next day, bunny went over to susan’s house and found susan’s mother crying, and what do you suppose had happened? why, susan cotton-tail had not come home, and her mother was afraid she might be lost.
when bunny heard the news, he cried into a little red handkerchief that he had wrapped around his sore paw, and he said he wished to die if susan cotton-tail could not be found!
now bunny knew that old farmer jones hated the sight of even his little stubby tail, so he thought[24] the quickest way for him to die would be to run over into the farmer’s garden.
he told susan’s mother good-by, waved his sore paw feebly, and set out for the garden. he thought that if he must die he would eat some cabbage first, and he was nibbling away when he heard some one whisper his name very softly.
at first he thought it was marie, farmer jones’s little girl, so he curled right up close beside a cabbage, and did not say a word. he peeped around the cabbage, and he could see farmer jones’s blue shirt, and once in a while he could hear him whistle.
then he heard a soft little voice[25] say: “bunny, bunny, bunny.” he looked over by the raspberry bushes, and what do you suppose he saw? there was susan cotton-tail, caught in a trap!
when bunny saw susan he forgot all about farmer jones, and he gave a loud squeal, just the same kind of a squeal he gave when he burned his paw. farmer jones came running, and cried: “ah, ha! i have caught the rabbit at last!”
bunny had just time to jump into a flower pot, and farmer jones found poor susan in the trap.
“now,” said farmer jones, “i have caught the naughty rabbit that eats my cabbages, and i have a great mind to kill it!”
[26]but he did not kill susan—oh, my, no—for she just blinked her eyes and smiled at him. she was not the least bit afraid; and why should she have been, when she had never stolen anything from farmer jones in her life?
just then marie came running out into the garden, and farmer jones said:
“see, marie, i have caught the naughty rabbit that has been eating my cabbages, and she looks as though she had never done anything wrong in her life.”
“oh, the sweet little thing!” cried marie. “let me have her for a pet, and i will put a pretty blue ribbon around her neck.”
[27]so marie took susan up in her little apron and carried her, very gently and carefully, into the house. she made room for the little rabbit in her doll’s bed, and there susan fell asleep.
