“I’d feel a lot worse had I hurt any one as badly,” answered the Elephant, rubbing his left hind leg with his trunk and wiping his eyes with Uncle Lucky’s blue silk polkadot handkerchief, which the old gentleman rabbit had politely handed to him.
“Perhaps you’d better take me back to my little house in the Shady Forest,” sighed the Circus Elephant. So away they went to his little log hut.
But when he went to look for the front door key in the empty bird’s nest, it wasn’t there.
“What shall I do?” he asked, sitting down and resting his trunk on the front door-step. “How am I to get in?”
Just then who should come by but Grandmother Magpie. Now you know that magpies are very mischievous, picking up and carrying away all sorts of things. So as soon as Little Jack Rabbit saw Grandmother Mischief, he shouted:
“If you have taken the elephant’s key
You’ll soon be sorry as sorry can be.
For I’ll go tell Professor Crow,
And then you’ll be more sorry, I know.
For he’ll tell Mr. Owl and Mr. Mouse