Now the minute Peter made up his mind to make a journey, he began to feel better.  His lost appetite returned, and the first thing he did was to eat a good meal of sweet clover.

“Let me see,” said he, as he filled his big stomach, “I believe I’ll visit the Old Pasture.  It’s a long way off and I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard Sammy Jay say that it’s a very wonderful place, and I don’t believe it is any more dangerous than the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, now that Old Man Coyote and Reddy and Granny Fox are all living here.  I’ll start tonight when I am sure that Old Man Coyote is nowhere around, and I won’t tell a soul where I am going.”

So Peter settled himself and tried to sleep the long day away, but his mind was so full of the long journey he was going to make that he couldn’t sleep much, and when he did have a nap, he dreamed of wonderful sights and adventures out in the Great World.

At last he saw jolly, round, red Mr. Sun drop down to his bed behind the Purple Hills.  Old Mother West Wind came hurrying back from her day’s work and gathered her children, the Merry Little Breezes, into her big bag, and then she, too, started for her home behind the Purple Hills.  A little star came out and winked at Peter, and then way over on the edge of the Green Forest he heard Old Man Coyote laugh.  Peter grinned.  That was what he had been waiting for, since it meant that Old Man Coyote was so far away that there was nothing to fear from him.

Peter hopped out from the dear, safe Old Briar-patch, looked this way and that way, and then, with his heart in his mouth, started towards the Old Pasture as fast as he could go, lipperty—­lipperty—­lip.

CHAPTER III

HOOTY THE OWL CHANGES HIS HUNTING GROUNDS

A full stomach makes a pleasant Day;
An empty stomach turns the whole world gray. 
Peter Rabbit.

Hooty the owl sat on the tip-top of a tall dead tree in the Green Forest while the Black Shadows crept swiftly among the trees.  He was talking to himself.  It wouldn’t have done for him to have spoken aloud what he was saying to himself, for then the little people in feathers and fur on whom he likes to make his dinner would have heard him and known just where he was.  So he said it to himself, and sat so still that he looked for all the world like a part of the tree on which he was sitting.  What he was saying was this: 

“Towhit, towhoo!  Towhit, towhoo! 
 Will some one tell me what to do? 
 My children have an appetite
 That keeps me hunting all the night,
 And though their stomachs I may stuff
 They never seem to have enough. 
 Towhit, towhoo!  Towhit, towhoo! 
 Will some one tell me what to do?”

When it was dark enough he gave his fierce hunting call—­“Whooo-hoo-hoo, whoo-hoo!”