"'But you'd have stood there like a silly till your head was shot off if it hadn't been for Mr. Crow,' I said, just a bit provoked because Jimmy seemed to take all the credit of the escape to himself.
"'How do you know?' he asked, speaking as pert as ever did Cheeko. 'You can't tell, but I was getting ready to jump at the very minute Mr. Crow came sailing around, as if he'd gone crazy.'
"Now what do you think of such talk as that from a fellow who had barely pulled through by the skin of his teeth? I didn't waste any more time on him, but walked off, and then was the time that I killed Grandfather Fox. You see the old fellow had been after my scalp more times than I've got claws on my paws, and it so happened that I always gave him the slip without trying very hard; but Mrs. Bunny had said to me over and over again:
"'Don't crow, Bunny; at least, don't crow so loud. Don't you know that pride goeth before a fall? Some day you'll meet Grandfather Fox where he'll have the best of it, and then Sonny will be without a father.'
"I made believe laugh, when Mrs. Bunny said such things, but 'way down in my heart I was frightened, for it stood to reason that I couldn't always expect to come off best when I ran up against an old villain like him. But what could I do? You wouldn't expect that I'd stay at home every minute just because of being scared. Why, everybody in the big woods would be laughing at me worse than ever; they say now that I'm afraid of my own shadow, but it isn't true, as any one who ever saw me dancing in the moonlight can testify. Besides, it is my business as the head of the family to do the marketing, and if I laid at home snug Mrs. Bunny and Sonny would stand a chance of starving to death.
"You can put it down in your hat that I was mighty cautious, however, whenever I went out, for I said to myself that if Grandfather Fox ever got his teeth into my back it wouldn't be owing to my own carelessness.
"Well, as I was saying, I walked away when Jimmy Hedgehog began to make so much foolish talk, and just for the moment had forgotten all about that miserable fox, when whom should I see staring straight at me but the old fellow himself, and by the way he was licking his chops I knew he felt certain I was his meat at last. But the matter wasn't settled by considerable, for he was on one side of a barbed-wire fence and I on the other, so there was something to be done before he could put me into a pie.
"You can make up your mind that I did a power of thinking in a few seconds, and even if I am just the least little bit cowardly when it comes to fighting, I'm a master hand at finding my way out of a bad scrape. That very morning I had seen Mr. Man and his boy Tommy setting a big steel trap down at the edge of the swamp on the very side of the fence I then was, and it seemed to me as if it might do me a world of good just at that time.
"'Good-morning, Grandfather,' I said, mild as milk, and staring at the wicked old fellow as if he were the best friend a lone rabbit could possibly have.
"'How well you look, Bunny,' he said, opening his mouth till I could see every tooth he had, and knew he was longing to stick them into me. 'I don't believe I ever saw a prettier coat than the one you have on. There was a time, after you had met the 'Squire, when it was rather ragged.'