Danny didn"t answer. The fact is, he was too frightened to answer. Besides, he didn"t know what he could do. So he just kept still, but his bright eyes never once left Reddy"s cruel face.
For all his fright, Danny was doing some hard thinking. He had been in tight places before and had learned never to give up hope. Something might happen to frighten Reddy away. Anyway, Reddy had to get him out of that old can before he would admit that he was really caught.
For a long time Reddy lay there licking his chops and saying all the things he could think of to frighten poor Danny Meadow Mouse.
At last he grew tired of this and made up his mind that that it was time to end it and Danny Meadow Mouse at the same time. He thrust his sharp nose in at the opening in the end of the old can, but the opening was too small for him to get more than his nose in, and he only scratched it on the sharp edges without so much as touching Danny.
"I"ll pull you out," said Reddy and thrust in one black paw.
Danny promptly bit it so hard that Reddy yelped with pain and pulled it out in a hurry. Presently he tried again with the other paw. Danny bit this one harder still, and Reddy danced with pain and anger. Then he lost his temper completely, a very foolish thing to do, as it always is. He hit the old can, and away it rolled with Danny Meadow Mouse inside. This seemed to make Reddy angrier than ever. He sprang after it and hit it again. Then he batted it first this way and then that way, growing angrier and angrier. And all the time Danny Meadow Mouse managed to keep inside, although he got a terrible shaking up.
Back and forth across the patch of short gra.s.s Reddy knocked the old can, and he was in such a rage that he didn"t notice where he was knocking it to. Finally he sent it spinning into the long gra.s.s on the far side of the open patch, close to one of Danny"s private little paths. Like a flash Danny was out and scurrying along the little path. He dodged into another and presently into a third, which brought him to a tangle of barbed wire left there by Farmer Brown when he had built a new fence. Under this he was safe.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Like a flash, Danny dodged into a tangle of barbed wire_]
"Phew!" exclaimed Danny, breathing very hard. "That was the narrowest escape yet! But I guess I"ll get that special gra.s.s seed I started out for, after all."
And he did, while to this day Reddy Fox wonders how Danny got out of the old tomato can without his knowing it.
_And so you see what temper does For those who give it rein; It cheats them of the very thing They seek so hard to gain._
Danny has had many more adventures, but there isn"t room to tell about them here. Besides, Grandfather Frog is anxious that you should hear about the queer things that have happened to him.
They are told in the next book.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
_Bedtime Story-Books_
By THORNTON W. BURGESS
The Adventures of Reddy Fox The Adventures of Johnny Chuck The Adventures of Peter Cottontail The Adventures of Unc" Billy Possum The Adventures of Mr. Mocker The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse The Adventures of Grandfather Frog The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel The Adventures of Sammy Jay The Adventures of Buster Bear The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad The Adventures of p.r.i.c.kly Porky The Adventures of Old Man Coyote The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack The Adventures of Bobby c.o.o.n The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk The Adventures of Bob White The Adventures of Ol" Mistah Buzzard