Another field mouse came running up out of the hole. His fur was all twisted topsy-turvy—sidewise and backwards—and his whiskers were crooked. He seemed very much excited.
“Oh! where have you been?” called the father mouse as he saw the mother and her children. “I have looked all over for you. I went all through the underground house, but I could not find you. I thought something had happened.”
“Something did happen,” said the mother mouse. “We were caught in a trap, but this kind rabbit, Flop Ear, gnawed us out. I asked him to come home with us, though of course he can not get inside our little house.”
“I am very glad to see you, Flop Ear,” said Mr. Mouse. “It was very kind of you to get my family out of a trap. I could not think what had happened to them.”
“Oh, it was easy to get them out, once I started to gnaw,” said the rabbit. “It was a pleasure to help them. I am lost myself, and far from my home, so I know how glad other animals must be to get back to theirs.”
Then the mouse lady showed Flop Ear where, near her home, some sweet clover grew, and the rabbit ate that. He also had some nice roots, the same kind that Mr. and Mrs. Mouse ate for their dinner. Only, of course, Flop Ear ate a great deal more than the mice did, as he was so much larger than they. But there were plenty of roots for all.
That night the white rabbit slept in a hole under a big rock. He found some soft leaves, and some cotton from the inside of the milkweed plant, with which to make a bed, and Flop Ear had almost as good a place as if he had been in his own burrow.
Of course it was not home, and he was lonesome for his own folks, but he thought perhaps in a few days he might come to the place where he had used to live and find Lady Munch and the others.
“And if I do,” said Flop Ear, “how happy I shall be!”
The next morning Flop Ear breakfasted with the mouse family. He could not, of course, go down into their little house underground, but they brought their breakfast up, and they all sat around a flat rock, which was almost like a table, while they ate.