"Maybe," said his mother. "I hope it is."
She opened the door, and when she saw there the bunch of cotton—just what she wanted—you can imagine how surprised she was!
"Why, who could have left it?" asked the bad boy, when his mother told him what had happened. "Who do you s'pose did?"
"I don't know," she answered. "But I saw some rabbit tracks in the snow on our steps."
"Rabbit tracks?" repeated the boy, wonderingly, as his mother softly put some warm cotton and oil in his ear, making the pain almost stop.
"Yes, rabbit tracks," said Mother. "And, if I were you, I'd never throw any more snowballs at rabbits."
The boy (I'll not call him bad any more) put his head down on the pillow of his bed. He could go to sleep now, as the pain in his ear had almost stopped.
"I wonder if that funny rabbit, dressed up like a little old man, could have brought me the cotton?" said the boy.
"I wonder, too," softly spoke Mother with a smile.
"Anyhow, I won't ever throw stones or snowballs at rabbits any more," promised the boy.