his hands. He was almost too much surprised to even think.



CHAPTER VIII Peter Rabbit Gets a Ducking.

Farmer Brown's boy sat with his chin in his hands staring at the
new pond in the Green Forest and at the dam which had made it.
That dam puzzled him. Who could have built it? What did they
build it for? Why hadn't he heard them chopping? He looked
carelessly at the stump of one of the trees, and then a still
more puzzled look made deep furrows between his eyes. It looked--
yes, it looked very much as if teeth, and not an axe, had cut
down that tree. Farmer Brown's boy stared and stared, his mouth
gaping wide open. He looked so funny that Peter Rabbit, who was
hiding under an old pile of brush close by, nearly laughed right
out.

But Peter didn't laugh. No, Sir, Peter didn't laugh, for just
that very minute something happened. Sniff! Sniff! That was right
behind him at the very edge of the old brushpile, and every hair
on Peter stood on end with fright.

"Bow, wow, wow!" It seemed to Peter that the great voice was
right in his very ears. It frightened him so that he just had to
jump. He didn't have time to think. And so he jumped right out
from under the pile of brush and of course right into plain
sight. And the very instant he jumped there came another great
roar behind him. Of course it was from Bowser the Hound. You see,
Bowser had been following the trail of his master, but as he