the little voice. “Hide!”The next minute the little rabbit had hopped behind a tree. Buttoning up his pretty white fur overcoat so that it wouldn’t show around the trunk and drawing together the tips of his little ears, he waited, oh, so anxiously, for maybe just a minute or three.“Guess I’m rested now!” said Mr. Wicked Wolf, knocking the ashes from his pipe and slipping it in his pocket. Then, drawing the sack up on his shoulder, he started off for home.“My, what a heavy little bunny you are!” he growled, as he trotted through the woods.Pretty soon he jumped over the Bubbling Brook. But when he landed on the other side, The great big stone In the sack Hit him a dreadful Whack on the back.“Oh, my! What a tough little rabbit you are! But wait till I get you home! Mrs. Wolf will stew you until you’re nice and soft and tender! Ha, ha!”“Hey, mother,” he shouted, on reaching his little stone house on the wooded hillside, “I have a nice little rabbit for supper.”Letting the sack slip to the ground, Mr. Wicked Wolf untied it, oh, so care-ful-ly! But, goodness gracious me! When he peeked in and saw a big stone instead of a tender little rabbit, wasn’t he angry?Shoving in his paw, he pulled out the stone and hurled it across the Sunny Meadow. Whack! it came up against the old apple tree, knocking off twenty big red apples, which almost hit Little Jack Rabbit as he hopped safely back to the dear Old Bramble Patch, where Lady Love, his pretty bunny mother, stood waiting for her little boy at the gate in the old picket fence.“Cousin Cottontail has invited us over this evening to hear the Jack Rabbit Man tell stories,” she said, kissing her little bunny boy.“Ha, ha! That will be fine!” cried the little bunny, forgetting all about Mr. Wicked Wolf. Dear me, I wish that wicked wolf had forgotten all about the little rabbit. Then, with a skip and jump, he hopped on the porch.“Hello, little rabbit boy,” twittered the canary from her gold cage. “What makes you so happy?”“Didn’t you hear what mother just said?” he asked, with a twinkle of his pretty pink nose.“No,” answered the pretty yellow bird. “What did she say?”“That we are invited over to Cousin Cottontail’s to listen on the radio.”Just then something happened. Isn’t it a shame that unpleasant things so often happen?“No, you’re not going to hear bunny stories to-night,” growled a deep ugly voice, and there, just outside the Old Bramble Patch, stood Mr. Wicked Wolf. Dear me! How cruel he looked, his big red tongue hanging out of his mouth and his long sharp teeth gleaming like bowie knives in the sunlight.“What—what are you here for?” asked the little rabbit, all a-tremble.“Never you mind!” snarled the ugly beast. “I’ll wait here for you.”“No, no, please don’t wait!” cried the frightened little 

 Prev. P 29/158 next