Sammie and Susie Littletail

by Howard Roger Garis

XXIV

HIDING THE EASTER EGGS

What a lot of Easter eggs there were! I'm sure if you tried to count all that Sammie and Susie Littletail, and Papa and Mamma Littletail, to say nothing of Uncle Wiggily Longears and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy had colored, ready for Easter, you never could do it, never, never, never! Of course, Uncle Wiggily couldn't get so very many of the eggs ready for the children, because, you know, he has rheumatism, but then Sammie and Susie were so quick, and Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy hurried so, that long before Easter Sunday-morning, or Easter Monday morning, whenever you children hunt for your eggs, they were all ready.

You see, the rabbits have to hide all the Easter eggs that you children hunt for. Of course, I don't mean those in the store windows; the pretty ones, made of candy, and with little windows that you look through to see beautiful scenes. Oh, no, not those, but the ones you find at home. Those in the windows are put there by different kinds of rabbits.

Well, all the Easter eggs were ready, and Sammie and Susie, their papa and mamma, Uncle Wiggily Longears and Nurse Jane-Fuzzy-Wuzzy, set out to hide them. There were many colors. I think I have told you about them, but I'll just mention a few again. There were red ones, blue ones, green ones, pink ones, Alice blue ones, Johnnie red ones, Froggie green ones, strawberry color, and then that new shade, skilligimink, which is very fine indeed, and which turned Sammie sky-blue-pink.

So the rabbits started off with their baskets of colored eggs on their paws.

"Now, be careful, Sammie," called his mamma. "Don't fall down and break any of those eggs."

"No, mamma," answered Sammie, who was still colored sky-blue-pink, for it hadn't all worn off yet. "I'll be very careful."

"So will I, mamma," called Susie.

So they walked on through the woods to visit Newark and all the places around where children want Easter eggs. Of course, if you had gone out in the woods on top of Orange Mountain you could not have seen those rabbits, because they were invisible. That is, you couldn't see them, because Mrs. Cluck-Cluck, the fairy hen, had given them all cloaks spun out of cobwebs, just like the Emperor of China once had, and this made it so no one could see them. For it would never do, you know, to have the rabbits spied upon when they were hiding the eggs. It wouldn't be fair, any more than it would be right to peek when you're "it" in playing blind man's buff.