And then all the little and big forest folk began to sing:
"Hip, hip hurray, the peddler's gone away.
No more he'll make his tin pans shake
And spoil our singing school beside the Forest Pool."
And in the next story, if the baby who lives in the house opposite doesn't shake his rattle at me all night so that I can't get to sleep and dream about the next story in time to write it for to-morrow night, I'll tell you more about the little rabbit's adventures.
STORY XII.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE RABBITVILLE "GAZETTE."
There was once a little rabbit
Who was very fond of pie,
Apple pie, with sugar on the crust.
And he had a little habit,
When his mother wasn't nigh,
Of eating apple pie until he bust.
This is what Mr. William Bunny, the little rabbit's father, you know, was singing one day, and the reason was because Mrs. Bunny had found little Billy Bunny in the pantry.
And what happened to the little rabbit I'm not going to tell you, for it is so sad that it would make you weep to hear it.
"All day he nibbled pie
Till at last I thought he'd die,"
Said the doctor with a sigh.
And then Mr. William Bunny looked at his small son and sighed, too, for he had just paid the doctor's bill.