She began teaching him when he was so little that
he tumbled over his own feet. It was she who taught him how to hunt,
that it is better never to steal chickens near home but to go a long
way off for them, and how to fool Bowser the Hound.
It was Granny who taught Reddy how to use his little black nose to
follow the tracks of careless young Rabbits, and how to catch Meadow
Mice under the snow. In fact, there is little Reddy knows which he
didn't learn from wise, shrewd Old Granny Fox.
But as he grew bigger and bigger, until he was quite as big as
Granny herself, he forgot what he owed to her. He grew to have a
very good opinion of himself and to feel that he knew just about all
there was to know. So sometimes when he had done foolish or
careless things and Granny had scolded him, telling him he was big
enough and old enough to know better, he would sulk and go off
muttering to himself. But he never quite dared to be openly
disrespectful to Granny, and this, of course, was quite as it should
have been.
"If only I could catch Granny doing something foolish or careless,"
he would say to himself. But he never could, and he had begun to
think that he never would. But now at last Granny, clever Old
Granny Fox, had been careless! She had allowed Farmer Brown's boy to
catch her napping! Reddy did wish he had been there to see it himself.
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