Chapter 11

WHERE OLD MR. GOBBLER GOT THE STRUTTING HABIT

Peter Rabbit never will forget the first time he saw Big Tom Gobbler. It was very early one spring morning, when Peter was not yet old enough to have made the acquaintance of all the people who live in the Green Forest, and when it seemed as if the chief thing in life with him was to satisfy his curiosity about the ways of the Great World. Several times when he had been hopping along, lipperty-lipperty-lip, through the Green Forest just after sun-up, he had heard a strange sound quite unlike any other of all the many sounds his long ears had learned to know. He knew that it was the voice of some one who lived in the Green Forest, but though he had looked and looked he had been unable to discover the owner of that voice.

On this particular morning Peter happened to be sitting under some ferns on the edge of a little open space among the trees when again he heard that strange voice. It seemed to come from somewhere back in the woods in the very direction from which he had just come. "Gobble-obble-obble!" said the voice, and again a moment later "Gobble-obble-obble!"

Peter was just preparing to go back to see if he could find the owner of that voice when the noise of great wings caused him to look up just in time to see a bigger bird than he ever had even dreamed of coming swiftly over the tree-tops. With his eyes popping out and his mouth wide open with astonishment, Peter saw the great bird set its wings and sail down into the little opening on the edge of which Peter was sitting. The instant this great bird was on the ground, he stood as still as if he were made of stone, his long neck stretched up. Only the shine of a pair of the sharpest eyes Peter ever had seen showed that he was alive.

Peter held his breath, and it was so still that you could have heard a leaf drop had you been there. When at last the stranger moved, it was his head only. He turned it suddenly to the right and a moment later to the left. It was plain that he was listening for suspicious sounds. All the time his bright eyes searched the edge of the opening until Peter, although he was well hidden, felt that he must be seen. At last, satisfied that all was safe, the stranger drew in his neck and began to walk about, pecking at the ground here and there and swallowing what he picked up, though what it was Peter couldn't tell.

A sound seemed to catch the stranger's quick ears, for he stopped and stared very hard at a little clump of brush. Peter stared at it too. At first he saw nothing, but presently he saw a head poked out, and this also was a stranger. Peter glanced at the big stranger in the opening, and for a minute he wondered if it could be that something was wrong with his eyes. Never had he seen such a change in anybody. This stranger didn't look like the same bird at all. He was swelled up until Peter was afraid he would burst. His tail was spread