122 THE ROMANCE OF EVERIFARM 



hated rats, and he had been wondering why it was 

 that he could never get rid of them. It was all be- 

 cause Peter Rabbit kept carrying them over from 

 Farmer Careless's field, and Farmer Brown never 

 found it out until one day he killed Peter Rabbit in 

 his field as he came from across the road, and there 

 he found some new burrs in Peter's fur. 



One day Reddy Fox came trotting through the old 

 corn field, and some more burrs found transporta- 

 tion in the fur on Reddy's sides and in his bushy tail. 

 Reddy was starting on a long trip across the country 

 and after he had traveled quite a distance, the burr 

 on his left side began to irritate h'wn, and to interfere 

 with his speed. So he stopped and began to investi- 

 gate the cause of the trouble. He was not long in 

 finding it, so with his teeth he pulled the burr off and 

 left it in the middle of Farmer Jones's winter wheat 

 field. Reddy had gone only a short distance when 

 the burr on his right side began to cause trouble, so 

 stopping in Farmer Smith's corn field, he left a con- 

 tribution for hun in the shape of another burr. 

 Reddy was going many miles to see some friends 

 who lived in Farmer Good's clover field, so when he 

 arrived there in the early morning, just as the great 

 crimson sun was coming up in the east, his friends 



