Читать книгу THORNTON BURGESS Ultimate Collection: 37 Children's Books & Bedtime Stories with Original Illustrations - Thornton Burgess - Страница 341

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No matter how you feel inside

Hold up your head! Call up your pride!

Stand fast! Look brave! Then none will guess

The fear you feel, but won't confess.

Jimmy Skunk learned this when he was a very little fellow. Now he isn't afraid of much of anything, but there was a time when he was. Oh, my, yes! There was a time when he first started out to see the world, and before he had found out that all the world is afraid of that little bag of scent he always carries with him, when Jimmy often was as frightened as Peter Rabbit ever is, and you know Peter is very easily frightened. But Jimmy used to think of that little verse, and though sometimes he had to shut his mouth as tightly as he knew how to keep his teeth from chattering with fear, he would hold up his head, stand fast, and look brave. What do you think happened? Why, in a little while people began to say that Jimmy Skunk wasn't afraid of anything, and so no one tried to bother him. Of course when he found this out, Jimmy wasn't afraid.

But Reddy Fox is different. He dearly loves to tell how brave he is. He brags and boasts. But when he finds himself in a place where he is afraid, he shows it. Yes, Sir, he shows it. Reddy Fox has never learned to stand fast and look brave. When Reddy had first been told that the stranger with the voice which had sounded so terrible in the night was Old Man Coyote from the Great West, and that he had decided to make his home on the Green Meadows, Reddy had said: “Pooh! I'm not afraid of him!” and had swelled himself up and strutted back and forth as if he really meant it. But all the time Reddy took care, the very greatest care, to keep out of the way of Old Man Coyote.

Of course, some one told Digger the Badger what Reddy had said, and Digger told Old Man Coyote, who just grinned and said nothing. But he noticed how careful Reddy was to keep out of his way, and he made up his mind that he would like to meet Reddy and find out how brave he really was. So one moonlight night he hid behind a big log near one of Reddy's favorite hunting places. Pretty soon Reddy came tiptoeing along, watching for foolish young mice. Just a little while before he had heard the voice of Old Man Coyote way over on the edge of the Old Pasture, so he never once thought of meeting him here. Just as he passed the end of the old log, a deep voice in the black shadow said:

“Good evening, Brother Fox.” Reddy whirled about. His heart seemed to come right up in his throat. It was too late to run, for there was Old Man Coyote right in front of him. Reddy tried to swell himself up just as he so often did before the little people who were afraid of him, but somehow he couldn't. “Go-good evening, Mr. Coyote,” he replied, but his voice sounded very weak. “I hear you've come to make your home on the Green Meadows. I-I hope we will be the best of friends.”

“Of course we will,” replied Old Man Coyote. “I'm always the best of friends with those who are not afraid of me, and I hear that you are not afraid of anybody.”

“N-no, I-I'm not afraid of anybody,” said Reddy. “Everybody is afraid of me.” All the time he was speaking, he was slowly backing away, and in spite of his bold words, he was shaking with fear. Old Man Coyote saw it and he chuckled to himself.

“I'm not, Brother Fox!” he suddenly snapped, in a deep, horrid sounding voice. “Gr-r-r-r-r, I'm not!” As he said it, all the hair along his back stood on end, and he showed all his great, cruel-looking teeth.

Instead of holding his ground as Jimmy Skunk would have done, Reddy leaped backward, tripped over his own tail, fell, and then scrambled to his feet with a frightened yelp, and ran as he had never run before in all his life. And as he ran, he heard Old Man Coyote laughing, and all the Green Meadows and the Green Forest heard it:

“Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha! Hee, hee, hee! Ho, ha, hee, ho! Reddy Fox isn't afraid! Ho, ho!”

Reddy ground his teeth in rage, but he kept on running.