“Helloa there, little rabbit,” said the wise old bird, and then he opened his little Black Book and, turning to page 23, he said:
“Let me read you something about pigeons.”
“Why?” asked the little bunny, wiggling his little pink nose so fast that old Professor Jim Crow’s eyes filled with tears, and he had to take off his spectacles and wipe them with his silk pocket handkerchief.
“Because,” answered the old crow, “two pigeons have made their home in the loft of your mother’s old barn.” Then he put on his spectacles again and commenced to read aloud:
“Pigeons always lay two eggs, and these produce a male and a female, so they are mated from birth, and, could they remain so, they would be the happiest of winged beings.”
And then the old professor closed his book and said, “Better hurry home and see the new pigeons.” So away hopped the little rabbit, clipperty clip, lipperty lip, over the Sunny Meadow until, by and by, after awhile, he came to the Old Bramble Patch. There stood his mother in the backyard. She had just placed a pan of water under a tree for the pigeons.
“Don’t make any noise,” she said, as the little rabbit drew near. Pretty soon Mr. Pigeon flew down to taste the water, and by and by Mrs. Pigeon fluttered down by his side.
“Cock-a-doodle-do,
Of pigeons we have two,
But some day there’ll be dozens more
A-cooing by the old barn door,”
sang the old Red Rooster who had come over from Uncle John’s to help Mrs. Rabbit weed the carrot patch.
After that she and her little bunny boy hopped up on the front porch to hear the canary bird in her gold cage sing: