y Chuck what he had seen. My, how Peter's long legs did
fly! He was so excited that he had forgotten how sleepy he had felt a
few minutes before.

Halfway down to Johnny Chuck's house, Peter Rabbit almost ran plump into
Bobby Coon and Jimmy Skunk, who had been quarreling and were calling
each other names. They stopped when they saw Peter Rabbit.

"Peter Rabbit runs away
From his shadder, so they say.
Peter, Peter, what a sight!
Tell us why this sudden fright,"

shouted Bobby Coon.

Peter Rabbit stopped short. Indeed, he stopped so short that he almost
turned a somersault. "Say," he panted, "I've just seen Farmer Brown's
boy."

"You don't say so!" said Jimmy Skunk, pretending to be very much
surprised. "You don't say so! Why, now I think of it, I believe I've
seen Farmer Brown's boy a few times myself."

Peter Rabbit made a good-natured face at Jimmy Skunk, and then he told
all about how he had seen Farmer Brown's boy with gun and spade and
Bowser the Hound going down the Lone Little Path. "You know there isn't
any garden down that way," he concluded.

Bobby Coon's face wore a sober look. Yes, Sir, all the fun was gone from
Bobby Coon's face.

"What's the matter?" asked Jimmy Skunk.

"I was just thinking that Reddy Fox lives over in that direction and he
is so stiff that he cannot run," replied Bobby Coon.

Jimmy Skunk hitched up his trousers and started toward the Lone Little
Path. "Come on!" said he. "Let's follow him and see what he is about."

Bobby Coon followed at once, but Peter Rabbit said he would hurry over
and get Johnny Chuck and then join the others.

All this time Farmer Brown's boy had been hurrying down the Lone Little
Path to the home old Granny Fox and Reddy Fox had moved out of the night
before. Of course, he didn't know that they had moved. He put down his
gun, and by the time Jimmy Skunk and Bobby Coon and Peter Rabbit and
Johnny Chuck reached a place where they could peep out and see what was
going on, he had dug a great hole.

"Oh!" cried Peter Rabbit, "he's digging into the house of Reddy Fox, and
he'll catch poor Reddy!"

XXVI. Farmer Brown's Boy Works for Nothing

The grass around the doorstep of the house where Reddy Fox had always
lived was all wet with dew when Farmer Brown's boy laid his gun down,
took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and picked up his spade.
It was cool and beautiful there on the edge of the Green Meadows. Joll