FLOP EAR AND THE MONKEY
“That wood is very hard to gnaw; isn’t it?” asked the mother mouse
as she, with her little children mice inside the trap, looked out at
Flop Ear. “It was too hard for my teeth. I don’t see how you can bite
through it.”
“Oh, I do not have much trouble,” replied the rabbit, speaking in
animal language, of course. “You see I learned to gnaw bark off trees
when I was a little baby rabbit, and now it is no trouble for me to
bite a hole in the wood of this trap. Of course, I could not gnaw where
there is wire netting, but the wood part does not bother me.”
“I am glad of that,” returned the mother mouse, “for I would not like
to give you too much trouble.”
“It is no trouble when I am helping some one,” said Flop Ear. “Not long
ago Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, helped me by lifting me up in his
trunk so I would not be run over by a circus wagon. Now I am helping
you. Perhaps some day you may help Tum Tum.”
“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Switchy. “How could little things, such as we
mice are, help a big elephant.”
“I do not know, Switchy,” answered the mother mouse; “but stranger
things have happened.”
And I think, perhaps, you children remember the story of how once a
lion was caught in a net, and how a little mouse gnawed through the
ropes of the net so the lion could get out. And if a mouse could help a
lion, which is a big animal, a mouse might help an elephant. So you see
Flop Ear was not so very far wrong.
The white rabbit kept on gnawing away at the outside of the wooden box
trap, and he soon had a hole almost through. The mother mouse and the
little mice heard the gnawing sounds and they were glad, for they hoped
soon to be free, and to run back to their home and to the papa.
“It will not need a very large hole to let such little mice as we are
crawl through,” said the mother, speaking through the wires to Flop
Ear. “So do not tire your jaws and teeth too much by biting a big hole.”
“I won’t,” returned the white rabbit. “I do not see why any one would
want to catch such dear little mice as you are.”
“Perhaps the trap was set to catch some big mice, or some rats,” said
the mother field mouse, “and we just got into it by mistake. Never
again will I go in to get cheese out of a box. I will eat the things I
find in the woods and fields.”
“Yes, that is safest,” agreed Flop Ear. “I was caught once myself, and
kept in a box by a boy. I did not like it, though I must say the boy
was very kind and good to me. So when I heard you talking in here about
being caught I thought the best thing I could do would be to set you
loose.”
“And oh! how glad we will be to run about on the ground once more,”
said the mother mouse. “I was afraid we would never get out!”
All the while he was talking, Flop Ear was gnawing away at the side of
the trap. Up and down went his four big front gnawing teeth, two in the
upper jaw and two in the lower. They were almost like the chisels a
carpenter uses when he is smoothing down a piece of wood. Beavers are
great gnawers, too, and they have four large front teeth, just as has
a rabbit, a rat, or a mouse, only a beaver’s teeth are orange colored.
Why that is I do not know.
“There!” cried the white rabbit at last. “I have gnawed a hole for you,
Mrs. Mouse. I think you and your little ones can get out of that. But
be careful you do not get stuck. Make sure the hole is large enough.
If it is not I will make it bigger.”
“I’ll try it first,” said the mouse mother. “If it is large enough for
me it will be big enough for my little ones.”
So the mouse mother first poked her head out of the hole which Flop Ear
had gnawed. Then she found she could get her front paws out, and, by
squeezing a little, she could get all the way out.
“Come on, children!” she cried. “It’s all right! Now we can get out of
the trap. Oh, how good it is to be free again! Now we can go back to
our home――back to your father. Oh, Flop Ear! I do not know how to thank
you enough!”
“Well, I am very glad I could help you out,” said the white rabbit.
“Are you sure you can find your way to your home now?”
“Oh, yes, it is only a little way from here now,” said the mouse
mother. “We will soon be there. Will you not come and pay us a little
visit? Of course, you are so large that you would not fit in our tiny
home, but you could sit outside. And I am sure Mr. Mouse would be glad
to meet you, and thank you for what you have done for us. Do come.”
“I will,” said Flop Ear. “Thank you.”
“This is the way to our house,” said the mother mouse. “We shall soon
be there.”
She led the way, and the little field mice followed after, just like
Jill tumbling down the hill after Jack, who went to get a pail of
water. And Flop Ear came last. The rabbit had to hop very slowly or he
would have gone on far ahead of the little mice.
“Here is our home,” said the mother mouse, as she pointed with her paw
to a little hole in the ground. “And there is your father, children!
See!”
Another field mouse came running up out of the hole. His fur was all
twisted topsy-turvy――sidewise and backwards――and his whiskers were
crooked. He seemed very much excited.
“Oh! where have you been?” called the father mouse as he saw the mother
and her children. “I have looked all over for you. I went all through
the underground house, but I could not find you. I thought something
had happened.”
“Something _did_ happen,” said the mother mouse. “We were caught in a
trap, but this kind rabbit, Flop Ear, gnawed us out. I asked him to
come home with us, though of course he can not get inside our little
house.”
“I am very glad to see you, Flop Ear,” said Mr. Mouse. “It was very
kind of you to get my family out of a trap. I could not think what had
happened to them.”
“Oh, it was easy to get them out, once I started to gnaw,” said the
rabbit. “It was a pleasure to help them. I am lost myself, and far
from my home, so I know how glad other animals must be to get back to
theirs.”
Then the mouse lady showed Flop Ear where, near her home, some sweet
clover grew, and the rabbit ate that. He also had some nice roots,
the same kind that Mr. and Mrs. Mouse ate for their dinner. Only, of
course, Flop Ear ate a great deal more than the mice did, as he was so
much larger than they. But there were plenty of roots for all.
That night the white rabbit slept in a hole under a big rock. He found
some soft leaves, and some cotton from the inside of the milkweed
plant, with which to make a bed, and Flop Ear had almost as good a
place as if he had been in his own burrow.
Of course it was not home, and he was lonesome for his own folks, but
he thought perhaps in a few days he might come to the place where he
had used to live and find Lady Munch and the others.
“And if I do,” said Flop Ear, “how happy I shall be!”
The next morning Flop Ear breakfasted with the mouse family. He could
not, of course, go down into their little house underground, but they
brought their breakfast up, and they all sat around a flat rock, which
was almost like a table, while they ate.
“Well, good-by,” said Flop Ear, after a bit, having finished his
breakfast, “I think I had better be going on. I want to find my home.”
“And I hope you do find it,” said Mr. Mouse, for the white rabbit had
told how the hunter had chased him, and how he had become lost.
“Well, good-by,” repeated the white rabbit, “I’ll be getting on now. It
will be winter in a few more weeks I fear, and I do not want to be lost
out in the woods and fields then. I want to get back to my own home
before cold weather.”
“I should think you would,” said Mrs. Mouse. “But if you can not find
your place come back to us. You could dig with your feet and make our
house bigger, and then you could live with us.”
“Thank you, very much,” replied the white rabbit. “Perhaps I shall come
back.”
So he hopped on again, going through the woods and over the fields,
hoping soon to come to his own burrow. And on his travels Flop Ear had
many adventures. There is not room enough in this book to tell you all
of them, but I can mention a few.
Once he was crossing a deep brook on a fallen log, and he slipped off
and fell into the water. Flop Ear was not a very good swimmer, but he
did get out after a while, all wet. He had to lie down in the sun to
dry.
Another time, as he was eating some clover in a field, a bee came
along, and, by mistake, stung Flop Ear on the nose.
“Ouch!” cried the white rabbit. “Ouch!”
“Oh, excuse me,” said the bee. “I did not mean to do that.”
“Oh, how it hurts!” cried Flop Ear. “What shall I do?”
“Go and find some soft mud and put that on the place where I stung
you,” said the bee. “That will make it better.”
Flop Ear found a place near a spring, where there was some soft, black
mud. He put some of this on the outside of his nose, and the pain was
soon lessened.
Then Flop Ear hopped on again, looking, as he went, for the place where
he lived. But he could not find it. Try as he did, he could not see the
underground house. He met other rabbits, but none whom he knew. Some of
them invited him to stay with them, but Flop Ear said he would rather
find his own house, though he thanked the kind rabbits.
Then one day, as Flop Ear was hopping along through the woods, he heard
a voice calling to him from up in a tree.
“I say, white rabbit,” called the voice, “who are you, and where are
you going?”
“I am Flop Ear, and I am looking for my home,” the bunny answered. “Who
are you?”
“I am Mappo, the merry monkey,” was the answer. “Wait a minute and I
will come down and talk to you.”
And then the queer animal, who had four hands and a long tail, came
scrambling down the tree.