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Show PETER'S BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT DISAPPOINT-MENT By TflORNTON W. BURGESS Bt nbl too sure lest at the laxt Grim dlsappoinfment grips you fast, Peter Kabbit. For the first time slnoe he had be- Icome entangled in the net which cov-ered cov-ered Farmer Brown's strawberry bed, Peter Rabbil was almost happy T" he sure he was t prisoner in a pen in , inner Urown's henyard. But even that was better than ljdng helpless, wound up in a net. Besides, Peter didn't Intend to remain a prisoner long. Ho was sure that ho could dig down under that wire pen and then under the fence of the henyard, and once morc be free. So Peter made the dirt fly In one corner of that pen. Down he wont for about a foot and a half. Then his busy little paws felt something that they COUld not dig through. It was wire' res, sir, it w is more of that wire netting net-ting out of which the sides and top of the pen were made! At first Peter couldn't believe It. But presently he had to believe it. He simply couldn't dig any deeper. Such Id disappointed Rabbit! If Petor were i glyen to crying he would havo cried 'hen You see be bad been so sure that he could get out that way that It Ka'dn I entered his head that anything coUld stop him. Yee, indeed, It was a bitter disappointment. But Peter didn't give up. He dug a hole in another corner of the pen. The result was the same. Again he found that provoking viro. In turn, he irli d each of the other corners. Each time he was disappointed. Finally he dug a hole right In the middle of the pen. But fared no better than before. I Then he gave up. He was tJred. His feet were sore. He was the most dis appointed Kabbit In the Great World. So he crept into the box in the corner where he was quite out of sight and nobody could see. How very, very i miserable he felt! Peter couldn't understand this thing at all. Boots or stones in the way down underground he would havo understood. un-derstood. He would havo know n what to do. He would 'have gnawed off roots and he would have dug around stones. But this thing that stopped i him he could neither gnaw nor dig around. How It came to be under-I under-I ground, he couldn't understand. Later in the day. Farmer Brown's I Boy came for a look at Peter to see how he wa-s getting alon- At once he saw the holes Peter had dug. He chuckled. "I thought as much," said he "I knew just what you would do as soon as you were left alone That Is why I made this pen with a w Ire bottom and then filled It In part way I wjth earth. I can't afford to hav I such a mischievous scamp as you run-'ning run-'ning about where you can get into my 'garden. You have done mischief i enough there already. You will have to stay here until things In that garden gar-den have grown. I don't want to keep I you a prisoner, but I'll have to. Yea, sir, I'll have to." So Farmer Brown's Boy put in ome ' nice things for Peter to eat and onco ! more left him. Peter didn't come out i until after dark. He didn't like to be stared at by those hens In the henvard Then too he felt so badly that he I wanted to keep out of sight. He had He simply couldn't dig any deeper. H the feeling that somehow things might H be different after dark. But they H were not. He went ail around that H pen. Inch by Inch, but everywhere h H wras met by that hateful w ho He was H a prisoner with no chance of cscap- H lng. Poor, disappointed Peter Rab- H : bit! (Copyright, 1922, by T. "W. Burgessi. I The Next Story: "Sammv Jav Spies H Peter" oo H |
