Hollow Tree Nights and Days

by Albert Bigelow Paine

HER ADVENTURES

"Really, I don't know what time it was that I woke up, but I know I did not wake up naturally. I just seemed to jump out of my sleep, and I was wide awake in a second. Something was clawing and scratching at one of my wire windows, and then I saw two big, fiery eyes, and knew it was some fierce creature, and that it was after me. Well, I thought I had been scared before in my short life, but I could see now that I had never really known what it was to be scared. I didn't see how I could live from one minute to the next, I was in such a state, and I couldn't move hand or foot.

"I knew what it was after me. Our Mr. Man had a big old Mr. Dog that I had seen looking at me very interestedly once before when my little girl carried my house past him. They kept him fastened with a chain, but somehow he had worked himself loose, and now he had come to make a late supper out of poor defenseless me. I would have talked to him, and tried to shame him out of it, but I was too scared even to speak, for he was biting and clawing at that wire net window as hard as he could, and I could see that it was never going to keep him out, for it was beginning to give way, and all of a sudden it did give way, and his big old head came smashing right through into my house, and I expected in another second to be dead.

"But just in that very second I seemed to come to life. I didn't have anything to do with it at all. My legs suddenly turned into springs and sent me flying out under old Mr. Dog's neck, between his fore feet; then they turned into wings, and if I touched the ground again for at least three miles I don't remember it. I could hear old Mr. Dog back there, and I could tell by his language that he was mad. He thought he was chasing me, but he wasn't. He was just wallowing through the bushes and across a boggy place that I had sailed over like a bird. If he could have seen how fast I was going he would have thought he was standing still. But he was old and foolish, and kept blundering along, until I couldn't hear him any more, he was so far behind. Then, by and by, it was morning, and I really came to life and found I was tired and hungry and didn't know in the least where I was.

"There didn't seem to be anything to eat there, either, but only leaves and woods; and I was afraid to taste such green things as I saw, because they were wild and might make me sick. So I went on getting more tired and hungry and lost, and was nearly ready to give up when I heard some one call, just overhead, and I looked up, and saw a friendly-looking bird who said his name was Mr. Robin, and asked if there was anything he could do for me. When I told him how tired and hungry I was, he came down and showed me some things I could eat without danger, and invited me home with him. He said I was in the Big Deep Woods, and that there was a vacant room in the tree where he and Mrs. Robin had their nest and I could stay there as long as I liked.

SO I WENT HOME WITH MR. ROBIN

"So I went home with Mr. Robin, and Mrs. Robin was ever so kind, and said she thought I must be of the same family as Mr. Jack Rabbit, because we resembled a good deal, and sent over for him right away. I was ever so glad to think I was going to see one of my own folks again, and when Mr. Rabbit came we sat right down, and I told him my story, and we tried to trace back and see what relation we were, but it was too far back, and besides, I was too young when I left home to know much about my ancestors. Mr. Rabbit said if we were related at all it must be through his mother, as she was very handsome, and he thought I looked like her a good deal. He said what a fine thing it was that I had quit being a house rabbit and had decided to be a wild, free rabbit in the Big Deep Woods, though, of course, it was really old Mr. Dog who decided it for me, and I was quite sorry to leave my little girl, who was always so good to me and loved me very much. It makes me sad when I remember how I saw her at the window, that last time, but I don't think I want to go back, anyway, now since Jack—Mr. Rabbit, I mean—is teaching me all about Deep Woods life and says he is not going to let me go back at all—ever!"

Little Miss Myrtle all at once seemed very much embarrassed again, and looked down into her lap, and Mr. Jack Rabbit seemed quite embarrassed, too, when he tried to say something, because he had to cough two or three times before he could get started.