TURNCOAT isn't considered a very nice name to call any one. You see, it is supposed to mean one who has turned traitor, as it were; has been on one side and gone over to the other side. If a soldier who is fighting for France should go over to the German army and fight for Germany against France, he would be a turncoat. Benedict Arnold, of whom you have read in history, was a turncoat. But the meaning isn't always bad. Just take the case of Jumper the Hare. In summer he wears a coat of brown, but in winter he wears a coat of white, the white of the pure driven snow. So you see he is a turncoat, but in his case it doesn't mean anything bad at all. On the contrary, it means something rather nice and very interesting.
Now you know Jumper is the cousin of Peter Rabbit and looks very much like Peter, save that he is very much larger and has longer hind legs and longer ears. But Peter wears the same little homely brown coat in winter that he does in summer, the only difference being that it is thicker and so warmer. I am afraid that Peter has sometimes let a little envy creep into his heart when he has met his cousin wearing a coat of pure white. Be that as it may, Peter puzzled over the matter a great deal until he found out from Grandfather Frog how it happens that Jumper has such a lovely winter coat.
It happened one evening in early June, when Peter was hopping along down the Lone Little Path through the Green Forest, that he met Jumper and stopped to gossip for a few minutes. He had not seen Jumper since gentle Sister South. Wind had swept away the last of the winter snow. Then Jumper's coat had been white; now it was brown. This reminded Peter that he never had been able to tease Jumper into telling him how he could change his coat that way. None of Peter's other friends of the winter seemed to know, for he had asked all of them, and each had told him to ask Grandfather Frog. Of course, Peter couldn't do that in winter because Grandfather Frog was then fast asleep in the mud at the bottom of the Smiling Pool. With the coming of spring he had forgotten all about the matter. Now at the sight of Jumper once more, it all came back to him.
When Peter and Jumper parted, Peter started for the Smiling Pool, lip-perty-lipperty-lip. He arrived there quite out of breath. Grandfather Frog smiled a big, broad smile. Before Peter could say a word Grandfather Frog spoke.
“If you will catch a foolish green fly for me, Peter, Ill tell you the story,” said he.
For a full minute Peter couldn't find his tongue, he was so surprised. “How do you know what story I want?” he stammered at last.
“I don't know, but that doesn't make any difference,” replied Grandfather Frog. “Catch me a foolish green fly, and I'll tell you any story you want.”
“But—but—but I can't catch foolish green flies,” cried Peter. “I would if I could, but I can't, and you know I can't.”
“You can try,” replied Grandfather Frog gruffly, but with a twinkle in his eyes which Peter didn't see.
Peter hesitated. Then suddenly he shut his lips in a way that meant that he had made up his mind to something. He looked this way and that way. Whichever way he looked he saw foolish green flies flitting about. He jumped for one and missed it. He jumped for another and missed it. It was the beginning of such a funny performance that Grandfather Frog nearly rolled off his big green lily-pad with laughter. Peter raced and jumped this way and that way on the banks of the Smiling Pool as if he had gone quite crazy, and at last in his excitement jumped right into the Smiling Pool itself after a foolish green fly. But not one did he catch.