Now, Jolly Robin had almost decided that he would never go near the orchard again. But he felt that if he went with Jimmy Rabbit there ought not to be much danger. So he agreed to Jimmy’s suggestion.
“I’ll be here before the morning’s gone,” he promised.
XII
JOLLY FEELS BETTER
Jolly Robin awoke at dawn. And he knew at once that the day was going to be a fine one. Though the sun had not yet peeped above the rim of the eastern hills, Jolly Robin was sure that there would be plenty of sunshine a little later. He had many ways of his own for telling the weather; and he never made a mistake about it.
Now, it had grown quite warm by the time Jolly Robin went to the woods late in the morning to meet Jimmy Rabbit. And the snow had melted away as if by magic. 58
“Summer’s coming! Summer’s coming!” Jolly called joyfully as soon as Jimmy Rabbit came hopping into sight. “The apple-blossoms will burst out before we know it.”
“Yes—and the cabbages, too,” Jimmy Rabbit replied. “I’m glad the white giant in the orchard lost his head,” he added, “because there’s no telling what he would have done to the cabbages later, if he had wandered into the garden. He might have eaten every one of them. And I shouldn’t have liked that very well.”