PETER RABBIT'S RUN FOR LIFE
"I wish I hadn't run away," said Johnny Chuck dolefully, as he and Peter Rabbit peeped out from the sweet-clover patch and watched old Mrs. Chuck start for home with her market basket on her arm.
"You ought to think yourself lucky that your mother didn't find you here in the sweet-clover patch. If it hadn't been for me she would have," said Peter Rabbit.
Johnny Chuck's face grew longer and longer. His pants were torn, his leg was stiff and sore where old Mr. Marsh Hawk had scratched him that morning, but worse still his conscience pricked him. Yes, Sir, Johnny Chuck's conscience was pricking him hard, very hard indeed, because he had run away from home with Peter Rabbit after old Mrs. Chuck had told him not to leave the yard while she was away. Now he didn't know the way home.
"Peter Rabbit, I want to go home," said Johnny Chuck suddenly. "Isn't there a short cut so that I can get home before my mother does?"
"No, there isn't," said Peter Rabbit. "And if there was what good would it do you? Old Mrs. Chuck would see that tear in your pants and then you'd catch it!"
"I don't care. Please won't you show me the way home, Peter Rabbit?" begged Johnny Chuck.
Peter Rabbit yawned lazily as he replied: "What's the use of going now? You'll catch it anyway, so you might as well stay and have all fun you can. Say, I know a dandy old house up on the hill. Jimmy Skunk used to live there, but no one lives in it now. Let's go up and see it. It's a dandy place."
Now right down in his heart Johnny Chuck knew that he ought to go home, but he couldn't go unless Peter Rabbit would show him the way, and then he did want to see that old house. Perhaps Peter Rabbit was right (in his heart he knew that he wasn't) and he had better have all the fun he could. So Johnny Chuck followed Peter Rabbit up the hill to the old house of Jimmy Skunk.
Cobwebs covered the doorway. Johnny Chuck was going to brush them away, but Peter Rabbit stopped him. "Let's see if there isn't a back door," said he. "Then we can use that, and if Bowser the Hound or Farmer Brown's boy comes along and finds this door they'll think no one ever lives here any more and you'll be safer than if you were right in your own home."