Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers Part 4

That's what the Little People of the Shady Forest and the Sunny Meadow thought. You see, the Miller's Boy had very little to do just now, for the farmers were busy in the fields and the corn wasn't ready to be ground into meal. So all the Miller's Boy had to do was to attend to a few ch.o.r.es and then get out his gun and go hunting. And of course all the little four-footed and feathered people were dreadfully afraid of that great noisy gun.

"Look here," said Mrs. Rabbit, one day to her little son, "you had better be careful. You can't run faster than a bullet, you know. It's all very well to run away from Danny Fox and Mr. Wicked Weasel, or to dodge from under Hungry Hawk, but a bullet is a different thing," and the kind lady bunny patted her small son on the left ear and gave him a piece of cherry pie.

Well, as soon as the pie was gone, Little Jack Rabbit hopped out of the Old Bramble Patch, clipperty clip, lipperty lip, and pretty soon he met Chippy Chipmunk and Woody Chuck in the Shady Forest.

"Mother says a bullet goes faster than Danny Fox," explained the little bunny, and as everybody in the Shady Forest knew Mrs. Rabbit never told anything that wasn't true, as Grandmother Magpie did, for instance, these two little friends looked very serious. Yes, indeed, they looked serious. They began to feel that the Miller's Boy was a dangerous person.

"Let's tell all our friends," said Woody Chuck, so off the three started and by and by, not so very far, they came to the Shady Forest Pond where Busy Beaver lived.

"Pooh, pooh!" he said, when he heard the news. "I'm safe in the water.

He can't get a shot at me."

"Don't be too sure," answered Little Jack Rabbit, as he ran down to the Old Duck Pond to tell Granddaddy Bullfrog.

Now the old gentleman frog was half asleep on his log, his chin resting on his gray waistcoat and his eyes closed, for he had just eaten a big dinner of flies.

"h.e.l.loa, there, Granddaddy Bullfrog," shouted the little rabbit. The old frog opened his eyes and took out his watch to see the time, for he thought at first it was Mrs. Bullfrog calling him home.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said to the little rabbit. "Gracious me, I must have fallen asleep, for I had a dream.

"I thought I'd caught a thousand flies, All on this summer day.

But now that you've awakened me They all have flown away.

"Oh, it was such a pleasant dream, I fear I shall grow thinner.

You should have let me slumber on Until I'd finished dinner."

POOR JIMMY MINK

As soon as Little Rabbit had told the old gentleman frog to watch out for the Miller's Boy, he hopped along by the Bubbling Brook, as it wound in and out among the trees of the Shady Forest or went splas.h.i.+ng over rocks and fallen logs. All of a sudden he met Jimmy Mink. But, oh dear me! What was the matter with Jimmy Mink? He was hobbling on three legs.

What could be the matter?

"h.e.l.loa, there, Jimmy Mink," shouted the little rabbit.

"What makes you walk on three legs, When you can walk on four?

I didn't know that you had been A soldier in the war."

"I haven't," replied Jimmy Mink. "I got caught in a trap," and he lifted up his right foreleg.

"Why, your foot's gone!" gasped the little rabbit. "Isn't that dreadful?"

"Yes, it's pretty bad," answered Jimmy Mink. "But the only way I could free myself was to bite off my foot."

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried the little rabbit, sorrowfully. "Tell me how it happened." So Jimmy Mink explained how one day when he had crept out of his little house under the bank of the Bubbling Brook, he had seen a nice fat trout on an old log. "There was a queer looking iron thing there, too," he said, "but I didn't think anything about that. But, oh dear me! When I picked up the trout, something snapped and my leg was caught fast. Oh, how it pinched! I pulled and pulled. But I couldn't get away. Then I tried to bite the iron thing that held my foot, but I couldn't break it. So at last I gnawed off my foot."

"Whew!" whistled the little bunny through his teeth. "I never could do that. My, but you're a brave fellow."

"There's the iron thing over there," said Jimmy Mink, pointing to a trap that lay on an old log close to the bank. The little rabbit hopped over and looked at it. And, sure enough, pinched in between the jaws of the cruel trap was Jimmy Mink's little black foot.

"But I've learned my lesson," said Jimmy Mink. "Next time if I want trout, I'll catch him in the water, not on top of a log," and he jumped into the pool and swam away. Then the little rabbit hopped along the Shady Forest Trail, but he couldn't forget poor little Jimmy Mink.

Well, after a while, all of a sudden, he heard a great chickering and chirring overhead. Around and around the trunk of the tree went two bodies, one a yellowish brown, about as large as a cat, and the other gray, with a long bushy tail.

Up to the top they went as fast as lightning, around and around, corkscrew fas.h.i.+on, and then down they came to the ground and before his yellowish brown enemy could catch him, Twinkle Tail dashed into a crack between two stones.

PROFESSOR JIM CROW'S LESSON

"I'm so glad Twinkle Tail got away," said Little Jack Rabbit to himself, as the frightened gray squirrel squeezed in between the rocks. And then the little rabbit hopped away as fast as he could, and pretty soon he saw Professor Jim Crow with his little Black Book in his claw.

"Tell me, Professor Jim Crow," said the little rabbit, "what is the name of the yellowish-brown animal that chases little gray squirrels around and around the trunks of trees?"

"How big was he?" asked the wise old bird, putting on his spectacles and turning over the leaves of his little Black Book.

"Larger than the farmer's black cat," answered the little rabbit.

"Did it look something like a fox?" asked the old crow.

"Yes, he did," replied the little rabbit.

Professor Jim Crow smiled and turned to page 49. "Listen!" he said. "The Marten looks very much like a young fox about two months old. Its color is a yellowish-brown, a little darker than a yellow fox, with a number of long black hairs. It is a great climber, hunts squirrels and robs birds' nests."

Then the wise old crow closed his book and wiped his spectacles. "You have learned something to-day, little rabbit. Mother Nature's School House will teach you lots of things," and the old professor bird flew away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I'm in the Hollow Stump Telephone Booth."

_Page_ 59]

"Well, I'm going to have a good time now," thought the little rabbit to himself. "I've learned my daily lesson. I'll call up Uncle John." So off he hopped to the Hollow Stump Telephone Booth.

"What number do you want?" asked the telephone girl who was a little wood-mouse.

"One, two, three, Harefield," answered the little rabbit, and in less than five hundred short seconds, he heard his Uncle's voice over the wire.

"Goodness gracious meebus!" exclaimed Mr. John Hare, "I thought you'd forgotten all about your old uncle. Where are you?"

"I'm in the Hollow Stump Telephone Booth," answered the little rabbit.

"I'll come right over to the Old Bramble Patch," said Uncle John, and the old gentleman hare dropped the receiver on his left hind toe he was so excited. You see, he hadn't heard from his little bunny nephew for so long that he supposed he had enlisted in Uncle Sam's Army or Aunt Columbia's Navy! Well, anyway, as soon as the little rabbit had paid the little wood-mouse five carrot cents, he hopped home to tell his mother that Uncle John Hare was coming over to supper.