see it clearly

Why Jumper The Hare Is Timid

By Thornton W. Burgess

Jumper the Hare had come a long distance to visit his cousin, happy-go-lucky Peter Rabbit. He had come out of the Great Woods of the North, in fact, the very same Great Woods out of which Prickly Porky had come. But the little meadow people and those who live in the Green Forest on the edge of the Green Meadows knew nothing about where he came from nor what kind of place it was. They simply saw that Jumper the Hare, who was twice the size of Peter Rabbit, was twice as timid as he, and everyone knows that Peter has been known to try to run away from his own shadow.

So while everyone was polite to Jumper the Hare, they smiled behind their hands when he passed and called him a coward. He jumped at every shadow and at every little noise. If anyone spoke to him unexpectedly he would jump so that it seemed as if he might really jump right out of his skin. Even Peter RAbbit had to admit that appearances were very much against his cousin -- that Jumper seemed very, very much like a coward. Finally Peter told Jumper the Hare what the others thought of him. Jumper just smiled.

"Peter, who are you afraid of?" he asked.

Peter thought for a few minutes, "Farmer Brown's boy when he has a gun, and Granny Fox when I am a long way from the Old Brier patch, and old Whitetail the Marsh Hawk if there isn't a hiding place handy."

"Is that all?" asked Jumper.

"Yes," said Peter.

"And usually you can see them a long time before they can get near you," said Jumper.

"Yes," replied Peter.

Jumper munched a mouthful of sweet clover. "No wonder you don't understand," said he finally. "Why if that was all I had to be afraid of I wouldn't -- why I just wouldn't be afraid, that's all. Now up in the Great Woods where I come from live Mr. Panther and Mr. Wolf, and Mr. Fisher and Mr. Bear and Tufty the Lynx, and each is very fierce and strong. Each would rather eat a fat Hare than anything else under the sun. So while some of them try to catch me by day the others spend their nights looking for me. So I have had to live always ready to jump at the least sound, hiding in dark places most of the time, and with my heart in my mouth whenever I came out into the open. Here on the Green Meadows it is all open and I have not got used to it. Every sound I hear I think is Mr. Wolf or Mr. Fisher stealing up and I jump. No one is a coward, Peter, who runs away from those bigger and stronger than he."

Peter thought it all over. Then he hastened to tell Johnny Chuck. Johnny told Jimmy Skunk and Jimmy passed the story along. But still there were a few who still called Jumper the Hare a coward and one of these was Reddy Fox.