of one's self. And Reddy Fox had the habit. Oh, my, yes! Reddy
Fox certainly did have the habit! When anyone mentioned Bowser
the Hound, Reddy would turn up his nose and say: "Pooh! It's the
easiest thing in the world to fool him."

You see, he had forgotten all about the time Bowser had fooled
him at the railroad bridge.

Whenever Reddy saw Farmer Brown's boy he would say with the
greatest scorn: "Who's afraid of him? Not I!"

So as Reddy Fox thought more and more of his own smartness, he
grew bolder and bolder. Almost every night he visited Farmer
Brown's henyard. Farmer Brown set traps all around the yard, but
Reddy always found them and kept out of them. It got so that Unc'
Billy Possum and Jimmy Skunk didn't dare go to the henhouse for
eggs any more, for fear that they would get into one of the traps
set for Reddy Fox. Of course they missed those fresh eggs and of
course they blamed Reddy Fox.

"Never mind," said Jimmy Skunk, scowling down on the Green
Meadows where Reddy Fox was taking a sun bath, "Farmer Brown's
boy will get him yet! I hope he does!" Jimmy said this a little
spitefully and just as if he really meant it.

Now when people think that they are very, very smart, they like
to show off. You know it isn't any fun at all to feel smart
unless others can see how smart you are. So Reddy Fox, just to
show off, grew very bold, very bold indeed. He actually went up
to Farmer Brown's henyard in broad daylight, and almost under the