from the Green Meadows
saw him. When Farmer Brown's boy came hurrying home from the Laughing
Brook without any fish one day and told about the great footprint he had
seen in a muddy place on the bank deep in the Green Forest, and had said
his was sure that it was the footprint of a Bear, he had been laughed
at. Farmer Brown had laughed and laughed.

"Why," said he, "there hasn't been a Bear in the Green Forest for years
and years and years, not since my own grandfather was a little boy, and
that, you know, was a long, long, long time ago. If you want to find Mr.
Bear, you will have to go to the Great Woods. I don't know who made that
footprint, but it certainly couldn't have been a Bear. I think you must
have imagined it."

Then he had laughed some more, all of which goes to show how easy it is
to be mistaken, and how foolish it is to laugh at things you really
don't know about. Buster Bear _had_ come to live in the Green Forest,
and Farmer Brown's boy _had_ seen his footprint. But Farmer Brown
laughed so much and made fun of him so much, that at last his boy began
to think that he must have been mistaken after all. So when he heard
Blacky the Crow and Sammy Jay making a great fuss near the edge of the
Green Forest, he never once thought of Buster Bear, as he started over
to see what was going on.

When Blacky and Sammy saw him coming, they moved a little farther in to
the Green Forest, still screaming in the most excited way. They felt
sure that Farmer Brown's boy would follow them, and they meant to lead
him to where Sammy had seen Buster Bear that morning. Then they would
find out for sure if what Little Joe Otter had said was true,--that
Farmer Brown's boy really was afraid of Buster Bear.

Now all around, behind trees and stumps, and under thick branches, and
even in tree tops, were other little people watching with round,
wide-open eyes to see what would happen. It was very exciting, the most
exciting thing they could remember. You see, they had come to believe
that Farmer Brown's boy wasn't afraid of anybody or anything, and as
most of them were very much afraid of him, they had hard work to believe
that he would really be afraid of even such a great, big, strong fellow
as Buster Bear. Every one was so busy watching Farmer Brown's boy that
no one saw Buster coming from the other direction.

You see, Buster walked very softly. Big as he is, he can walk without
making the teeniest, weeniest sound. And that is