CHAPTER XLII 



PETER LEARNS SOMETHING ABOUT SPOOKY 



PETER RABBIT likes winter. At least he doesn't 

 mind it so very much, even though he has to really 

 work for a living. Perhaps it is a good thing that 

 he does, for he might grow too fat to keep out of the 

 way of Reddy Fox. You see when the snow is 

 deep Peter is forced to eat whatever he can, and 

 very often there isn't much of anything for him but 

 the bark of young trees. It is at such times that 

 Peter gets into mischief, for there is no bark he 

 likes better than that of young fruit trees. Now 

 you know what happens when the bark is taken off 

 all the way around the trunk of a tree. That tree 

 dies. It dies for the simple reason that it is up the 

 inner layer of bark that the life-giving sap travels 

 in the spring and summer. Of course, when a 

 strip of bark has been taken off all the way around 

 near the base of a tree, the sap cannot go up and 

 the tree must die. 



Now up near the Old Orchard Farmer Brown had 



set out a young orchard. Peter knew all about 



that young orchard, for he had visited it many 



times in the summer. Then there had been plenty 



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