“Is it not?” said the hare. “And then there is that horrid little creature the weasel. He follows me about till he catches me, and then he bites me in the throat, so that I bleed to death.”
“That is horrid of him,” said Tommy Smith. “But there is one thing which I cannot understand. The weasel does not go so very fast, and you can run faster than a horse. I am sure that if you were to run away, he would never be able to catch you.”
“You don’t know what it is,” said the hare. “That odious little animal follows me about, and never leaves off. You see, wherever I go I leave a smell behind me.”
“Do you?” said Tommy Smith. “That seems very funny. Why, I am close to you, and I don’t smell anything.”
“Little boys cannot smell nearly as well as animals,” said the hare. “However, I don’t quite understand it myself, for I am sure I am as clean as any animal can be, and there is nothing nasty about me; and yet whenever my feet touch the ground, they leave a smell upon it. That is my scent; but other animals have their scent too as well as I, so I needn’t mind about it. Now the weasel has a very good nose, so that he is able to follow the scent that I have left on the ground, until he comes to where I am; and, besides, when I know that that cruel little animal is following me, I get so frightened that I cannot run away, as I would from you, or from a fox, or a dog. And so he comes up and kills me.”
“Poor hare!” said Tommy Smith. “I feel very sorry for you. I am afraid that you are not clever like other animals, or else you would escape and get away more often. The rat would run down a hole, I am sure, and so would the rabbit. I have often seen him do it.”
“Pray do not compare me to the rabbit,” said the hare. “I have twice as much sense as he has, and I can tell you that you make a great mistake if you think I am not clever, for I am very clever indeed, as I will soon show you. If you will follow me a few steps, I will take you to the place where I was lying when you frightened me out of it. See, here it is. Look how nicely the grass is pressed downward and bent back on each side, so that it makes a pretty little bower for me to rest in when I am tired of running about. That is better, I think, than a mere hole in the ground; and, for my part, I look upon burrowing as a very foolish habit. I prefer fresh air, and I think that it is much nicer to see all about one than to live in the dark. This little bower of mine is what people call my form, and I am so fond of it that, however often I am driven away, I always come back to it again. And now, how do you think I get into this form of mine? I have told you that wherever I go I leave a scent upon the ground, so if I just came to my form and walked into it, any animal that crossed my scent would be able to follow it till he came to where I was. Now, what do you think I do to prevent this?”
“I don’t know,” said Tommy Smith, after he had thought a little; “I don’t see how you can prevent it, for you must come to your form on your feet,—you cannot fly.”
“No,” said the hare; “but I can jump. Look!” And he gave several leaps into the air, which made Tommy Smith clap his hands and call out, “Bravo! how well you do it!”
“Now,” said the hare, “when I am coming back to my form, I leap first to this side and then to that side, and then I make a very big jump indeed, and down I come in my own house. Of course, by doing this, I make it much more difficult for a fox or a weasel to smell where I have been, for it is only where my feet touch the ground that I leave my scent upon it.”