Well, after the children had sung that they all looked around to see if Sammie or Susie had come in, but they hadn"t, and then the lessons began, and everyone got a perfect mark. Still the rabbit children didn"t come, and after school Bully No-Tail said:
"I think I"ll stop at Sammie"s house and see what is the matter."
"I wish you would," spoke the teacher, "and then you can tell us to-morrow. I hope he is not ill."
But Sammie was worse than ill, as Bully very soon found out when he got to the house. He found Mr. and Mrs. Littletail very much excited. Mrs.
Littletail was crying, and so was Susie, and as for Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, she was washing up the dishes so fast that she broke a cup and saucer and dropped a knife and spoon. And Uncle Wiggily Longears was limping around on his crutch, striped red, white and blue like a barber pole, and saying: "Oh dear! Oh dear me! Oh hum suz dud."
"Why, whatever has happened?" asked Bully. "Is Sammie dead?"
"Worse than that," said Susie, wiping her eyes on her ap.r.o.n.
"Much worse," chimed in Uncle Wiggily. "Just think, Bully, when Sammie was starting off for school this morning, he went off in the woods a little way to see if he could find a wild carrot, when a big boy rushed up, grabbed him, and put him in a bag before any of us could save him!
And now he"s gone! Completely gone!"
"So that"s why he didn"t come to school to-day," said Nurse Jane sadly.
"And I didn"t feel like coming either," spoke Susie, crying some more.
"I tried to find Sammie, but I couldn"t. Oh dear! Boo hoo!"
"We all tried to find him," said Mr. Littletail sadly.
"But we can"t," added Mrs. Littletail still more sadly. "Our Sammie is gone! The bad boy has him!"
"Oh, that is awful!" cried Bully. "But I"ll see if I can"t find him for you."
So Bully hopped off through the woods, hoping he could find where the boy lived who had taken Sammie away with him.
"And if I find him I"ll help Sammie to get away," thought Bully. So he went on and on, but for a long time he couldn"t find Sammie. For, listen, the boy who had caught the little rabbit had taken Sammie home, and had made a cage for him.
"I"m going to keep you forever," said the boy, looking in through the wire cage at Sammie. "I"ve always wanted a rabbit and now I have one."
Well, poor Sammie asked the boy to let him go, but the boy didn"t understand rabbit language, and maybe he wouldn"t have let the bunny go, anyhow.
Well, it was getting dark, and Sammie was very much frightened in his cage, and he was wondering whether any of his friends would find him, and help him escape.
"I"ll call out loud, so they"ll know where to look for me," he said, and he grunted as loudly as he could and whistled through his twinkling nose.
Well, it happened that just then Bully was hopping up a little hill, and he heard Sammie calling.
"That"s Sammie!" exclaimed Bully. "Now, if I can only rescue him!"
So the frog boy hopped on farther, and pretty soon he came to the yard of the house where the boy lived. And Bully peeped in through a knothole in the fence, and he saw Sammie in the cage.
"I"m here, Sammie!" cried Bully through the hole. "Don"t be afraid, I"ll get you out of there."
"Oh, I"m so glad!" cried Sammie, clapping his paws.
But, after he had said it, Bully saw that it wasn"t going to be very easy to get Sammie out, for the cage was very strong. The boy was in the house cutting up some cabbage for the rabbit, and the little frog knew he would have to work very quickly if he was to rescue Sammie.
So Bully hunted until he found a place where he could crawl under the fence, and he went close up to the cage, and what did he do but hop inside, thinking he could unlock the door for Sammie. For Bully was little enough to hop through between the holes in the wire, but Sammie was too big to get out that way.
But Bully couldn"t open the door because the lock was too strong, and the frog boy couldn"t break the wire.
"Oh, if Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy were only here!" he exclaimed, "she could get us out of this trap very soon. But she isn"t."
"Let"s both together try to break it," proposed Sammie, but they couldn"t do it. I don"t know what they would have done, and perhaps Sammie would have had to stay there forever, but at that moment along came the old alligator. He looked through the knothole in the fence, and he saw Sammie and Bully in the cage.
"Ah, here is where I get a good dinner!" thought the alligator, so with one savage and swooping sweep of his big, scaly tail, he smashed down the fence and broke the cage all to pieces, but he didn"t hurt Bully or Sammie, very luckily, for they were in a far corner.
"Now"s our chance!" cried the frog. "Run, Sammie, run!" And they both scudded away as fast as they could before the alligator could catch them, or even before the boy could run out to see what the noise was.
And when the alligator saw the boy the savage creature flurried and scurried away, taking his scalery-ailery tail with him, and the boy was very much surprised when he saw that the rabbit was gone.
But Sammie and Bully got safely home, and the next day Sammie went to school as usual, just as if nothing had happened, and every one said Bully was very brave to help him.
So that"s all for to-night, if you please, and in case the housecleaning man gets all the ice cream up from under the sitting-room matting, and makes a s...o...b..ll of it for the poll parrot to play horse with, I"ll tell you next about Bully and Bawly going to the circus.
STORY XXIX
BULLY AND BAWLY AT THE CIRCUS
"Oh, mamma, may we go?" exclaimed Bawly No-Tail one day as he came home from school, and hopped into the house with such a big hop, that he hopped right up into the frog lady"s lap.
"Go where?" asked Bawly"s mother, wondering if the alligator were after her son.
"Oh, do please let us go!" cried Bully, hopping in after his brother.
Bully tried to stand on his head, but his foot slipped and he nearly fell into the ink bottle. "Please let us go, mother?"
"Where? Where?" she asked again, as Bawly hopped out of her lap.
"To the circus!" cried Bully.
"It"s coming!" exclaimed Bawly.
"Down in the vacant lots," went on Bully.
"Oh, you ought to see the posters! Lions and tigers and elephants, and men jumping in the air, and horses and-and-"
Bawly had to stop for breath then, and so he couldn"t say any more.
Neither could Bully. Oh, but they were excited, let me tell you.
"May we go?" they both cried out again.
"Well, I"ll see," began their mother slowly. "I don"t know-"
"Oh, I guess you"d better let them go," spoke up Grandpa Croaker in his deepest, rumbling voice. "I-I think I can spare the time to look after them. I don"t really want to go, you know, as I was going to play a game of checkers with Uncle Wiggily Longears, but I guess I can take the boys to the circus. Ahem!"