Little Jack Rabbit and Danny Fox

<h2><SPAN name="WINTER_TIME" id="WINTER_TIME"></SPAN>WINTER TIME</h2> <div class="block-centre"> <div class="block"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">All the creatures, fur and feather,</div> <div class="line">Cuddle close this snowy weather;</div> <div class="line">Chippy Chipmunk ’neath a tree</div> <div class="line">In his home as safe can be.</div> </div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Squirrel Nutkin when it snows</div> <div class="line">Hides his head beneath the clothes</div> <div class="line">Of his little wooden bed</div> <div class="line">In the oak tree overhead.</div> </div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">And within the Bramble Patch</div> <div class="line">Little Rabbit’s drawn the latch.</div> <div class="line">Everyone’s almost asleep</div> <div class="line">Waiting for the Spring’s first peep.</div> </div></div> </div> <p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Chilly</span> Mr. North Wind blows from his home at the North Pole, making his snow horses whirl over the Sunny Meadow and along the Old Rail Fence.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</SPAN></span> The Bubbling Brook is covered with a coat of ice, and the Farmer’s Boy skates across the Old Duck Pond. But Granddaddy Bullfrog doesn’t hear him, for he is sound asleep in the mud ’way down deep where the ice never forms.</p> <p>Timmy Meadowmouse makes little tunnels through the snow, for he is too small to walk over the drifts. But Danny Fox, that sly old robber, sneaks along the bare places so as to leave no footprints to show where he has been.</p> <p>Sometimes he turns to the Shady Forest, and sometimes to the farm, where Cocky Doodle and Henny Penny prune their feathers on the sunny side of the High Haystack.</p> <p>The Weathercock swings to and fro on the Big Red Barn and wishes it were Spring.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</SPAN></span></p> <p>Busy Beaver swims about under the ice in the Forest Pond, coming back to his little house, whose front door is deep down where the water never freezes. In the upper room he has stored away twigs and things to eat till Mr. Merry Sun melts the ice and tells the flowers to bloom again.</p> <p>All the birds have gone south except a few. Charlie Chickadee and Jimmy Junko, though, don’t mind the chilly weather. They flutter here and there, eating the dry seeds that still cling to the tall meadow grass, or the dry berries in the Old Bramble Patch.</p> <p>Peter Possum and his family are curled up in a warm hollow stump, and the Big Brown Bear is snoring in his cave.</p> <div class="block-centre"> <div class="block"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">The earth is clad in snow white,</div> <div class="line">But all the trees are bare.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</SPAN></span> <div class="line">The farmer reads the almanac</div> <div class="line">Within his old arm chair.</div> </div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Good Mrs. Cow safe in the shed</div> <div class="line">Upon the manger rubs her head,</div> <div class="line">And if you listen you can tell</div> <div class="line">How many times she rings her bell.</div> </div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">She never takes her collar off</div> <div class="line">For fear she’ll catch the whooping cough.</div> <div class="line">Imagine how that little bell</div> <div class="line">Would tinkle in a coughing spell.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</SPAN></span> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />