Peter thinks a great deal of his stomach. So he began to eat as fast as
he could, stopping every other mouthful to look and listen. "I know it's
a bad habit to eat fast," said he, "but it's a whole lot worse to have
an empty stomach." So he ate and ate and ate as fast as he could make
his little jaws go, which is very fast indeed.

When Peter's stomach was stuffed full he gave a great sigh of relief and
limped back to the friendly old bramble-bush to rest. But he couldn't
sit still long, for he just had to find out all about the Old Pasture.
So pretty soon he started out to explore. Such a wonderful place as it
seemed to Peter! There were clumps of bushes with little open spaces
between, just the nicest kind of playgrounds. Then there were funny
spreading, prickly juniper-trees, which made the very safest places to
crawl out of harm's way and to hide. Everywhere were paths made by cows.
Very wonderful they seemed to Peter, who had never seen any like them
before. He liked to follow them because they led to all kinds of queer
places.

Sometimes he would come to places where tall trees made him think of the
Green Forest, only there were never more than a few trees together. Once
he found an old tumble-down stone wall all covered with vines, and he
shouted right out with delight.

"It's a regular castle!" cried Peter, and he knew that there he would be
safe from every one but Shadow the Weasel. But he never was wholly safe
from Shadow the Weasel anywhere, so he didn't let that thought worry
him. By and by he came to a wet place called a swamp. The ground was
soft, and there were little pools of water. Great ferns grew here just
as they did along the bank of the Laughing Brook, only more of them.
There were pretty birch-trees and wild cherry-trees. It was still and