Old Olifant's Swamp was a rough, brambly tract of second-growth woods,
with a marshy pond and a stream through the middle. A few ragged
remnants of the old forest still stood in it and a few of the still
older trunks were lying about as dead logs in the brushwood. The land
about the pond was of that willow-grown sedgy kind that cats and horses
avoid, but that cattle do not fear. The drier zones were overgrown with
briars and young trees. The outermost belt of all, that next the fields,
was of thrifty, gummy-trunked young pines whose living needles in air
and dead ones on earth offer so delicious an odor to the nostrils of the
passer-by, and so deadly a breath to those seedlings that would compete
with them for the worthless waste they grow on.
All around for a long way were smooth fields, and the only wild tracks
that ever crossed these fields were those of a thoroughly bad and
unscrupulous fox that lived only too near.
The chief indwellers of the swamp were Molly and Rag. Their nearest
neighbors were far away, and their nearest kin were dead. This was their
home, and here they lived together, and here Rag received the training
that made his success in life.
Molly was a good little mother and gave him a careful bringing up. The
first thing he learned was to lie low and say nothing. His adventure
with the snake taught him the wisdom of this. Rag never forgot that
lesson; afterward he did as he was told, and it made the other things
come more easily.
The second lesson he learned was 'freeze.' It grows out of the first,
and Rag was taught it as soon as he could run.
'Freezing' is simply doing nothing, turning into a statue. As soon as he
finds a foe near, no matter what he is doing, a well-trained Cottontail
keeps just as he is and stops all movement, for the creatures of the
woods are of the same color as the things in the woods and catch the eye
only while moving. So when enemies chance together, the one who first
sees the other can keep himself unseen by 'freezing' and thus have all
the advantage of choosing the time for attack or escape. Only those who
live in the woods know the importance of this; every wild creature and
every hunter must learn it; all learn to do it well, but not one of them
can beat Molly Cottontail in the doing. Rag's mother taught him this
trick by example. When the white cotton cushion that she always carried
to sit on went bobbing away through the woods, of course Rag ran his
hardest to keep up. But when Molly stopped and 'froze,' the natural wish
to copy made him do the same.
But the best lesson of all that Rag learned from his mother was the
secret of the Brierbrush. It is a very old secret now, and to make it
plain you must first hear why the Brierbrush quarrelled with the beasts.
Long ago the Roses used to grow on bushes that had no thorns. But the
Squirrels and Mice used to climb after them, the Cattle used to knock
them off with their horns, the Possum would twitch them off with his
long tail, and the Deer, with his sharp hoofs, would break them down.
So the Brierbrush armed itself with spikes to protect its roses and
declared eternal war on all creatures that climbed trees, or had horns,
or hoofs, or long tails. This left the Brierbrush at peace with none but
Molly Cottontail, who could not climb, was hornless, hoofless, and had
scarcely any tail at all.
In truth the Cottontail had never harmed a Brierrose, and having now so
many enemies the Rose took the Rabbit into especial friendship, and when
dangers are threatening poor Bunny he flies to the nearest Brierbrush,
certain that it is ready with a million keen and poisoned daggers to
defend him.
So the secret that Rag learned from his mother was, "The Brierbrush is
your best friend."
Much of the time that season was spent in learning the lay of the land,
and the bramble and brier mazes. And Rag learned them so well that he
could go all around the swamp by two different ways and never leave the
friendly briers at any place for more than five hops.
It is not long since the foes of the Cottontails were disgusted to find
that man had brought a new kind of bramble and planted it in long lines
throughout the country. It was so strong that no creatures could break
it down, and so sharp that the toughest skin was torn by it. Each year
there was more of it and each year it became a more serious matter to
the wild creatures. But Molly Cottontail had no fear of it. She was not
brought up in the briers for nothing. Dogs and foxes, cattle and sheep,
and even man himself might be torn by those fearful spikes: but Molly
understands it and lives and thrives under it. And the further it
spreads the more safe country there is for the Cottontail. And the name
of this new and dreaded bramble is--the barbed-wire fence.