MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY
Told at Twilight Stories
By JOHN BRECK
MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY
NIBBLE RABBIT MAKES MORE FRIENDS
THE SINS OF SILVERTIP THE FOX
THE COON’S TRICKS
THE WAVY TAILED WARRIOR
TAD COON’S GREAT ADVENTURE
THE BAD LITTLE OWLS
THE JAY BIRD WHO WENT TAME
[Illustration: “Cheer up, Bunny,” chirped Bobby Robin]
Told at Twilight Stories
MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY
by
John Breck
Illustrated by
William T. Andrews
Garden City—New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT
OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
First Edition
CONTENTS
I. A Very Small Bunny Has a Very Big Adventure
II. Nibble Rabbit Learns His Fortune
III. Nibble Rabbit to the Rescue!
IV. What Happens When Folks Lose Their Tempers
V. Nibble Rabbit’s Storm Party
VI. The Little Bunny Meets the Little Boy
VII. Why the Cow Got Her Horns
VIII. Nibble Fools Ouphe in His Own Haystack
IX. Nibble Digs into Trouble—and Slips Out
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“Cheer up, Bunny,” chirped Bobby Robin
Bobby and Glider were making such a racket that every
one was coming to listen to them
Dr. Muskrat pulls Nibble out of the broad pond
Nibble digs Bob White’s mother out of the bank
Nibble darted into the first shock he came to
Silvertip pricked up his ears
Nibble hid behind a fence post
Tommy held Nibble up by his long ears
MOSTLY ABOUT NIBBLE THE BUNNY
CHAPTER I
A VERY SMALL BUNNY HAS A VERY BIG ADVENTURE
The air was blowing in at the mouth of his hole when Little Nibble
Rabbit opened his eyes. That meant a cold south wind outside, a rainy
wind. He could see the wet drops hanging from the top of his arched
earth doorway. They would wet his back when he tried to go out and
that wouldn’t be nice. He shivered and closed his eyes again. Then he
huddled up tighter than ever into a little furry brown ball. Still he
was cold, so he tried to cuddle into the very farthest corner where
his mother always slept. It was empty!
That woke him up. “Mammy,” he called softly; “Mammy.” No answer. He
put his nose to the earth and found it still warm. She could not have
been gone very long. So he crawled to the mouth of the hole and
thumped with his little hind feet, making all the noise he dared. Then
he sat up and cocked his ears for her answering thump. He half
expected a glimpse of her white tail bobbing down one of the tunnels
through the Prickly Ash Thicket. But no mother was there.
“She can’t go off and leave me like this,” he said to himself, and he
put down his nose to find her trail. It was all washed out by the
rain. Thump, thump! he went again—and they were cross thumps because
he was so terribly disappointed. Then he suddenly sat down on his
little tufty tail and wailed “Mammy, mammy, mammy!” at the top of his
voice.
“Cheer up, Bunny. What’s wrong,” chirped some one from a branch just
over his head. It was Bobby Robin, and he was peering down with the
most puzzled and astonished look in his black eye.
“I’m Nibble,” sobbed the little rabbit, “and I’ve lost my mother.”
“Well, Nibble,” warned Bobby in his sensible way, “if she doesn’t come
back pretty soon she’ll lose her son. Don’t you know better than to
tell Killer Weasel and Silvertip the Fox, and Hooter the Owl, and any
one else who wants to know where they’ll find a nice young rabbit for
breakfast.”
But the tears ran faster than ever down Nibble’s whiskers. “It’s
Hooter,” he sniffed. “He caught her when she went down to the brook
for a drink. I know he did. She’d never leave me.”
“Nonsense,” said Bobby, and he said it peckishly, for no one likes to
hear a little rabbit cry. “I know your mother, and she knows the law
of the woods. You can fly—run, I mean—can’t you. And feed yourself?”
“Yes,” answered Nibble, for his brothers and sisters had gone to dig
their own holes and find their own food weeks ago.
“Well, then,” finished Bobby, nodding wisely to himself, “if there’s
any fresh rabbit fur under Hooter’s tree it’s not your mother’s.”
To his surprise Nibble stopped squeezing the tears from his eyes and
opened them wide. “I’m going to look!” he announced. And he began to
scrub his face and polish off his ears with his little soft forepaws.
“Going to look where?” asked Bobby Robin.
“Oh, lots of places—the Clover Patch, and the Brush Pile, and the
Broad Field. But first I’m going to see if there’s any fur under
Hooter’s tree.”
“What?” squawked Bobby. He came tumbling down to the ground where he
could make Nibble look him straight in the eye and listen to an awful
lecture.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he said. “Now that you have to see
and hear and smell and feel for yourself you will have to be twice as
careful as you ever were before. You may remember all the things your
mother taught you—now you’ll have to do them. And she took all that
trouble with you so you could be a sensible, clever rabbit and keep
out of danger, not so you’d run right off the minute she left you and
offer Hooter a free meal.” Bobby was so worried about Nibble he forgot
that the ground was no place for a sensible bird.
“But I must know if Hooter caught her,” pleaded Nibble, “and I will be
careful.” He sat up and sniffed all around with his nice clean nose
that had been all swollen from crying when Bobby Robin found him. And
he pricked up his tidy ears, just to show how careful he meant to be.
And he heard a soft little noise behind him. It wasn’t two grass
stalks rubbing together, though it was as tiny as that. It was the
scraping Glider the Blacksnake makes when he slips across a stone!
Nibble’s feet just bounced of themselves, and Bobby’s wings beat, and
Glider’s ugly head landed right between them. For Glider hears
everything that goes on along the ground. He had heard Nibble stamping
to call his mother. If Mammy Rabbit had answered Glider would never
have come. But she didn’t—so Glider did. And now lonely little Nibble
Rabbit was racing off and Glider was after him, simply boiling over
with rage, as fast as he could put tail to the ground. He didn’t think
Nibble could run so very far. He was sure he would catch him.
For a minute Nibble thought so too. Scared! Nibble Rabbit was too
scared to think. He just ran. Every jump he made was longer and higher
than the one before until he was sailing over the tops of the tallest
grasses. My, but he wanted his mammy—that was because he was so
dreadfully scared. Then he wanted a place to hide. Presently he
remembered the Brush Pile. He turned toward it and he didn’t even hide
his trail the way he had been taught—that’s how scared he was.
But just as he reached it he remembered something his mother had told
him, which was just what she hoped he would do. “If the thing that
chases you wears feathers take to a hole. If it wears fur don’t put
your nose into any hole that hasn’t another end. If it wears scales
keep to the open and run as fast and as far as you can.” And scales
are exactly what Glider wears.
Now he knew exactly what to do, and he wasn’t quite as scared. He just
bounced up on the Brush Pile and kept on going until he bounced off
again on the other side. He raced through the Clover Patch and down
the Broad Field between the shocks of corn. The field was all muddy
from the rain and his feet slipped and slid and his little heart went
bump, bump, against his sides, as though some one were hitting him. He
wasn’t even frightened any more—he was too tired. But he kept on.
Then he heard a voice calling him: “Nibble, Nibble, wait!” It was no
hissy voice of a snake. It was Bobby Robin.
So he turned into one of the nice little tents made by the shocks of
corn. And Bobby had to catch his breath before he could talk. “You’re
safe,” he gasped. “You lost Glider way back there. I asked you if you
could fly. You can. You fly faster than a thistledown in a north
wind.” And Nibble twitched his nose into a pleased smile, while Bobby
stopped to fan himself with his wings. “Glider couldn’t see you bounce
oft on the other side of the Brush Pile,” he explained when he got his
breath, “because his head is so near the ground.”
Nibble’s ears flew up in surprise. “Couldn’t he smell me?” he asked.
If he couldn’t, then here indeed was a new thing he had learned.
Bobby cocked his head sidewise with a most mischievous air. “He could
follow you to the edge of the Clover Patch. But he lost you the minute
you went out into the Broad Field. Look at your feet, Nibble. You
didn’t leave any scent after you got your little mud boots.”
Nibble held up one forepaw and looked at it. Then he put out a hind
one and looked at that, too. Sure enough the sticky mud of the Broad
Field had matted into his fur so that he was wearing a fine little set
of boots that came half way to his knees. He looked down the row of
slippy, slidy tracks he had made. “There’s where I got them,” he said.
“I should think Glider would see where I’d gone.”
“Glider!” laughed Bobby scornfully. “Why, Glider’s too blind and
stupid to see anything. He’s nosing around on the Brush Pile right
this minute, looking for the hole you didn’t run into. And the little
sticks tickle his stomach, and he’s getting hungrier and hungrier and
crosser and crosser until—oh, I say, Nibble, I’ve just got to go back
and see the fun. Come along!” Bobby giggled a throatful of chuckling
notes and flitted off, winking his tail-feathers to beckon Nibble.
But it didn’t seem like fun to Nibble. He was still so weak and shaky
after his run that he trembled every time Bobby spoke Glider’s name.
What he wanted was to find his mother—or at least to know that she
wasn’t a little matted ball of fur under Hooter the Owl’s tree. “I’d
go and look right now,” he said to himself, “if I didn’t have to pass
that Brush Pile.”
Suddenly he knew that now was his chance, while he still had his
little mud boots on. Softly he crept through the Clover Patch for fear
Glider might be lurking in the long grass, ready to pounce on him. But
long before he reached the Brush Pile itself he knew exactly where the
wicked snake was. He was right on top of it.
He was right on top of it, and what is more, Bobby Robin was circling
about his ugly head to jeer at him. “Yah!” Bobby was shouting, “Heap
big hunter, beaten by a bunny! Better go catch frogs in a marsh!”
Now Nibble knew that was a most insulting thing to say. For a frog is
so stupid that almost anything can catch him—especially a snake. If a
frog can possibly dive he hides under a lily pad. If he can’t he just
squawks and waits to be eaten, like a helpless baby bird.
Bobby was squawking loudly enough, only he wasn’t waiting to be eaten.
He was taking very good care not to be. But he was coming so close to
it that Nibble almost forgot everything else in watching him. There
was one thing he did remember, though, and that was that the wicked
snake had nearly caught him by sneaking up from behind. So he took
proper rabbit care that no one should do that again. He found a nice
log where he could see what was going on, but he didn’t hop straight
up on it. He took three short little leaps past it, and one great big
bound back to his perch. Since he still had on his little mud boots
which had hidden his trail from Glider out in the Broad Field, he felt
pretty safe. And when he crouched down like a small brown knot on the
log no one seemed to notice him.
Somebody might have noticed easily enough for Bobby and Glider were
making such a terrible racket that every one was coming to listen to
them. The grasses were full of mice and the bushes were full of
sparrows who all hated the snake. Even Chatter Squirrel, who doesn’t
get on with Bobby any too well himself, came leaping across his
pathway among the branches.
[Illustration: Bobby and Glider were making such a racket that everyone
was coming to listen to them]
“Snail eater, snail eater!” yelled Bobby. Which was the awfullest
thing he could have thought of. To accuse a blacksnake of eating those
disgusting soft woodslugs—ugh! What he eats is nice warm food, like
mice and bunnies and birds—if he can catch them. But he couldn’t catch
Bobby Robin as he danced on his wings just out of reach. He missed a
particularly ugly snap and slapped his nose very hard when it came
down on a nubbly branch. That made him open his mouth and hiss like a
small steam engine.
“That’s right,” said Bobby, pretending to be very sympathetic. “Spit
the mud out of your mouth and maybe you’ll learn to sing.”
Chatter Squirrel laughed so hard at this that he had to hold on tight
to a piece of bark to steady himself. And Nibble sat straight up with
his muddy little paws dangling right against his clean shirt front and
stared with all his eyes. He had his ear cocked so he wouldn’t miss a
word of Glider’s answer. For now Glider was maddest of all. No snake
can stand being reminded that he has to go around with his chin in the
dust.
He stopped whipping his head about and tied himself into a tight coil,
with his cold eyes glittering from the very middle of it. And he
hissed in his cold voice: “I’ll teach you Woodsfolk whether you dare
make fun of me!”
“Oh,” whispered a thrush perched right over Nibble’s head, “I’m afraid
for Bobby. If Glider ever makes any one look him straight in the eye
they never get away from him.” He said it in a scared voice and Nibble
could see that was exactly what Glider was trying to do.
Suddenly he felt himself crouch back against the log again, ears
tucked between his shoulders, whiskers twitching with the smell of fox
in his nostrils. His muscles did these things of themselves before he
really knew that Silvertip was standing at his very elbow. He had
followed Nibble’s footsteps to the end of the trail right past the
perch to where Nibble had jumped back.
Nibble didn’t move. Silvertip raised his head and cocked his ears at
the noise over on the Brush Pile. Then he hung out his tongue in what
wasn’t entirely a sly smile. It was partly thinking how good Glider
the Blacksnake would taste. He made a little rush, with a bounce at
the end, like Nibble’s bounce, right into the middle of the Brush
Pile.
“Help!” shrieked Bobby Robin. But Glider never spoke a single word.
Neither did Silvertip. His mouth was too full. Glider was in it.