One morning Peter Rabbit, coming down the Lone Little Path for his usual morning call, found a terrible state of affairs. Poor little Mrs. Grouse was heartbroken. All about the foot of the Great Pine lay the empty shells of their beautiful eggs. They had been broken and scattered this way and that.
“How did it happen?” asked Peter Rabbit.
“I don’t know,” sobbed poor little Mrs. Grouse. “In the night when I was fast asleep something pounced upon me. I managed to get away and fly up in the top of the Great Pine. In the morning I found all my eggs broken, just as you see them here.”
Peter Rabbit looked the ground over very carefully. He hunted around behind the Great Pine, he looked under the bushes, he studied the ground with a very wise air. Then he hopped off down the Lone Little Path to the Green Meadows. He stopped at the house of Johnny Chuck.
“What makes your eyes so big and round?” asked Johnny Chuck. Peter Rabbit came very close so as to whisper in Johnny Chuck’s ear, and told him all that he had seen. Together they went to Jimmy Skunk’s house. Jimmy Skunk was in bed. He was very sleepy and very cross when he came to the door. Peter Rabbit told him what he had seen.
“Too bad! Too bad!” said Jimmy Skunk, and yawned sleepily.
“Won’t you join us in trying to find out who did it?” asked Johnny Chuck.
Jimmy Skunk said he would be delighted to come, but that he had some other business that morning and he would join them in the afternoon. Peter Rabbit and Johnny Chuck went on. Pretty soon they met the Merry Little Breezes and told them the dreadful story.
“What shall we do?” asked Johnny Chuck.
“We’ll hurry over, and tell Old Dame Nature,” cried the Merry Little Breezes, “and ask her what to do.”