No matter how you feel inside
 
Hold up your head! Call up your pride!
 
Stand fast! Look brave! Then none will guess
 
The fear you feel, but won't confess.
 
 
JIMMY SKUNK¹ learned this when he was a very little fellow. Now he isn't afraid of much of anything, but there was a time when he was. Oh, my, yes! There was a time when he first started out to see the world, and before he had found out that all the world is afraid of that little bag of scent² he always carries with him, when Jimmy often was as frightened as Peter Rabbit ever is, and you know Peter is very easily frightened. But Jimmy used to think of that little verse, and though sometimes he had to shut his mouth as tightly as he knew how to keep his teeth from chattering³ with fear, he would hold up his head, stand fast, and look brave. What do you think happened? Why, in a little while people began to say that Jimmy Skunk wasn't afraid of anything, and so no one tried to bother him. Of course when he found this out, Jimmy wasn't afraid.
 
But Reddy Fox is different. He dearly loves to tell how brave he is. He brags⁴ and boasts. But when he finds himself in a place where he is afraid, he shows it. Yes, Sir, he shows it. Reddy Fox has never learned to stand fast and look brave. When Reddy had first been told that the stranger with the voice which had sounded so terrible in the night was Old Man Coyote from the Great West, and that he had decided⁵ to make his home on the Green Meadows, Reddy had said: “Pooh! I'm not afraid of him!” and had swelled⁶ himself up and strutted⁸ back and forth⁹ as if he really meant it. But all the time Reddy took care, the very greatest care, to keep out of the way of Old Man Coyote.
 
Of course, some one told Digger the Badger¹⁰ what Reddy had said, and Digger told Old Man Coyote, who just grinned and said nothing. ............