“Biddy,” she said as the door opened, “do you suppose Ivanhoe hurt himself just now? He made such a noise!”
“Shure, mum, he’s all right now again. He run straight into the ice-box while I was fixin’ the melon. I tuk him out meself, and the fit was off him.”
The cats all slept in the cellar, which was nicely warmed by the furnace; but the rabbits suffered when the cold weather came, and one morning, after a severe snow-storm, there was nothing to be seen of their house but the cupola. Franklin dug it out with much anxiety, fearing to find them frozen to death. But instead of being dead, they were all piled in one large warm heap on top of each other, like popcorn balls, and seemed more than ready for their breakfast. Mrs. Wood thought it was a wonder that they had lived through the night, and advised Franklin to put them in the cellar while the cold weather lasted.
So it happened that when Bridget did not close the cellar door at night, Cyclone, who slept in the kitchen, would be awakened by strange tweaks and nips at his tail, which called forth yelps of indignation. But not being a hunting dog, he never attempted to catch the wicked white heels that went scudding back through the darkness. He had decided that the rabbits were a new kind of kitten, and had a claim on his indulgence as uncle to the Wood family.
One night Mrs. Wood heard a most extraordinary noise in the kitchen, and, creeping down with her candle, interrupted a grand game of tag between all the animals,—dog, cats, and rabbits,—who were chasing each other around the room in a mad circle, accompanied by stamps, spits, and barks. It was so evidently a game, that Mrs. Wood felt sorry to have disturbed them, and sat down to watch the fun. But her candle had broken the spell, and like fairies when the cock crows, they became once more their daytime selves; indeed, most of them looked very much ashamed of having been caught at such antics.
“Perhaps they really are fairies,” Mrs. Wood thought, going into the pantry after crackers, “and have taken these disguises just to play with my children and me. Very likely, if I’d come down sooner, I might have seen them in their real forms.”
When she returned, they all gathered around her, and teased for crackers; while Samuel, the pet of the bunnies, jumped into her lap. But before all the crackers were gone, the candle burned low and went out, and only the faint light of the stove kept her from stepping on any of the little soft paws that followed her to the stairs.
“Fairies, good-night!” she called gently as she left them. But only the friendly whack, whack of Cyclone’s tail on the floor answered her from the darkness.
“I think, Biddy,” she said the next morning, “that it might be better to keep the kitchen door closed at night.”