Old Granny Fox | Page 9

themselves do ill For others seldom have good will.

CHAPTER IX
: Reddy Fox Hears About Granny Fox
Though you may think another wrong And be quite positive you're
right, Don't let your temper get away; And try at least to be polite. - Old
Granny Fox.
Sammy Jay hurried through the Green Forest, chuckling as he flew.
Sammy was brimming over with the news he had to tell, -- how Old
Granny Fox had been caught napping by Farmer Brown's boy. Sammy
wouldn't have believed it if any one had told him. No, Sir, he wouldn't.

But he had seen it with his own eyes, and it tickled him almost to
pieces to think that Old Granny Fox, whom everybody thought so sly
and clever and smart, had been caught actually asleep by the very one
of whom she was most afraid, but at whom she always had turned up
her nose.
Presently Sammy spied Reddy Fox trotting along the Lone Little Path.
Reddy was forever boasting of how smart Granny Fox was. He had
boasted of it so much that everybody was sick of hearing him. When he
saw Reddy trotting along the Lone Little Path, Sammy chuckled harder
than ever. He hid in a thick hemlock-tree and as Reddy passed he
shouted:
"Had I such a stupid old Granny As some folks who think they are
smart, I never would boast of my Granny, But live by myself quite
apart!"
Reddy looked up angrily. He couldn't see Sammy Jay, but he knew
Sammy's voice. There is no mistaking that. Everybody knows the voice
of Sammy Jay. Of course it was foolish, very foolish of Reddy to be
angry, and still more foolish to show that he was angry. Had he stopped
a minute to think, he would have known that Sammy was saying such a
mean, provoking thing just to make him angry, and that the angrier he
became the better pleased Sammy Jay would be. But like a great many
people, Reddy allowed his temper to get the better of his common
sense.
"Who says Granny Fox is stupid?" he snarled.
"I do," replied Sammy Jay promptly. "I say she is stupid."
"She is smarter than anybody else in all the Green Forest and on all the
Green Meadows. She is smarter than anybody else in all the Great
World," boasted Reddy, and he really believed it.
"She isn't smart enough to fool Farmer Brown's boy," taunted Sammy.
"What's that? Who says so? Has anything happened to Granny Fox?"
Reddy forgot his anger in a sudden great fear. Could Granny have been
shot by Farmer Brown's boy?
"Nothing much, only Farmer Brown's boy caught her napping in broad
daylight," replied Sammy, and chuckled so that Reddy heard him.
"I don't believe it!" snapped Reddy. "I don't believe a word of it!
Nobody ever yet caught Old Granny Fox napping, and nobody ever
will."

"I don't care whether you believe it or not; it's so, for I saw him,"
retorted Sammy Jay.
"You -- you -- you --" began Reddy Fox.
"Go ask Tommy Tit the Chickadee if it isn't true. He saw him too,"
interrupted Sammy Jay.
"Dee, dee, dee, Chickadee! It's so, and Farmer Brown's boy only threw
a snowball at her and let her run away without shooting at her,"
declared a new voice. There sat Tommy Tit himself.
Reddy didn't know what to think or say. He just couldn't believe it, yet
he had never known Tommy Tit to tell an untruth. Sammy Jay alone he
wouldn't have believed. Then Tommy Tit and Sammy Jay told Reddy
all about what they had seen, how Farmer Brown's boy had surprised
Old Granny Fox and then allowed her to go unharmed. Reddy had to
believe it. If Tommy Tit said it was so, it must be so. Reddy Fox started
off to hunt up Old Granny Fox and ask her about it. But a sudden
thought popped into his red head, and he changed his mind.
"I won't say a thing about it until some time when Granny scolds me
for being careless," muttered Reddy, with a sly grin. "Then I'll see what
she has to say. I guess she won't scold me so much after this."
Reddy grinned more than ever, which wasn't a bit nice of him. Instead
of being sorry that Old Granny Fox had had such a fright, he was
planning how he would get even with her when she should scold him
for his own carelessness.

CHAPTER X
: Reddy Fox Is Impudent
A saucy tongue is dangerous to possess; Be sure some day 't will get
you in a mess. - Old Granny Fox.
Reddy Fox is headstrong and, like most headstrong people, is given to
thinking that his