“Fancy having to ask who I am!” said the little creature, and sat up on its hind legs proudly. “Why, I and my relations own the whole wood, and could turn you out in the bobbing of a tail.”
Of course, we should have said “in the twinkling of an eye,” but rabbits (you must have guessed that this little person was a rabbit) don’t know anything about twinkling eyes and so they don’t talk about them.
“I won’t do any harm to your wood,” said Pansy; “I have only come to look for my fortune. Can you tell me where I could find it?”
“Well, there now!” said the rabbit quite kindly, “I’m sure I don’t know, but if you walk through the gate at the end of the wood you may find something nice; many of my relations have been in there and they say that the most wonderful things grow on the other side of the gate, but one has to take care not to get caught. Still, you are so much larger than we are that I don’t think there is any danger for you. Come, I will show you the way. But be careful not to step on me. You are a little clumsy about the paws, my dear, but I daresay it’s not your fault.”
The rabbit ran on in front of Pansy until they came to a little wicket-gate.
“There!” said the rabbit, “I quite forgot that you were so big; you see, our folk run underneath the gate, but I’m afraid you can’t possibly do that.”
“Perhaps I can open it,” said Pansy, and pushed against it with her shoulder. It opened with a sharp click, and startled little Mrs. Bunny so much that she scuttled back into the wood, without once turning round to wave to Pansy.
Now, although Pansy did not know it, she had got into a garden, and it happened that on that day—the weather being warm and sunny—the lady who lived in the house had told her two little girls that they might have their tea in the garden with their dollies. So when Pansy walked up the path and on to the lawn she came right into the middle of the doll’s tea-party.
She mooed gently, but both little girls jumped up and ran away screaming, which was very silly of them, because, of course, Pansy did not mean to hurt them. Then Pansy sniffed all round the tea-table and ate up the little cakes that were ready for the dolls’ tea. She was just wondering whether those cakes were her fortune when she saw two red spiky things coming at her. They were really only two red sunshades, which the little girls were carrying in front of them, but Pansy had never seen anything so dreadful before and she ran down the path as hard as she could, through the gate into the wood, and through the wood into the lane, never looking back until she reached her own field. It was just milking time and Jim was driving the cows into the farmyard. She had not been missed. As she went past the door of the farm house, the farmer’s baby, who was sitting on the step, stretched out its arms to her and screamed “Wuffy-Duff!”