THE SHADOW WITH SHARP CLAWS
Now what's the use, pray tell me this,
When all is said and done;
A thousand things and one to learn
And then forget the one?
For when that one alone you need,
And nothing else will do,
What good are all the thousand then?
I do not see; do you?
Peter Rabbit.
Forgetting leads to more trouble than almost anything under the sun.
Peter Rabbit knew this. Of course he knew it. Peter had had many a
narrow escape just from forgetting something. He knew just as well as
you know that he might just as well not learn a thing as to learn it and
then forget it. But Peter is such a happy-go-lucky little fellow that
he is very apt to forget, and forgetting leads him into all kinds of
difficulties, just as it does most folks.
Now Peter had learned when he was a very little fellow that when he went
out at night, he must watch out quite as sharply for Hooty the Owl as
for either Granny or Reddy Fox, and usually he did. But the night he
started to make a journey to the Old Pasture, his mind was so full of
Old Man Coyote and Granny and Reddy Fox that he wholly forgot
Hooty the Owl. So, as he scampered across the Green Meadows,
lipperty--lipperty--lip, as fast as he could go, with his long ears
and his big eyes and his wobbly nose all watching out for danger on the
ground, not once did he think that there might be danger from the sky
above him.
It was a moonlight night, and Peter was sharp enough to keep in the
shadows whenever he could. He would scamper as fast as he knew how from
one shadow to another and then sit down in the blackest part of each
shadow to get his breath, and to look and listen and so make sure that
no one was following him. The nearer he got to the Old Pasture, the
safer he felt from Old Man Coyote and Granny and Reddy Fox. When he
scampered across the patches of moonshine his heart didn't come up in
his mouth the way it had at first. He grew bolder and bolder. Once or
twice he stopped for a mouthful of sweet clover. He was tired, for he
had come a long way, but he was almost to the Old Pasture now, and it
looked very dark and safe, for it was covered with bushes and brambles.
“Plenty of hiding places there,” thought Peter. “It really looks as safe
as the dear Old Briar-patch. No one will ever think to look for me way
off here.”
Just then he spied a patch of sweet clover out in the moonlight. His
mouth began to water. “I'll just fill my stomach before I go into the
Old Pasture, for there may not be any clover there,” said Peter.
“You'd better be careful, Peter Rabbit,” said a wee warning voice inside
him.
“Pooh!” said Peter. “There's nothing to be afraid of way up here!”
A shadow drifted across the sweet clover patch. Peter saw it. “That must
be made by a cloud crossing the moon,” said Peter, and he was so sure of
it that he didn't even look up to see, but boldly hopped out to fill his
stomach. Just as he reached the patch of clover, the shadow drifted over
it again. Then all in a flash a terrible thought entered Peter's head.
He didn't stop to look up. He suddenly sprang sideways, and even as he
did so, sharp claws tore his coat and hurt him dreadfully. He twisted
and dodged and jumped and turned this way and that way, and all the time
the shadow followed him. Once again sharp claws tore his coat and made
him squeal with pain.
[Illustration: HE DODGED AND JUMPED, AND ALL THE TIME THE SHADOW
FOLLOWED HIM.]
At last, when his breath was almost gone, he reached the edge of the Old
Pasture and dived under a friendly old bramble-bush.
“Oh,” sobbed Peter, “I forgot all about Hooty the Owl! Besides, I didn't
suppose he ever came way up here.”