After the Miller"s Dog stopped singing, as I told you in the story before this, he poked his nose into the hat box where Billy Bunny had hidden himself and said in a deep, growly voice:
"Come out of there or I will growl and bite the bonnet That Mrs. Muskrat wears for best And the purple flowers on it.
And then she"ll think it"s you who did This dreadful unkind deed, And never speak to you again Or you with cookies feed."
"Goodness me, but you are a very poor sort of a poet," said the little rabbit, peeping out of the hat box. "Your poetry is dreadful," and this made the Miller"s Dog so ashamed of himself that he couldn"t wag his tail or even bark.
No, sir. He couldn"t do a thing but slink out of the door and close it so softly that it didn"t pinch his tail hardly at all.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the little rabbit. "Did you ever see such a silly dog?" And neither did I and neither did you, I know.
Well, after a little while, Mrs. Jenny Eva Muskrat carne up the back stairs from the river, where she had gone in the last story, you remember, and wasn"t she glad that nothing more had happened? "If you had jumped into that other hat box," she said, "you would have spoilt my next year"s Easter bonnet, and that would have been too dreadful for anything."
And wasn"t the little rabbit glad? Well, I guess he was twice over and maybe three times. And after that he said good-by and hopped away, and after he had traveled for a long, long ways he came to the field where his old friend the Scarecrow lived.
"How have you been?" asked the little rabbit, and he took a lollypop out of his knapsack and offered it to the scarecrow, but he didn"t want it. "Haven"t you got a cigar?" he asked. "I haven"t smoked for ever so long."
"I"m sorry," said Billy Bunny. "I don"t think I have any really and truly cigars. Here"s a chocolate one if that will do," and he handed it to his friend the Old Clothes Man.
But the Old Clothes Man couldn"t smoke it at all, although he tried the best he could, and pretty soon it began to rain and the chocolate became soft and sticky, and the little Bunny all wet, so he said: "I guess I"ll crawl into a hollow stump if I can find one."
And it didn"t take him long, for he hopped away to the woods nearby, and the first thing he saw was an old stump, so he hopped inside. And no sooner was he safely out of the rain than a voice said:
"What are you doing in my hollow stump; Who are you anyway?
Why didn"t you knock on this old wood block If you really want to stay?"
And in the next story I"ll tell who it was that said this.
STORY x.x.xVI.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE WOODCHUCK.
You remember in the last story that just as Billy Bunny hopped into the hollow stump a voice said, "What are you doing in here?"
"I came in to get out of the wet," answered the little rabbit, and then the voice replied:
"What! Is it raining? I"ll lend you an umbrella!" and an old woodchuck opened a little door in the side of the stump and winked at Billy Bunny.
"That"s very kind of you," said the little rabbit, and he opened his knapsack and gave the woodchuck a nice lollypop, and after that the woodchuck said: "I think you"d better stay here with me until the rain is over. Don"t you think so?"
And Billy Bunny said yes, for the woodchuck was very nice and had such good manners that the little rabbit felt quite at home.
But oh, dear me! it began to rain so hard right then and there that the water just poured into the old hollow stump, and pretty soon it was very uncomfortable. So the woodchuck said:
"Now don"t you ever tell anybody where I"m going to take you. For it"s my very own house, and I never let anybody know just where I do live.
You see, so many people are after me, some with guns and some with sharp teeth and claws, that I have to be very careful."
So the little rabbit promised, and then he followed the woodchuck through the little door and down a long pa.s.sage until they came to a nice, large, comfortable room.
"Now, this is where I live," said the woodchuck, and he went over to the cupboard and took out a carrot candy gumdrop and gave it to Billy Bunny, and then he lighted a big cigar and sat down in his old armchair and smoked.
And all the time they could hear the rain pattering on the gra.s.s overhead, for it"s wonderful how you can hear all sorts of sounds when you"re under ground and have big ears like a rabbit, you know.
"Now, I"ll tell you a story," said the old woodchuck after he had blown some lovely round rings of smoke into the air.
"Once upon a time, Not so very long ago, A band of tiny fairies Lived in the woodland near.
And often I would hear them A-singing soft and low When all was dark and quiet And the moon shone bright and clear.
So one evening I stole softly Out of the hollow stump, And found them dancing merrily With tiny skip and jump; And just as I was going To say how do you do, The Fairy Queen began to scream.
And then away she flew.
And then her tiny subjects Took fright and ran off, too, And now I never see them more A-dancing near my old stump door."
"That"s too bad," said the little rabbit, for he was so interested in what the old woodchuck was saying that he had forgotten all about his lollypop and had dropped it on the floor.
And in the next story he"ll pick up his lollypop and eat it, because I hate to have him lose it, don"t you?
STORY x.x.xVII.
BILLY BUNNY AND LITTLE PEEWEE.
Let me stop for a moment and think where I left off last night. Oh, now I remember. Billy Bunny was in the old woodchuck hollow stump, and it was raining.
Oh, my, yes. Cats and dogs, as they say in grown-ups" stories, so we"ll say kittens and puppies. Well, after a while the rain stopped and the little rabbit said good-by and hopped away, and pretty soon, not very long, a little bird began to sing:
"Down the shady Forest Trail, O"er the hill and through the vale, Billy Bunny hops along With a whistle and a song.
And if you have never heard A rabbit whistle like a bird, You must ask each little rabbit If he has the whistling habit."
"Who"s singing?" asked Billy Bunny, and he took his silver policeman"s whistle out of his knapsack and blew on it so hard that the little bird began to cry:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You will whistle my ear off!" And then, of course, the little rabbit stopped, for he didn"t want to hurt that dear little bird. No sireemam.
"Who are you?" he asked, and the little bird replied: "I"m Peewee, the littlest bird in the whole Friendly Forest."
"What do you look like?" said the little rabbit, curiously, gazing here and there and everywhere and behind a tree and under a stone.
"I"ve never seen a Peewee."
And then that little bird flew down from a tree and Billy Bunny saw the tiniest little bird he had ever seen. Why, it wasn"t much larger than a b.u.t.terfly.
"Goodness, but you"re small," said Billy Bunny. "Are you so small that you don"t like lollypops?"
Of course, the little bird said no, and so would you, no matter how small you were, but when she tried to fly away with the lollypop, she couldn"t. No sireemam. Wasn"t that too bad? So the little rabbit gave her some sweet cracker crumbs instead, and after that he hopped away looking for another adventure.