my, indeed he has!
But just now Reddy was as deaf as if he had cotton stuffed in his ears.
He was chuckling to himself to think how he was going to fool Bowser the
Hound and how smart everyone would think him, when all of a sudden, he
heard the rat-a-tat-tata-tat-tat of Drummer the Woodpecker and knew that
that meant "Danger!"

For just a wee little second it seemed to Reddy Fox that his heart
stopped beating. He couldn't stop running, for he had let Bowser
the Hound get too close for that. Reddy's sharp eyes saw Drummer the
Woodpecker near the top of the old tree trunk and noticed that Drummer
seemed to be looking at something down below. Reddy Fox gave one quick
look at the foot of the old tree trunk and saw a gun pointed at him and
behind the gun the freckled face of Farmer Brown's boy. Reddy Fox gave
a little gasp of fright and turned so suddenly that he almost fell flat.
Then he began to run as never in his life had he run before. It seemed
as though his flying feet hardly touched the grass. His eyes were
popping out with fright as with every jump he tried to run just a wee
bit faster.

Bang! Bang! Two flashes of fire and two puffs of smoke darted from
behind the old tree trunk. Drummer the Woodpecker gave a frightened
scream and flew deep into the Green Forest. Peter Rabbit flattened
himself under a friendly bramble bush. Johnny Chuck dived headfirst down
his doorway.

Reddy Fox gave a yelp, a shrill little yelp of pain, and suddenly began
to go lame. But Farmer Brown's boy didn't know that. He thought he had
missed and he growled to himself:

"I'll get that fox yet for stealing my pet chicken!"

VIII. Granny Fox Takes Care of Reddy

Reddy Fox was so sore and lame that he could hardly hobble. He had had
the hardest kind of work to get far enough ahead of Bowser the Hound to
mix his trail up so that Bowser couldn't follow it. Then he had limped
home, big tears running down his nose, although he tried hard not to
cry. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" moaned Reddy Fox, as he crept in at the doorway of
his home.

"What's the matter now?" snapped old Granny Fox, who had just waked up
from a sun nap.

"I--I've got hurt," said Reddy Fox, and began to cry harder. Granny Fox
looked at Reddy sharply. "What have you been doing now--tearing your
clothes on a barbed-wire fence or trying to crawl through a bull-briar
thicket? I should think you were big enough by this time to look out for
yourself!" said Granny Fox crossly, as s