabbit
+fairly boiled over with impatience to start, He had had so much trouble
+in the Old Pasture that he was afraid if they waited too long little
+Miss Fuzzytail might change her mind, and if she should do that--well,
+Peter didn't know what he would do.
+
+But Peter, who always had been so happy-go-lucky, with no one to think
+about but himself, now felt for the first time re-sponsi-bil-ity. That's
+a big word, but it is a word that everybody has to learn the meaning of
+sometime. Johnny Chuck learned it when he made a home for Polly Chuck in
+Farmer Brown's orchard, and tried to keep it a secret, so that no harm
+would come to Polly. It means taking care of other people or other
+people's things, and feeling that you must take even greater care than
+you would of yourself or your own things, So, while Peter himself would
+have been willing to take chances, and might even have made the journey
+down to the dear Old Briar-patch in broad daylight, he felt that that
+wouldn't do at all for little Miss Fuzzytail; that he must avoid every
+possible chance of danger for her.
+
+So Peter waited for a dark night, not too dark, you know, but a night
+when there was no moon to make great patches of light, but only the
+kindly little Stars looking down and twinkling in the friendly way they
+have. At last there was just such a night. All the afternoon little Miss
+Fuzzytail went about in the Old Pasture saying good-by to her friends
+and visiting each one of her favorite little paths and hiding-places,
+and I suspect that in each one she dropped a tear or two, for you see
+she felt sure that she never would see them again, although Peter had
+promised that he would bring her back to the Old Pasture for a visit
+whenever she wanted to come.
+
+At last it was time to start. Peter led the way. Very big and brave and
+strong and important he felt, and very timid and frightened felt little
+Miss Fuzzytail, hopping after him close at his heels. You see, she felt
+that she was going out into the Great World, of which she knew nothing
+at all.
+
+"Oh, Peter," she whispered, "supposing we should meet Reddy Fox! I
+wouldn't know where to run or hide."
+
+"We are not going to meet Reddy Fox," replied Peter, "but if we should,
+all you have to do is to just keep your eyes on the white patch on the
+seat of my trousers and follow me. I have fooled Reddy so many times
+that I'm not afraid of him."
+
+Never in all his life had Peter been so watchful and careful. That was
+because he felt his re-sponsi-bil-ity. Every few jumps he would stop to
+sit up and look and listen. Then little Miss Fuzzytail would nestle up
+close to him, and Peter's heart would swell with happiness, and he would
+feel, oh, so proud and important. Once they heard the sharp bark of
+Reddy Fox, but it was a long way off, and Peter smiled, for he knew that
+Reddy was hunting on the edge of the Green Forest.
+
+Once a dim shadow swept across the meadow grass ahead of them. Peter
+dropped flat in the grass and kept perfectly still, and little Miss
+Fuzzytail did just as he did, as she had promised she would.
+
+"Wha--what was it?" she whispered.
+
+"I think it was Hooty the Owl," Peter whispered back, "but he didn't see
+us." After what seemed like a long, long time they heard Hooty's fierce
+hunting call, but it came from way back of them on the edge of the Old
+Pasture. Peter hopped to his feet.
+
+"Come on," said he. "There's nothing to fear from him now."
+
+So slowly and watchfully Peter led the way down across the Green Meadows
+while the little Stars looked down and twinkled in the most friendly
+way, and just as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun started to kick off
+his bedclothes behind the Purple Hills they reached the dear Old
+Briar-patch.
+
+"Here we are!" cried Peter.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried little Miss Fuzzytail, hopping along one of
+Peter's private little paths.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+SAMMY JAY BECOMES CURIOUS
+
+
+     Learn all you can about others,
+     but keep your own affairs to yourself.
+     --Peter Rabbit.
+
+Of course it was Sammy Jay who first found out that Peter Rabbit was
+back in the dear Old Briar-patch. Sammy took it into his head to fly
+over there the very morning of Peter's home-coming. Indeed, little Miss
+Fuzzytail hadn't had time to half see the clear Old Briar-patch which,
+you know, was to be her new home, when Peter saw Sammy Jay coming. Now
+Peter was not quite ready to have all the world know that there was a
+Mrs. Peter, for of course that was what little Miss Fuzzytail was now
+that she had come to make her home with Peter. They wanted to keep by
+themselves for a little while and just be happy with each other. So as
+soon as Peter saw Sammy Jay headed towards the Old Briar-patch, he hid
+little Miss Fuzzytail under the thickest sweet-briar bush, and then
+hurried out to the nearest sweet-clover patch.
+
+Of course Sammy Jay saw him right away, and of course Sammy was very
+much surprised.
+
+"Hello, Peter Rabbit! Where'd you come from?" he shouted, as he settled
+himself comfortably in a little poplar-tree growing on the edge of the
+Old Briar-patch.
+
+"Oh," said Peter with a very grand air, "I've been on a long journey to
+see the Great World."
+
+"Which means," said Sammy Jay with a chuckle, "that you've been in the
+Old Pasture all this time, and let me tell you, Peter Rabbit, the Old
+Pasture is a very small part of the Great World. By the way, Tommy Tit
+the Chickadee was down here the other day and told us all about you.
+He said that you had fallen in love with little Miss Fuzzytail, and
+he guessed that you were going to make your home up there. What's the
+matter? Did her father, Old Jed Thumper, drive you out?"
+
+"No, he didn't!" snapped Peter angrily, "It's none of your business what
+I came home for, Sammy Jay, but I'll tell you just the same. I came home
+because I wanted to."
+
+Sammy chuckled, for he dearly loves to tease Peter and make him angry.
+Then the imp of mischief, who seems always to live just under that smart
+cap of Sammy's, prompted him to ask: "Did you come home alone?"
+
+Now Peter couldn't say "yes" for that would be an untruth, and whatever
+faults Peter may have, he is at least truthful. So he just pretended not
+to have heard Sammy's question.
+
+Now when Sammy had asked the question he had thought nothing about it.
+It had just popped into his head by way of something to say. But Sammy
+Jay is sharp, and he noticed right away that Peter didn't answer but
+began to talk about other things.
+
+"Ha, ha!" thought Sammy to himself, "I believe he didn't come alone, I
+wonder now if he brought Miss Fuzzytail with him."
+
+Right away Sammy began to peer down into the Old Briar-patch, twisting
+and turning so that he could see in every direction, and all the time
+talking as fast as his tongue could go. Two or three times he flew out
+over the Old Briar-patch, pretending to try to catch moths, but really
+so that he could look down into certain hiding-places. The last time
+that he did this he spied little Mrs. Peter, who was, you know, Miss
+Fuzzytail. At once Sammy Jay started for the Green Forest, screaming at
+the top of his voice:
+
+"Peter Rabbit's married! Peter Rabbit's married!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+PETER INTRODUCES MRS. PETER
+
+
+   It's what you do for others,
+     Not what they do for you,
+   That makes you feel so happy
+     All through and through and through.
+                            Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit made a wry face as he listened to Sammy Jay shrieking at
+the top of his voice as he flew through the Green Forest and over the
+Green Meadows," Peter Rabbit's married!" "Peter Rabbit's married!" He
+saw the Merry Little Breezes who, you know, are the children of Old
+Mother West Wind, start for the dear Old Briar-patch as soon as they
+heard Sammy Jay, and he knew that they would be only the first of a
+lot of visitors. He hurried to where Mrs. Peter was hiding under a
+sweet-briar bush.
+
+"Do you hear what that mischief-maker, Sammy Jay, is screaming?" asked
+Peter.
+
+Mrs. Peter nodded. "Don't--don't you think it sounds kind of--well, kind
+of NICE, Peter?" she asked in a bashful sort of way.
+
+Peter chuckled. "It sounds more than KIND of nice to me," said he. "Do
+you know, I used to think that Sammy Jay never did and never could say
+anything nice, but I've just changed my mind. Though he isn't saying it
+to be nice, it really is the nicest thing I've ever heard him say. We
+haven't been able to keep our secret, so I think the very best thing we
+can do is to invite everybody to call. Then we can get it over with and
+have a little time to ourselves. Here come the Merry Little Breezes, and
+I know that they will be glad to take the invitations for us."
+
+Mrs. Peter agreed, for she thought that anything Peter did or suggested
+was just about right. So the Merry Little Breezes were soon skipping and
+dancing over the Green Meadows and through the Green Forest with this
+message:
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Peter Rabbit will be at home in the Old Briar-patch to
+their friends to-morrow after-noon at shadow-time."
+
+"Why did you make it at shadow-time?" asked Mrs. Peter.
+
+"Because that will give all our friends a chance to come," replied
+Peter. "Those who sleep through the day will have waked up, and those
+who sleep through the night will not have gone to bed. Besides, it will
+be safer for some of the smallest of them if the Black Shadows are about
+for them to hide in on their way here."
+
+"How thoughtful you are," said little Mrs. Peter with a little sigh of
+happiness.
+
+Of course, every one who could walk, creep, or fly headed for the Old
+Briar-patch the next day at shadow-time, for almost every one knows and
+loves Peter Rabbit, and of course every one was very anxious to meet
+Mrs. Peter. From the Smiling Pool came Billy Mink, Little Joe Otter,
+Jerry Muskrat, Spotty the Turtle, and old Grandfather Frog. From the
+Green Forest came Bobby Coon, Unc' Billy Possum and Mrs. Possum, Prickly
+Porky the Porcupine, Whitefoot the Woodmouse, Happy Jack the Gray
+Squirrel, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Blacky the Crow, Sammy Jay, Ol'
+Mistah Buzzard, Mistah Mockingbird, and Sticky-toes the Treetoad. From
+the Green Meadows came Danny Meadow Mouse, Old Mr. Toad, Digger the
+Badger, Jimmy Skunk, and Striped Chipmunk, who lives near the old
+stone-wall between the edge of the Green Meadows and the Green Forest.
+Johnny and Polly Chuck came down from the Old Orchard and Drummer the
+Woodpecker came from the same place.
+
+Of course Old Man Coyote paid his respects, and when he came everybody
+but Prickly Porky and Digger the Badger and Jimmy Skunk made way for him
+with great respect. Granny and Reddy Fox and Hooty the Owl didn't call,
+but they sat where they could look on and make fun. You see, Peter had
+fooled all three so many times that they felt none too friendly.
+
+Very proud looked Peter as he stood under a bramble-bush with Mrs. Peter
+by his side and introduced her to his many friends, and very sweet and
+modest and retiring looked little Mrs. Peter as she sat beside him.
+Everybody said that she was "too sweet for anything", and when Reddy Fox
+overheard that remark he grinned and said:
+
+"Not for me! She can't be too sweet for me, and I hope I'll have a
+chance to find out just how sweet she is."
+
+What do you suppose he meant?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DANNY MEADOW MOUSE WARNS PETER RABBIT
+
+ Good advice Is always needed
+ But, alas! is seldom heeded,
+                                  Peter Rabbit.
+
+
+Danny Meadow Mouse waited until all the rest of Peter Rabbit's friends
+had left the Old Briar-patch after paying their respects to Peter and
+Mrs. Peter, He waited for two reasons, did Danny Meadow Mouse. In the
+first place, he had seen old Granny Fox and Reddy Fox hanging about a
+little way off, and though they had disappeared after a while, Danny had
+an idea that they were not far away, but were hiding so that they might
+catch him on his way home. Of course, he hadn't the slightest intention
+of giving them the chance. He had made up his mind to ask Peter if he
+might spend the night in a corner of the Old Briar-patch, and he was
+very sure that Peter would say he might, for he and Peter are very good
+friends, very good friends indeed.
+
+The second good reason Danny had for waiting was this very friendship.
+You see, Peter had been away from the Green Meadows so long that Danny
+felt sure he couldn't know all about how things were there now, and so
+he wanted to warn Peter that the Green Meadows were not nearly as safe
+as before Old Man Coyote had come there to live. So Danny waited, and
+when all the rest of the callers had left he called Peter to one side
+where little Mrs. Peter couldn't hear. Danny stood up on his hind legs
+so as to whisper in one of Peter's ears.
+
+"Do you know that Old Man Coyote is the most dangerous enemy we have,
+Peter Rabbit? Do you know that?" he asked.
+
+Peter Rabbit shook his head. "I don't believe that, Danny," said he.
+"His terrible voice has frightened you so that you just think him as bad
+as he sounds. Why, Old Man Coyote is a friend of mine."
+
+Then he told Danny how Old Man Coyote had done him a good turn In the
+Old Pasture in return for a good turn Peter had once done him, and how
+he said that he always paid his debts.
+
+Danny Meadow Mouse looked doubtful. "What else did he say?" he demanded.
+"Nothing, excepting that we were even now," replied Peter.
+
+"Ha!" said Danny Meadow Mouse.
+
+The way he said it made Peter turn to look at him sharply.
+
+"Ha!" said Danny again. "If you are even, why you don't owe him
+anything, and he doesn't owe you anything. Watch out, Peter Rabbit!
+Watch out! I would stick pretty close to the Old Briar-patch with Mrs.
+Peter if I were you. I would indeed. You used to think old Granny Fox
+pretty smart, but Old Man Coyote is smarter. Yes, Sir, he is smarter!
+And every one of the rest of us has got to be smarter than ever before
+to keep out of his clutches. Watch out, Peter Rabbit, if you and Old
+Man Coyote are even. Now, if you don't mind, I'll curl up in my old
+hiding-place for the night. I really don't dare go back home to-night."
+
+Of course Peter told Danny Meadow Mouse that he was welcome to spend the
+night in the Old Briar-patch, and thanked Danny for his warning as he
+bade him good-night. But Peter never carries his troubles with him for
+long, and by the time he had rejoined little Mrs. Peter he was very much
+inclined to laugh at Danny's fear.
+
+"What did that funny little Meadow Mouse have to say?" asked Mrs. Peter.
+
+Peter told her and then added, "But I don't believe we have anything to
+fear from Old Man Coyote. You know he is my friend."
+
+"But I don't know that he is mine!" replied little Mrs. Peter, and
+the way she said it made Peter look at her anxiously. "I believe Danny
+Meadow Mouse is right," she continued, "Oh, Peter, you will watch out,
+won't you?"
+
+And Peter promised her that he would.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+PETER RABBIT'S HEEDLESSNESS
+
+
+  Heedlessness is just the twin
+   of thoughtlessness, you know,
+ And where you find them both at once,
+   there trouble's sure to grow.
+                                   Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit didn't mean to be heedless. No, indeed! Oh, my, no! Peter
+thought so much of Mrs. Peter, he meant to be so thoughtful that she
+never would have a thing to worry about. But Peter was heedless. He
+always was heedless. This is the worst of a bad habit--you can try to
+let go of it, but it won't let go of you.
+
+So it was with Peter. He had been heedless so long that now he actually
+didn't know when he was heedless.
+
+When there was nobody but himself to think about, and no one to worry
+about him, his heedlessness didn't so much matter. If anything had
+happened to him then, there would have been no one to suffer. But now
+all this was changed. You see, there was little Mrs. Peter. At first
+Peter had been perfectly content to stay with her in the dear Old
+Briar-patch. He had led her through all his private little paths, and
+they had planned where they would make two or three more. He had
+showed her all his secret hiding-places and the shortest way to the
+sweet-clover patch. He had pointed out where the Lone Little Path came
+down to the edge of the Green Forest and so out on to the Green Meadows.
+He had shown her where the Crooked Little Path came down the hill.
+Little Mrs. Peter had been delighted with everything, and not once had
+she complained of being homesick for the Old Pasture.
+
+But after a little while Peter began to get uneasy. You see in the days
+before Old Man Coyote had come to live on the Green Meadows, Peter had
+come and gone about as he pleased. Of course he had had to watch out for
+Granny and Reddy Fox, but he had had to watch out for them ever since
+he was a baby, so he didn't fear them very much in spite of their
+smartness. He felt quite as smart as they and perhaps a little bit
+smarter. Anyway, they never had caught him, and he didn't believe they
+ever would. So he had come and gone as he pleased, and poked his nose
+into everybody's business, and gossiped with everybody.
+
+Of course it was quite natural that Peter should want to call on all his
+old friends and visit the Green Forest, the Old Orchard, the Laughing
+Brook, and the Smiling Pool. Probably Mrs. Peter wouldn't have worried
+very much if it hadn't been for the warning left by Danny Meadow Mouse.
+
+Danny had said that Old Man Coyote was more to be feared than all the
+Hawk family and all the Fox family together, because he was smarter
+and slyer than any of them. At first Peter had looked very serious, but
+after Danny had gone back to his own home Peter had laughed at Danny for
+being so afraid, and he began to go farther and farther away from the
+safe Old Briar-patch.
+
+One day he had ventured as far as halfway up the Crooked Little Path. He
+was thinking so hard of a surprise he was planning for little Mrs. Peter
+that he forgot to watch out and almost ran into Old Man Coyote before he
+saw him. There was a hungry look, such a hungry look in Old Man Coyote's
+eyes as he grinned and said "Good morning" that Peter didn't even stop
+to be polite. He remembered that Jimmy Skunk's old house was near, and
+he reached it just one jump ahead of Old Man Coyote.
+
+"I thought you said that we were friends," panted Peter, as he heard Mr.
+Coyote sniffing at the doorway.
+
+"So we were until I had paid my debt to you. Now that I've paid that,
+we are even, and it is everybody watch out for himself," replied Old Man
+Coyote. "But don't forget that I always pay my debts, Peter Rabbit."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+PETER RABBIT LISTENS TO MRS. PETER
+
+
+   Safety first is a wise rule for those who would live long.
+   Peter Rabbit.
+
+Peter Rabbit was glad enough to get back to the dear Old Briar-patch
+after his narrow escape from Old Man Coyote by dodging into Jimmy
+Skunk's old house halfway up the hill. And little Mrs. Peter was glad
+enough to have him, you may be sure. She had been watching Peter when he
+so heedlessly almost ran into Old Man Coyote, and it had seemed to her
+as if her heart stopped beating until Peter reached the safety of that
+old house of Jimmy Skunk just one jump ahead. Then she saw Old Man
+Coyote hide in the grass near by and she was terribly, terribly afraid
+that Peter would be heedless again and come out, thinking that Mr.
+Coyote had gone.
+
+Poor little Mrs. Peter! She was so anxious that she couldn't sit still.
+She felt that she just had to do something to warn Peter. She stole out
+from the dear Old Briar-patch and halfway to where Old Man Coyote was
+hiding. He was so busy watching the doorway of the old house where Peter
+was hiding that he didn't notice her at all. Little Mrs. Peter found a
+bunch of tall grass behind which she could sit up and still not be seen.
+So there she sat without moving for a long, long time, never once taking
+her eyes from Old Man Coyote and the doorway of the old house. By and
+by she saw Peter poke his nose out to see if the way was clear. Old Man
+Coyote saw him too, and began to grin. It was a hungry, wicked-looking
+grin, and it made little Mrs. Peter very, very angry indeed.
+
+She waited just a minute longer to make sure that Peter was where he
+could see her, and then she thumped the ground very hard, which, you
+know, is the way Rabbits signal to each other. Peter heard it right away
+and thumped back that he would stay right where he was, though right
+down in his heart Peter thought that little Mrs. Peter was just nervous
+and foolish, for he was sure that Old Man Coyote had given up and gone
+away long ago.
+
+Now of course Old Man Coyote heard those thumps, and he knew just what
+they meant. He knew that he never, never could catch Peter so long as
+Mrs. Peter was watching him and ready to warn Peter, So he came out of
+his hiding-place with an ugly snarl and sprang toward little Mrs.
+Peter just to frighten her. He laughed as he watched her run and, all
+breathless, dive into the dear, Old Briar-patch, and then he trotted
+away to his favorite napping-place.
+
+As soon as Peter was sure that he was safe he started for home, and
+there little Mrs. Peter scolded him soundly for being so heedless and
+thoughtless.
+
+Peter didn't have a word to say. For a long time he sat thinking and
+thinking, every once in a while scratching his head as if puzzled.
+Little Mrs. Peter noticed it.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Peter?" she asked finally.
+
+"I'm just studying what Old Man Coyote means by telling me one day that
+he is my friend, and proving it by doing me a good turn, and then trying
+to catch me the very next time he sees me. I don't understand it," said
+Peter, shaking his head.
+
+"Oh, you dear old stupid!" replied little Mrs. Peter. "Now, you listen
+to me. You did Old Man Coyote a good turn and he paid you back by doing
+you a good turn. That made you even, didn't it?"
+
+Peter nodded.
+
+"Well, then you are right back where you started from, and Old Man
+Coyote doesn't see any reason why he should treat you any differently
+than at first, and I don't see why he should either, when I come to
+think it over. I tell you what, Peter, the thing for you to do is to
+keep doing good turns to Old Man Coyote so that he will always be in
+debt to you. Then he will always be your friend."
+
+As little Mrs. Peter stopped speaking, Peter sprang to his feet. "The
+very thing!" he cried. "It's sort of a Golden Rule, and I do believe it
+will work."
+
+"Of course it will," replied little Mrs. Peter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+MISTAH MOCKER PLAYS A JOKE ON MRS. PETER
+
+
+ This little point remember, please--
+ There's little gained by those who tease.
+                              Peter Rabbit.
+
+Mistah Mocker the Mockingbird had been very late in coming up to the
+Green Meadows from way down South. The truth is, he had almost decided
+not to come. You see, he loves the sunny south-land so much, and all
+who live there love him so much, that if it hadn't been for Unc' Billy
+Possum and Ol' Mistah Buzzard he never, never would have thought of
+leaving, even for a little while. Unc' Billy and Ol' Mistah Buzzard are
+particular friends of his, very particular friends, and he felt that he
+just had to come up for a little visit.
+
+Now Mistah Mocker reached the Green Meadows just after Peter Rabbit had
+brought little Mrs. Peter down from the Old Pasture to live with him
+in the dear Old Briar-patch. He knew that little Mrs. Peter didn't know
+anything about him, for he never had visited the Old Pasture where she
+had spent her life. But he knew all the bird people who do live there,
+for he had met them in the sunny southland, where they spent the winter.
+
+"I believe I'll go pay my respects to Mrs. Peter," said Mistah Mocker
+one day, winking at Ol' Mistah Buzzard. Ol' Mistah Buzzard chuckled and
+winked back.
+
+"Ah cert'nly hopes yo'all will behave yo'self right proper and not
+forget that yo' is a member of one of the oldest families in the Souf,"
+said he.
+
+Mistah Mocker looked quite solemn as he promised to behave himself, but
+there was a twinkle in his eyes as he flew toward the Old Briar-patch.
+There he hid in a thick tangle of vines. Now it happened that Peter
+Rabbit had gone over to the sweet-clover patch, and little Mrs. Peter
+was quite alone. Somehow she got to thinking of her old home, and for
+the first time she began to feel just a wee, wee bit homesick. It was
+just then that she heard a familiar voice. Little Mrs. Peter pricked up
+her ears and smiled happily.
+
+"That's the voice of Tommy Tit the Chickadee, and it must be that his
+wife is with him, for I hear him calling 'Phoebe! Phoebe!' How lovely of
+them to come down to see me so soon."
+
+Just then she heard another voice, a deep, beautiful, ringing voice, a
+voice that she loved. It was the voice of Veery the Thrush. "Oh!" cried
+little Mrs. Peter, and then held her breath so as not to miss one note
+of the beautiful song. Hardly had the song ended when she heard the
+familiar voice of Redeye the Vireo. Little Mrs. Peter clapped her hands
+happily. "It must be a surprise party by my old friends and neighbors
+of the Old Pasture!" she cried. "How good of them to come way down here,
+and how glad I shall be to see them!"
+
+With that little Mrs. Peter hurried over to the tangle of vines from
+which all the voices seemed to come and eagerly peered this way and that
+way for a sight of her friends. But all she saw was a stranger wearing a
+very sober-colored suit. He was very polite and told her that he was an
+old friend of Peter Rabbit.
+
+"If you are a friend of Peter, then you are a friend of mine." said
+little Mrs. Peter very prettily. "Have you seen anybody in this tangle
+of vines since you arrived? I am sure some friends of mine are here, but
+I haven't been able to find them."
+
+"No," said the stranger, who was, of course, Mistah Mocker the
+Mockingbird. "I haven't seen any one here, and I don't think there has
+been any one here but myself."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed there has!" cried little Mrs. Peter. "I heard their
+voices, and I couldn't possibly be mistaken in those, especially the
+beautiful voice of Veery the Thrush, I--I would like very much to find
+them."
+
+Mistah Mocker had the grace to look ashamed of himself when saw how
+disappointed little Mrs. Peter was. Very softly he began to sing the
+song of Veery the Thrush.
+
+Little Mrs. Peter looked up quickly. "There it is!" she cried.
+"There"--she stopped with her mouth gaping wide open. She suddenly
+realized that it was Mistah Mocker who was singing.
+
+"I--I'm very sorry," he stammered. "I did it just for a joke and not to
+make you feel bad. Will you forgive me?"
+
+"Yes," replied little Mrs. Peter, "if you will come here often at
+shadow-time and sing to me." And Mistah Mocker promised that he would.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+NEWS FROM THE OLD BRIAR-PATCH
+
+
+ To use your eyes is very wise
+   And much to be commended;
+ But never see what cannot be
+   For such as you intended.
+                           Peter Rabbit.
+
+Jenny Wren is a busybody. Yes, Sir, she certainly is a busybody. If
+there is anything going on in her neighborhood that she doesn't know
+about, it isn't because she doesn't try to find out. She is so small and
+spry that it is hard work to keep track of her, and she pops out at the
+most unexpected times and places. Then, before you can say a word, she
+is gone.
+
+And in all the Old Orchard or on the Green Meadows there is not to
+be found another tongue so busy as that of Jenny Wren. It is sharp
+sometimes, but when she wants it to be so there is none smoother. You
+see she is a great gossip, is Jenny Wren, a great gossip. But if you get
+on the right side of Jenny Wren and ask her to keep a secret, she'll do
+it. No one knows how to keep a secret better than she does.
+
+How it happened nobody knows, but it did happen that when Peter Rabbit
+came home to the clear Old Briar-patch, bringing Mrs. Peter with him,
+Jenny Wren didn't hear about it. Probably it was because the new home
+which she had just completed was so carefully hidden that the messengers
+sent by Peter to invite all his friends to call didn't find it, and
+afterward she was so busy with household affairs that she didn't have
+time to gossip. Anyway, Peter had been back some time before Jenny Wren
+knew it. She was quite upset to think that she was the last to hear
+the news, but she consoled herself with the thought that she had been
+attending strictly to her duties, and now that her children were able to
+look out for themselves she could make up for lost time.
+
+Just as soon as she could get away, she started for the Old Briar-patch.
+She wanted to hear all about Peter's adventures in the Old Pasture and
+to meet Mrs. Peter. But like a great many other busybodies, she wanted
+to find out all she could about Peter's affairs, and she thought that
+the surest way to do it was not to let Peter know that she was about
+until she had had a chance to use her sharp little eyes all she wanted
+to. So when she reached the Old Briar-patch, she didn't make a sound.
+It didn't take her long to find Peter. He was sitting under one of his
+favorite bramble-bushes smiling to himself. He smiled and smiled until
+Jenny Wren had to bite her tongue to keep from asking what was pleasing
+him so.
+
+[Illustration with caption: "THE QUICKEST WAY FOR ME TO KNOW IS FOR YOU
+TO TELL ME," REPLIED JIMMY.]
+
+"He looks tickled almost to death over something, but very likely if I
+should ask him what it is he wouldn't tell me," thought Jenny Wren. "I
+guess I'll look around a bit first. I wonder where Mrs. Peter is."
+
+So leaving Peter to smile to his heart's content, she went peeking and
+peering through the Old Briar-patch. Of course it wasn't a nice thing to
+do, not a bit nice. But Jenny Wren didn't stop to think of that. By and
+by she saw something that made her flutter all over with excitement. She
+looked and looked until she could sit still no longer. Then she hurried
+back to where Peter was sitting. He was still smiling.
+
+"Oh, Peter Rabbit, it's perfectly lovely!" she cried.
+
+Peter looked up quickly, and a worried look chased the smile away.
+"Hello, Jenny Wren! Where did you come from? I haven't seen you since I
+got back," said he.
+
+"I've been so busy that I haven't had time to call before," replied
+Jenny. "I know what you've been smiling about, Peter, and it's perfectly
+splendid. Has everybody heard the news?"
+
+"No," said Peter, "nobody knows it but you, and I don't want anybody
+else to know it just yet. Will you keep it a secret, Jenny Wren?"
+
+Now Jenny was just bursting with desire to spread the news, but Peter
+looked so anxious that finally she promised that she would keep it
+to herself, and she really meant to. But though Peter looked greatly
+relieved as he watched her start for home, he didn't smile as he had
+before. "I wish her tongue didn't wag so much," said he.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+JIMMY SKUNK VISITS PETER RABBIT
+
+
+ It's hard to keep a secret which you fairly ache to tell;
+ So not to know such secrets is often quite as well.
+                                        Peter Rabbit.
+
+On her way home from the Old Briar-patch, Jenny Wren stopped to rest in
+a bush beside the Crooked Little Path that comes down the hill, when
+who should come along but Jimmy Skunk. Now just as usual Jenny Wren was
+fidgeting and fussing about, and Jimmy Skunk grinned as he watched her.
+
+"Hello, Jenny Wren!" said he. "What are you doing here?"
+
+"I'm resting on my way home from the Old Briar-patch, if you must know,
+Jimmy Skunk!" replied Jenny Wren, changing her position half a dozen
+times while she was speaking.
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Jimmy Skunk. "Do you call that resting! That's a
+joke, Jenny Wren. Resting! Why, you couldn't sit still and rest if you
+tried!"
+
+"I could so! I'm resting right now, so there, Jimmy Skunk!" protested
+Jenny Wren in a very indignant tone of voice, and hopped all over the
+little bush while she was speaking. "I guess if you knew what I know,
+you'd be excited too."
+
+"Well, I guess the quickest way for me to know is for you to tell me,"
+replied Jimmy. "I'm just aching to be excited."
+
+Jimmy grinned, for you know Jimmy Skunk never does get excited and never
+hurries, no matter what happens.
+
+"You'll have to keep right on aching then," replied Jenny Wren, with
+a saucy flirt of her funny little tail. "There's great news in the Old
+Briar-patch, and I'm the only one that knows it, but I've promised not
+to tell."
+
+Jimmy pricked up his ears. "News in the Old Briar-patch must have
+something to do with Peter Rabbit," said he. "What has Peter done now?"
+
+"I'll never tell! I'll never tell!" cried Jenny Wren, growing so excited
+that it seemed to Jimmy as if there was danger that she would turn
+herself inside out. "I promised not to and I never will!" Then, for fear
+that she would in spite of herself, she flew on her way home.
+
+Jimmy watched her out of sight with a puzzled frown. "If I didn't know
+that she gets so terribly excited over nothing, I'd think that there
+really is some news in the Old Briar-patch," he muttered to himself.
+"Anyway, I haven't anything better to do, so I believe I'll drop around
+that way and make Peter Rabbit a call."
+
+He found Peter in some sweet clover just outside the Old Briar-patch,
+and it struck Jimmy that Peter looked uncommonly happy. He said as much.
+
+"I am," replied Peter, before he thought. Then he added hastily, "You
+see, I've been uncommonly happy ever since I returned with Mrs. Peter
+from the Old Pasture."
+
+"But I hear there's great news over here in the Old Briar-patch,"
+persisted Jimmy Skunk. "What is it, Peter?"
+
+Peter pretended to be very much surprised. "Great news!" he repeated.
+"Great news! Why, what news can there be over here? Who told you that?"
+
+"A little bird told me," replied Jimmy slyly.
+
+"It must have been Jenny Wren!" said Peter, once more speaking before he
+thought.
+
+"Then there IS news over here!" cried Jimmy triumphantly. "What is it,
+Peter?"
+
+But Peter shook his head as if he hadn't the slightest idea and couldn't
+imagine. Jimmy coaxed and teased, but all in vain. Finally he started
+for home no wiser than before.
+
+"Just the same, I believe that Jenny Wren told the truth and that there
+is news over in the Old Briar-patch," he muttered to himself. "Something
+has happened over there, and Peter won't tell. I wonder what it can be."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+REDDY FOX LEARNS THE SECRET
+
+
+ Nothing that you ever do,
+   Nothing good or nothing bad,
+ But has effect on other folks--
+   Gives them pain or makes them glad.
+                                  Peter Rabbit.
+
+Of course Jenny Wren didn't mean to tell the secret of the Old
+Briar-patch, because she had promised Peter Rabbit that she wouldn't.
+But she didn't see any harm in telling every one she met that there
+was a secret there, at least that there was great news there, and so,
+because Jenny Wren is a great gossip, it wasn't long before all the
+little people on the Green Meadows and in the Green Forest and around
+the Smiling Pool had heard it and were wondering what the news could be.
+
+After Jimmy Skunk's visit came a whole string of visitors to the Old
+Briar-patch. One would hardly have left before another would appear.
+Each one tried to act as if he had just happened around that way and
+didn't want to pass Peter's home without making a call, but each one
+asked so many questions that Peter knew what had really brought him
+there was the desire to find out what the news in the Old Briar-patch
+could be. But Peter was too smart for them, and they all went away no
+wiser than they came, that is, all but one, and that one was Reddy Fox.
+
+There isn't much going on in the Green Forest or on the Green Meadows
+that Reddy doesn't know about. He is sly, is Reddy Fox, and his eyes are
+sharp and his ears are keen, so little happens that he doesn't see or
+hear about. Of course he heard the foolish gossip of Jenny Wren and he
+pricked up his ears.
+
+"So there's news down in the Old Briar-patch, is there? A secret that
+Jenny Wren won't tell? I think I'll trot down there and make Peter a
+call. Of course he'll be glad to see me."
+
+Reddy grinned wickedly as he said this to himself, for he knew that
+there was no one for whom Peter Rabbit had less love, unless it was old
+Granny Fox.
+
+So Reddy trotted down to the Old Briar-patch. Peter saw him coming and
+scowled, for he guessed right away what Reddy was coming for, and he
+made ready to answer all Reddy's questions and still tell him nothing,
+as he had with all the others who had called.
+
+But Reddy asked no questions. He didn't once mention the fact that he
+had heard there was news in the Old Briar-patch. He didn't once speak of
+Jenny Wren. He just talked about the weather and the Old Pasture, where
+Peter had made such a long visit, and all the time was as pleasant and
+polite as if he and Peter were the dearest of friends.
+
+But while he was talking, Reddy was using those sharp eyes and those
+keen ears of his the best he knew how. But the Old Briar-patch was very
+thick, and he could see only a little way into it, and out of it came no
+sound to hint of a secret there. Then Reddy began to walk around the Old
+Briar-patch in quite the most matter-of-fact way, but as he walked that
+wonderful nose of his was testing every little breath of air that came
+out of the Old Briar-patch. At last he reached a certain place where
+a little stronger breath of air tickled his nose. He stopped for a few
+minutes, and slowly a smile grew and grew. Then, without saying a word,
+he turned and trotted back towards the Green Forest.
+
+Peter Rabbit watched him go. Then he joined Mrs. Peter in the heart of
+the Old Briar-patch. "My dear," he said, with a sigh that was almost a
+sob, "Reddy Fox has found out our secret."
+
+"Never mind," said little Mrs. Peter brightly. "It would have to be
+found out soon, anyway."
+
+Trotting back up the Lone Little Path, Reddy Fox was grinning broadly.
+"It IS news!" said he. "Jenny Wren was right, it IS news! But I don't
+believe anybody else knows it yet, and I hope they won't find it out
+right away, least of all Old Man Coyote. What a wonderful thing a good
+nose is! It tells me what my eyes cannot see nor my ears hear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+BLACKY THE CROW HAS SHARP EYES
+
+
+ Mischief always waits to greet
+ Idle hands and idle feet.
+                              Peter Rabbit.
+
+That is what a lot of people say about Blacky the Crow. Of course it is
+true that Blacky does get into a lot of mischief, but if people really
+knew him they would find that he isn't as black as he looks. In fact,
+Blacky the Crow does a whole lot of good in his own peculiar way, but
+people are always looking for him to do bad things, and you know you
+most always see what you expect to see. Thus the good Blacky does isn't
+seen, while the bad is, and so he has grown to have a reputation blacker
+than the coat he wears.
+
+But this doesn't worry Blacky the Crow. No, Sir, it doesn't worry him a
+bit. You see he has grown used to it. And then he is so smart that he
+is never afraid of being caught when he does do wrong things. No one has
+sharper eyes than Blacky, and no one knows better how to use them. There
+is very little going on in the Green Forest or on the Green Meadows that
+he misses when he is about.
+
+The day after Reddy Fox visited the Old Briar-patch and with his
+wonderful nose found out Peter Rabbit's secret, Blacky just happened
+to fly over the Old Briar-patch on his way to Farmer Brown's cornfield.
+Now, being over the Old Briar-patch, he could look right down into it
+and see all through it. Just as he reached it, he remembered having
+heard Sammy Jay say something about gossipy little Jenny Wren's having
+said that there was great news there. He hadn't thought much about it at
+the time, but now that he was right there, he might as well have a look
+for himself and see if there was any truth in it.
+
+So Blacky the Crow flew a little lower, and his sharp eyes looked this
+way and that way through all the bramble-bushes of the Old Briar-patch.
+He saw Peter Rabbit right away and winked at him. He thought Peter
+looked worried and anxious.
+
+"Peter must have something on his mind," thought Blacky. "I wonder where
+Mrs. Peter is."
+
+Just then he caught sight of her under the thickest growing sweet-briar
+bush. He had opened his mouth to shout, "Hello, Mrs. Peter," when he saw
+something that surprised him so that he didn't speak at all. He almost
+forgot to flap his wings to keep himself in the air. He hovered right
+where he was for a few minutes, looking down through the brambles. Then
+with a hoarse chuckle, he started for the Smiling Pool, forgetting all
+about Farmer Brown's cornfield. "Caw, caw, caw!" he shrieked, "Peter
+Rabbit's got a family! Peter Rabbit's got a family!"
+
+Reddy Fox heard him and ground his teeth. "Now Old Man Coyote will know
+and will try to catch those young Rabbits, when they ought to be mine
+because I found out about them first," he grumbled.
+
+Jimmy Skunk heard Blacky and grinned broadly. "So that's the great news
+Jenny Wren found out!" said he. "I hope Peter will take better care of
+his babies than he ever has of himself. I must call at once."
+
+Redtail the Hawk heard, and he smiled too, but it wasn't a kindly smile
+like Jimmy Skunk's. "I think young Rabbit will taste very good for a
+change," said he.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+PETER RABBIT'S NURSERY
+
+
+ With home, the home you call your own,
+   It really doesn't matter where,
+ There is no place, in all the world,
+   That ever will or can compare.
+                                Peter Rabbit.
+
+The news was out at last, thanks to Blacky the Crow. Peter Rabbit had
+a family! Yes, Sir, Peter Rabbit had a family! Right away the Old
+Briar-patch became the most interesting place on the Green Meadows to
+all the little people who live there and in the near-by Green Forest.
+Of course all of Peter's friends called as soon as ever they could. They
+found Peter looking very proud, and very important, and very happy. Mrs.
+Peter looked just as proud, and just as happy, but she also looked very
+anxious. You see, while she was very glad to have so many friends call,
+there were also other visitors. That is, they were not exactly callers,
+but they hung around the outside of the Old Briar-patch, and they seemed
+quite as much interested as the friends who really called. Indeed, they
+seemed more interested.
+
+Who were they? Why, Reddy Fox was one. Then there was Old Man Coyote,
+also Redtail the Hawk and Digger the Badger, and just at dusk Hooty the
+Owl. They all seemed very much interested indeed, but every time little
+Mrs. Peter saw them, she shivered. You see, she couldn't help thinking
+that there was a dreadful, hungry look in their eyes, and if the truth
+is to be told, there probably was.
+
+But happy-go-lucky Peter Rabbit didn't let this worry him. Hadn't he
+grown up from a teeny-weeny baby and been smart enough to escape all
+these dangers which worried Mrs. Peter so? And if he could do it, of
+course his own babies could do it, with him to teach them and show them
+how. Besides, they were too little to go outside of the Old Briar-patch
+now. Indeed, they were too little to go outside their nursery, which
+was in a clump of sweet-briar bushes in the very middle of the Old
+Briar-patch, and Peter felt that there they were perfectly safe.
+
+"It isn't time to worry yet," said Peter to little Mrs. Peter, as he
+saw the fright in her eyes as the shadow of Redtail passed over them. "I
+don't believe in borrowing trouble. Time enough to worry when there
+is something to worry about, and that won't be until these little
+scallawags of ours are big enough to run around and get into mischief.
+Did you ever see such beautiful babies in all your life?"
+
+For a minute the worried look left little Mrs. Peter, and she gazed at
+the four little helpless babies fondly. "No," she replied softly, "I
+never did. Oh, Peter, they are perfectly lovely! This one is the perfect
+image of you, and I'm going to call him Little Pete. And don't you think
+his brother looks like his grandfather? I think we'll call him Little
+Jed."
+
+Peter coughed behind his hand as if something had stuck in his throat.
+He had no love for Little Jed's grandfather, Old Jed Thumper, the
+big, gray, old Rabbit who had tried so hard to drive him from the Old
+Pasture, but he didn't say anything. If Mrs. Peter wanted to name this
+one Little Jed, he wouldn't say a word. Aloud he said:
+
+"I think, my dear, that this one looks just as you must have looked when
+you were little, and so we'll call her Fuzzy. And her sister we'll call
+Wuzzy," continued Peter. "Was ever there such a splendid nursery for
+baby Rabbits?"
+
+"I don't believe there ever was, Peter. It's better than my old nursery
+in the Old Pasture," replied little Mrs. Peter, as with a sigh of
+perfect happiness she stretched out beside their four babies.
+
+And Peter softly tiptoed away to the nearest sweet-clover patch with his
+heart almost bursting with pride.
+
+Of the doings of Peter and Mrs. Peter Rabbit and their four children
+there are many more stories, so many that one book will not hold all of
+them. Besides, Bowser the Hound insists that I must write a book about
+him, and I have promised to do it right away. So the next book will be
+Bowser the Hound.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Mrs. Peter Rabbit, by Thornton W. Burgess
+
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