"Please play me a tune," said the little rabbit. And then the beautiful peacock said, "What tune would you like?" and the little rabbit answered:
"Sprinkle, sprinkle, little star,
Just a water drop you are.
Twinkle, twinkle, drops of dew,
With the sunlight shining through."
So the beautiful fountain played this little song while Billy Bunny sat there listening and the beautiful peacock spread his tail to catch the sparkle from the glittering drops of water. And then all the roses began singing:
Roses white and roses red,
And roses yellow too, instead,
And pretty lilies white as snow,
And every other flower you know.
And after that Billy Bunny asked the peacock to sing a song, but when he started to sing, oh dear, oh dear. For you know just because a bird has beautiful feathers he may not have a beautiful voice, and the sounds the peacock made were dreadful.
Yes, indeed. And if the little rabbit hadn't skipped away he would have had to hold his paws over his ears, and then maybe he couldn't have stopped them up, for he had very large ears and very small feet.
STORY XVI.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE MARBLE DEER.
In the story before this I told you how the beautiful peacock sang a song which was dreadful, so very dreadful that little Billy Bunny had to hold his ears and run away from the lovely fountain.
Well, after he had hopped along for maybe a million hops or less, he came to a little deer on a smooth lawn. So he stopped and spoke to him, but the pretty little animal never said a word. He didn't even look at the little rabbit, so Billy Bunny touched him on the nose, but, oh, dear me! It was cold and hard, not at all like the nose of a real little deer.