Mr. Longears started to run, but he had not taken many hops before, all of a sudden, he felt a sharp, thumping pain in his side, and he was almost knocked over by a snowball thrown by the bad boy.
"Hi there! I hit him! I hit him!" howled the bad boy, dancing up and down.
"Yes," sadly said the other chap. "You hit him, but what good did it do?"
"It shows I'm a straight shot!" proudly answered the other. "Maybe I can catch that rabbit now."
He ran over the snow. But though Uncle Wiggily had been knocked down by the ball thrown by the bad boy, the rabbit gentleman managed to get to his feet, and away he hopped on his rheumatism crutch—so fast that the bad boy could not get him.
Then the bad boy and the other chap, who was not so bad, played in the snow, until it was time to go home. Uncle Wiggily hopped to his hollow stump bungalow, but he said nothing to Nurse Jane about the pain in his side.
"If I tell her she won't let me go out to the movies to-night with Grandpa Goosey," thought Mr. Longears.
So, though his side pained him, Uncle Wiggily said never a word, but early that evening he hopped over to Grandpa Goosey's home in the duck pen. And on the way Uncle Wiggily had to pass the house of the bad boy.
"But it is getting dark, and he will not see me," thought the bunny gentleman. "I guess it will be safe."
Now it happened that, just as Uncle Wiggily was hopping under the window of the bad boy's house, the bunny heard a voice inside saying: