e hurried on, trying to find a place where he would
be left in peace. But nowhere that he could go was he free from those
taunting voices. Not even when he had crawled into his house was he
free from them, for buzzing around his doorway was Bumble Bee and
Bumble was humming:

"Bumble, grumble, rumble, hum!
Reddy surely can run some."

Late that afternoon old Granny Fox called him out, and it was clear to
see that Granny was very much put out about something. "What is this I
hear everywhere I go about you being a coward?" she demanded sharply,
as soon as he put his head out of the doorway.

Reddy hung his head, and in a very shamefaced way he told her about
the terrible fright he had had and all about the strange creature
without legs, head, or tail that had rolled down the hill where
Prickly Porky lives.

"Serves you right for boasting!" snapped Granny. "How many times have
I told you that no good comes of boasting? Probably somebody has
played a trick on you. I've lived a good many years, and I never
before heard of such a creature. If there were one, I'd have seen it
before now. You go back into the house and stay there. You are a
disgrace to the Fox family. I am going to have a look about and find
out what is going on. If this is some trick, they'll find that old
Granny Fox isn't so easily fooled."

XV

OLD GRANNY FOX INVESTIGATES

In-vest-i-gate is a great big word, but its meaning is very simple. To
in-vest-i-gate is to look into and try to find out all about
something. That is what old Granny Fox started to do after Reddy had
told her about the terrible fright he had had at the hill where
Prickly Porky lives.

Now old Granny Fox is very sly and smart and clever, as you all know.
Compared with her, Reddy Fox is almost stupid. He may be as sly and
smart and clever some day, but he has got a lot to learn before then.
Now if it had been Reddy who was going to investigate, he would have
gone straight over to Prickly Porky's hill and looked around and
asked sly questions, and everybody whom he met would have known that
he was trying to find out something.

But old Granny Fox did nothing of the kind. Oh, my, no! She went about
hunting her dinner just as usual and didn't appear to be paying the
least attention to what was going on about her. With her nose to the
ground she ran this way and ran that way as if hunting for a trail.
She peered into old hollow logs and looked under little brush pil