“Oh, thunder!” said Franklin,“we can’t ever catch him now. How in the world did he get out?”
Eunice went through a little struggle with herself, and then said: “He—I was holding him just a minute, Franklin. You see he was most out himself, and so—”
“You didn’t try to hold him after what I said!”
“Yes, I did.”
Franklin might have understood how hard it was for her to tell this, but he didn’t, and said angrily, “Eunice, you’re a naughty, naughty girl, and you shall never even touch one of my rabbits again!”
Eunice turned and went into the house without saying a word, but Franklin heard a pitiful wail when the door was closed, and thought, “Hm—serves her right!”
He spent the rest of the morning looking for Stamper, and putting Lost signs, with a description of the rabbit, on all the barns in the neighborhood. But he did not expect to find him again, and dinner that day was not a cheerful meal. Eunice’s eyes were red; Kenneth was too awestruck to upset his glass of water as usual; and Mrs. Wood looked grieved. But Franklin did not see why she should expect him to be anything but cross, when he had lost the finest rabbit in the whole club, and all through the fault of a meddling child,—her child too! He decided that he had a right to be most severe, and went out after dinner to whittle on the side steps, which with him was always a sign of great displeasure.
As he sat there, Weejums picked her way daintily down beside him, and came out for her daily airing. She gave a funny little jump and spit, when one of the whittlings struck her, and Franklin almost laughed, but remembered in time that he was too angry, and sent another whittling after her to see what she would do. This time she smelled of it, to see if it was something to eat, then finding that Franklin was only joking, slanted back her ears, and walked haughtily across the yard, with stiff jerks of the tail.
The temptation to make her jump proved too much for him, and he shied a small piece of coal at her so neatly that it passed directly under her, tossing the sand about her feet. Weejums gave a wild spit, and tore into the alley, with rising fur, looking around in vain for the earthquake that had struck her.
“Come back, Weej—here, here,” called Franklin, good-naturedly, for teasing animals was not usually in his line. But then he was cross to-day, and had not Eunice lost his rabbit?