VI
HOW OLD MR. SQUIRREL BECAME THRIFTY
Grandfather Frog sat on his big green lily-pad in the Smiling Pool and shook his head reprovingly at Peter Rabbit. Peter is such a happy-go-lucky little fellow that he never thinks of anything but the good time he can have in the present. He never looks ahead to the future. So of course Peter seldom worries. If the sun shines to-day, Peter takes it for granted that it will shine to-morrow; so he hops and skips and has a good time and just trusts to luck.
Now Grandfather Frog is very old and very wise, and he doesn't believe in luck. No, Sir, Grandfather Frog doesn't believe in luck.
"Chug-a-rum!" says Grandfather Frog, "Luck never just happens. What people call bad luck is just the result of their own foolishness or carelessness or both, and what people call good luck is just the result of their own wisdom and carefulness and common sense."
Peter Rabbit had been making fun of Happy Jack Squirrel because Happy Jack said that he had too much to do to stop and play that morning. Here it was summer, and winter was a long way off. What was summer for if not to play in and have a good time? Yet Happy Jack was already thinking of winter and was hunting for a new storehouse so as to have it ready when the time to fill it with nuts should come. It was much better to play and take sun-naps among the buttercups and daisies and just have a good time all day long.
"Chug-a-rum!" said Grandfather Frog, "Did you ever hear how old Mr. Squirrel learned thrift?"
"No," cried Peter Rabbit, stretching himself out in the soft grass on the edge of the Smiling Pool. "Do tell us about it. Please do, Grandfather Frog!"
You know Peter dearly loves a story.