"Come on!" cried the frog to the rabbit. "We must get away from here as quickly as we can."
"Why?" asked Sammie Littletail.
"Because," said Bully, "that bird will eat us. My father warned me never to stay near that bird. Let us go away at once."
"What sort of a bird is it?" asked Sammie, who now had no wish to jump.
"I"m sure it can"t be very harmful. The only birds that I have to look out for are owls, eagles and hawks, and it isn"t any of them."
"No, I"m not one of them," spoke the bird with the long legs, snapping its bill as if sharpening it. "I"m a blue heron, that"s what I am, though some folks think I"m a stork or a crane."
"Well," spoke Sammie, "you"re not dangerous, are you?"
"Not for you," went on the blue heron, and he snapped his beak again, just like two knives being sharpened. "I came for that fellow," and the bird lowered the leg it had hidden under its feathers and pointed at the frog. "I came for you," the heron went on. "You"re wanted at once.
What"s your name?"
Sammie Littletail thought the bird might have asked the frog"s name first before saying that Bully was wanted, but the bird did not seem to consider this.
"What"s your name?" the long-legged bird asked again.
"Bully," answered the frog, in a trembling, croaking voice.
"Humph!" exclaimed the heron. "That"s a good name. Mine is Billy. Bully and Billy go well together. I"m called Billy because I have such a long bill, you see," the heron explained to Sammie Littletail. "But enough of this. I"ve come for you, Bully. I"m hungry. I"m going to eat you. That"s why you"re wanted at once and immediate."
"I--I think there"s some mistake," faltered Bully.
"No mistake at all," snapped the heron. "It"s in all the books. Cranes, storks and herons always eat frogs, mice and-so-forth. I never ate any and-so-forth, but I imagine it must be very nice. At any rate, I"m going to eat you!" and he snapped his bill like three knives being sharpened.
"Oh, are you?" cried Bully, the frog, and he suddenly gave a great jump, greater even than that which the Jumping Frog that Mark Twain wrote about gave, and into the pond he plunged, and went right to the bottom.
Now, what do you think about that? Yes, sir, he went right to the bottom, where the blue heron couldn"t get him, and then he called up, in a voice which sounded very hoa.r.s.e because it came from so far under water:
"Ha! Who got left?"
"I suppose he means me," spoke the heron to Sammie, and the bird, very much annoyed, fanned itself with its long leg. "I don"t believe that"s fair," the heron went on. "It"s in all the books," and then, with a great flapping of wings, the tall creature flew away, and Bully, the frog, came out.
"You had a narrow escape," said Sammie.
"Oh, I"m used to that," replied the frog. "Now, let"s practice jumping."
Which they did, only the frog always jumped into the water and Sammie remained on dry land, so they never could tell who was the best at it.
Then they played other games, and became very good friends. The frog pond was very near the new burrow where Sammie lived, and the two used to meet quite often. One day the frog said:
"I think it would be very nice if you would dig a way from your burrow to my pond. Then, when it rained, I could come to see you without getting wet, and you could come to see me."
"That is a fine idea," declared Sammie. "I"ll do it."
So, without saying anything to his mother or sister or Uncle Wiggily Longears, Sammie began to dig under ground to reach the pond. It took him some time, but at last he came out just above the top of the water, near where Bully lived.
"This is great!" cried the frog, as he looked in the hole. "Now when it rains we will not get wet."
And, what do you think! It rained that very night. It rained so hard that the pond rose higher and higher, until the water began to run in the hole Sammie had dug. It awakened the Littletail family in the middle of the night, and when Uncle Wiggily Longears saw the water creeping nearer and nearer to him, and felt the rheumatism worse than ever, he cried out:
"A flood! A flood! We must swim out, or we shall all be drowned." Now you will have to be patient until to-morrow night to hear what took place. But they were not drowned; I"ll tell you that much.
XV
SAMMIE AND SUSIE AT THE CIRCUS
Of course, you remember how Sammie Littletail dug a tunnel from the burrow to the pond, and how the water came in. Of course. Well, Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy made a raft of cornstalks, and on this the whole rabbit family floated out of the burrow. Bully, the frog, who was a playmate of Sammie"s, helped them. They had to go right out into the rain, and it was not very pleasant.
"Whatever are we going to do?" asked Mamma Littletail, but she did not scold Sammie for digging the tunnel and making all the trouble.
"Yes, we must get in out of the wet, or my rheumatism will be so bad I shall not be able to walk," complained Uncle Wiggily Longears.
"I know what we can do," proposed the muskrat nurse.
"What?" asked Susie Littletail.
"We can ask Mr. Groundhog to let us stay all night in his burrow,"
suggested the nurse. "I"m sure he will let us, for he has plenty of room."
Mr. Groundhog, who was an elderly creature, very fond of sleep in the winter, welcomed the rabbits to his burrow, and there they stayed out of the rain. In the morning the sun was shining brightly, and before very long the water all dried out of the bunnies" underground house, so that they could go back in it.
One day, about a week after this, when Uncle Wiggily Longears was out walking with Sammie and Susie, going quite slowly, because he was a trifle lame from rheumatism, Bully, the frog, came hopping up to them.
"Are you going to the circus?" he asked.
"Circus? What circus?" asked Sammie, who was interested very quickly, you may be sure.
"Why, the animal circus that is always held in the woods every spring.
They do all sorts of queer things to get ready for the summer. I"m going. It"s lots of fun. Better come."
"I haven"t seen any circus posters up," remarked Susie.
"Of course not," answered Bully. "The animals never put them up, because they don"t want a lot of people coming to look on and bother them. Don"t you want to come? It"s not very far."
"But we have no one to take us," spoke Susie.
"Yes, you have!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily Longears quickly. "I will take you myself. It would never do for you children to go to a circus alone.
I will take you."
"But your rheumatism is so bad you can hardly walk," objected Susie.
"Besides, it will be worse if you sit in the woods."
"Never mind about that," answered the uncle bravely. "I"ll manage to stand it. I am determined you children shall not go to that circus alone. Of course, I don"t care anything about a circus myself, but I must take care of you," and the elderly rabbit looked very brave, though the pain of his rheumatism was quite bad.