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As soon as he heard the door close, Reddy trotted right out in the open and sat down only a few feet from the black doorway of Bowser's little house. Reddy barked softly. Then he barked a little louder. He knew that if Bowser were at home, that bark would bring him out if nothing else did. Bowser didn't appear. Reddy grinned. He was sure now that Bowser was nowhere about.
"Oh," she exclaimed cheerily, "is it all settled? Have you made all the arrangements, Cousin Julia?" "Well, I declare! I'd forgotten all about telling him," cried Mrs. Bowser in her shrillest tone. "I'd just taken it for a fact that he'd know when to come." "That's a little too much to expect, I'm afraid," said Mrs. Knapp, smiling gaily at Mrs. Bowser's management.
But this time Farmer Brown's boy was at work near the barn, and Bowser was not chained. Granny and Reddy stole away as silently as they had come. On the day following they found Bowser chained and stole another dinner from him; then they went away laughing until their sides ached as they heard Bowser's whines of surprise and disappointment when he discovered that his dinner had vanished.
He knew because he had finally crept up and peeped in the door of Bowser's little house. What had become of Bowser he didn't know, and he didn't care. It was enough to know that he wasn't about. "I hope Farmer Brown's boy has forgotten to close that little doorway where the hens run in and out," muttered Reddy, as he trotted across Farmer Brown's dooryard.
But the wound was altogether too deep to be cured by this, or by Frank Bowser's heartfelt sympathy, or even by the praise of his schoolmates, many of whom came up to him at recess and told him he was "a brick," "a daisy," and so forth, because he had taken a whipping without crying. All this could not hide from him what he felt to be the disgrace of the thing.
"'Yes, he replied, 'but this time you will be on Bowser's back, and I can promise you he will take you over in very quick time, for he has been shut up in his cage without any supper and by midnight will be so hungry that he will not lose any time in reaching the nearest peach orchard. I am sorry to think that some poor farmer will suffer, but it is the only way you can get safely back.
Now way off on the hill behind the White Meadows Mother Fox had been hunting for her supper. She had heard the "Yap-yap-yap" of Reddy Fox as he barked at the moon, and she had heard Bowser baying over in the barnyard of Farmer Brown. Then she had heard the "yap" of Reddy Fox cut short in the middle and the roar of Bowser's big voice as he started to chase Reddy Fox.
It was just about Bowser's dinner-time when Granny and Reddy trotted across the snow-covered fields and crept behind the barn until they could peep around the corner. No one was in sight, not even Bowser, who was inside his warm little house at the end of the long shed back of Farmer Brown's house. Granny saw that he was chained and a sly grin crept over her face.
Besides, those hens will be hard to get this weather, because they will stay in their house, and there is no way for us to get in there unless we walk right in, in broad daylight, and that would never do. It will be a great deal better to take Bowser's dinner away from him.
We had the wit to take that dinner from Bowser the Hound, and Old Man Coyote had the wit to take it from us and the strength to keep it. It was all fair enough, and you know there isn't the least use in crying over spilled milk, as the saying is. We simply have got to be smart enough not to let him fool us again. I guess we won't get any more of Bowser's dinners for a while.
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