would see them. He wanted to go back, but he
kept right on, and that shows just what a brave little fellow Danny
Meadow Mouse was.

XIV

GRANDFATHER FROG HAS A STRANGE RIDE

A thousand things may happen to,
Ten thousand things befall,
The traveler who careless is,
Or thinks he knows it all.

Grandfather Frog, jumping along behind Danny Meadow Mouse up the Lone
Little Path, was beginning to think that Danny was the most timid and
easiest frightened of all the little meadow people of his acquaintance.
Danny kept as much under the grass that overhung the Lone Little Path as
he could. When there were perfectly bare places, Danny looked this way
and looked that way anxiously and then scampered across as fast as he
could make his little legs go. When he was safely across, he would wait
for Grandfather Frog. If a shadow passed over the grass, Danny would
duck under the nearest leaf and hold his breath.

"Foolish!" muttered Grandfather Frog. "Foolish, foolish to be so afraid!
Now, I'm not afraid until I see something to be afraid of. Time enough
then. What's the good of looking for trouble all the time? Now, here I
am out in the Great World, and I'm not afraid. And here's Danny Meadow
Mouse, who has lived here all his life, acting as if he expected
something dreadful to happen any minute. Pooh! How very, very foolish!"

Now Grandfather Frog is old and in the Smiling Pool he is accounted
very, very wise. But the wisest sometimes become foolish when they think
that they know all there is to know. It was so with Grandfather Frog.
It was he who was foolish and not Danny Meadow Mouse. You see Danny knew
all the dangers on the Green Meadows, and how many sharp eyes were all
the time watching for him. He had long ago learned that the only way to
feel safe was to feel afraid. You see, then he was watching for danger
every minute, and so he wasn't likely to be surprised by his hungry
enemies.

So while Grandfather Frog was looking down on Danny for being so timid,
Danny was really doing the wisest thing. More than that, he was really
very, very brave. He was showing Grandfather Frog the way up the Lone
Little Path to see the Great World, when he himself would never, never
have thought of traveling anywhere but along his own secret little
paths, just because Grandfather Frog couldn't jump anywhere excepting
where the way was fairly clear, as in the Lone Little Path, and Danny
was afraid that unless Grandfat