Green Forest Stories quotes

He had just seen Mr. and Mrs. Quack start toward the Big River for a brief visit before leaving on their long, difficult journey to the faraway Southland.

Farewells are always rather sad, and this particular farewell had left Peter with a lump in his throat⁠—a queer, choky feeling.

“If I were sure that they would return next spring, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he muttered. “It’s those terrible guns. I know what it is to have to watch out for them.

“And you haven’t believed what I have already told you,” retorted Lightfoot. “I don’t like telling things to people who won’t believe me.”

It is hard to believe what seems impossible. And yet what seems impossible to you may be a very commonplace matter to someone else.

So it does not do to say that a thing cannot be possible just because you cannot understand how it can be. Peter Rabbit wanted to believe what Lightfoot the Deer had just told him, but somehow he couldn’t.

It is sad but true. Autumn is often called the sad time of the year, and it is the sad time. But it shouldn’t be.

Old Mother Nature never intended that it should be. She meant it to be the glad time.

It is the time when all the little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows have got over the cares and worries of bringing up families and teaching their children how to look out for themselves.

It was a dreadful game the hunter with the terrible gun and Lightfoot the Deer were playing in the Green Forest.

It was a matching of wit against wit, the hunter seeking to take Lightfoot’s life, and Lightfoot seeking to save it.

The experience of other years had taught Lightfoot much of the ways of hunters and not one of the things he had learned about them was forgotten. But the hunter in his turn knew much of the ways of Deer.

He had a very great respect for the smartness of that hunter. He knew that he couldn’t afford to be careless for one little minute.

The certainty of danger is sometimes easier to bear than the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not there really is any danger.

Lightfoot felt that if he could know just where the hunter was, he himself would know better what to do. The hunter might have become discouraged and given up following him. In that case he could rest and stop worrying.

But poor Lightfoot was feeling the strain. He was growing thin, and he was so nervous that the falling of a dead leaf from a tree would startle him.

There is nothing quite so terrible as being continually hunted.

It was getting so that Lightfoot half expected a hunter to step out from behind every tree. Only when the Black Shadows wrapped the Green Forest in darkness did he know a moment of peace.

I declare, I have quite lost my appetite worrying about him. If Lightfoot is dead, and I am almost sure he is, the Green Forest will never seem the same.”

The very worst things come to an end at last. No matter how bad a thing is, it cannot last forever.

So it was with the hunting season for Lightfoot the Deer. There came a day when the law protected all Deer—a day when the hunters could no longer go searching for Lightfoot.

“You mean, I never would have found you,” retorted Lightfoot. “I guess I owe these hunters more than you do. I owe them the greatest happiness I have ever known, but I never would have thought of it myself.

Isn’t it queer how things which seem the very worst possible sometimes turn out to be the very best possible?

”

Hooty. Only Blacky sat watchful and silent, waiting for Mrs. Hooty to lose her temper and try to catch one of her tormentors. He had hope, a great hope, that he would get one of those eggs.

No one can live just for self alone.

A lot of people think they can, but they are very much mistaken. They are making one of the greatest mistakes in the world. Every teeny, weeny act, no matter what it is, affects somebody else. That is one of Old Mother Nature’s great laws.

All this time the Crows were having what they called fun with Mrs. Hooty.

Nothing is true fun which makes others uncomfortable, but somehow a great many people seem to forget this.

So, while Blacky sat watching, his relatives made a tremendous racket around Mrs. Hooty, and the more angry she grew, the more they screamed and called her names and darted down almost in her face, as they pretended that they were going to fight her.

“But this is different,” whispered the tempter. “This isn’t like taking the eggs of the little song birds.”

There isn’t any halfway about it. A thing is wrong or it is right, and that is all there is to it.

But most people have hard work to see this when they want very much to do a thing that the still small voice way down inside tells them isn’t right. They try to compromise.

“

A promise to yourself ought to be just as good as a promise to anyone else.

I don’t wonder Hooty hisses at you,” said the good little voice.

“

And think how mean and small and cheap you’ll feel every time you look at them,

” added the good little voice. “You’ll get a lot more fun if you leave them to hatch out and then watch the little Owls grow up and learn all about their ways.

As he turned back toward home, he saw Blacky the Crow flying over the Green Forest, and little did he guess how he had upset Blacky’s plans.

Blacky The Crow isn’t all black. No, indeed.

His coat is black, and sometimes it seems as if his heart is all black, but this isn’t so. It certainly seemed as if his heart was all black when he tried so hard to make trouble for Hooty the Owl.

They ought to be down in the cornfield pretty soon. With them down there, I have only to watch my chance and slip in. It won’t take but a second. Just a little courage, Blacky, just a little courage!

Nothing in this world worth having is gained without some risk.

The thing to do is to make sure that the risk is as small as possible.”

The things which are past are past, and that is all there is to it. There is no use in thinking about them. As for the things of the future, it will be time enough to think about them when they happen.

If you and I had as many things to worry about as does Whitefoot the Wood Mouse, we probably never would be happy at all.

But Whitefoot is happy whenever he has a chance to be, and in this he is wiser than most human beings.

After that Farmer Brown’s boy took care that no crumbs should be scattered on the ground. Whitefoot had to come to him for his food, and always Farmer Brown’s boy had something delicious for him.

I know of nothing that is more sad than to feel that a friend is no longer to be trusted.

There came a time when Whitefoot the Wood Mouse almost had this feeling. It was a very, very anxious time for Whitefoot.

Whitey didn’t move so much as a feather. Both were waiting and watching. Jumper didn’t move because he knew that Whitey was there. Whitey didn’t move because he didn’t want anyone to know he was there, and didn’t know that Jumper was there.

Jumper was sitting still because he was afraid. Whitey was sitting still because he was hungry.

So there they sat, each in plain sight of the other but only one seeing the other. This was because Jumper had been fortunate enough to see Whitey alight on that stump.

“I want to run. I want to run. I want to run,” Jumper kept saying to himself. Then he would say, “But I mustn’t. I mustn’t. I mustn’t.”

And so Jumper did the hardest thing in the world⁠—sat still and stared danger in the face.

He was sitting still to save his life.

Of course, it seemed longer because of the constant frights which came one right after another. It really was a terrible journey. Yet if he had only known it, there wasn’t a thing along the whole way to be afraid of.

You know it often happens that people are frightened more by what they don’t know than by what they do know.

Whitefoot kept on going and going. Every time he thought that he was so tired he must stop, he would think of Shadow the Weasel and then go on again.

If he should catch Whitefoot, he would have a good dinner. If he didn’t catch Whitefoot, he would simply go hungry a little longer. So you see, there was a very big difference in the feelings of Whitefoot and Butcher.

Whitefoot had his life to lose, while Butcher had only a dinner to lose.

Dodging this way and dodging that way, Whitefoot climbed higher and higher. Twice he whisked around that tree trunk barely in time. All the time he was growing more and more tired, and more and more discouraged.

Somehow it was harder to climb down than up. It often is. But at last they were on the ground. Mother Bear’s eyes twinkled with pride, but she took care that the cubs should not see this.

“Obedience,” said she, “is the first great lesson in life. It saved you a spanking this time.”

Then she led the way home.

In a minute or so Boxer was back, pulling apart that brush. Then an old saying of his mother’s popped into Peter’s head. He had heard her say it many times when he was little and first venturing out into the Great World.

“When you must take a chance, always do the thing no one expects you to do,” was what his mother had said over and over again.

“Those cubs expect me to run out at one end or the other,” thought Peter. “They don’t expect me to run out where either is at work. To do that will take them by surprise. It is my best chance.

As a matter of fact, Peter was far away, headed straight for the dear Old Briar-patch; and Peter was chuckling. The instant those cubs began to fight, all fear had left Peter. He knew then that he had nothing more to fear from them.

“People who lose their tempers lose their wits with them,” chuckled Peter.

“I couldn’t have done that better if I had planned it. My, how those cubs have grown! I think I’ll keep away from that part of the Green Forest. Yes, sir, I’ll keep away from there.”

Buster looked all around to make sure that no one saw him. Then he dug his great claws into that tree and started to climb up.

The love of a mother is wonderful beyond all things. There is nothing to compare with it.

There is nothing it will not attempt to do. There is no danger it will not face. There is no sacrifice it will not make. It is the most beautiful, the most perfect of all things.

“This has saved me some trouble,” muttered she. “I probably would have had hard work to get them into the water without throwing them in. Now they will not be afraid of it.

An accident sometimes proves a blessing.

”

When they stopped to rest, Boxer curled up by himself and pretended to have a nap, while all the time he was just sulking. When after a while Woof-Woof tried to make friends with him, he would have nothing to do with her.

Boxer was actually having a good time being miserable. People can get that way sometimes.

Finally Mother Bear lost patience and sent him in under the great windfall to the bedroom where he was born. “Stay in there until you get over being sulky,” said she. “Don’t put foot outside until you can be pleasant.”

But he didn’t succeed.

You know it isn’t often you can really and truly fool yourself. You may fool other people, but not yourself.

So after a while Boxer gave up trying to pretend he didn’t care. And then sulkiness gave way to temper, bad temper.

He dropped another cone on Boxer and then started off through the tree tops, leaving Boxer all alone.

Somehow it is easier to be brave when there are others about to see how brave you are.

It is a great deal easier. To be brave when you are all alone is quite another matter. That is real bravery. And to be alone and lost and brave is the greatest bravery.