CHAPTER XI

FLOP EAR AND THE MONKEY

“That wood is very hard to gnaw; isn’t it?” asked the mother mouse as she, with her little children mice inside the trap, looked out at Flop Ear. “It was too hard for my teeth. I don’t see how you can bite through it.”

“Oh, I do not have much trouble,” replied the rabbit, speaking in animal language, of course. “You see I learned to gnaw bark off trees when I was a little baby rabbit, and now it is no trouble for me to bite a hole in the wood of this trap. Of course, I could not gnaw where there is wire netting, but the wood part does not bother me.”

“I am glad of that,” returned the mother mouse, “for I would not like to give you too much trouble.”

“It is no trouble when I am helping some one,” said Flop Ear. “Not long ago Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, helped me by lifting me up in his trunk so I would not be run over by a circus wagon. Now I am helping you. Perhaps some day you may help Tum Tum.”

“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Switchy. “How could little things, such as we mice are, help a big elephant.”

“I do not know, Switchy,” answered the mother mouse; “but stranger things have happened.”

And I think, perhaps, you children remember the story of how once a lion was caught in a net, and how a little mouse gnawed through the ropes of the net so the lion could get out. And if a mouse could help a lion, which is a big animal, a mouse might help an elephant. So you see Flop Ear was not so very far wrong.

The white rabbit kept on gnawing away at the outside of the wooden box trap, and he soon had a hole almost through. The mother mouse and the little mice heard the gnawing sounds and they were glad, for they hoped soon to be free, and to run back to their home and to the papa.

“It will not need a very large hole to let such little mice as we are crawl through,” said the mother, speaking through the wires to Flop Ear. “So do not tire your jaws and teeth too much by biting a big hole.”

“I won’t,” returned the white rabbit. “I do not see why any one would want to catch such dear little mice as you are.”

“Perhaps the trap was set to catch some big mice, or some rats,” said the mother field mouse, “and we just got into it by mistake. Never again will I go in to get cheese out of a box. I will eat the things I find in the woods and fields.”

“Yes, that is safest,” agreed Flop Ear. “I was caught once myself, and kept in a box by a boy. I did not like it, though I must say the boy was very kind and good to me. So when I heard you talking in here about being caught I thought the best thing I could do would be to set you loose.”

“And oh! how glad we will be to run about on the ground once more,” said the mother mouse. “I was afraid we would never get out!”

All the while he was talking, Flop Ear was gnawing away at the side of the trap. Up and down went his four big front gnawing teeth, two in the upper jaw and two in the lower. They were almost like the chisels a carpenter uses when he is smoothing down a piece of wood. Beavers are great gnawers, too, and they have four large front teeth, just as has a rabbit, a rat, or a mouse, only a beaver’s teeth are orange colored. Why that is I do not know.

“There!” cried the white rabbit at last. “I have gnawed a hole for you, Mrs. Mouse. I think you and your little ones can get out of that. But be careful you do not get stuck. Make sure the hole is large enough. If it is not I will make it bigger.”

“I’ll try it first,” said the mouse mother. “If it is large enough for me it will be big enough for my little ones.”

So the mouse mother first poked her head out of the hole which Flop Ear had gnawed. Then she found she could get her front paws out, and, by squeezing a little, she could get all the way out.

“Come on, children!” she cried. “It’s all right! Now we can get out of the trap. Oh, how good it is to be free again! Now we can go back to our home――back to your father. Oh, Flop Ear! I do not know how to thank you enough!”

“Well, I am very glad I could help you out,” said the white rabbit. “Are you sure you can find your way to your home now?”

“Oh, yes, it is only a little way from here now,” said the mouse mother. “We will soon be there. Will you not come and pay us a little visit? Of course, you are so large that you would not fit in our tiny home, but you could sit outside. And I am sure Mr. Mouse would be glad to meet you, and thank you for what you have done for us. Do come.”

“I will,” said Flop Ear. “Thank you.”

“This is the way to our house,” said the mother mouse. “We shall soon be there.”

She led the way, and the little field mice followed after, just like Jill tumbling down the hill after Jack, who went to get a pail of water. And Flop Ear came last. The rabbit had to hop very slowly or he would have gone on far ahead of the little mice.

“Here is our home,” said the mother mouse, as she pointed with her paw to a little hole in the ground. “And there is your father, children! See!”

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.

“Well, good-by,” said Flop Ear, after a bit, having finished his breakfast, “I think I had better be going on. I want to find my home.”

“And I hope you do find it,” said Mr. Mouse, for the white rabbit had told how the hunter had chased him, and how he had become lost.

“Well, good-by,” repeated the white rabbit, “I’ll be getting on now. It will be winter in a few more weeks I fear, and I do not want to be lost out in the woods and fields then. I want to get back to my own home before cold weather.”

“I should think you would,” said Mrs. Mouse. “But if you can not find your place come back to us. You could dig with your feet and make our house bigger, and then you could live with us.”

“Thank you, very much,” replied the white rabbit. “Perhaps I shall come back.”

So he hopped on again, going through the woods and over the fields, hoping soon to come to his own burrow. And on his travels Flop Ear had many adventures. There is not room enough in this book to tell you all of them, but I can mention a few.

Once he was crossing a deep brook on a fallen log, and he slipped off and fell into the water. Flop Ear was not a very good swimmer, but he did get out after a while, all wet. He had to lie down in the sun to dry.

Another time, as he was eating some clover in a field, a bee came along, and, by mistake, stung Flop Ear on the nose.

“Ouch!” cried the white rabbit. “Ouch!”

“Oh, excuse me,” said the bee. “I did not mean to do that.”

“Oh, how it hurts!” cried Flop Ear. “What shall I do?”

“Go and find some soft mud and put that on the place where I stung you,” said the bee. “That will make it better.”

Flop Ear found a place near a spring, where there was some soft, black mud. He put some of this on the outside of his nose, and the pain was soon lessened.

Then Flop Ear hopped on again, looking, as he went, for the place where he lived. But he could not find it. Try as he did, he could not see the underground house. He met other rabbits, but none whom he knew. Some of them invited him to stay with them, but Flop Ear said he would rather find his own house, though he thanked the kind rabbits.

Then one day, as Flop Ear was hopping along through the woods, he heard a voice calling to him from up in a tree.

“I say, white rabbit,” called the voice, “who are you, and where are you going?”

“I am Flop Ear, and I am looking for my home,” the bunny answered. “Who are you?”

“I am Mappo, the merry monkey,” was the answer. “Wait a minute and I will come down and talk to you.”

And then the queer animal, who had four hands and a long tail, came scrambling down the tree.