THE TADPOLE CAME BACK WITH WATERCRESS SANDWICHES AND POND-LILY MILK.
“Start her up! Start her up!” yelled the old gentleman rabbit. And Billy Bunny did, and Uncle Lucky jumped into the automobile just in time, too, for the Turkey Gobbler almost had him by the tail.
“Here’s some money to pay for your pies,” cried the honest old gentleman bunny, and he threw twenty or less carrot cents at the turkey gobbler, who gobbled them up, I mean picked them up, in a hurry for fear they might take root in the ground and grow into plain ordinary carrots if he let them lie there a minute.
And by this time of course the two rabbits were far away in their automobile, and if the next story has to be written to-night, as I know it must, I’ll stop right here and wish you pleasant dreams and happy wakening.
STORY XII—BILLY BUNNY AND THE DONKEY
“That certainly was a lucky escape,” said Uncle Lucky to Billy Bunny as they sped away in their Luckymobile after overturning all the pies in the bake shop, as I told you in the last story.
“I shall be more careful the next time and see where I’m going,” and the old gentleman rabbit settled his stovepipe hat firmly on his head and held on tighter to the steering wheel, and then he honked the horn three times and a half to let everybody hear him coming before he ran over them; and then, all of a sudden, quicker than a lightning bug, a little gray donkey ran right in the middle of the road and kicked up his heels and brayed, which is the way a donkey talks, you know.
“Get out of the way!” yelled Uncle Lucky, and he put on the brake, but, oh dear me, and oh dear donkey! the brake wouldn’t work. It just got obstinate, I guess, when it saw that donkey’s heels, or else it thought the donkey would stop the automobile just as well, which he did, I’m sorry to say.
Yes, Siree, and Yes, Siree Man! That donkey kicked his shoes right off and the Luckymobile stopped and Uncle Lucky and Billy Bunny got out so quickly that they rolled over and over on the ground for maybe a block and a half and then they wouldn’t have stopped, only a policeman grabbed them.