"Your white rabbit? What you talking about?"
"Why, John Piper was my father's hired man, sir; and you're only my cousin."
"Well, what o' that, sir? Isn't this cage mine? And would he have given the rabbits to us without a cage? No, sir: if it hadn't been for me you wouldn't have had half a rabbit, Bert Abbott!"
"Half a Bert Rabbit Abbott!" stuttered Flaxie, who never let any one be cross to her brother, except herself.
Then the words flew like hailstones,—pell-mell, sharp and thick, without mercy,—till the boys forgot that they had ever loved each other.
The very next day Brownie got her foot caught in one of Preston's fox-traps, and was lamed for life. Bert had scorned to call her his own when she was a perfect rabbit; but now, out of spite, he hunted up an old bird-cage, and went in great haste to claim her, before she got "killed dead." He said he "didn't care a cent about the old brown thing, but he wasn't going to have her abused."
"Good riddance!" cried Preston. "I don't want to see her again."
"We don't like yabbits, any but white ones," said Flaxie, keeping back her tears with a mighty effort, for she dearly loved Brownie.
"O, yes, Preston Gray, you feel mighty smart because you've got the white one," retorted Bert, in a rage; "but she won't do you much good, now I tell you! You see if something or another don't happen to her, that's all!"