The background was white, and on it, in bold relief, was a large brown Rabbit, just vanishing around the corner of the blanket. Below was the motto, “Always Keep Your Front Feet off the Landscape.”
When this blanket was soiled, she washed it in the brook, using a bit of soap bark on the more soiled places, and hanging it out to dry on a line from home. Thinking that Chee-Wee might possibly take cold, I offered her a small square of brussels carpet for them to sleep under. It was the best I had, but she disdained the offering, and upon examining it closely, I saw why. Neither of them could have slept under it, because the nap was all worn off.
Rabbits love rose bushes and even that fine, new, man-made rose bush which climbs all over the country—the barbed wire fence. Jenny taught Chee-Wee how to lead his enemies into the fence and how to take the flying leap through the wires, leaving not so much as a tuft of fur behind to tell the tale. That summer Chee-Wee killed two Dogs, a Weasel, a Skunk, and three Bull Frogs, who were chasing him across the country, at different times, of course, by leading them full blast into this dangerous fence. Here they always hung until some of their mourning friends or relatives would come and cut down the body.
A Rabbit’s nose is exactly like the paper pin-wheels the children make and pin to the end of a stick. When the children run, with the stick held straight out in front of them, the pin-wheel whirls merrily, as everyone knows. A Rabbit’s nose has an interior formation of precisely the same size and shape, which revolves on an axis of cartilage at the slightest movement of the wearer. Thus does Nature care for her children.
Chee-Wee would never eat anything until his mother had certified to the quality of it. She always had to taste of it first, to be sure that it was all right, and frequently he took the food out of her mouth, in this way becoming very fond of hash. I have often seen them nibbling the ends of a long blade of grass, coming closer and closer together as the grass got shorter, and finally ending in a very loving kiss. It was both pretty and touching.
One cold day, I prepared some spaghetti according to Uncle Antonio’s method, though the pipes that I bought in the village were not at all like those that he took out of the interior recesses of his organ. We had it for lunch, Jenny Ragtail, Chee-Wee, and I, and we all ate heartily.
I was never more forcibly convinced of the truth of the saying that “What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” than I was that afternoon. Personally, I never felt better in my life. A warm glow of brotherly love pervaded my entire system, and there was enough spaghetti left for my luncheon the following day, if I could summon up sufficient self-denial to keep it that long.
But in less than an hour, Jenny and Chee-Wee were both very sick. Chee-Wee lay on the ground at the foot of a pine tree, and his mother, pitiable though her condition was, hobbled off to the marsh for some medicine.
When she returned, weak and exhausted, she had a large quantity of teaberries. She brewed these into a strong, bitter liquid over my fire, with boiling water from my tea-kettle. She dosed Chee-Wee with it liberally, then drank some of it herself. In half an hour, they were capering around as usual, and I was much pleased with Jenny’s cleverness.
Seeing that the mixture was a good Hare tonic, I rubbed some on my dome of thought where the thatching was thin, but it did not work in the same way.