`` I hope you 'll enjoy your chicken dinner . When you are eating it , just think over this bit of advice : Never take a risk when you can get some one else to take it for you . I would like a chicken dinner myself , but as it is , I think I will enjoy a Mouse or two better . Pay my respects to Farmer Brown 's boy when he comes in the morning . '' With this , Old Man Coyote once more grinned that wicked grin of his and trotted away towards the Green Forest . Reddy watched him disappear and would have given anything in the world to have been outside the fence in his place instead of inside , where he then was . CHAPTER XV REDDY 'S FORLORN CHANCE This saying is both true and terse : There 's nothing bad but might be worse . Bowser the Hound . If any one had said this to Reddy Fox during the first half hour after he discovered that he was a prisoner in Farmer Brown 's henyard , he would n't have believed it . He would n't have believed a word of it . He would have said that he could n't possibly have been worse off than he was . He was a prisoner , and he could n't possibly get out . He knew that in the morning Farmer Brown 's boy would certainly discover him . It could n't be otherwise . That is , it could n't be otherwise as long as he remained in that henyard . There was n't a thing , not one solitary thing , under or behind which he could hide . So , to Reddy 's way of thinking , things could n't possibly have been worse . But after a while , having nothing else to do , Reddy began to think . Now it is surprising how thinking will change matters . One of the first thoughts that came to Reddy was that he might have been caught in a trap , -- one of those cruel traps that close like a pair of jaws and sometimes break the bones of the foot or leg , and from which there is no escape .
Right away XXXXX realized that to have been so caught would have been much worse than being a prisoner in Farmer Brown 's henyard .
Bowser Coyote Forest Fox Reddy escape first henyard hour morning