You will not be about.
|IT is bad enough to find out for yourself that you have made a mistake,
but to have other people know it makes you feel a great deal worse. So
the kindest thing that any one can do when they know a friend has made a
mistake and it is too late to warn them, is to appear not to know of it
at all. So it wasn't nice at all of Peter Rabbit to hang around watching
that old hollow log into which Bobby Coon had crawled for a nap.
Presently Peter's long ears caught sounds from inside that hollow log.
First there was a rattling and rustling. Then came a series of grunts
and squeaks. These were followed by growls and snarls. The latter were
from Bobby Coon. He was insisting that he was going to stay right where
he was and wouldn't move an inch for any one. Peter clapped one hand
over his mouth to keep from laughing aloud when he heard that, and he
fastened his eyes, very big and round with expectation, on the opening
in the end of the hollow log. You see, Peter knew all about that log and
who lived there. That is what he had tried to tell Bobby Coon. He could
hear Bobby declaring:
“I won't move a step, not a single step. You can stay right where you
are until I finish my nap. If you come any nearer, I'll--”
Peter didn't hear the rest, if indeed Bobby finished what he had started
to say. You see, Bobby was interrupted by a great rattling and rustling
and a grunt that sounded both angry and very business-like. Once more
Bobby growled and snarled and declared he wouldn't move a step, but
Peter noticed that Bobby's voice seemed to come from nearer the open
end of the log than before. Again there was a grunt and a rattling and
rustling.
Then out of the end of the old log backed Bobby Coon, still growling
and snarling and declaring he wouldn't move a step. It was too funny for
Peter to hold in any longer. He had to laugh. He couldn't help it.
Then the black nose and little dull eyes of Prickly Porky the Porcupine
appeared. In each of those little dull eyes there was just a wee spark
of anger which made them less dull than usual. It was plain that Prickly
Porky was provoked.
[Ill 0009]
As soon as he was outside, he made the thousand little spears which he
carries hidden in his coat stand on end, and made a quick little rush
towards Bobby Coon. Bobby turned tail and ran. The sight of those
sharp-pointed little spears was too much for him. He was afraid of them.
Everybody is afraid of them, even big Buster Bear. It was these little
spears brushing against the inside of the old log that had made the
rattling and rustling Peter had heard.
“The impudence of that Coon to walk into my house and go to sleep
without so much as asking if he might, and then telling me that I can't
come out until he says so! The impudence of him!” grunted Prickly Porky,
rattling his thousand little spears.
As for Bobby Coon, he realized now the great mistake he had made in not
first finding out whether any one was at home in that old log before
trying to take a nap there. It mortified him to think he had been so
careless as to make such a mistake, and it mortified him still more to
know that Peter Rabbit had seen all that had happened.