Striped Chipmunk helped him back to his doorstep and cut funny capers while Mother Meadow Mouse bound up the hurt foot, and all the time Danny Meadow Mouse laughed until pretty soon he forgot that his foot ached at all.
When Peter Rabbit came jumping along up the Lone Little Path he began to shout as soon as he saw Danny Meadow Mouse:
"Cry, Danny, cry!
Mammy'll whip you by and by!
Then we'll all come 'round to see
How big a baby you can be.
Cry, Danny, cry!"
But Danny didn't cry. My, no! He laughed instead. Peter Rabbit was so surprised that he stopped to see what had come over Danny Meadow Mouse. When he saw the bandaged foot and heard how Danny had twisted his ankle Peter Rabbit sat right down on the doorstep beside Danny Meadow Mouse and told him how sorry he was, for happy-go-lucky Peter Rabbit is very tender-hearted. Then he told Danny all about the wonderful things he had seen in his travels, and of all the scrapes he had gotten into. When Peter Rabbit finally started off home Danny Meadow Mouse still sat on his doorstep. But no longer was he lonely. He watched Old Mother West Wind trying to gather her Merry Little Breezes into her big bag to take to their home behind the Purple Hills, and he laughed right out when he saw her catch the last mischievous Little Breeze and tumble him, heels over head, in with the others.
"Old Mr. Toad was right, just exactly right," thought Danny Meadow Mouse, as he rocked to and fro on his doorstep. "It is much better, oh very much better, to laugh than to cry."
And since that day when Danny Meadow Mouse learned to laugh, no one has had a chance to point a finger at him and call him a cry-baby. Instead every one has learned to love merry little Danny Meadow Mouse, and now they call him "Laughing Dan."