“Oh, please, Mrs. Wildcat, let me go,” cried the little rabbit, and he looked around for a hollow stump to hide in or a hole to crawl into, but there wasn’t anything like that in sight. So he turned to the cruel wildcat and said, “Please don’t bite me!” And then he opened his knapsack and took out a big, round doughnut, the kind with a big hole inside, you know, and gave it to the wildcat.
“Take it home to your wild kittens instead of me, won’t you please, Mrs. Wildcat?” And would you believe it, she said she would, for it pleased her to think that little Billy Bunny would give her a doughnut for her kittens, for no one else had ever done that before, you see.
STORY XXII—BILLY BUNNY AT WINDY CAVE
You remember in the last story that Billy Bunny gave the Wildcat a doughnut to take home to her little wild kittens, and that was why she didn’t take the little rabbit.
Well, as she walked off with the doughnut, Billy Bunny said to himself, “I’ll never, never be without a doughnut in my knapsack!” And I guess you would have said the same thing, too, if a doughnut had saved you from a wildcat!
After that the little rabbit hopped along through the Friendly Forest, and by and by he came to the Windy Cave. Now I know I’ve never told you about this cave before because Billy Bunny never happened to visit it, but now that he has I’ll tell you that it was strange sort of a place.
If you stood at the opening you could hear the winds moan and groan, and every once in a while a great gust would come out of the mouth of the great cave and almost blow you off your feet.
DOWN FROM THE TREE JUMPED THE WILDCAT.
Well, sir, that’s just what happened to Billy Bunny. He no sooner stood right in front of the cave than a great blast of air knocked him off his feet and rolled him over thirty-three times and a half, and he would have rolled over thirty-four times even if a big log hadn’t been in the way.