Green Meadow Stories, Thornton W. Burgess [read people like a book .txt] 📗

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.

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 someone 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 someone 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