CHAPTER II
NIBBLE RABBIT LEARNS HIS FORTUNE
Not one of the Woodsfolk could make a sound. It was all so sudden it took their breath away. Then the sparrows began to flutter and chirp in their noisy way, and Chatter Squirrel said to nobody in particular, “Great acorns! but that was exciting! One minute Glider is playing a trick on Bobby Robin, and the next Silvertip jumps up from nowhere at all and plays the biggest trick on Glider! Whew!”
“Well,” answered Nibble Rabbit, “I’ve just been thinking that it doesn’t matter to me which eats which. They’re both tried to eat me since morning.” He was still the little brown knot on his log that he had frozen into when Silvertip came past. “Chatter, is Silvertip looking?”
“No. He’s spread out in the sun sleeping off his meal,” answered Chatter, craning his neck to see where Nibble was hidden. And his eyes fairly popped when that little brown knot slipped down from the far side of the log and limped away.
He limped—for not only was Nibble a very tired rabbit from sitting so still, but his little mud boots that he got in the Broad Field when he was running away from Glider were all stiff and uncomfortable. How he did want a wash and a drink and a place to rest!
He could hear water whispering not far away, but he didn’t dare go through the tunnels in the Prickly Ash Thicket to get to it. So he didn’t find the brook he knew. He went farther down where it spread out into a broad pond. It was all edged with reeds and rushes that had some delicious watercress growing up between their roots. He could step on the last year’s stalks which had been bent down by the Winter Wind and keep his feet safe from the sticky mud below. Pretty soon he found a little raft hidden in the middle of a clump of cattails.
“This is the place for me,” he said to himself. “It’s warm in the sun and snug from the wind, and nobody’ll ever find me.” So he curled up and went fast asleep.
He awoke to feel a shadow falling across him. He looked up into the homeliest face he had ever seen. It was pointed, like his own, but fatter, and it had little cropped ears and sleepy, blinky eyes, and long yellow teeth that flashed when it said severely: “What are you doing here?”
Poor Nibble! He was only half awake. He had forgotten where he was, and it’s rabbit nature to jump first and think while you run. He jumped. His feet slipped, he splashed and the water closed over his long ears.
Then didn’t he kick and strangle! No sooner did he get his poor little nose out than it went under again. But the second time the green water parted and his scared eyes could see the rushes waving in the lovely air, and his lungs could get one more breath that tasted as sweet as clover in the spring, he felt a grip on the back of his neck. A gruff voice growled: “Take your time. You should learn to swim.”