And then he and his mischievous brother Featherhead ran away and didn’t bother Grandpa Possum for a long time.
“Well, I guess I’ll be getting along,” said the little rabbit and he hopped away and by and by he came to the Shady Forest Pond where Busy Beaver had his home. But of course he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. No, siree. He was in his little mud hut whose roof stuck up above the ice and whose cellar door was way down deep where the water was free from ice and he could swim in and out as he pleased.
So the little rabbit didn’t wait, but hopped along until he came to the edge of the forest, when he started to hop across the Sunny Meadow to the Old Barn Yard where Henny Penny and Cocky Doodle lived all the year ’round. But just then he heard the supper bell. So, instead, he hurried home to be in time for Aunt Jemima’s angel cake.
[COUSIN CHATTERBOX]
Little Jack Rabbit loved the snow that covered the ground with a soft white carpet. His feet never grew cold. No siree, they didn’t. All the little Forest Folk liked the snow, for Loving Mother Nature had given them warm fur, and warm fur laughs at cold just as love laughs at troubles.
Even Mrs. Grouse was happy. And if you’ve forgotten why, I’ll tell you again. It was because dear Mother Nature had given her a pair of snow-shoes. Yes, indeed. The skin had grown out between her toes until she could walk as nicely as you please over the snow. And what is more, Loving Mother Nature had taught her to dive into a snowbank where she could stay for the night as snug and warm as you please, when Old Mr. North Wind blew upon his chilly horn.
Neither did Squirrel Nutcracker care that the ground was covered with snow, and he could find no more nuts. He had a supply hidden safely away in the old hollow chestnut tree. But he did mind having other people take them. And when his cousin, Chatterbox, in his red fur coat, tried to break into his storehouse, Squirrel Nutcracker was as mad as mad could be.
“Whoever steals a nut from me
From out my storehouse in this tree,
A friend of mine shall be no more,
So let him stay outside my store.”