STORY XV.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE PEAc.o.c.k.
Well, if it hadn"t been for Robbie Redbreast who saw little Billy Bunny hopping away from the lily pond, as I told you in the last story, I never would have found out what he did after that, and so there would have been no story to-night. So the next time you see Robbie Redbreast, please thank him.
And now this is what he told me. After the little rabbit had hopped along for maybe a mile or three, he came to a high stone wall. "I wonder what"s on the other side?" he said to himself, and then a beautiful peac.o.c.k looked over and said: "I"ll tell you, little rabbit.
"It"s a beautiful garden where a fountain plays all day and the breezes sing all night and the flowers whisper and bow their heads."
"How can I get in?" asked the little bunny, "for I love flowers and I never heard a fountain play. What does it play?"
"Oh, all sorts of waterfall music," said the peac.o.c.k, and he spread his beautiful tail out like a fan and brushed a little green fly off his nose. "It plays trills and rills and cascades and ripples and dipples."
And this made the little rabbit so curious that he hunted all around to find a gate in the high stone wall. And pretty soon, not so very long, he came to one, with big iron rods and curiously carved images of lions and dragons and animals with wings.
So he squeezed through and hopped up to the beautiful fountain where lots of little gold and silver fish swam around and around and the water fell in diamonds and rubies and emeralds, but he didn"t know that it was Mr. Happy Sun who colored the water drops to make them look like precious stones.
"Please play me a tune," said the little rabbit. And then the beautiful peac.o.c.k said, "What tune would you like?" and the little rabbit answered:
"Sprinkle, sprinkle, little star, Just a water drop you are.
Twinkle, twinkle, drops of dew, With the sunlight shining through."
So the beautiful fountain played this little song while Billy Bunny sat there listening and the beautiful peac.o.c.k spread his tail to catch the sparkle from the glittering drops of water. And then all the roses began singing:
Roses white and roses red, And roses yellow too, instead, And pretty lilies white as snow, And every other flower you know.
And after that Billy Bunny asked the peac.o.c.k to sing a song, but when he started to sing, oh dear, oh dear. For you know just because a bird has beautiful feathers he may not have a beautiful voice, and the sounds the peac.o.c.k made were dreadful.
Yes, indeed. And if the little rabbit hadn"t skipped away he would have had to hold his paws over his ears, and then maybe he couldn"t have stopped them up, for he had very large ears and very small feet.
STORY XVI.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE MARBLE DEER.
In the story before this I told you how the beautiful peac.o.c.k sang a song which was dreadful, so very dreadful that little Billy Bunny had to hold his ears and run away from the lovely fountain.
Well, after he had hopped along for maybe a million hops or less, he came to a little deer on a smooth lawn. So he stopped and spoke to him, but the pretty little animal never said a word. He didn"t even look at the little rabbit, so Billy Bunny touched him on the nose, but, oh, dear me! It was cold and hard, not at all like the nose of a real little deer.
But the little bunny didn"t know it was a marble deer. He just thought it was alive, you see, and he was puzzled and didn"t know what to do And then a lovely white dove flew down and said:
"He can"t speak. He"s only a statue."
"What is that?" asked the little rabbit, for he had never seen one before.
"Why, a statue is a figure carved out of marble or stone," answered the dove, and then she began to coo and comb her feathers with her bill.
"Well, I"ll just hop along then," said Billy Bunny, and he said good-by.
And after a while he came to a little house all covered with red rambler roses, so he looked inside to see who lived there, for he thought perhaps it might be a fairy who owned this beautiful garden with the lovely fountain and the wonderful peac.o.c.k.
But there was no one inside, so he hopped in and sat down on a small wicker chair and rocked back and forth. For it was a rocking chair, you know. And, by and by, he fell asleep and dreamed that the beautiful peac.o.c.k was flying around the fountain and scattering the water drops all about with his mag-nif-i-cent tail. And then, all of a sudden, the little rabbit woke up, for somebody was saying:
"Isn"t this a dear little bunny?" And Billy Bunny opened his eyes and saw a little girl with yellow curls leaning over him.
"Give him to me," said a boy"s voice. And there stood a small boy dressed in a sailor suit and a big sailor hat on which was written, "Battleship Uncle Sam."
And then Billy Bunny knew it was time to be going. So he gave one big hop and maybe two million and a half little skips and jumps, and soon he was far away, and if he hadn"t maybe that little boy would have put him in a cage or a big box and kept him shut up for a long time.
"Goodness!" said the little rabbit, "I must be more careful next time." And then something happened. A little hard ball hit him on the left hind foot, and a man"s voice called out, "If it hadn"t been for that pesky little rabbit I would have made that hole."
And the big man put his golf stick in the bag and watched Billy Bunny limp away to hide in the woods close by.
STORY XVII.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE FOREST DANCE.
When the moon is big and bright Little bunnies dance at night.
How they hop and skip and go On their lucky left hind toe.
Well, sir, that"s what Billy Bunny was doing. It was a lovely moonlight night in August, and the big, round moon was gleaming down on the Pleasant Meadow just like an electric lamp, only it was up in the sky, you know, and not on the ceiling.
And Mrs. Bunny was there, too, and so was Cousin Cottontail, and all the little rabbits for miles around.
Now it"s a dangerous thing to be dancing, even if the moon is bright, for owls and hawks fly by night, and if they happen to see a bunny dance, they always fly down and break it up. They don"t say a word; they just fly away with one of the little bunny dancers and he never dances any more. No, sireemam.
Well, on this particular night little Billy Bunny was doing the fox trot with a nice little lady bunny, when all of a sudden from out of the Friendly Forest came Slyboots and Bushy Tail, the small sons of Daddy Fox, you remember.
And the reason they were out so late at night was because their father had sprained his foot jumping over a stone fence to get away from a pack of hounds who had chased him for a thousand and one miles and fourteen feet.
Now Billy Bunny had forgotten all about Daddy Fox. He was thinking only about Robber Hawk or Old Barney the Owl, and so he never saw the two foxes until they were so close to him that they almost stubbed their whiskers on his powder puff tail.
And if it hadn"t been for the lady bunny who was dancing with him maybe Slyboots, or maybe Bushy Tail, would have caught the little bunny. But the lady rabbit saw them just in time and she gave a scream and hopped into a hollow stump and Billy Bunny after her, and then all that the two foxes could do was to stand close by and say:
"Isn"t that a shame, To spoil their little game, To stop their dancing And their prancing, Who do you think"s to blame?"
"You are, you two bad foxes," said Billy Bunny, but he didn"t come out of that hollow stump. No, sireemam, he staid inside and so did the little lady rabbit, and by and by the two bad foxes went away and told their father, Daddy Fox, all about it, and he said, "Don"t make any excuse.