"Once upon a time,
Not so very long ago,
A band of tiny fairies
Lived in the woodland near.
And often I would hear them
A-singing soft and low
When all was dark and quiet
And the moon shone bright and clear.
So one evening I stole softly
Out of the hollow stump,
And found them dancing merrily
With tiny skip and jump;
And just as I was going
To say how do you do,
The Fairy Queen began to scream.
And then away she flew.
And then her tiny subjects
Took fright and ran off, too,
And now I never see them more
A-dancing near my old stump door."
"That's too bad," said the little rabbit, for he was so interested in what the old woodchuck was saying that he had forgotten all about his lollypop and had dropped it on the floor.
And in the next story he'll pick up his lollypop and eat it, because I hate to have him lose it, don't you?
STORY XXXVII.
BILLY BUNNY AND LITTLE PEEWEE.
Let me stop for a moment and think where I left off last night. Oh, now I remember. Billy Bunny was in the old woodchuck hollow stump, and it was raining.
Oh, my, yes. Cats and dogs, as they say in grown-ups' stories, so we'll say kittens and puppies. Well, after a while the rain stopped and the little rabbit said good-by and hopped away, and pretty soon, not very long, a little bird began to sing:
"Down the shady Forest Trail,
O'er the hill and through the vale,
Billy Bunny hops along
With a whistle and a song.
And if you have never heard
A rabbit whistle like a bird,
You must ask each little rabbit
If he has the whistling habit."
"Who's singing?" asked Billy Bunny, and he took his silver policeman's whistle out of his knapsack and blew on it so hard that the little bird began to cry:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You will whistle my ear off!" And then, of course, the little rabbit stopped, for he didn't want to hurt that dear little bird. No sireemam.