WHAT HAPPENED TO BUNNY.
BUNNY is the name of a squirrel with a very long tail.
When nuts were ripe Bunny worked hard to pick them and store them up for his family to live on through the cold winter.
His house was in a big hollow tree. The door to it was a little round hole. He had a nice large pantry.
All day long, in the pleasant Oc-to-ber weather, when children were playing, Bunny was picking nuts and scampering down the trees to put them safe in his pantry.
He had a good many kinds of nuts. There were butternuts and walnuts and chestnuts, and tiny beechnuts for the teeny weeny squirrels. At last Bunny’s pantry was full, and he was all ready for December with its cold winds and snowflakes.
One morning something happened! Just as Bunny started out he found a wire cage in front of his door. He thought it was a pretty little house, so he walked in.
Snap! went the door of this pretty little house, and shut itself tight.
“THEN HE SHALL GO.”
Bunny tried on every side to get out, but he could not. He was in a prison.
While he wondered what he should do a big boy came and looked at him.
“Hurrah!” he said.
Then big boy took up the cage and carried it off home.
He gave Bunny to his little sister Susie.
Susie was kind to Bunny. She put him in a basket with a soft bed and gave him cake and candy.
But Bunny was not happy. He was too warm in the house with his fur coat on, and he wanted to get back to his dear children. He would not play; he sat still and looked sad.
“Poor Bunny!” said Susie’s mamma; “he is used to being outdoors, and frisking about. He wants to see his little children and eat the nuts he laid up.”
“Then he shall go,” Susie said.
So she told him good-by, and carried the cage out in the garden and opened its door.
Away went Bunny! He scampered over the fence and whisked up a tall tree as quick as wink.
How happy he was to get to his hollow tree once more.
Was not Susie a nice little girl?
Mrs. C. M. Livingston.
