THE SPIRIT OF FEAR
When the days grow cold and the nights are clear,
There stalks abroad the spirit of fear.
_Lightfoot the Deer._
It is sad but true. Autumn is often called the sad time of the year, and
it _is_ the sad time. But it shouldn't be. Old Mother Nature never
intended that it should be. She meant it to be the _glad_ time. It is
the time when all the little people of the Green Forest and the Green
Meadows have got over the cares and worries of bringing up families and
teaching their children how to look out for themselves. It is the
season when food is plentiful, and every one is fat and is, or ought to
be, care free. It is the season when Old Mother Nature intended all her
little people to be happy, to have nothing to worry them for the little
time before the coming of cold weather and the hard times which cold
weather always brings.
But instead of this, a grim, dark figure goes stalking over the Green
Meadows and through the Green Forest, and it is called the Spirit of
Fear. It peers into every hiding-place and wherever it finds one of the
little people it sends little cold chills over him, little chills which
jolly, round, bright Mr. Sun cannot chase away, though he shine his
brightest. All night as well as all day the Spirit of Fear searches out
the little people of the Green Meadows and the Green Forest. It will not
let them sleep. It will not let them eat in peace. It drives them to
seek new hiding-places and then drives them out of those. It keeps them
ever ready to fly or run at the slightest sound.
Peter Rabbit was thinking of this as he sat at the edge of the dear Old
Briar-patch, looking over to the Green Forest. The Green Forest was no
longer just green; it was of many colors, for Old Mother Nature had set
Jack Frost to painting the leaves of the maple-trees and the
beech-trees, and the birch-trees and the poplar-trees and the
chestnut-trees, and he had done his work well. Very, very lovely were
the reds and yellows and browns against the dark green of the pines and
the spruces and the hemlocks. The Purple Hills were more softly purple
than at any other season of the year. It was all very, very beautiful.
But Peter had no thought for the beauty of it all, for the Spirit of
Fear had visited even the dear Old Briar-patch, and Peter was afraid. It
wasn't fear of Reddy Fox, or Redtail the Hawk, or Hooty the Owl, or Old
Man Coyote. They were forever trying to catch him, but they did not
strike terror to his heart because he felt quite smart enough to keep
out of their clutches. To be sure, they gave him sudden frights
sometimes, when they happened to surprise him, but these frights lasted
only until he reached the nearest bramble-tangle or hollow log where
they could not get at him. But the fear that chilled his heart now never
left him even for a moment.
And Peter knew that this same fear was clutching at the hearts of Bob
White, hiding in the brown stubble; of Mrs. Grouse, squatting in the
thickest bramble-tangle in the Green Forest; of Uncle Billy Possum and
Bobby Coon in their hollow trees; of Jerry Muskrat in the Smiling Pool;
of Happy Jack Squirrel, hiding in the tree tops; of Lightfoot the Deer,
lying in the closest thicket he could find. It was even clutching at the
hearts of Granny and Reddy Fox and of great, big Buster Bear. It seemed
to Peter that no one was so big or so small that this terrible Spirit of
Fear had not searched him out.
Far in the distance sounded a sudden bang. Peter jumped and shivered. He
knew that every one else who had heard that bang had jumped and shivered
just as he had. It was the season of hunters with terrible guns. It was
man who had sent this terrible Spirit of Fear to chill the hearts of the
little meadow and forest people at this very time when Old Mother Nature
had made all things so beautiful and had intended that they should be
happiest and most free from care and worry. It was man who had made the
autumn a sad time instead of a glad time, the very saddest time of all
the year, when Old Mother Nature had done her best to make it the most
beautiful.
"I don't understand these men creatures," said Peter to little Mrs.
Peter, as they stared fearfully out from the dear Old Briar-patch. "They
seem to find pleasure, actually find pleasure, in trying to kill us. I
don't understand them at all. They haven't any hearts. That must be the
reason; they haven't any hearts."
[Illustration: "I don't understand these men creatures,"
said Peter to little Mrs. Peter.]