"Sammie, your mamma wants you."
"What does she want?" he asked.
"She wants you to go to the drug store and get some stuff to color the Easter eggs with. Hurry, please, because she has lots to do."
"May we help color them?" asked Susie, hanging up her grapevine rope on a low bush.
"I think so," answered the muskrat nurse. "Now, hurry, Sammie; your mamma wants to get all done before your papa comes home from the carrot factory to-night."
"All right," answered the little boy rabbit. "I guess I can help color the eggs, too," and he hurried off to the drug store, that was near Dr. Possum's house.
Now pretty soon—in fact, almost immediately—something is going to happen to Sammie Littletail, so I want you all to sit quietly, and not wiggle so that you'll break the couch, or I can't go on. That's better. Well, then, Sammie went through the woods, and, on his way, he felt so happy that he sang this little song, which he had heard the kindergarten children singing at the owl school a few days before. This is the song, but of course I can't sing it very well. Please don't laugh. I'll do the best I can, although, perhaps, I shan't get the words just right:
"'Soldier boy, soldier boy, where are you going,
Waving so proudly your red, white and blue?'
'I'm going to the war to fight for my country,
And if you'll be a soldier boy, you may come too.'"
That's the way Sammie sang it, anyhow, and just as he finished he got to the drug store.
"Who was that singing?" asked Dr. Possum, who happened to be in the store just then.