granny fox is sly and wise

and seldom taken by surprise,

but wisdom wrongly put to use

can never find a good excuse.

it ceases then to wisdom be,

but foolishness, as we shall see.

now, with all her smartness and all her cleverness, old granny fox had made one great mistake. yes, sir, old granny fox had made one great mistake. you see, she had become so used to being thought the smartest and cleverest of all the little people who lived on the green meadows and around the smiling pool and in the green forest, that she had come to believe that there couldn't be anybody anywhere as smart and clever as she. that was because she didn't know old man coyote. and now, as she and reddy fox watched from their hiding place the meeting between old man coyote and prickly porky, she felt a sudden sharp sting in her pride. old man coyote had proved himself too smart for prickly porky. she ground her teeth as she heard him laughing fit to kill himself as he kept out of prickly porky's reach, and she ground them still more as she heard him say:

“you will boast that you will drive me out of the green forest, will you, mr. porcupine? the time to brag will be when you have done it.”

prickly porky stopped short in the middle of one of his clumsy rushes.

“boaster and bragger yourself!” he grunted. “you don't seem to be dining on porcupine the first time we meet. why don't you? why don't you make your own boast good?”

old man coyote stopped laughing and pricked up his ears. “what's that?” he demanded. “what's that? somebody has been filling your ears with something that is very like a lie, mr. porcupine.”

“no more than they have yours, mr. coyote,” replied prickly porky, letting his thousand little spears drop part way back into his coat. “but old granny fox told me.”

“ha! so it was granny fox!” interrupted old man coyote. “so it was old granny fox! well, it was that same old mischief-maker who told me that—” he stopped and suddenly looked very hard at the very place where granny and reddy were hiding. then he made, a long jump in that direction. granny and reddy didn't wait for him.

they started for home so fast that they looked like nothing but two little red streaks disappearing among the trees.

“ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! hee, hee, hee! ha, ho, he, ho!” laughed old man coyote, and all the little meadow and forest people who were looking on laughed with him. then he turned to prickly porky.

“i guess you and i are going to be friends,” said he.

“i guess we are,” replied prickly porky, and all his little spears dropped out of sight.