“He thinks I’m old and foolish and don’t know what I’m about, the young scamp!” thought she.  “He thinks he has learned all there is to learn.  It isn’t the least use in the world to try to tell him anything.  When young folks feel the way he does, it is a waste of time to talk to them.  He has got to be shown.  There is nothing like experience to take the conceit out of these youngsters.”

Now conceit is the feeling that you know more than any one else.  Perhaps you do.  Then again, perhaps you don’t.  So sometimes it is best not to be too sure of your own opinion.  Reddy was sure.  He trotted along behind old Granny Fox and planned smart things to say to her when she found that there wasn’t a chance to catch Quacker the Duck.  I am afraid, very much afraid, that Reddy was planning to be saucy.  People who think themselves smart are quite apt to be saucy.

Presently they came to the bank of the Big River.  Old Granny Fox told Reddy to sit still while she crept up behind some bushes where she could peek out over the Big River.  He grinned as he watched her.  He was still grinning when she tiptoed back.  He expected to see her face long with disappointment.  Instead she looked very much pleased.

“Quacker is there,” said she, “and I think he will make us a very good dinner.  Creep up behind those bushes and see for yourself, then come back here and tell me what you think we’d better do to get him.”

So Reddy stole up behind the bushes, and this time it was Granny who grinned as she watched.  As he crept along, Reddy wondered if it could be that for once Quacker had come ashore.  Granny seemed so sure they could catch him that this must be the case.  But when he peeped through the hushes, there was Quacker way out in the middle of the open water just where he had been the day before.

CHAPTER III:  Reddy Is Sure Granny Has Lost Her Senses

   Perhaps ’tis just as well that we
   Can’t see ourselves as others see.
      — Old Granny Fox.

“Just as I thought,” muttered Reddy Fox as he peeped through the bushes on the bank of the Big River and saw Quacker swimming about in the water where it ran too swiftly to freeze.  “We’ve got just as much chance of catching him as I have of jumping over the moon.  That’s what I’ll tell Granny.”

He crept back carefully so as not to be seen by Quacker, and when he had reached the place where Granny was waiting for him, his face wore a very impudent look.

“Well,” said Granny Fox, “what shall we do to catch him?”

“Learn to swim like a fish and fly like a bird,” replied Reddy in such a saucy tone that Granny had hard work to keep from boxing his ears.

“You mean that you think he can’t be caught?” said she quietly.

“I don’t think anything about it; I know he can’t!” snapped Reddy.  “Not by us, anyway,” he added.