careless or he never would have gone so near to the old tree
trunk behind which Farmer Brown's boy was hiding.

But old Granny Fox didn't know this. She never makes such
mistakes herself. Oh, my, no! So now, as she came up over the
hill to a place where she could see her home, she laid the
chicken down and then she crept behind a little bush and looked
all over the Green Meadows to see if the way was clear. She knew
that Bowser the Hound was chained up. She had seen Farmer Brown
and Farmer Brown's boy hoeing in the cornfield, so she had
nothing to fear from them.

Looking over to her doorstep, she saw Reddy Fox lying in the sun,
and then she saw something else, something that made her eyes
flash and her teeth come together with a snap. It was Peter
Rabbit sitting up very straight, not ten feet from Reddy Fox.

"So that's that young scamp of a Peter Rabbit whom Reddy was
going to catch for me when I was sick and couldn't! I'll just
show Reddy Fox how easily it can be done, and he shall have
tender young rabbit with his chicken!" said Granny Fox to
herself.

So first she studied and studied every clump of grass and every
bush behind which she could creep. She saw that she could get
almost to where Peter Rabbit was sitting and never once show
herself to him. Then she looked this way and looked that way to
make sure that no one was watching her.

No one did she see on the Green Meadows who was looking her way.