Somehow Peter knew whose voice that was, although he never had heard it before.  He sprang around the little juniper-tree, and what he saw filled him with such rage that he didn’t once stop to think of himself.  There was little Miss Fuzzytail in the clutches of Black Pussy, Farmer Brown’s cat, who often stole away from home to hunt in the Old Pasture.  Like a flash Peter sprang over Black Pussy, and as he did so he kicked with all his might.  The cat hadn’t seen him coming, and the kick knocked her right into the prickly juniper-tree.  Of course she lost her grip on little Miss Fuzzytail, who hadn’t been hurt so much as frightened.

By the time the cat got out of the juniper-tree, Peter and Miss Fuzzytail were sitting side by side safe in the middle of a bull-briar patch.

“Oh? how brave you are!” sobbed little Miss Fuzzytail.

And this is the way that Peter Rabbit at last got his heart’s desire.

CHAPTER XVIII

TOMMY TIT PROVES A FRIEND INDEED

Nothing in all the world is so precious as a true friend. 
                                          Peter Rabbit.

After Peter Rabbit had saved little Miss Fuzzytail from Black Pussy, the cat who belonged way down at Farmer Brown’s house and had no business hunting in the Old Pasture, he went with her as near to her home as she would let him.  She said that it wasn’t necessary that he should go a single step, but Peter insisted that she needed him to see that no more harm came to her.  Miss Fuzzytail laughed at that, for she felt quite able to take care of herself.  It had been just stupid carelessness on her part that had given Black Pussy the chance to catch her, she said, and she was very sure that she never would be so careless again.  What she didn’t tell Peter was that she had been so busy peeping at him and admiring him that she had quite forgotten to watch out for danger for herself.

Finally she said that he could go part way with her.  But when they were almost within sight of the bull-briar castle of her father, Old Jed Thumper, the big, gray Rabbit who thought he owned the Old Pasture, she made Peter turn back.  You see, she was afraid of what Old Jed Thumper might do to Peter, and—­well, the truth is she was afraid of what he might do to her if he should find out that she had made friends with Peter.

So Peter was forced to go back, but he took with him a half promise that she would meet him the next night up near his sunning-bank in the far corner of the Old Pasture.

After that there were many pleasant days for Peter Rabbit.  Sometimes little Miss Fuzzytail would meet him, and sometimes she would shyly hide from, him, but somehow, somewhere, he managed to see her every day, and so all the time in Peter’s heart was a little song: 

  “The sky is blue; the leaves are green;
   The golden sunbeams peep between;
   My heart is joyful as can be,
   And all the world looks bright to me.”