Then the three rabbits played together, having lots of fun in their own way, jumping over each other’s backs as boys play leap-frog. Sometimes one would hide down in among the leaves, and the others would look for him. This was the game of hide-and-go-seek, you see.
At different times Mr. and Mrs. Bunny would tell their children the things all rabbits must learn. Just as your folks tell you about cleaning your teeth, and washing your hands and faces, so the rabbit children were told how to do things to keep themselves clean. Of course they did not clean their teeth, but they washed themselves with their tongues, as cats do.
“And you must always be careful, when you go out in the woods, that dogs do not see you and chase you,” said Lady Munch. “Always be careful about dogs.”
“And hunters with guns,” added Papa Bunny. “They are worse than dogs.”
The rabbit children promised to be careful, and for several days after that Flop Ear looked all about him when he went off in the woods.
One afternoon he was hopping along, quite a distance from his underground house, when, all at once, he heard a loud banging noise.
“Why, can that be thunder?” asked Flop Ear. “It must be going to storm.” He looked up at the sky. There was not a cloud in it. The sun was shining brightly, and Flop Ear knew it never thundered, or at least very seldom, when the sun was shining.
“I wonder what that queer noise was?” he asked.
Then he heard it again:
“Bang!”