The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-07-12

| A DREADFUL NIGHT
 The mischievous will find some day That for their mischief they must pay.
 | Farmer Browns Boy. l Old MT. Toad stayed with Peter
 Rabbit for a while and then went l about his business. promising to come | back again soon. Once more Peter
 was alone. You remember that he
 was prisoner wound up in net in
 Farmer Browns strawberry bed. He no longer struggled to get free. for
 he had found that the more he strug-
 gied the more wound up in thAL net he became
 Peter heard light footsteps, and once
 more held his breath. This time 1t was Jimmy Skunk. Peter could see
 the white stripe on Jimmy's coat as he dug out white grubs along the edge Of the strawberry bed. Jimmy was very careful not to step in that net. He was So busy hunting for white grubs that he failed to notice anything unusual in the middle of the strawberry bed. Peter held his tongue. He was not quite certain what Jimmy Skunk would do should he discover him there so helpless After long time Jimmy disao- peared. Peter sighed thankfully. Then for awhile nothing happened. But all the time Peter lay listening for the
 sound of more footsteps. By and by he heard them. Being wound up fin the net, of course, he couldn't sit up to look. Nearer and nearer came the footsteps. Then Peter heard a faint sniff. It seemed to him as if his heart stopped beating right then and there. He couldn't see, but he knew by that sniff who it was. It was Reddy Fox. Peter had no hope at aia now. Finding him helpless that way, Reddy would certainly make an end of him.
 But Reddy didn't He sat down at a little distance and with his head cooked on one side looked at Petor. He was suspicious. Ho was very of a trap. The thing that had caught Peter Rabbit might catch him. By
 and by he slowly went up to the edge of the strawberry bed and sniffed at that net. He didn't like the smell of it. If Peter had been near the edge, Reddy might have taken a chance, but Peter was in the very
 middle of that strawberry bed. Rcddy
 simply didn't dare to try to walk over that net to him.
 That was a dreadful night for PVter
 Rabbit. It seemed to him 1t never would end Twice Reddy Fox went away. and twice he came back. He went all around that trawberry bed hoping to find way to reach Peter without having to walk over that net. But there was no way, and the more he saw of the helplessness of Peter Rabbit the more he suspected a trap. Reddy tried to study the thing out. but 1t was as strange to him as 1t was to Peter. He knew that 1t had some
 thing to do with man, and that made him all the more suspicious. So he couldn't get up his courage to do any thing more than prowl around the edge of that strawberry bed and do his best to frighten Peter Rabbit to death. The net which had caught
 Peter was now keeping him safe. Of course Peter didn't understand this.
 He might have felt little better if
 he had.
 At last the Black Shadows began
 to retreat. It was time for jolly.
 round, red MT. Sun to kick off his
 rosy blankets and begin his daily
 climb up 1 nthe blue. blue sky. inen Reddy Fox turned and trotted away
 towards the Old Pasture. The dread full night was at an end. but Peter
 dreaded the coming of the day. He
 was afraid that that would be even
 more dreadful than night had been. Why. oh why did I listen to Old My. Temptation?" moaned Peter. (Copyright. 1922. by T. w. Burgess)