Across the Old Pasture to the foot of the Mountain back of the Green Forest tramped Farmer Brown's boy. Ahead of him trotted¹ Bowser the Hound, sniffing² and snuffing for the tracks of Reddy or Granny Fox. Of course he didn't find them, for Reddy and Granny hadn't been up in the Old Pasture for a long time. But he did find old Jed Thumper³, the big gray Rabbit who had made things so uncomfortable for Peter Rabbit once upon a time and gave old Jed such a fright that he didn't look where he was going and almost ran head-first into Farmer Brown's boy.

 

"Hi, there, you old cottontail!" yelled Farmer Brown's boy, and this frightened off Jed still more, so that he actually ran right past his own castle of bullbriars without seeing it.

 

Farmer Brown's boy kept on his way, laughing at the fright of old Jed Thumper. Presently he reached the springs from which came the water that made the very beginning of the Laughing Brook⁴. He expected to find them dry, for way down on the Green Meadows the Smiling Pool was nearly dry, and the Laughing Brook was nearly dry, and he had supposed that of course the reason was that the springs where the Laughing Brook started were no longer bubbling.

 

But they were! The clear cold water came bubbling up out of the ground just as it always had, and ran off down into the Green Forest in a little stream that would grow and grow as it ran and became the Laughing Brook. Farmer Brown's boy took off his ragged⁵ old straw hat and scowled⁶ down at the bubbling water just as if it had no business to be bubbling there.

 

Of course, he didn't think just that. The fact is, he didn't know just what he did think. Here were the springs bubbling away just as they always had. There was the little stream starting off down into the Green Forest with a gurgle that by and by would become a laugh, just as it always had. And yet down on the Green Meadows on the other side of the Green Forest there was no longer a Laughing Brook or a Smiling Pool. He felt as if he ought to pinch himself to make sure that he was awake and not dreaming.

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