Little Jack Rabbit and Danny Fox

<h2><SPAN name="BANG_BANG_BANG" id="BANG_BANG_BANG"></SPAN>BANG, BANG, BANG!</h2> <p class="noi">“<span class="smcap">I declare</span>, I think it’s going to snow again,” said Mr. Rabbit, looking out of the back door.</p> <p>Mr. Rabbit was right. Father Storm’s two small sons, Snow Flake and Snow Drop, were flying here and there. Soon their little comrades by the million were hurrying down from the gray sky, from which, only a few hours before, Mr. Merry Sun was smiling. Over the Sunny Meadow they came, along the Bubbling Brook, where Miss Pussy Willow stood looking very cold and uncomfortable.</p> <p>“Let’s give her a warm muff!” shouted<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</SPAN></span> the Snow Flake Brothers, and in a few minutes her little hands were warm again.</p> <p>They sprinkled the catkins of the alders with whiteness until they looked like woolly lambs’ tails, and wrapped the birches and hazels in long white dresses.</p> <p>“Let’s skate on the Old Duck Pond,” cried Snow Flake. Over the ice he slid till his comrades were piled up against the Old Mill in long white drifts. They hid in the water wheel and clung to the bending branches of the willow trees until they looked like loosened skeins of yarn.</p> <p>“Come on!” cried Little Jack Rabbit, “I’ve got to have some fun, too!” And he and Brother Bobby Tail hopped out of the Old Bramble Patch to the Corn Field.</p> <p>Bang! Bang! Bang! The Farmer’s Boy<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</SPAN></span> certainly was shooting away at a great rate, just as Bobby Tail had said.</p> <p>All the winter birds hid themselves in the Shady Forest. Little Sam Kinglet, in his olive-gray suit, stopped picking for insect eggs in the bark of the Old Chestnut Tree. Harry Nuthatch also stopped circling like an acrobat around a limb.</p> <p>“I don’t feel hungry just now,” he said, “I’m tired of grubs,” and he flew deep into the forest. And all the cheery little Chick-a-dees flew out of the low bushes and winged their way into the quiet places of the wood.</p> <p>“Gracious me!” exclaimed Mrs. Rabbit, “how that dreadful gun shakes the house. I’m afraid the candlesticks will fall off the mantel,” and she lifted them down and put them in a safe place.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</SPAN></span></p> <p>“Well, there’s one good thing about it all,” said Little Jack Rabbit to Bobby Tail as they hopped through the snow-covered corn field, “Old Danny Fox won’t be around again for some time.”</p> <div class="block-centre"> <div class="block"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line outdent">“It’s safer at home when the bad farmer’s boy</div> <div class="line indent">Is tramping around with his gun.</div> <div class="line">No telling, I say, while he’s shooting away</div> <div class="line indent">His bullets of lead by the ton.</div> </div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line outdent">“What might happen to us if we went for a stroll</div> <div class="line indent">Away from our warm kitchen stove.</div> <div class="line">We’ll stay in the house with the little gray mouse;</div> <div class="line indent">Just now it is no time to rove,”</div> </div></div> </div> <p class="noi">sang the old robber fox as he bolted his front door.</p> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</SPAN></span> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />