CHAPTER III

NIBBLE’S BUNNY MAKES ONE FRIEND TOO MANY

You remember how scary wild Nibble Rabbit was when he was a baby. That was because his mother taught him that being scary is the very safest thing for a bunny to be. Most everything will eat him if it can catch him. But Nibble’s babies weren’t scary a bit. All they knew, so far, was making friends with folks. They made friends with their father, first of all. Then they’d made friends with Doctor Muskrat and with Stripes Skunk and his kittens, and Bob White Quail and his nice brown mate and all their little chicks. They hadn’t had a single thing to frighten them.

That’s why they weren’t very scared when Tommy Peele tried to catch them. They weren’t as scared as Stripes Skunk’s kittens. You know the kittens had seen their mother killed, so they knew dreadful things did happen. But they could see their father wasn’t afraid of Tommy, and he didn’t tell them to run. He just sat down to watch the fun.

Fun it was! Those bunnies and kittens played hide and seek with the little boy in and out of the potatoes until he didn’t have any wind left for running and laughing. The minute he’d stop they’d all come back as if they were teasing him to chase them again. They’d put up their little noses and sniff at him and they’d stamp their little feet at him. The skunks stamped their front feet and the bunnies stamped their hind ones. And Tommy Peele’s father, who had come to look over the potato patch, stamped the only feet he has and shouted: “Go it, Tommy! That’s the time you nearly got one!”

The only one who didn’t think it was funny was Nibble’s mate, Silk-ears. She was terribly frightened. And she was pretty cross with Nibble for laughing at her.

“Don’t worry,” Nibble chuckled. “That boy can’t catch them. And he wouldn’t hurt them if he could.”

But Nibble was only half right. You remember the baby who hid in a deep footprint, back in the Deep Woods? Nibble had called her a “hop-toad” for doing it. Well, she tried it again. And this time someone did see her--Tommy did. He scooped her up in his hand.

Poor Silk-ears was nearly distracted. She thumped hard and called: “Jump! Quick, bunny, jump!”

But that bad bunny didn’t jump at all. She just cuddled down and murmured: “It’s nice and warm in here. It’s comfortable.” And when Tommy tickled her nose with the tender end of a grass-blade she ate it. That most made the others envious.

But Tommy’s father had been watching Silk-ears. “The mother rabbit is so scared!” he said. “And she’s right. It’s nice to have them friendly, but suppose they trusted somebody else like that, maybe Louie Thomson. He might hurt them. And then it would be all your fault. Better let it go.” So Tommy did. And Silk-ears was mighty glad to get it back again.

Tommy’s father was perfectly right. The bunny didn’t mind a bit; she thought Tommy’s hand was a fine place to hide in, all soft and warm and comfortable. But somebody else mightn’t be so gentle with her. The only safety for wild things is to stay wild and be very, very careful. And yet, there are two sides to being scary; you’ll find that out when we come to it.

Silk-ears thought exactly the same way. She said: “It’s all right for you, Nibble, to be friendly with that Boy, because you’re a great big grown-up rabbit and you know just who you can trust and who you can’t, but something terrible will surely happen to that baby. If she wants to hide, she must learn to find herself a nice safe place in the grasses--she mustn’t just scrouch down into any little hollow and think if she keeps still nobody will see her. I wish Tommy Peele had given her a good shaking, I do! Then she’d have learned better.”

But you see, Tommy hadn’t. She wasn’t a bit scared; indeed, she was quite vain because she’d done something none of the others had dared to do. And she was all ready to do it again. She couldn’t see what her mother was making such a fuss about.

“That’s a regular hop-toad trick,” said Nibble. “I’m going to show her what one looks like. She won’t like that. And she won’t like being called Hop-toad, either. She’ll hurry up and get over acting like one.”

So he took the whole family around to the end of the Quail’s Thicket to where a great fat hop-toad lived under a big damp stone, and knocked, thump, thump! And from the dark, shady crack a pair of ruby eyes peeked out at them. Then a wrinkled hand came feeling out, a black hand with a yellow palm showing between its fingers, all spread out and grabby-looking. And then--out came the hop-toad’s nubbly head. My, but he was ugly!

But he’s very nice, you know. He never hurts anybody. Nibble never dreamed that even a silly baby would be afraid of him. “Good morning, Hop-toad,” said Nibble. “This is my family.”

The hop-toad blinked, because he’d been asleep for ever so long and he wasn’t all awake yet. “Oh-er-yes, your family. Quite a family.” He yawned; he opened his toothless mouth wide as wide, and he didn’t even put his hand up. And away went that bad bunny!

Away she went, past the woods-bridge, through the wire fence that goes around Tommy Peele’s Woods and Fields, out into a lane. She ran right into a boy who was walking down it. Then she did her hop-toad trick right over again--she scrouched down in a narrow wheel-rut. And the boy saw her. He reached down and scooped her up in his hand, just as Tommy Peele had done. But he wasn’t Tommy Peele, he was--Louie Thomson!