|DAY after day Peter Rabbit ran about this way and that over the Green
Meadows and through the Green Forest, as if he had something on his
mind. Jimmy Skunk noticed it. So did Billy Mink and Bobby Coon. But
Peter wouldn't stop to explain. Indeed, he was always in such a hurry
that he wouldn't stop at all, but when he met them would shout "Hello!"
over his shoulder and keep right on running, lip-perty-lipperty-lip.
Unc' Possum was the only one who guessed what it meant.
Unc' Billy grinned as he watched Peter running about with such a serious
and important air. "Brer Rabbit is trying dreadful hard to fool hisself.
Ah reckon he's looking fo' a place to curl up and try to sleep all
winter," said Unc' Billy.
Unc' Billy had guessed just right. Peter was looking for a place to
curl up to sleep all winter. Peter was too lazy to dig a new house for
himself. Then it was too late in the fall, anyway. He would just find
some old, deserted house that some of Jimmy Skunk's relatives or Johnny
Chuck's relations had given up using. So Peter went poking into every
old house he knew of, trying to find one that wasn't so tumble-down that
it wouldn't do. At last he found one that he thought would be just the
place, and Peter chuckled to himself as he planned how he would curl up
in the bedchamber, way down at the end of the long hall.
"Nobody'll ever guess where I am!" he said to himself and laughed aloud.
Then Peter remembered that Unc' Billy Possum had told him that it was
necessary to eat a great deal so as to be very fat before going to
sleep, for that was the way to keep warm all winter. So Peter started
out to grow fat. This would be fun, the very best kind of fun, for there
is nothing Peter Rabbit loves more than to fill his stomach, unless it
is to satisfy his curiosity.