LITTLE JACK KNEW PERFECTLY WELL THAT SHE WASN'T AT ALL PLEASED
And just at that moment Mrs. Rabbit herself stepped in the door! And when she looked at her red-spotted and striped stove and then at little Jack Rabbit, little Jack knew perfectly well without her saying a single word that she wasn't at all pleased. So he began to cry very loud, and started to run, and tripped over his blocks and fell against a little stand-table that had Mrs. Rabbit's work-basket on it (for Mrs. Rabbit always knit or sewed while she was cooking anything), and all the spools and buttons and knitting-work went tumbling, with little Jack Rabbit right among them, holloing, "Oh, I'm killed! I'm killed!"—just sprawling there on the floor, afraid to get up, and expecting every minute his mother would do something awful.
But Mrs. Rabbit just stood and looked at him over her spectacles and then at her red-spotted and striped stove, and pretty soon she said:
"Well, this is a lovely mess to come home to!"
Which of course made little Jack take on a good deal worse and keep on bawling out that he was killed, until Mrs. Rabbit told him that he was making a good deal of noise for a dead man, and that if he'd get up and pick up all the things he'd upset maybe he'd come to life again.
Then little Jack Rabbit got up and ran to his mother and cried against her best dress and got some tears on it, and Mrs. Rabbit sat down in her rocker and looked at her stove and rocked him until he felt better. And by-and-by she changed her dress and went to cleaning her stove while little Jack picked up all the things—all the spools and buttons and needles and knitting-work—every single thing.
PROMISED NEVER TO DISOBEY HIS MOTHER AGAIN
And after supper, when he said his prayers and went to bed, he promised never to disobey his mother again.