“Why don’t you fold your hands the way I do, Peter Rabbit?” shouted Happy Jack.

“I—­I—­don’t want to,” stammered Peter.

“You mean you can’t!” jeered Happy Jack.

Peter pretended not to hear, and a few minutes later he hopped away towards the dear Old Briar-patch, lipperty-lipperty-lip.  Happy Jack watched him go, and there was a puzzled look in Happy Jack’s eyes.

“I really believe he can’t fold his hands,” said Happy Jack to himself, but speaking aloud.

“He can’t, and none of his family can,” said a gruff voice.

Happy Jack turned to find Old Mr. Toad sitting in the Lone Little Path.

“Why not?” asked Happy Jack.

“Ask Grandfather Frog; he knows,” replied Old Mr. Toad, and started on about his business.

And this is how it happens that Grandfather Frog told this story to the little meadow and forest people gathered around him on the bank of the Smiling Pool.

“Chug-a-rum!” said Grandfather Frog.  “Old Mr. Rabbit, the grandfather a thousand times removed of Peter Rabbit, was always getting into trouble.  Yes, Sir, old Mr. Rabbit was always getting into trouble.  Seemed like he wouldn’t be happy if he couldn’t get into trouble.  It was all because he was so dreadfully curious about other people’s business, just as Peter Rabbit is now.  It seemed that he was just born to be curious and so, of course, to get into trouble.

“One day word came to the Green Forest and to the Green Meadows that Old Mother Nature was coming to see how all the little meadow and forest people were getting along, to settle all the little troubles and fusses between them, and to find out who were and who were not obeying the orders she had given them when she had visited them last.  My, my, my, such a hurrying and scurrying and worrying as there was!  You see, everybody wanted to look his best when Old Mother Nature arrived, Yes, Sir, everybody wanted to look his best.

“There was the greatest changing of clothes you ever did see.  Old King Bear put on his blackest coat.  Mr. Coon and Mr. Mink and Mr. Otter sat up half the night brushing their suits and making them look as fine and handsome as they could.  Even Old Mr. Toad put on a new suit under his old one, and planned to pull the old one off and throw it away as soon as Old Mother Nature should arrive.  Then everybody began to fix up their homes and make them as neat and nice as they knew how—­everybody but Mr. Rabbit.

“Now Mr. Rabbit was lazy.  He didn’t like to work any more than Peter Rabbit does now.  No, Sir, old Mr. Rabbit was afraid of work.  The very sight of work scared old Mr. Rabbit.  You see, he was so busy minding other people’s business that he didn’t have time to attend to his own.  So his brown and gray coat always was rumpled and tumbled and dirty.  His house was a tumble-down affair in which no one but Mr. Rabbit would ever have thought of living, and his garden—­oh, dear me, such a garden you never did see!  It was all weeds and brambles.  They filled up the yard, and old Mr. Rabbit actually couldn’t have gotten into his own house if he hadn’t cut a path through the brambles.