THE day after the Fourth of July was clean-up day, and Billy and Davey cleaned the yard. The lawn was littered with scraps of firecrackers, and Davey always stopped to examine them in the hopes that he would find a good one. Butch hopped along with them, making a general nuisance of himself. When, at last, a bushel of scrap had been collected, he delved into the basket and came up with an armful. Davey and Bill yelled and chased him, which only made matters worse. He wove an elaborate pattern all over the lawn, leaving a trail behind him like Hansel and Gretel. When the last confetti like bit had been strewn, he climbed a tree, and sat just out of reach of his pursuers. Davey shook a rake at him and Bill scolded, but no one could ever be angry at Butch for long, because at the first sound of an angry voice he would rise up and put both tiny paws over his heart. Pleading, with his head to one side, he looked so forlorn that even the hardest heart would soften toward him.
Dr. Cordes stopped by about eleven o’clock that morning to have a look at the boy who fell off the roof. James was sitting up in bed playing with his stamp album.
“Why, boy,” exclaimed the doctor, tapping him all over. “You must be made of rubber. You’re all right. There isn’t a thing the matter with you.”
Turning to Mom he said, “Keep him in bed for a day or two on a light diet, and we’ll keep that arm in a sling, but otherwise there isn’t anything for me to do around here.” He snapped his bag shut and gave James a piece of gum. He tapped the pockets of his vest. “Black Jack for the boys,” he said, “and Juicy Fruit for the girls. I always carry it with me.” He took off his spectacles and polished them with a very clean handkerchief.
“I have something in the back seat of my car that these children might like.” His eyes ran around the room at the expectant faces. “But only if they’ve been very good.”
“We’ve been good! We’ve been good!”
He put his spectacles back on and said: “Very well then, if you’ve been good. Come along out to the car with me and we’ll have a look.” Davey and Jane and Bill ran out with him, and James twitched with impatience.
“Oh, Mom,” he said. “What do you think it will be? A watermelon?”
Mom straightened his bed and thumped his pillow. “My poor starving son,” she said, “don’t you ever think of anything but food?”
The doctor’s car started away, and the three children came down the steps toward the house. Janie had something in her apron. She was holding it tenderly, like a little cradle. The boys held the door for her, and she walked to James’s bed slowly, and carefully laid in his lap two of the prettiest little baby rabbits that you ever saw. One was black and one was white.