You remember in the last story Daddy Fox was peeping in through the
window just as Billy Bunny was having his picture taken, don't you?
Well, no sooner did the little rabbit see him than he hopped quicker
than a lightning bug to the door and closed it, and the Photographer
Crane pulled down the window shade to make it dark inside so that Daddy
Fox couldn't see them.
After that he stuffed the fireplace full of sofa cushions for fear the
crafty fox might slide down the chimney. But, oh dear me! he forgot all
about the skylights--the windows in the roof, you know, and the next
moment down through the ceiling dropped Daddy Fox.
Oh, my! What a scramble there was in that photo parlor. The Crane flew
up on the mantelpiece and the little rabbit crept into the waste basket
and pulled a photograph album on top of him.
And, of course, it was so dark that Daddy Fox didn't see them do all
this, so he had to play hide-and-seek and there was nobody to call out,
"You're getting hotter and hotter" when he stood near the mantelpiece,
nor "You're burning up!" when he passed close to the waste paper basket,
so after a while he sat down on a pincushion (excuse me, I mean a sofa
cushion), and listened with both ears cocked up.
But the Crane never breathed and Billy Bunny held his breath, so by and
by Daddy Fox started to hunt around the room again. First he pulled all
the cushions out of the fireplace and then he pulled up the shades and
unlocked the front door.
And this was very foolish of him, for he should have known that the
Crane and the little rabbit hadn't had time to get out. Then he went out
on the little porch and peeped into the woodbox, and while he was doing
that the Crane flew down the mantelpiece and locked the door.
And then he pulled the strings to close the skylight and stuffed the
cushions back into the fireplace, and lifted the album off the little
rabbit, for it was so full of pictures of fat people that it was
dreadfully heavy.
After this Billy Bunny opened his knapsack and took out his gun and
peeked out through a hole in the window shade. And right there by the
window stood the dreadful fox trying to open it. Bang! went the little
rabbit's gun and the cork hit the fox on the tip of his nose and made
him sneeze so badly that he had to run into the woods to find his
handkerchief.
And he hunted all day long for it, and when evening came he remembered
he had sent it to the laundry, so he had to go out and buy one at the
three and one cent store.
Of course, Billy Bunny didn't have any more pictures taken that day. He
hopped home as fast as he could, and the Crane telephoned down to the
police station and told them to send up a man to guard the studio, and
if the Twinkle Twinkle Star to-night sings me to sleep, I'll tell you
another story of Billy Bunny and the sheep.