“Wouw!” he whimpered as he hit it. But it was too late to stop. “Crash!” he went right through it and landed plump on the floor of a wagon that stood beneath it. Then he went galloping off to the woods as fast as he could go, holding up first one foot and then the other, for he couldn’t make up his mind where he was hurt the most. And his nose felt as if a bee had lit on it, and his eyes were so bunged up he could hardly see where he was going, and he had a new slit in the ear Mrs. Hooter had nipped—he was pretty badly damaged. And he was grinding his teeth and blaming poor Nibble Rabbit for every bit of it. For no one who thinks himself as clever as Silvertip can get into trouble without finding some way to think somebody else made him do it.
“Aourgh!” barked Watch excitedly. And then of course Nibble knew he was perfectly safe, and he wanted to come out from under the Red Cow’s manger, where he had hidden, to see what was happening. But the naughty little calf was so excited he was dancing around and bunting at everything in sight. His mother had to give him some more breakfast before he’d stand still a single minute.
There was Nibble, perched on top of the partition.
By that time Silvertip was away off down the Pasture and Watch had squeezed under the door again. He was bound to catch that fox, but he knew more than to go jumping through windows after him.
So Nibble just hopped up on the manger and from there onto the high partition and stretched out his inquisitive nose where the glass had been. There wasn’t much left for him to snub it against, I can tell you. And the wind blew through it so hard that it laid his ears flat back.
“What is it?” demanded the Red Cow. She was learning to be curious, too, and that’s the first step to being wise and sensible.
“It’s awfully hard,” Nibble answered. “I can bite ice, but I can’t bite this.”
Just then who should open the door but Tommy Peele with the Red Cow’s breakfast.
Right away he saw the glass was broken. But he wasn’t angry at all. He just said, “Did you do that?” But he picked up every bit that had fallen inside so folks wouldn’t cut their feet on it, and then he went around to pick up what was outside, too. And he found some blood and a big tuft of Silvertip’s hair on the wagon-box.