“And because you sneaked in to see it,” added Donald with a laugh. He had finished nailing on the roof and now he was carefully cutting out a round window in the peak. When that was done he announced that the house was all finished but the paint. “Here’s green for the roof and red for the house,” he continued, taking down two paint pails from a shelf above the work-bench.
Tommy noticed the dim outline of the chalk faces he had once painted on them when they stood guard over the gates of the City of Balo. He knelt before them.
“Oh, knights in tin armor,” he pleaded. “Your humble servants desire some of your blood.”
Mary found three brushes in a rack on the wall and the Sawhorse lent his brushy tail so that there were enough to go around. Soon everybody was spattering paint on Bunny’s house. Muffs painted the right side. Mary painted the left side while Tommy did the back and Donald the roof.
“Guess Bunny Bright Eyes will think this is a palace after that dirty A-coop,” he said.
“How long will it take to dry?” Muffs asked.
“Not more’n a day. Better give Bunny a farewell feast. He’ll be moving into his new house tomorrow.”
So Muffs and Mary and Tommy started toward the garden while Donald, careful to do as his father had told him, stayed to clean up the brushes. The garden was at the right of the house and a little nearer than the barn and the A-coop where the children supposed Bunny was waiting for his very special feast. They picked only the young vegetables because they tasted sweeter and then ran down hill to surprise him.
“Bunny!” Muffs called softly. “Bunny Bright Eyes!”
The little rabbit did not hop up to the bars of his coop as she had expected.