“I beg your pardon,” said the sentry, saluting the two rabbits most respectfully, “I only wanted to make sure. These are war times, you know, and we must be on the lookout every minute of the day and every second of the night!”
And then he saluted again and turned away. And then, all of a sudden, the band began playing, but it must have been off in the woods, somewhere, for the little bunnies couldn’t see it.
Hurrah for Uncle Samuel,
King of the U. S. A.
Three cheers for the Blue,
And the Red and White, too,
And the Silver Stars, I say.
And here’s to the sailor lad in blue
And the soldier boy in brown,
From the farm and the mine,
And the big steel mills,
Or the little old home town.
STORY XV—BILLY BUNNY AND MRS. BRUIN
In the last story I left off very suddenly while the band was playing, you remember, and I will tell you the reason why.
My typewriter got so excited over the song about the sailor lad in blue and the soldier boy in town, I mean in brown, that it began dancing to the music and of course then I couldn’t write another word.
Well, anyway, you remember that Billy Bunny and his good, kind Uncle Lucky were just leaving the Billy Goat Sentry who had stopped them in their automobile, to continue their journey of adventure. So off they started down the road and by and by they came across a big black bear with two little cubs.
“Now there’s going to be more trouble, I know it,” said little Billy Bunny, but good, kind Uncle Lucky didn’t think so. You see, he was always looking on the bright side of things, so he called out to Mrs. Bruin, which was the lady bear’s name, I believe, “Won’t you get into the Luckymobile and we’ll take you to town?” and of course the little bears said yes right away, for they had never ridden in an automobile in all their lives.
Well, in they climbed and after Uncle Lucky had leaned over and closed the door, for the bears were so excited they had forgotten to do it, he started up the automobile and away they went to Rabbitville, for that was the nearest town.
And pretty soon the two little bears began to sing: