[Ill.u.s.tration: "Please, please wait for me, Peter Rabbit," panted Johnny Chuck.]
Now Peter Rabbit is really one of the best-hearted little fellows in the world, just happy-go-lucky and careless. So when finally he looked back and saw Johnny Chuck way, way behind, with the tears running down his cheeks, and how hot and tired he looked, Peter sat down and waited.
Pretty soon Johnny Chuck came up, puffing and blowing, and threw himself flat on the ground.
"Please, Peter Rabbit, is it very much farther to the sweet-clover patch?" he panted, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands.
"No," replied Peter Rabbit, "just a little way more. We"ll rest here a few minutes and then I won"t run so fast."
So Peter Rabbit and Johnny Chuck lay down in the gra.s.s to rest while Johnny Chuck recovered his breath. Every minute or two Peter would sit up very straight, p.r.i.c.k up his long ears and look this way and look that way as if he expected to see something unusual. It made Johnny Chuck nervous.
"What do you keep doing that for, Peter Rabbit?" he asked.
"Oh, nothin"," replied Peter Rabbit. But he kept right on doing it just the same. Then suddenly, after one of these looks abroad, he crouched down very flat and whispered in Johnny Chuck"s ear in great excitement.
"Old Whitetail is down here and he"s headed this way. We"d better be moving," he said.
Johnny Chuck felt a chill of fear. "Who is Old Whitetail?" he asked, as he prepared to follow Peter Rabbit.
"Don"t you know?" asked Peter in surprise. "Say, you are green! Why, he"s Mr. Marsh Hawk, and if he once gets the chance he"ll gobble you up, skin, bones and all. There"s an old stone wall just a little way from here, and the sooner we get there the better!"
Peter Rabbit led the way, and if he had run fast before it was nothing to the way he ran now. A great fear made Johnny Chuck forget that he was tired, and he ran as he had never run before in all his short life. Just as he dived head-first into a hole between two big stones, a shadow swept over the gra.s.s and something sharp tore a gap in the seat of his pants and made him squeal with fright and pain. But he wriggled in beside Peter Rabbit and was safe, while Mr. Marsh Hawk flew off with a scream of rage and disappointment.
Johnny Chuck had never been so frightened in all his short life. He made himself as small as possible and crept as far as he could underneath a friendly stone in the old wall. His pants were torn and his leg smarted dreadfully where one of Mr. Marsh Hawk"s cruel, sharp claws had scratched him. How he did wish that he had minded old Mrs. Chuck and stayed in his own yard, as she had told him to.
Peter Rabbit looked at the tear in Johnny Chuck"s pants. "Pooh!" said Peter Rabbit, "don"t mind a little thing like that."
"But I"m afraid to go home with my pants torn," said Johnny Chuck.
"Don"t go home," replied Peter Rabbit. "I don"t unless I feel like it.
You stay away a long time and then your mother will be so glad to see you that she won"t ever think of the pants."
Johnny Chuck looked doubtful, but before he could say anything Peter Rabbit stuck his head out to see if the way was clear. It was, and Peter"s long legs followed his head. "Come on, Johnny Chuck," he shouted. "I"m going over to the sweet-clover patch."
But Johnny Chuck was afraid. He was almost sure that Old Whitetail was waiting just outside to gobble him up. It was a long time before he would put so much as the tip of his wee black nose out. But without Peter Rabbit it grew lonesomer and lonesomer in under the old stone wall. Besides, he was afraid that he would lose Peter Rabbit, and then he would be lost indeed, for he didn"t know the way home.
Finally Johnny Chuck ventured to peep out. There was jolly, round, red Mr. Sun smiling down just as if he was used to seeing little runaway chucks every day. Johnny looked and looked for Peter Rabbit, but it was a long time before he saw him, and when he did all he saw were Peter Rabbit"s funny long ears above the tops of the waving gra.s.s, for Peter Rabbit was hidden in the sweet-clover patch, eating away for dear life.
It was only a little distance, but Johnny Chuck had had such a fright that he tried three times before he grew brave enough to scurry through the tall gra.s.s and join Peter Rabbit. My, how good that sweet-clover did taste! Johnny Chuck forgot all about Old Whitetail. He forgot all about his torn pants. He forgot that he had run away and didn"t know the way home. He just ate and ate and ate until his stomach was so full he couldn"t stuff another piece of sweet-clover into it.
Suddenly Peter Rabbit grabbed him by a sleeve and pulled him down flat.
"Sh-h-h," said Peter Rabbit, "don"t move."
Johnny Chuck"s heart almost stopped beating. What new danger could there be now? In a minute he heard a queer noise. Peeping between the stems of sweet-clover he saw--what do you think? Why, old Mrs. Chuck cutting sweet-clover to put in the basket of vegetables she was taking home from Farmer Brown"s garden.
Johnny Chuck gave a great sigh of relief, but he kept very still for he did not want her to find him there after she had told him not to put foot outside his own dooryard. "You wait here," whispered Peter Rabbit, and crept off through the clover. Pretty soon Johnny Chuck saw Peter Rabbit steal up behind old Mrs. Chuck and pull four big lettuce leaves out of her basket.
VI
PETER RABBIT"S RUN FOR LIFE
"I wish I hadn"t run away," said Johnny Chuck dolefully, as he and Peter Rabbit peeped out from the sweet-clover patch and watched old Mrs. Chuck start for home with her market basket on her arm.
"You ought to think yourself lucky that your mother didn"t find you here in the sweet-clover patch. If it hadn"t been for me she would have,"
said Peter Rabbit.
Johnny Chuck"s face grew longer and longer. His pants were torn, his leg was stiff and sore where old Mr. Marsh Hawk had scratched him that morning, but worse still his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him. Yes, Sir, Johnny Chuck"s conscience was p.r.i.c.king him hard, very hard indeed, because he had run away from home with Peter Rabbit after old Mrs. Chuck had told him not to leave the yard while she was away. Now he didn"t know the way home.
"Peter Rabbit, I want to go home," said Johnny Chuck suddenly. "Isn"t there a short cut so that I can get home before my mother does?"
"No, there isn"t," said Peter Rabbit. "And if there was what good would it do you? Old Mrs. Chuck would see that tear in your pants and then you"d catch it!"
"I don"t care. Please won"t you show me the way home, Peter Rabbit?"
begged Johnny Chuck.
Peter Rabbit yawned lazily as he replied: "What"s the use of going now?
You"ll catch it anyway, so you might as well stay and have all fun you can. Say, I know a dandy old house up on the hill. Jimmy Skunk used to live there, but no one lives in it now. Let"s go up and see it. It"s a dandy place."
Now right down in his heart Johnny Chuck knew that he ought to go home, but he couldn"t go unless Peter Rabbit would show him the way, and then he did want to see that old house. Perhaps Peter Rabbit was right (in his heart he knew that he wasn"t) and he had better have all the fun he could. So Johnny Chuck followed Peter Rabbit up the hill to the old house of Jimmy Skunk.
Cobwebs covered the doorway. Johnny Chuck was going to brush them away, but Peter Rabbit stopped him. "Let"s see if there isn"t a back door,"
said he. "Then we can use that, and if Bowser the Hound or Farmer Brown"s boy comes along and finds this door they"ll think no one ever lives here any more and you"ll be safer than if you were right in your own home."
So they hunted and hunted, and by and by Johnny Chuck found the back door way off at one side and cunningly hidden under a tangle of gra.s.s.
Inside was a long dark hall and at the end of that a nice big room. It was very dirty, and Johnny Chuck, who is very neat, at once began to clean house and soon had it spick and span. Suddenly they heard a voice outside the front door.
"Doesn"t look as if anybody lives here, but seems as if I smell young rabbit and--yes, I"m sure I smell young chuck, too. Guess I"ll have a look inside."
"It"s old Granny Fox," whispered Peter Rabbit, trembling with fright.
Then Peter Rabbit did a very brave thing. He remembered that Johnny Chuck could not run very fast and that if it hadn"t been for him, Johnny Chuck would be safe at home. "You stay right here," whispered Peter Rabbit. Then he slipped out the back door. Half-way down the hill he stopped and shouted:
"Old Granny Fox Is slower than an ox!"
Then he started for the old brier patch as fast as his long legs could take him, and after him ran Granny Fox.
Peter Rabbit was running for his life. There was no doubt about it.
Right behind him, grinding her long white teeth, her eyes snapping, ran old Granny Fox. Peter Rabbit did not like to think what would happen to him if she should catch him.
Peter Rabbit was used to running for his life. He had to do it at least once every day. But usually he was near a safe hiding place and he rather enjoyed the excitement. This time, however, the only place of safety he could think of was the friendly old brier patch, and that was a long way off.
Back at the old house on the hill, where Granny Fox had discovered Peter Rabbit, was little Johnny Chuck, trembling with fright. He crept to the back door of the old house to watch. He saw Granny Fox getting nearer and nearer to Peter Rabbit.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! She"ll catch Peter Rabbit! She"ll catch Peter Rabbit!" wailed Johnny Chuck, wringing his hands in despair.