[Illustration: “I am Flop Ear, the funny rabbit.”]
_Kneetime Animal Stories_
FLOP EAR
THE FUNNY RABBIT
HIS MANY ADVENTURES
BY
RICHARD BARNUM
Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Tum Tum, the
Jolly Elephant,” “Dido, the Dancing Bear,”
“Blackie, a Lost Cat,” etc.
_ILLUSTRATED BY
WALTER S. ROGERS_
[Illustration]
PUBLISHERS
BARSE & HOPKINS
NEW YORK, N. Y. NEWARK, N. J.
Copyright, 1916
by
BARSE & HOPKINS
Flop Ear, The Funny Rabbit
_Printed in the United States of America_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I FLOP EAR HEARS A NOISE 7
II FLOP EAR FINDS SOMETHING 16
III FLOP EAR IS LOST 26
IV FLOP EAR IN THE HAY 36
V FLOP EAR AND THE BOY 44
VI FLOP EAR LEARNS TRICKS 54
VII FLOP EAR GETS AWAY 64
VIII FLOP EAR MEETS SLICKO 73
IX FLOP EAR MEETS DIDO 82
X FLOP EAR HELPS SOME MICE 91
XI FLOP EAR AND THE MONKEY 100
XII FLOP EAR GETS HOME AGAIN 109
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“I am Flop Ear, the funny rabbit” _Frontispiece_
“And we really didn’t mean to laugh at you,” said Flop Ear 23
“Little bird, do you know where my home is?” 41
The rabbit saw that the easiest way to get the sweet carrot
was to jump through the hoop 61
“Have you a nest up there?” asked Flop Ear 79
Flop Ear saw a mother mouse and five little mice 99
“My, you certainly had quite a time,” said Mappo 113
FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT
CHAPTER I
FLOP EAR HEARS A NOISE
Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, a family of rabbits lived
in the woods near the top of a mountain. There were six in the family,
counting Flop Ear, the funny rabbit, and I speak of him first because
this story is going to be mostly about him and his adventures, or what
happened to Flop Ear.
Besides Flop Ear there was his mother, Mrs. Bunny, his father, Mr.
Bunny, and Lady Munch, who was the grandmother. The reason the
grandmother had that name was because she always made her mouth go in
such a queer, wobbling way when she munched, or chewed, the cabbages or
the carrots.
Then there was Pink Nose, a brother to Flop Ear, and Snuggle, a little
rabbit.
Snuggle was called that because she always wanted to cuddle up, or
snuggle close, to her mother. And you can easily guess why Pink Nose
had his name. Yes, you have guessed it. His nose was as pink as a
baby’s toes.
And the reason Flop Ear had his name was because one of his ears
flopped over to one side, as if it were going to fall off his head. But
of course it never did. The two ears of most rabbits stand up straight,
when they are not stretched back along their backs, but when Flop Ear
wanted to put both his ears up straight only one would go, and the
other dropped down in a queer way.
“Oh, Flop Ear, you are such a funny little white rabbit,” Lady Munch,
his grandmother, would say.
“Funny? How is that?” the little boy bunny would ask.
“Why, you _look_ so funny,” the old lady rabbit would answer. “I always
want to laugh when I see you.”
“Well, is that a bad thing or a good thing?” Flop Ear would ask.
“Oh, it is a very good thing,” said Lady Munch. “To make rabbit folk
laugh is to make them happy so they forget their troubles, and that is
always good.”
“What are troubles?” Flop Ear questioned.
“You will find out soon enough without my telling you,” answered the
grandmother bunny. “Be happy while you can in your home in the woods,
for you may not always be here.”
“Why not?” asked Flop Ear, but just then his grandmother had to go down
into the burrow, or underground house, to help Mrs. Bunny make the beds.
Oh, you needn’t laugh! Rabbits have beds in their underground homes as
well as you children have. Only, of course, the beds are not the same
as yours.
The beds in Flop Ear’s home were just bunches of soft grass and leaves,
piled together, and sometimes the rabbits used the soft white cotton
from inside the milkweed plant. These beds had to be stirred up,
fluffed and made soft by the rabbits once in a while, and that is what
Lady Munch and Mrs. Bunny were doing.
“Troubles; eh?” thought Flop Ear. “I wonder what they can be, and I
wonder if I shall ever go away from these woods? Well, I’ll be happy
while I’m here, anyhow. And now I guess I’ll go and get Pink Nose and
Snuggle and have some fun.”
Rabbits have fun by themselves, and with other animals, just as you
children do; and rabbits can think and talk. Of course, they can’t talk
as we do, but they can talk among themselves, and with other animals,
and, very often, they know what you say to them, just as your kitten
knows enough to come when you call her to dinner, or as your dog knows
enough to carry your books from school when you put them in his mouth.
So when, in this story, I say that Flop Ear said something, or thought
something, I mean he did it in a _rabbit_ way, just as your cat and
dog talk together in their languages. For some cats and dogs are good
friends you know.
There was a dog named Don, who once ran away. He and Blackie, a lost
cat, were really good friends, as you know if you have read the books
about them.
I spoke about Flop Ear’s living in a burrow, or underground house. It
may seem strange to hear of a house underground, but there are such
places. Sometimes in gold mines, or coal mines, men and horses stay
underground for a long time, and if _they_ have a place underground why
can’t _rabbits_?
Besides, boys like to dig caves, or holes underground, and play they
are living there. It’s lots of fun. I used to do it. Only, of course,
the caves that boys play in are larger than was Flop Ear’s home.
If you had walked through the woods, near the top of the mountain
where the Bunny family lived, I do not think you would have noticed
the rabbits’ home; for all you would have seen would have been a hole
in the ground. But if you could once get down in this hole (supposing
you were small enough) you would see many rooms and halls, almost like
those in your own home, only not so nice, of course, and there would be
no furniture in them.
So Flop Ear and his sister and brother lived in this underground home,
which Papa and Mamma Bunny had dug for themselves with their feet, just
made for digging.
And the reason the house was built underground, and had only a hole
leading down into it, was so that no dogs or hunters would see it. For
dogs and hunters chase and shoot rabbits to kill them to eat. And if
Mr. Bunny had built his home on top of the ground, as your house is
built, the hunters and dogs would more easily see it.
“You can’t be too careful about hunters and dogs,” said Mr. Bunny one
day.
“No indeed you can’t,” added Lady Munch. “It is dreadful to be shot.”
So Flop Ear and Pink Nose and Snuggle lived together in the woods and
had lots of fun. All day long they would play down in the underground
house, or outside near the front door. It was dark in their house, but
the rabbits did not mind that. Rabbits are like cats, and can see
quite well even on a dark night. And what they cannot see they can
smell.
Rabbits, and other wild animals, you know, have very good noses for
smelling. They can smell danger a good way off, and they can smell
their food, and smell their way about, so they will not run into things
when they are hurrying along at night.
“Let’s have a game of tag,” said Flop Ear to Pink Nose, as he saw his
brother lying in the sun on a pile of soft leaves near the front door
of the underground burrow. “Come on, let’s see if you can tag me.”
Of course I don’t suppose rabbits really call their game “tag,” as we
do, but they have a game so much like it that I have given it that
name in order that you would understand better. If I gave you the name
in rabbit language it would be so hard to spell that I might break my
typewriting machine in putting it on paper. So it is easier to call it
tag.
“Oh, I don’t want to play tag,” said Pink Nose. “I want to sleep.”
“You have slept enough,” laughed Flop Ear. “Come on, get up and run
about. If you sleep so much you will grow to be a lazy rabbit, Lady
Munch says; and then you can’t run fast when there is danger.”
“There is no danger around here,” said Pink Nose, stretching out one
leg. “I can’t see any.”
“Mother says there may be danger when you can’t see it,” put in
Snuggle, coming out of the underground house just then.
“Will you play a game of tag with me?” asked Flop Ear of his sister.
“Yes, I will,” she answered. “Come on,” and away she ran.
The two rabbits were soon jumping about on the soft green moss and
cuddling down among the leaves of the woods. They would chase each
other, and jump over one another, just as you have often seen dogs and
cats play their game of tag.
All this while Pink Nose was stretched out lazily in the sun, with his
eyes closed. Pretty soon Flop Ear and Snuggle grew tired of playing
rabbit-tag. Snuggle looked over at her sleeping brother, and said, with
a laugh:
“Let’s play a trick on him, Floppy.” Sometimes she called her other
brother Floppy for short.
“What trick shall we play?” asked Flop Ear.
“We’ll get a long stick, hide behind a stump and tickle him,” went on
Snuggle. “He won’t see who it is and he’ll be surprised.”
“All right,” said Flop Ear.
So the two bunnies got a long stick, and, hiding behind a stump near
which Pink Nose was asleep, they reached over and tickled him. Pretty
soon Pink Nose opened his eyes. He put up his paw to brush off what he
thought was a fly on his ear. Then he tried to go to sleep again, but
Flop Ear and Snuggle tickled him once more.
“Ouch!” cried Pink Nose, jumping up. “Who’s doing that?”
He acted so queerly that Flop Ear could not help laughing, and his
brother heard him from behind the stump.
“Ah, it is you; is it?” cried Pink Nose. “I’ll fix you for spoiling my
sleep!”
He chased after Flop Ear, only in fun, of course, and around among the
trees the brother rabbits ran.
“Now Pink Nose is playing tag!” cried Snuggle, and so he was, whether
he wanted to or not.
Then the three rabbits played together, having lots of fun in their own
way, jumping over each other’s backs as boys play leap-frog. Sometimes
one would hide down in among the leaves, and the others would look for
him. This was the game of hide-and-go-seek, you see.
At different times Mr. and Mrs. Bunny would tell their children the
things all rabbits must learn. Just as your folks tell you about
cleaning your teeth, and washing your hands and faces, so the rabbit
children were told how to do things to keep themselves clean. Of course
they did not clean their teeth, but they washed themselves with their
tongues, as cats do.
“And you must always be careful, when you go out in the woods, that
dogs do not see you and chase you,” said Lady Munch. “Always be careful
about dogs.”
“And hunters with guns,” added Papa Bunny. “They are worse than dogs.”
The rabbit children promised to be careful, and for several days after
that Flop Ear looked all about him when he went off in the woods.
One afternoon he was hopping along, quite a distance from his
underground house, when, all at once, he heard a loud banging noise.
“Why, can that be thunder?” asked Flop Ear. “It must be going to
storm.” He looked up at the sky. There was not a cloud in it. The sun
was shining brightly, and Flop Ear knew it never thundered, or at least
very seldom, when the sun was shining.
“I wonder what that queer noise was?” he asked.
Then he heard it again:
“Bang!”
“I’m going to run!” thought Flop Ear. “That may be danger. I’ll go home
and tell the folks I heard a queer noise.”