"I should like to find them," sighed Bumper. "The fact is, I'm lonesome, and a little bit homesick. I'm not used to the woods, and I should dearly like to find some of my brown cousins so they could teach me things."
"I shouldn't think you needed much teaching," laughed the Red-Headed Woodpecker, tapping the limb with his powerful bill. "Any rabbit that can escape from Mr. Fox and climb a tree as you did must know a great deal."
The other birds nodded their heads at this remark, and Bumper looked pleased at the compliment to his shrewdness.
"Still," he said, "I'd like to meet my country cousins."
"If I see any of them," Rusty the Blackbird replied, "I'll tell them about you. They'll be surprised to know of your coming."
The rest agreed to carry the news to the wild rabbits when they saw them, and Bumper knew that he would soon find his country cousins. He felt that he would be welcome, and safer with them. There were so many puzzling things about the woods that, in spite of his self-confidence, he was often embarrassed.
This conclusion was further impressed upon him very forcibly a few hours later. When he was certain that the fox had left the vicinity for good, he crawled through his tunnel to the ground, and began feeding on the wild grasses, leaves and strange plants that grew so thickly in the woods.
Most of the plants were new to him. He hardly recognized any of them. Some were sweet and juicy, and others were so bitter that one taste was enough. No one could help him in the selection of his food, and he had to trust to his instinct.
But instinct isn't always a safe guide when one is not familiar with his surroundings. Now just what plant it was that disagreed with him Bumper never knew. His little stomach was so full of leaves and plants that when he first began to feel sick and giddy he thought it was due to overeating.
"I'll just lie down in the shade now and rest," he said. "Then when I feel better I'll hop around and find a place to spend the night."