Flop Ear, the Funny Rabbit

CHAPTER II FLOP EAR FINDS SOMETHING

Along through the woods ran Flop Ear, the funny rabbit. Every now and then he would look over his shoulder, to see if there was a storm coming up. For sometimes it thundered away off on the other side of the mountain, and it would be a good while before the rain came near the rabbit house. But this time not a cloud came into the sky, and the loud banging noise did not sound again.

“If that was thunder, it was a very queer kind,” Flop Ear said to himself. “I never before heard any like it.”

Along he hopped, going faster and faster, until, a little way ahead of him in the woods, he saw his brother Pink Nose.

“Hello!” cried Pink Nose. “Why are you running so fast?”

“Because I heard a funny noise,” answered Flop Ear, “and I want to tell mother and father about it.”

“I don’t hear any noise,” said Pink Nose.

He sat up on his hind legs and listened, as all rabbits do.

“No, I can’t hear it now, either,” said Flop Ear. “But I heard it very plainly a while ago. Come on, let’s run. It may be danger!”

So Flop Ear and Pink Nose ran along together, until, in a little while, not far from their home, they saw Snuggle, who was poking about among the leaves.

“What are you looking for, Snuggle?” asked Flop Ear.

“For some sweet roots to eat,” answered the little sister rabbit. “But why are you two running?” she asked, in bunny language.

“Flop Ear heard a funny noise,” said Pink Nose. “He is going to tell papa and mamma about it, and I am going with him.”

“It may be a danger-noise, such as Grandma Munch tells about,” added Flop Ear.

“If it’s danger I’m not going to stay here,” Snuggle cried. “I’ll go with you.”

So the three little rabbits ran along together, and they soon reached the underground house. Lady Munch was sitting at the front door, looking all around. She had just finished making up the leaf-beds, and she wanted to come out in the air.

“Why, what is the matter, children?” she asked, as she saw Flop Ear, Pink Nose and Snuggle running toward her. “What has happened?”

“Flop Ear heard a queer noise!” cried Snuggle and Pink Nose together.

“What sort of a noise was it?” asked Lady Munch, chewing on a bit of carrot.

“It was a loud noise,” answered Flop Ear. “It went: ‘Bang! Bang!’ two times, just like that.”

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Lady Munch. “I know what that noise was! Quick! Down into the burrow, all of you!”

She fairly pushed the three rabbit children into the hole in the ground, and then she ran down herself.

“Oh, I do hope your father and mother are safe!” said Lady Munch when they were all in the underground house. “I wish they were home!”

“Why, was that noise so dangerous?” asked Pink Nose.

“Was it thunder?” Flop Ear demanded.

“Indeed it was a dangerous noise, and it was not thunder,” said the grandmother. “It was a hunter man, shooting a gun. Well I know that sound. I have been shot at many times. It’s a good thing you were not shot, Flop Ear.”

“A hunter man with a gun! Was that what made the noise?” asked Snuggle, and she cuddled up close to her nice grandmother.

“That’s what it was,” went on the old lady rabbit. “There are hunters in our woods; but, so far, none of them has come near our home. And I hope they do not.”

“Then I did right to run away from the noise; did I, Grandmother?” asked Flop Ear.

“You certainly did, little boy. Always run when you hear that gun-banging noise. I hope your father and mother will be able to run away from it. I wish they were home.”

Just then there was a sound at the door of the underground house, and the rabbits in it were much afraid, until they saw it was Mrs. Bunny coming home.

“Oh, I am so glad you are safe!” exclaimed Lady Munch. “Did you see anything of Mr. Bunny?”

“Why no, I didn’t,” answered Mrs. Bunny. “I was out looking for some cabbage, but I could not find any. But what is the matter, and why are you all so frightened?”

“Flop Ear heard a gun-shooting noise,” answered Pink Nose.

“That means there are hunters in the woods,” added Lady Munch. “Oh, I do hope Mr. Bunny will get home safely.”

Just then came another sound at the door of the underground house, and every one was frightened until it was seen that it was Mr. Bunny himself coming home. And he came in a hurry, too.

“Oh, my! Such a time!” panted the father rabbit, lying down on a pile of soft leaves. “Such a time!”

“I had a time, too,” Flop Ear said. “I heard a gun-banging noise in the woods, and I ran home.”

“I heard it too!” said his father. “That is why I ran. A hunter man shot his gun at me, but he did not hit me.”

“Oh, I am so glad of that!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunny. “If you should be shot and killed I don’t know what we would do.”

“We must all stay down here underground until night,” said Lady Munch, who, being an old rabbit, knew much about keeping out of danger. “When it is night the hunter will have gone home, and it will be safe for us to go out.”

So the rabbits stayed down in their underground house, listening for another sound of the gun, which Flop Ear, hearing for the first time in his life, had thought was thunder. But the hunter did not find the rabbit burrow, and no more banging sounds were heard. After a while Mr. Bunny poked his head a little way out of the hole.

“Is it all right?” Flop Ear asked.

“Yes, it’s all right now,” answered the papa bunny. “It is getting dark, and we can soon go out and get something to eat.”

So the rabbits did, and no hunter shot them that time.

For a week after that, every time Flop Ear, Snuggle and Pink Nose went out in the woods they would listen for any sound that might be a hunter’s gun. Once Flop Ear thought he heard it, and he ran. But this time it was really thunder, and soon it rained and he had to hurry home, getting all wet. But with his thick fur he did not mind.

“It is hard to tell a hunter’s gun from thunder,” thought Flop Ear.

Not far from where Flop Ear lived in the wood was a farm, and on the farm was a pig pen. Once when there were none of the farm people about Flop Ear and Pink Nose went close to the pig pen. They could look in through the cracks of the board pen and see nine pigs.

Two of the pigs were large and the other seven were small. And one little pig had a funny, squinting eye, so that when he looked out at Flop Ear and Pink Nose they had to laugh.

“What are you laughing at?” asked the little pig, who could speak the language understood by all animals. “What is the matter?”

“It is you,” answered Flop Ear. “You have such a funny squint.”

“Well, Squinty is my name,” said the little pig. “They name me that because of my eye. Don’t you like it?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Pink Nose. “I think it’s a pretty name.”

“And we didn’t really mean to laugh at you,” exclaimed Flop Ear. “You see, I have a funny ear, and I am named after that.”

“Oh, I don’t mind being laughed at,” Squinty said quickly. “I am used to it. Whenever the folks come and look down in my pen they laugh at me too.”

“And my rabbit friends laugh at me,” said Flop Ear, “so it is all the same.”

“Do you like it in the pen?” asked Pink Nose. “It seems so open, where every one can look in on you.”

“Oh, yes, we all like it here,” said Squinty. “We have lots of fun. We play, and scratch each others’ backs. Did you ever have your back scratched, little rabbits?”

“Oh, no, never,” said Flop Ear. “But sometimes mother rubs my ears, and I like that.”

“I guess it’s all the same,” Squinty said, trying to turn around to look at the curl in his tail.

Then the bunnies said good-by to the little pigs, and ran on. But if you would like to know more about Squinty you may read of him in a book like this one, named “Squinty, the Comical Pig; His Many Adventures.”

“And we really didn’t mean to laugh at you,” said Flop Ear.

“I shouldn’t like to be a pig; should you?” asked Flop Ear of his brother Pink Nose, as they hopped along together.

“I don’t believe I should,” answered the other bunny. “I think it is more fun to be a rabbit.”

Flop Ear lived with his brother, his sister, his father, mother and Lady Munch in the woods for some time. The rabbits heard no more gun sounds and they were hoping that the hunters had gone away, and would not come back.

Flop Ear and the other two little rabbits had much fun and many good times. Sometimes Flop Ear would dig a hole in the ground, which he could quickly do with his fore paws, and then he would hide himself in it, covering himself up with leaves.

Then, when his brother or his sister came along he would suddenly jump out and cry “Boo!” at them in rabbit talk, just as sometimes you hide at the bottom of the stairs, and pretend to scare your father or big brother as he comes down.

Often Flop Ear, Snuggle and Pink Nose would go off through the woods, to find nice things to eat—sweet roots, wild carrots or berries.

“I do wish I could find some cabbage,” said Mr. Bunny as he came home one day. “I have looked all over for some cabbages growing, that I might bring back some of the sweet, juicy leaves. But I can not find any.”

“I could not, either, though I looked in many places,” said his wife.

The next day, when Flop Ear went out by himself, as he often did, he said:

“I am going to look for a field of cabbages. If I could find some, and bring it home, how nice it would be!”

Along and along he hopped, and, all at once, he sniffed the air, and smelled something nice.

“Ha! That smells like cabbage,” he thought, for he had once tasted and smelled it. “I believe I am near a cabbage field!”

He went on a little farther, until he came to a fence. There was a hole under it, and when Flop Ear had crawled through that, he was in a big field where cabbages were growing.

“Oh, isn’t this fine!” said Flop Ear to himself. “I have found the cabbage! Just what papa and mamma were looking for! I’ll take some home!”

CHAPTER III FLOP EAR IS LOST

Under the fence crawled Flop Ear, and, running up to where a head of cabbage was growing, the little white rabbit began nibbling the tender green leaves.

“Oh, how good that tastes!” he said to himself. “I’ll eat my share here, and carry some to the folks at home. I can tell them where the field is, and they can come and get more for themselves.”

Flop Ear was nibbling away at the cabbage, which to him was as good as ice cream or lollypops are to you. And the little rabbit was wondering how many leaves he could carry home, when, all at once, he heard a barking sound.

“Bow wow! Bow wow! Bow wow!”

“A dog!” thought Flop Ear, quickly sitting up on his hind legs. “Oh, the hunter man must be coming after me with his gun!”

Flop Ear looked all about him, to see which way to run to get away from the danger, as he had been taught to do. But before he could jump back under the fence he saw, coming toward him, a big, shaggy dog, who was barking. Flop Ear started to hop away, but he had no time. The dog was quickly standing right over him.

“Oh, please, please don’t bite me!” begged Flop Ear, in animal language.

“Bite you? I wasn’t going to bite you,” said the dog. “I was just going to drive you out of my master’s cabbage patch. Come run along now, rabbit chap. You can’t stay here.”

“All right. I’ll go right away,” said Flop Ear, very thankful that the dog had not bitten him. “I’ll go at once. But I was so hungry for cabbage, and we haven’t had any in a long while. I was going to take a few leaves home, carrying them in my mouth. Papa and mamma have been looking everywhere for cabbage, but they didn’t find any.”

Sadly enough Flop Ear started out of the field.

“Hold on a minute,” said the dog, more kindly this time. “What is your name?”

“I am called Flop Ear, and I guess you can tell why. It’s because one of my ears flops over.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said the dog, and he waved his tail now, which showed that he was getting friendly. “So your name is Flop Ear; eh? Well, mine is Don.”

“I am glad to meet you, Don. And I hope you will not tell your master, the hunter man, which way I run when I go away. I do not want him to chase me and shoot me.”

“My master is not a hunter, and does not shoot rabbits,” said Don. “But wait a minute. You need not go away without some cabbage.”

“Oh, do you really mean I may take some?” asked Flop Ear, in delight.

“Why yes, take a few leaves. I guess my master won’t mind. He tells me to keep watch over his cabbage field, but I’m sure, if he were here, he’d let you take a little, so I’ll do the same.

“I’m sorry I barked at you so crossly just now, but I thought you were one of a lot of rabbits who had come here to take all the cabbages.”

“Oh, no. I only want a few leaves,” Flop Ear said.

“That will be all right,” went on Don. “Help yourself. I don’t believe I ever saw you before; did I?”

“I don’t know,” answered the rabbit. “I’m sure I never saw you until just now. And I am glad your master does not have a gun. I met a pig named Squinty the other day,” said the rabbit as he began eating more cabbage leaves.

“Yes, I know him,” said Don. “He is a comical chap; isn’t he?”

“Indeed he is,” answered Flop Ear. “He looks at you in such a funny way.”

The dog and the rabbit talked together a little longer, and then Don said:

“Well, I must go back to the house now. I’ll see you again some time, perhaps—that is, if I don’t run away, as I once did.”

“Oh, did you run away?” asked Flop Ear.

“Yes, and many things happened to me.”

“Tell me about them,” begged the funny little rabbit, who loved stories.

Don told about having gone away, but as this book is mostly about Flop Ear I’ll just say that those of you who wish to read about the kind dog may do so in the volume named “Don, a Runaway Dog; His Many Adventures.”

When Flop Ear, after listening to Don’s story, went back home, the little rabbit took with him some cabbage leaves.

“Oh, where did you get them?” asked his mother. “I am so glad you found them!”

“I got them in a field,” said Flop Ear. “At first a dog was going to chase me away, but he did not, and was kind to me, letting me take some leaves.”

“That’s nice,” said Lady Munch, as she nibbled a bit of sweet cabbage leaf. “This will make a very fine dinner for all of us.”

The Bunnys were very glad to get the cabbage, and a few days later Mr. and Mrs. Bunny went to the field, which Flop Ear showed them. Don was there again, and he was good to the rabbits, letting them take as much cabbage as they wanted. And, after all, they did not take very much, and the man who owned the field never missed it.

“If you didn’t eat it the worms might get it,” said Don, kindly, “so take as many heads as you need.”

It was two or three days after this that Flop Ear, going through the woods on a short cut to the cabbage field, saw a black animal walking along—an animal about as large as himself.

“Oh, I wonder what that is?” he said. “It looks so black that it may be something dangerous.”

Then the other animal said: “Mew mew!” and asked:

“Who are you?”

“Why, I am Flop Ear, the funny rabbit,” was the answer.

“You do look funny,” said the other animal, waving its tail. Flop Ear’s tail was so short he could only wiggle it.

“What is your name?” asked Flop Ear.

“My name is Blackie, and I am a lost cat.”

“Lost?” asked Flop Ear.

“Yes, I ran away from home, and now I am rather sorry. But I am trying to find my way back again.”

“Oh, I’d never run away from home,” Flop Ear said. “I like it too much.”

“Well, I liked my home, too,” said Blackie; “but I wanted to have some adventures, and learn to become a good fence-jumper, so I went away, and got lost.”

“Did you have any adventures?” asked Flop Ear.

“Oh, many of them, and I may have more,” answered the black cat.

“Tell me about them,” begged Flop Ear, and Blackie did. I have not room for them here, but if you will get the book called “Blackie, a Lost Cat; Her Many Adventures,” you may read about them for yourself.

“I like you,” said Flop Ear, as Blackie finished her story. “I thought at first, when you told me you were a cat, that you might bite me.”

“Oh, no indeed! I wouldn’t bite a rabbit,” Blackie said.

“That’s what Don, the runaway dog, said,” returned the bunny.

“What! Do you know him?” asked the black cat. “Why, he is a friend of mine.”

“I am glad to know that,” cried Flop Ear. “Don was very good to me. He let me take cabbage.”

“Yes, Don is a good dog, even if he did run away.”

“I know Squinty, the Comical Pig, too,” went on Flop Ear. “Do you know him?”

“Well, I may have met him,” Blackie said. “But I do not now just remember. I have had so many things happen to me on my travels that I can not remember them all. You never met Dido, the dancing bear; did you?”

“Oh, no, never. What! a bear?” cried Flop Ear. “I’d be afraid!”

“Oh, you needn’t be afraid of him. He is a good, kind, dancing bear,” said the cat. “He lives in a cage in the circus, and when some bad boys chased me I ran under the circus tent and hid in the straw in Dido’s cage.”

“He must be a nice bear,” Flop Ear said.

“He is,” replied the black cat. “You’ll like him if you ever meet him.”

“I hope I shall meet him,” Flop Ear said.

The rabbit and the cat talked together a little longer.

“Where are you going?” finally asked Blackie.

“To get something to eat,” Flop Ear answered. “First I will go to the cabbage field, and then I may find some carrots. Did you ever eat carrots?”

“Never!” answered Blackie.

“What do you eat?” Flop Ear inquired.

“Oh, meat and milk, and fish when I can get them.”

“Well, I hope you get them,” said Flop Ear, as he hopped on toward the cabbage field. “And I hope you will soon find your home.”

“I hope so, too,” returned Blackie. Then the lost cat went off by herself, and in her own book you may read about her, after you have finished this one.

Flop Ear was eating some cabbage, when along came Don.

“Hello!” exclaimed the kind dog.

“Hello!” answered Flop Ear. “I just met a friend of yours.”

“Who was it?” Don inquired. “Tum Tum the jolly elephant, or Mappo the merry monkey?”

“Neither one. I don’t know either of them,” answered Flop Ear. “It was Blackie, a lost cat.”

“Oh, yes, I know her quite well,” said Don. “She is a nice cat. I like her.”

“So do I,” said Flop Ear. “Will you have some cabbage?”

“No, thank you. I never eat it,” Don said.

Two or three days after this something dreadful happened to Flop Ear.

It happened to the other rabbits, too, and made them very sad, at least for a time, so I’ll tell you about it.

This is how it was. They had all been away together getting some cabbage in the field that Don watched over, the dog letting them take as much as they could eat, and now they were on their way home.

All of a sudden there sounded a loud noise.

“Bang! Bang!” it went twice.

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Papa Bunny. “It’s a hunter man with a gun! Oh, my! Run everybody! Run, and hide!”

“And don’t all run together,” added Lady Munch. “Scatter! Some go one way and some another. If we all keep together the hunter man will see us more easily.”

“Bang!” went the gun again, and then a dog—not Don—barked.

Flop Ear looked over his shoulder. He saw a man with a smoking gun running toward him. Flop Ear ducked under a bush to hide, and, oh, how fast he ran! He wanted to get away. Flop Ear could see Lady Munch, his papa and his mamma, his brother and his sister also running under bushes. The man and dog ran after them.

On and on hopped Flop Ear, as fast as he could go, until he was too tired to run any farther. Then he stopped and listened. He could not hear the dog barking now, nor could he hear the banging noise of the gun.

Flop Ear came out from under the bush and looked around. He was in a part of the woods he had never seen before. It was all strange to him.

“I guess I had better go back to my home,” he thought. “The others will be there when I get there.”

Flop Ear started off, carefully looking on all sides for danger.

“I guess I got safely away from that hunter man, with his dog and his gun,” thought Flop Ear. “I hope the others did too. Oh dear! I suppose it is right for hunters to chase us, but it is very hard.”

On and on went Flop Ear.

“Surely I ought to be near my home now,” he thought. He looked all around, but he could not see the hole in the ground that was the front door to his underground house.

“Oh dear!” said Flop Ear. “I wonder if I am lost.”

He hopped on a little farther. The woods were still strange to him. He had never been in that part before.

“Yes, I am lost!” said poor Flop Ear, after a bit. “I don’t know where my home is. Oh, I am lost! What shall I do?”

CHAPTER IV FLOP EAR IN THE HAY

The little lost rabbit sat up on his hind legs and looked all around him. He was in the middle of a big wood, and while he liked the trees, the moss and the fallen leaves, which rustled under his feet, still Flop Ear liked best his own wood, where he had always lived. He did not know this wood at all.

“I wonder where Pink Nose and Snuggle are,” thought Flop Ear. “I wonder if they are lost, as I am.”

Then, even though he was lost, Flop Ear could not help feeling hungry, and, as he saw before him a tree, the bark of which he knew was good to eat, he nibbled some of it.

“That makes me feel a little better,” he said to himself. “Now I will try once more to find my house and my father and mother.”

Again Flop Ear set off through the woods, looking all about him for a sight of the open door of his burrow underground. But though he saw holes where groundhogs, or woodchucks, lived in fields near the woods, and though he saw some holes in which snakes crawled, he did not see his own home, and it made him lonesome.

Then he happened to remember a way rabbits have of calling to one another by thumping their feet on the ground. If you try that you can signal just as rabbits do, though you may not be able to make your thumps on the ground mean anything. If you go out in the yard some warm Summer day, and put your ear to the ground, and then some other boy or girl, some distance off, will pound his heel on the earth, you can hear it quite plainly.

That is the way rabbits call to one another when they are too far off to talk, for a rabbit does not have a very loud voice. And a rabbit does not need to put his ear to the ground to listen to the thumps of another rabbit. He can hear well enough without that.

“That’s what I’ll do,” thought Flop Ear. “I’ll give a pounding call, and papa or mamma may be near enough to hear. Oh, I hope they are, for I want to go home!”

Flop Ear raised himself on his hind feet, and then he thumped with his front feet two or three times, making a sound like a little drum. Then Flop Ear listened. He did not hear any other thumps in answer to his own.

“Well, I’ll go on a little way and try once more,” he said to himself. “Maybe they will hear this time.”

Once more Flop Ear thumped on the ground. But though he listened very sharply all he could hear was the wind blowing through the trees, and the dried leaves rustling as he scampered through them.

“Oh dear!” thought poor Flop Ear. “I don’t know what to do. I surely am lost worse than I ever was before.”

Once, when he was a little baby rabbit, Flop Ear had wandered a little way off from the burrow. His mother had been with him, but he ran on ahead. And, when he looked back, he could not see his mother, nor the burrow where he lived.

He had been very much frightened then, and he had started to cry, being only a baby, and much afraid of being lost. But then his mother suddenly came running around a stump, behind which she had gone to get some nice red wintergreen berries, and she dried the tears of Flop Ear on her soft fur, and showed him that the burrow was only about two jumps away, behind a big rock.

“I was only lost a little bit that time,” thought Flop Ear, “but this time I am lost a whole lot. I wish I had not run so far from home. Why, I am a regular runaway, like Don, the dog, and I’m lost, just as Blackie was. I told her I’d never run away from my home, but I did.

“But I did not mean to,” went on Flop Ear. “It was the hunter, with his dog and gun, who drove me away from home. I’d never run away from it myself. But what shall I do?”

Flop Ear was tired from running so much, and from thumping on the ground, so when he found a place where some soft moss grew near a tree he lay down to rest. And, all the while, he wondered how he was ever going to get home again.

Then, up in the tree over his head Flop Ear heard a bird singing. And as he could speak bird language, as well as animal talk, Flop Ear asked:

“Little bird, do you know where my home is? I am lost.”

“Chirp! Chirp!” answered the little bird. “No, I am sorry to say I do not know where your home is. But, if you like, you may come and live in my house.”

“And where is your house?” asked Flop Ear, thinking he might stay there over night, as it was now getting rather dark.

“My home is a nice nest up in this tree,” chirped the bird. “If you come up, though, you must be very careful, for I have eggs in my nest.”

“What are you going to do with them, color them for Easter?” asked Flop Ear, for, being a rabbit he knew about Easter eggs, you see.

“What! Color my nice eggs?” cried the bird. “No indeed! I am going to hatch some little birdies out of them. Besides, my eggs are colored already. They are a beautiful blue. If you come up you can see them.”

“If your eggs are blue, then you must be a robin-bird,” said Flop Ear.

“I am,” was the answer. “Are you coming up to stay in my nest? But please be careful not to break the eggs if you do.”

“No, thank you, I can not come up,” said Flop Ear. “It is very kind of you to ask me, but I can not climb a tree. And, besides, I am afraid I am too large to fit in your nest without breaking the eggs.”

“Well, perhaps you are,” the bird said. “But I am sorry you are lost.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said Flop Ear.

“Perhaps I can fly around and look for your burrow,” the robin-bird said. “Shall I try?”

“If you please,” Flop Ear answered.

So the bird flew around through the woods, looking down on the ground trying to see Flop Ear’s home. But she could not, for the little rabbit had run very fast to get away from the hunter, and had traveled farther than he thought he had.

“Little bird, do you know where my home is?”

“No, I can not find your home, I am sorry to say,” said the bird as she came back to the tree under which Flop Ear was resting. “I could not see it anywhere.”

“Never mind, you did the best you could, and I thank you,” returned the rabbit. “I’ll run along myself and see if I can find it. If I can’t, I suppose I shall have to stay out in the woods all night.”

“I do that myself, up in my nest,” said the robin. “So if you get lonesome come and sleep near this tree.”

“I will, thank you,” answered Flop Ear.

Off he went again, and then, all of a sudden, Flop Ear heard that dreadful banging noise of the gun again, though it was not very close to him.

“Oh, there’s that dreadful hunter once more!” cried the little rabbit. “I must run on again.”

Pretty soon Flop Ear was tired and he had to stop to rest. He listened but did not hear the gun again. It was almost dark now, and Flop Ear remembered what his father had said, that the hunter men did not stay out to shoot after dark.

“So I’ll be all right for a while,” said Flop Ear.

On and on he went, now and then stopping to nibble at some sweet bark, or pick up a few berries, and pretty soon Flop Ear came out of the woods and found himself in a field.

“Ha! Maybe I can find some cabbages or carrots in here,” he thought.

But as soon as Flop Ear looked at the field he knew it was neither a cabbage nor a carrot field. There was short, stubbly grass in the field. It was what is called a meadow, like the one where the sheep were, for which Little Boy Blue had to blow his horn.

In the middle of the field was something that looked like a big hill, or a small mountain.

“I wonder what that is,” said Flop Ear to himself. “I guess I’ll hop over and take a look.”

Across the meadow he went and when he came to the big pile he found it was hay, that had been cut and stacked up, ready to be hauled into the barn.

“Ha! Hay!” said Flop Ear. “I can burrow under that and sleep to-night. It will be a nice place, and no hunter can find me there. I can also eat some of the hay.”

Hay is grass, dried, you know, and rabbits like to nibble a little of it.

So Flop Ear crawled under the stack of hay and, after eating a little, he felt sleepy. His eyes closed.

CHAPTER V FLOP EAR AND THE BOY

Flop Ear awoke in the morning feeling hungry. All he had to do was to reach out and eat part of his hay-bed in which he had slept. I think that was rather funny. It isn’t every one who can get a breakfast as easily as that.

How would you like to reach out in the morning, when you wake up, and eat part of the pillow case, a bit of the sheet and perhaps nibble off one of the rosettes on the bedquilt? I guess it would not taste as good as your breakfast orange and oatmeal; would it? No indeed!

But a rabbit is different. They like hay, and they can sleep in it as well as eat it. So Flop Ear had no trouble getting his breakfast. And he knew that in the woods and fields all around him grew many other things he could eat.

“So, even though I am lost, I shall not go hungry,” thought Flop Ear. “But still I don’t want to be lost. I want to find my home, my father and my mother, and Snuggle and Pink Nose. I want to see my grandma, Lady Munch, too. Oh, how I wish that hunter man had never come to our woods!”

But there was no use wishing that now. Flop Ear was far away from home, and he must do the best he could either to find his way back to it, or to look for a new home.

“It is Summer now,” thought the little rabbit, “and it will be all right to sleep out in the fields or woods without going down into an underground burrow. But if I do not find my home before cold weather comes I shall have to dig a new one for myself. I wonder if I have forgotten how to dig, or burrow, as father calls it. I guess I’ll go out and try it now.”

Out from the warm little nest he had made for himself in the hay came Flop Ear. He found a soft place in the field and began to dig in the dirt, pawing it under him in a pile by scratching with his fore paws, almost as your dog does it when he feels like digging.

“I haven’t forgotten my digging lessons,” said Flop Ear. “So I will be all right when Winter comes. But it is a long way off yet. Now to try again to find my home.”

He had just left the spot where he had dug the little hole in the meadow, when, all at once, he heard a dog barking.

“Ha! I wonder if that is Don or a hunter’s dog,” thought Flop Ear. He looked quickly over his shoulder, and he saw a dog running toward him. It was neither Don nor a hunter’s dog, but a strange one.

“Get out of this field!” barked the dog. “Run away or I’ll bite you!” and he spoke very crossly.

“My! You are not as nice and polite as Don was when he let me get the cabbage,” thought Flop Ear as he bounded away. “I’m not hurting your field. I only dug a little hole in it, and ate some hay, and there is a whole mountain of it left.” Flop Ear did not stop to say this to the barking dog, but spoke as he ran on, for the dog was coming after him very fast indeed.

“Bow wow! Bow wow!” barked the dog. “I’ll catch you, rabbit!”

“Oh, ho! No, you won’t!” answered Flop Ear. “You can’t catch me!”

Rabbits can run and hop very fast you know, but of course Flop Ear was only a little fellow, not fully grown, and the dog was a big chap. So the rabbit, looking back, saw that the dog was getting nearer and nearer.

“I must fool him,” said Flop Ear to himself. “I must run in the woods where he can not see me. Then he can only follow me by smelling, and when I get a chance I’ll cross some water, and then the dog can’t even smell my steps.”

When dogs can not see rabbits, or other animals they are chasing, they have to go by smell. They put their nose to the ground and sniff very hard, and a dog’s nose is so good for smelling that he can tell just which way a rabbit went, that is if it is not too long after the rabbit has passed by. Rabbits, and other animals when they step on the ground, leave there a sort of smell, called a scent, just as if you rubbed onion on a dish. Though you did not see the onion rubbed on the dish, if you smelled the dish, even in the dark, you would know the onion had been there.

That’s the way it is when a dog chases a rabbit. He smells the tracks on the ground when he can not see the bunny running along.

Pretty soon Flop Ear came to the woods. In among the bushes he jumped, and now he was hidden from the dog.

“Oh, but I’ll get you anyhow,” barked the dog. “I’ll smell you out with my sharp nose.”

“No, you won’t,” thought Flop Ear, for he did not want to talk to the dog now, or the cross animal might find the little white rabbit.

On and on ran Flop Ear, as fast as he could go. The dog still came after him, for every time Flop Ear’s feet touched the ground they left a smell there which the dog could follow.

But, pretty soon, Flop Ear came to a brook running through the woods.

“Now here’s where I fool that dog,” thought the rabbit. So Flop Ear went close to the edge of the water, jumped in where it was not very deep, and waded down stream, going as fast as he could, splashing drops all over. But he did not mind that, as the day was warm.

Besides it was better to be wet than to have a dog bite him.

After going down the brook quite a distance Flop Ear went all the way across it, to the other side, and then he felt that he need not hurry so.

“The dog can not smell where I am now,” he said to himself.

And this was true. Barking and growling, the dog came to the edge of the brook where Flop Ear had waded into the water, but the rabbit was out of sight. Then the dog had to stop for a minute.

“Now which way did that rabbit go?” he asked himself, for you see the smell of rabbits’ feet, or those of other animals, will not stay on the water. That was where the dog was puzzled.

“I guess the rabbit jumped across the brook, and is in the woods on the other side,” said the dog. “I’ll go over there myself.”

So across the water went the dog, but when he got on the other side he could neither see Flop Ear nor smell where he was. For the rabbit was quite a way down the stream you see. The dog ran all around, trying to get track of the rabbit smell, but he could not.

“He got away from me after all!” said the dog. “I call that a mean trick!”

But for Flop Ear it was a good trick. He did not want to be bitten, any more than that dog would like to get a nip. So Flop Ear got himself out of one danger.

“My! That was a long run!” said Flop Ear, as he came to a rest on a bed of soft moss. “I thought that dog would surely get me.” He listened very hard, but he could not hear the dog barking now. The dog had gone back to his home in the farmhouse, near the big pile of hay.

Flop Ear was hungry again now; so, after resting, he looked about and found some sweet bark from a tree. He ate as much of this as he wanted, taking a little sassafras bark as a sort of dessert—as you take pudding or pie—and then he hopped on again, still looking for his lost home.

All that day Flop Ear wandered about in the woods. Then, as night was coming on, he looked for a place to sleep. He was wondering if he had better not go back to the pile of hay, when, all at once he saw another rabbit just ahead of him.

“Oh, if that is only one of my folks!” thought Flop Ear, his heart beating very fast, “how happy I shall be! Hello there!” he called to the other bunny.

“Hello!” came back the answer, and then Flop Ear’s heart was sad, for the voice was not that of any of his relatives—not Lady Munch’s, his father’s, mother’s, Pink Nose’s, or Snuggle’s.

“Do you live around here?” asked Flop Ear of the strange rabbit.

“Yes,” was the answer. “My burrow is right under the place where you are sitting, and my front door is near this rock where I am.”

“Oh dear! I wish I were as near my home as you are to yours,” said Flop Ear.

“What’s the matter?” asked the other rabbit, whose name was Fluffo.

“Oh, I’m lost!” Flop Ear said. “A hunter chased me away from my nice home.”

“Then come and stay with me,” suggested Fluffo. “I have plenty of room, and there are some nice carrots and cabbages in my burrow.”

“How good that sounds,” Flop Ear said. “I will come in and stay with you.”

So down into the other bunny’s burrow he went, and had a good supper, staying there all night. He had a good breakfast, too, and then he started off through the woods again.

“Why don’t you stay longer with me?” asked Fluffo. “I have plenty of room for both of us.”

“Oh, I would like to stay,” Flop Ear said, “but I feel that I must try to get back to my own dear home. My father and mother may be looking for me.”

“Well, go on then,” said Fluffo. “I hope you will find your burrow soon.”

“Thank you,” returned Flop Ear, “I hope I do.”

Away he hopped, over the fields and through the woods, and pretty soon he saw that the woods were coming to an end again. A large field was in front of Flop Ear, and in the field was a farmhouse, with barns and sheds.

“I wonder if I could get anything to eat over there,” thought Flop Ear, for he had not had anything since leaving Fluffo’s burrow, early that morning. “I guess I’ll hop over and see,” went on the rabbit. “I hope there are no dogs to chase me.”

Flop Ear hopped across the field toward the farmhouse. Back of it was a little shed, and the door of this shed was open. In went Flop Ear, not knowing quite where he was going. He saw piles of wood in the shed, for this was the place where the farmer’s wife kept her wood for making fires. There were pieces of trees that had once grown in the forest.

“Well, here is some bark I can gnaw,” thought Flop Ear, “but it is not as nice and fresh as that which grows on the trees in the woods. I guess I’ll—”

And then Flop Ear stopped suddenly, for he heard some one coming into the woodshed.

“Oh, I hope that isn’t the hunter man!” thought the rabbit. “I’d better hide.”

In front of him was a basket filled with wood. There was room down in among the sticks of wood for Flop Ear to hide. Into the basket he jumped, and cuddled down out of sight. Then Flop Ear heard a woman calling:

“Jimmie! Jimmie! Bring me in a basket of wood, please!”

“I will, Mother,” answered a boy.

Flop Ear could understand some of our kind of talk, you know, though he could not speak it himself.

The rabbit heard some one walking around the shed, and then, all at once, Flop Ear felt himself being lifted up in the basket of wood, and being carried along.

“Oh, I wonder what is going to happen to me now?” thought the rabbit, whose heart was beating very fast, as he was much frightened.

“Are you bringing the wood, Jimmie?” the boy’s mother called.

“Yes’m, I’m coming with it.”

There was something else in the basket besides the wood, had the boy only known it.

Flop Ear felt himself bouncing along, up and down, as the boy carried him in the wood basket, and then he felt the basket being set down.

“Take out the wood, Jimmie dear, and put it in the wood-box behind the stove,” said the woman, and the boy did so. Stick after stick he lifted out, and Flop Ear, who was down in the very bottom, was wondering what would happen when the basket was empty.

“They’ll see me, surely, then,” said the rabbit. “I wonder what they will do to me? Oh, I seem to be getting in more and more trouble all the while.”

The boy who was lifting the wood out of the basket suddenly cried:

“Oh, Mother! Look here! A rabbit!”

“A rabbit! Where?”

“In the wood basket!” And before Flop Ear could hop out of the way the boy had lifted him up in his arms, holding him closely.

CHAPTER VI FLOP EAR LEARNS TRICKS

Flop Ear, at first, was so frightened at finding himself in the boy’s arms, that he did not know what to do. He trembled and tried to get away, but the boy said:

“Keep still, little rabbit. I won’t hurt you. I will be kind to you.”

Flop Ear understood a little of this talk, but, best of all, he understood the kind, stroking hand of the boy, who rubbed his fur softly. Animals can tell just by the way you touch them whether or not you are going to be nice to them.

But still Flop Ear was frightened. To a little rabbit, a boy is as big as a giant would be to you or me, and this was the first time, in all his life, Flop Ear had ever been near a human being.

If there were giants in the world, I think we would all be very much frightened if we saw one for the first time, and did not know whether he would be cross or kind. But after we had seen the giant two or three times, and learned that he would not harm us, we would not be so worried. It was this way with Flop Ear. It was the first time he had ever seen a boy close by, and he was afraid.

“Now don’t try to get away, little bunny,” said the boy kindly. “I won’t hurt you. See him, Mother! Isn’t he cute?”

“Where did you get him, Jimmie?”

“Why he was in the wood basket, right under the wood, and when I lifted out the last sticks I saw him.”

“In the wood basket! How in the world did he get there?”

“He must have come in from the fields or woods and hopped in to hide,” said Jimmie, the boy. “I am going to keep him for a pet if he will stay with me. I’ll teach him some tricks.”

“Put him down on the floor and see if he will stay,” suggested the woman.

“I’m afraid he’ll run. Wait until I shut the door,” the boy said.

“And I’ll get him a carrot to eat,” returned his mother. “Maybe he won’t run when he sees that.”

She put a carrot down on the kitchen floor, and the boy placed Flop Ear in front of it. The carrot smelled very good to Flop Ear, for he was hungry, so he did not run away, though his heart was still beating fast.

Then the boy saw the little rabbit’s funny, drooping ear.

“Oh, Mother! See!” cried Jimmie. “What a funny rabbit! Isn’t he comical? He’s as comical as Squinty, the pig!”

“Yes, he does look odd,” said the woman. “I think Flop Ear would be a good name for him.”

And so, you see, without any trouble at all, Flop Ear got his own right name. It was natural to call him that.

“I like him better than I do Squinty,” said the boy. “I was over on Mr. Jones’ farm the other day, and I saw Squinty in the pen. Mr. Jones said some children were going to take him for a pet, but I would rather have Flop Ear, the funny rabbit.”

“Well, this isn’t so bad,” thought Flop Ear, as he nibbled the carrot. “If this boy knows my friend Squinty I guess he will be kind to me. So some children are going to take Squinty away for a pet; are they? I hope they will be good to him, and give him what he likes to eat.”

All this while Flop Ear himself was eating the carrot, one of his ears standing up, and the other drooping down, and he looked so funny that the boy and his mother had to laugh.

“I did not know rabbits would come in our woodshed,” the boy said. “I wonder what made this one do so?”

“Perhaps he was hungry,” said Jimmie’s mother. And that was the reason, as you know, why Flop Ear had come to the farmhouse and had gone into the shed.

Flop Ear was not so frightened now. He looked all about him, and he thought he was in a very queer place—a farmhouse kitchen. There was a big black thing there, and in it was a fire. Flop Ear knew what fire was, for once the woods near his burrow were blazing, and the rabbits had to run underground and stay there to keep away from the hot flames.

“I wonder why people want fires in their houses!” thought Flop Ear. “We never have any in our burrow.”

Then he saw Jimmie’s mother put a pan on the big black thing with fire in it, and soon white smoke, so it seemed to Flop Ear, rose from the pan. Jimmie’s mother was cooking dinner over the fire, made with some of the wood taken from the basket in which the rabbit had hidden.

“Flop Ear,” said the boy, speaking to the rabbit just as if it could understand—“Flop Ear, you are a nice bunny, and I like you. I am going to keep you for myself, and I will teach you some tricks in a few days when you are not so frightened. And I must make a little house for you to stay in. A box will do, though I suppose you can gnaw your way out with your teeth if you don’t like it. But I will get a strong box, and give you plenty to eat, and maybe you will not try to get away.”

“I think you are a very nice boy,” thought Flop Ear to himself. “You seem to be kind to me, but still I can not promise to stay always with you. I want to go back to my own home and folks. But I will stay here a while and eat carrots.”

Of course the boy could not know Flop Ear was thinking this. But the boy could see that the rabbit was not so frightened as he had been at first.

“I think he likes me,” said the boy to his mother. “I will teach him to do some tricks, and maybe I can sell him to a circus.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t sell him,” Jimmie’s mother said. “Keep him for yourself.”

“All right. Maybe I’ll do that.”

“Let me see—circus. Where have I heard that word before?” thought Flop Ear. “Oh, I remember. Blackie, the lost cat, told me she met Dido, the dancing bear, in a circus. Well, if Dido is there I wouldn’t mind going to a circus. But still I shall like it here for a while.”

The boy found a strong, heavy box to make into a little house for Flop Ear. He put it out in the yard, under a tree where the rabbit would be in the shade. Flop Ear was given some lettuce leaves to eat, and he liked them even better than he did carrots. There was also a pan of nice water for the rabbit to drink.

“Well, this is nicer than running through the woods with a dog after you,” thought Flop Ear. “Still I would like to find my own home again, and have a good game of tag with Pink Nose and Snuggle.”

Just as the boy thought, Flop Ear did try to gnaw his way out of the box. For the boy knew something about rabbits. They are good gnawers, almost as good as rats and mice. They have four front teeth just made for cutting through wood, and they use them in taking bark off trees to eat.

So Flop Ear, with his strong front teeth, tried to gnaw out of the box. If it had not been a heavy thick one he might have done it, and gotten away. But the boy saw what his new rabbit pet was doing, and put some tin inside the box. Rabbits, rats or mice can not gnaw through even thin tin. It is too strong for their sharp teeth.

That afternoon, when Flop Ear had taken a little sleep in his box, on some soft straw which the boy put in for him, Jimmie said:

“Now I will try to teach Flop Ear some tricks. Come on out, bunny boy, and let me see what you can do.”

Of course, Flop Ear did not in the least know what was going to happen to him. But he knew, by this time, that the boy was good and kind, and would not hurt him.

“We will try an easy trick,” Jimmie said. “I will see if you know how to jump through a barrel hoop.”

The boy set Flop Ear down on the ground, outside the box. Of course the rabbit might have run away, but he thought he would not.

“There is time enough for that later on,” Flop Ear said to himself. “I will see what he means by tricks, and jumping through a hoop.”

The boy had with him a round hoop from a barrel. He held this up in front of the rabbit, but Flop Ear did not know what to do.

“Jump, Floppy! Jump!” cried the boy. “Jump through the hoop!”

But Flop Ear did not.

“I know how to make him,” said Jimmie. Then he took a carrot and put it on the ground. In front of it he held up the round hoop. Flop Ear saw the carrot and wanted to get it to eat. He started around one side of the hoop, but the boy gently pushed him back.

“You must jump through the hoop if you want the carrot,” said Jimmie.

Flop Ear tried to go around the other way, but the boy would not let him. Then the rabbit saw that the easiest way to get the sweet carrot was to jump through the hoop, which he did, as nicely as you please. It was easy for him to jump, you know. To go through the hoop was the only new thing about it.

The rabbit saw that the easiest way to get the sweet carrot was to jump through the hoop.

“Fine! That’s the way to do it!” cried Jimmie, much pleased. “You have learned a trick, Flop Ear.”

“I don’t call that much of a trick,” thought the rabbit. “But still it may be.”

Three or four times Jimmie made the rabbit jump through the hoop and each time Flop Ear was given a bit of carrot. Then he learned to do it without anything to eat, and after a bit Flop Ear grew to like to do the trick, for it seemed to please the boy, who patted the bunny’s soft fur.

“Now we have one trick, we’ll try another,” said Jimmie, a few days later. “I wonder if you can stand up on your hind legs, and hold a bit of carrot on your nose?”

Well, it was easy enough, of course, for Flop Ear to stand up on his hind legs. He had done that in the woods often enough. And it was not hard for him to hold a bit of carrot on his nose. But as soon as Jimmie put it there Flop Ear let the carrot fall to the ground and ate it. He thought that was what it was for.

“No, no! You must not do it that way,” said Jimmie. “I want you to stand up on your hind legs, and hold the carrot on your nose until I tell you to eat it, and clap my hands. Then you may take it. Now we’ll try again.”

Once more Flop Ear stood up on his hind legs. Again the carrot was put on his nose, but he dropped it off and—no, he did not eat it this time, for the boy grabbed it away as soon as it fell to the ground.

“You must not eat it until I tell you to, Flop Ear,” said Jimmie.

It took quite a while for the rabbit to learn this trick, but finally he came to understand what Jimmie wanted. And then, after a bit, Flop Ear would stand up when the boy told him to, and when the carrot was put on the rabbit’s nose he would not let it drop off and eat it until Jimmie clapped his hands.

“Now you are quite tame, and you know two tricks,” said the boy. “You are getting to be quite a circus rabbit. I must teach you another trick.”

CHAPTER VII FLOP EAR GETS AWAY

For two or three days Jimmie made Flop Ear do, over and over again, the first two tricks—those of jumping through the barrel hoop, and standing up with a piece of carrot on his nose. The rabbit did not mind doing them, for he was getting to like the boy, because he was very kind and good.

“But two tricks are not enough for a rabbit,” the boy said. “I want you to know some more, and then I can get up a little animal show, or circus, with you.” Then the boy said to himself: “I ought to have more animals. I wonder if I could get a dog and teach him some tricks, or a cat.”

“Gracious!” thought Flop Ear. “I hope he doesn’t get a dog that will bite. If he does I’ll have to run away if I get the chance.”

Several times Flop Ear had thought of going away. He might easily have done it, too, for the boy often let the rabbit come out of the box.

“But then,” said Flop Ear to himself, “if I ran away I would not get such nice things to eat as I get here. So I think I’ll stay for a while. I wonder what other trick that boy will teach me?”

Flop Ear soon found out. One day Jimmie came home from school, bringing another boy with him.

“I’ll show you my tame rabbit,” said Jimmie to his friend.

“Where did you get him?” the other boy asked. The boy’s name was Sam.

“I found him in the basket, when I brought it in filled with wood,” answered Jimmie. “He’s such a funny rabbit, with his one flop ear. Here he is in this box.”

Jimmie opened the box. Sam leaned over, and, before Jimmie could stop him, lifted the rabbit out of the box, raising him up by taking hold of his ears.

“Here! Don’t do that!” cried Jimmie.

“Don’t do what?”

“Lift my rabbit that way—by the ears.”

“Why not?”

“Because it hurts them.”

“It does not!” cried Sam, holding Flop Ear up higher in the air.

“Indeed it does hurt me,” Flop Ear was saying to himself. But, of course, he could not tell the boys that, as they did not understand rabbit talk. But Flop Ear kicked and wiggled his legs, and showed as plainly as he could that he did not like being lifted around this way.

“Stop it!” cried Jimmie. “Put him down, Sam. You’ll pull off his ears, maybe.”

“I will not. You always lift rabbits by their ears.”

“No you don’t!” cried Jimmie. “My mother says that lots of folks think it’s right to lift a rabbit by the ears, but it isn’t, any more than you’d lift a dog or cat by its ears.”

“You couldn’t lift a cat by her ears,” said Sam. “They’re not big enough. But some dogs have ears almost as big as rabbits, only they don’t stand up straight.”

“Well, never mind about that,” said Jimmie. “Put my rabbit down, please. Or, if you want to hold him, do it this way,” and Jimmie took the rabbit in his arms as a little girl might hold her kitten. Flop Ear liked to be held that way, and he liked it still more when Jimmie fed him a nice tender green leaf of lettuce.

“This is the best way to hold rabbits,” Jimmie went on.

“Well, I didn’t know it. I’m sorry if I hurt yours,” said Sam, who was really a good boy.

“Oh, I guess you didn’t hold Flop Ear long enough to hurt him,” went on Jimmie. “And now I’ll show you two tricks he can do, and then we’ll teach him another.”

Flop Ear jumped through the hoop, for the first trick, and then stood up with the piece of carrot on his nose, not offering to eat it until Jimmie clapped his hands.

“What do you think of that?” asked Jimmie of Sam.

“I think they are fine tricks. What else are you going to have him do?”

“I’m going to see if I can harness him up and make him draw a little wagon. I’ve got a small one that used to belong to my little brother. He’s too big to play with it now. Besides, he is away on a visit to my grandmother. So I’m going to take his wagon, and see if Flop Ear will pull it.”

This talk was all strange to Flop Ear, but he soon found out what it meant. Jimmie put his rabbit back in the box, with some cabbage leaves to nibble, and then the two boys went away. They came back in a little while with the small wagon, and some pieces of string. Jimmie also had a little leather collar that had once been on the neck of his pet cat, that had grown too big to wear it.

“We’ll put the collar on the rabbit,” Jimmie said, “and fasten the strings to it. Then we’ll fasten the strings to the wagon and when the bunny hops along he’ll pull the cart after him, like a pony.”

“That will be great!” cried Sam.

But it was not as easy as they thought it would be. In the first place Flop Ear did not like the collar on his neck. He had never worn one, and he thought it might hurt him. So when Jimmie and Sam tried to put it on the rabbit kicked and wiggled.

“Oh, stand still, Flop Ear!” cried Jimmie. “We won’t hurt you.”

But even this did no good. The more the boys tried to put the collar on Flop Ear’s neck the more the bunny wiggled.

“We never can do it,” said Sam.

“Oh, yes we can,” returned Jimmie. “I know a way. I’ll go and get a carrot. You hold it for him to eat, and while he’s nibbling at it I’ll slip the collar on his neck.”

“Well, we can try,” said Sam.

Flop Ear did not understand all that the boys said. But when he saw Sam holding out a carrot to him, the rabbit knew enough to want to eat it. And as he stretched out his neck to reach the carrot Jimmie quickly slipped on the collar and fastened it.

“There you are, Flop Ear!” he said.

And surely enough, there was the collar on the rabbit’s neck.

“Well, it isn’t as bad as I thought it was,” said Flop Ear to himself. “It doesn’t hurt me, but it feels funny, and sort of tickles. I don’t exactly like it and I wish I could get it off.”

He shook his head, hoping to shake off the collar, but it would not come. Then he tried to push it off with his paw, but he could not do that, either.

“No, you can’t get it off, Flop Ear,” said Jimmie with a laugh, as he saw what his pet was trying to do. “But never mind, I won’t make you keep it on always, only once in a while when you pull the wagon.”

“Let’s hitch him up now and see what he does,” suggested Sam.

“All right,” answered Jimmie.

They fastened the wagon to the collar of Flop Ear with strings. Then Jimmie said:

“Gid-dap, Flop Ear!”

“That’s not the way to talk to a rabbit,” said Sam. “That’s horse-talk.”

“Well, I don’t know how to tell a rabbit to go on in rabbit talk,” said Jimmie, “so I’ll have to make believe he’s a horse. Gid-dap, Flop Ear!”

But the rabbit would not move. He lay down on the ground, for he did not know what Jimmie wanted him to do.

“That trick isn’t going to work,” said Sam.

“Yes, it is!” cried Jimmie, after thinking a minute. “I have a new way. You go in front of Flop Ear and hold the carrot out, but just so he can’t reach it.”

“What good will that do?” asked Sam.

“You’ll see,” answered Jimmie.

Sam held the carrot in front of Flop Ear, and a little way from his nose. The rabbit smelled the carrot, and, as he could not reach it, he hopped forward.

“Now pull it away from him!” quickly cried Jimmie. “Hold it in front of him, and every time he jumps to get it, move it ahead a little. That will keep him moving, and he’ll pull the wagon.”

“Oh, sure enough! so he will!” cried Sam in much excitement.

And that is what Flop Ear did. In trying to reach the carrot, which Sam kept moving away from him, Flop Ear had to move himself forward, and, as he did this, he dragged the little wagon after him.

“Hurrah!” cried Jimmie. “Now he’s pulling it.”

Half way across the yard Flop Ear hopped after the carrot which he was never able to reach. And with every move he made, the wagon, which was tied fast to his collar, moved after him.

“I don’t think this is a nice way to treat me,” thought Flop Ear. “I want that carrot, but I can’t get it. Still, I suppose it is a trick and I must do it.”

“Shall I give him the carrot now?” asked Sam, when Flop Ear had pulled the wagon all the way across the yard.

“Yes, give it to him,” said Jimmie.

So Flop Ear got the carrot after all, and it tasted very good to him.

“Well, maybe this trick isn’t so bad after all,” the bunny thought.

When he had eaten one carrot Sam held out another for Flop Ear, and once more the rabbit dragged the wagon across the yard.

“He’s learning the trick all right,” said Jimmie.

In a few days Flop Ear got so he could draw the little wagon very easily. And Sam did not have to keep moving away from in front of him with a carrot all the while, either. Jimmie would put a carrot on one side of the yard, and set Flop Ear and the little wagon at the other side.

“Now go to get your carrot, Floppy!” the boy would say. Then away Flop Ear would hop to get the nice yellow vegetable, and, at the same time, he would be drawing the wagon.

“Now he can do three tricks,” said Jimmie.

When he was not doing the wagon trick Flop Ear did not have to wear the collar, and he was glad of that, as it tickled him, and he did not like it, though it did not hurt him.

For some time Flop Ear stayed with Jimmie, learning some new tricks. Often other boys and girls would come to Jimmie’s yard to look at the pet rabbit and stroke his soft, white fur. Jimmie liked this. And because Jimmie told them about not lifting rabbits by their ears, no one ever took Floppy up that way.

And then, one day, Flop Ear suddenly felt that he ought to go away.

“It is nice here, and all that, and I have a good home,” he said to himself, “but I think I ought to travel on and see if I can not find my real underground house, and my own folks. I want so much to see them. I’m going away.”

And that afternoon, when Flop Ear was taken out of his box, to run around the yard, he waited until Jimmie went into the house, and then the bunny quickly dug a hole under the fence and got out.

“Once more I am on my travels,” he said.

CHAPTER VIII FLOP EAR MEETS SLICKO

Flop Ear sat up on his hind legs, once he was outside the fence, and looked about him. One of his big ears stuck up straight, and the other sort of leaned over. Flop Ear put his head on one side, and his nose trembled, sort of, for he was wiggling it in order to try if he could smell any danger. Rabbits can wiggle their noses a little, and elephants can wiggle theirs a good bit, for their nose is their long trunk, and you know how Tum Tum could sling his trunk about.

“Well, I wonder which way I shall go?” asked Flop Ear of himself. Just then he heard a bird, up in a tree over his head, laughing.

“What are you laughing at?” asked Flop Ear. “Do you see anything funny?”

“Yes,” replied the bird, still laughing, “I do.”

“What is it?” asked Flop Ear. “Tell me, and if I see it I will laugh also.”

“You may laugh if you like,” answered the bird, “but you can’t see at what I am laughing unless you get near a pool of water and look down in that. Then you will see yourself, for I am laughing at you. You do look funny! I hope you don’t mind being laughed at.”

“Not a bit!” cried Flop Ear in a happy voice. “I like my friends to laugh even at me. It makes them jolly.”

“Then it is all right,” chirped the bird. “If you do not mind telling me, Flop Ear, where have you been and where are you going?”

“I do not in the least mind telling you,” returned the rabbit. “So you know my name, too, do you?”

“Oh, it is easy to guess your name by looking at your floppy ear,” said the bird.

“And may I ask what your name is?” asked Flop Ear politely.

“My name is Cheer-Up,” replied the bird. “I am called that because I try to make my friends cheer up and be happy by singing to them.”

“That’s fine!” cried Flop Ear. “I wish I could sing.”

“Well, I suppose it is nice,” the bird said, trilling a few notes.

“And I wish I could fly, like you,” went on the rabbit. “Then maybe I could find my home. You see I am lost. A hunter chased me far away from my burrow and I could not find it again. I have been living with a boy named Jimmie, and he taught me some tricks.

“But I grew tired of staying shut up in a box most of the time, though the boy was very good to me. So I have just run away, and I am going to try to find my home, and my father and my mother, my sister and my brother, and Lady Munch.”

“Who is Lady Munch?” asked Cheer-Up.

“She is my grandmother, and a dear old lady rabbit. And I want to see them all so much that I wish I could fly as you can. I might find them then.”

“Yes, it is nice to fly,” said Cheer-Up. “But still, if you can not sing and fly as I do, there are things which you do that I can not do. I have no thick warm fur to keep me warm in winter, though my feathers do very well. And I can not dig in the ground, as you can, to hide away from cats who often climb up the tree where my nest is. So you see you can do some things also.”

“Yes,” said Flop Ear, “I suppose we animals can do the things the best intended for us. I must not find fault. But I must hurry off. I want to get to my home. I don’t suppose you know where it is; do you?”

“No, I am sorry to say I do not. But did I hear you say you were kept in a box by a boy?”

“Yes. His name was Jimmie.”

“Well then, if I were you, and wanted to keep away from him, I would hurry off as fast as I could right away!” chirped the bird suddenly.

“Why?” Flop Ear wanted to know.

“Because I can look down on the other side of the fence under which you just crawled,” said the bird, “and I can see a boy running over this way. He first looked in a box under a tree and then he ran this way.”

“That’s Jimmie,” said Flop Ear. “He came home from school and let me out of the box. Then he went into the house and I thought that would be a good chance for me to get away. So I ran.”

“Yes, and you had better run some more,” cried Cheer-Up. “The boy knows you have gone and he’s after you.”

“Thank you for telling me,” said the rabbit. “It is a good thing you are up so high in the tree, so you can look down on the other side of the fence. Yes, I’ll be getting along. Jimmie was a good kind boy, and gave me nice things to eat. Still this is not my home, and I do not like doing tricks. I’m going. Good-by!”

“Good-by!” chirped Cheer-Up. “I hope I shall see you again some time. And you had better hurry, Flop Ear, for that boy is now right at the fence. He’s after you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but he won’t get me,” said the rabbit, as with a jump he hid himself behind a bush. Then, out of sight of the boy, Flop Ear ran on.

As for Jimmie, the boy, he had come out of the house, and, not seeing Flop Ear where he had left the rabbit, he looked about the yard for him.

“I wonder if he can have jumped back into his box,” said the boy. He looked, but Flop Ear was not there. It was then that the boy ran over to the fence. The bird, sitting high in the tree, saw him and told Flop Ear.

“Oh, my nice, tame, trick rabbit has gotten away!” cried Jimmie. “I see a hole under the fence. Maybe he got away through that.”

The boy hurried to the fence, near the hole Flop Ear had made, and jumped over. But by this time Flop Ear was safely away, as Cheer-Up could see from his perch. And the boy, not having as good a nose for smelling rabbit tracks as a dog, could not tell which way Flop Ear had gone.

Jimmie looked all around, and in the bushes, but he could not find Flop Ear. Looking up in the tree the boy saw the bird.

“Ah, little bird,” he said, “I wish you could talk, and maybe you could tell me which way my rabbit went.”

Of course Cheer-Up could not answer the boy in his own speech, but the bird said to himself:

“I am not going to tell you where Flop Ear is, for he wants to get away, and find his own home. You were kind to him, but he just had to go away.”

Then Cheer-Up flew off, and the boy, after looking about a little more for his pet rabbit gave it up, and went back into the yard. At first Jimmie was quite sad about Flop Ear’s going away, but a week afterward he was given a pet dog; and he trained that to do tricks, so he was happy again.

And now we shall go back to Flop Ear and see what is happening to the funny little rabbit.

Flop Ear hopped on under the bushes until he came to an open field. He was so far away from the house now that he thought it would be safe to sit up and look around. Across the field he saw some woods, and he said to himself:

“I’ll go over into those woods. Maybe that is where my home is, and I may find Pink Nose and Snuggle there. Oh! how I wish I could see them again, and have a game of tag.”

Over into the woods hopped Flop Ear. He was glad to feel again the dried leaves rustling under his paws. He liked the cool, shady woods, with their carpet of green moss. This was much nicer than being shut up in a box part of the time, even though there were good things to eat.

“Have you a nest up there?” asked Flop Ear.

“I guess I can find something here,” thought Flop Ear. “I haven’t gnawed a bit of bark since I lived with Jimmie. I’ll eat some now.”

Going up to a tree Flop Ear began nibbling the bark. He had eaten two or three mouthfuls when he heard a chattering voice calling:

“Hello down there! who is nibbling at my tree?”

“Oh, excuse me,” said Flop Ear, “I did not know this was your tree. Who are you, if you please?”

“I am Slicko, the jumping squirrel,” was the answer. “Can you see me up in my nest?”

Flop Ear looked up, and saw a little gray animal with a big, bushy tail. In her paws Slicko held a nut which she was eating.

“Oh, have you a nest up there?” asked Flop Ear.

“Yes, this is my home.”

“Then you must be a bird if you live in a nest,” remarked the rabbit.

“Well, yes, in that way, maybe I am,” laughed Slicko. “But we squirrels only live in nests in trees in Summer. In the Winter we burrow under the ground as you rabbits do, Flop Ear.”

“So you also know my name; do you?” asked Flop Ear.

“Oh, yes. And I am glad to see you. I was wondering who was down there, gnawing at my tree.”

“That’s so, I suppose this is your tree, since you have your nest in it,” said Flop Ear. “I can easily gnaw some bark off another.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” chattered Slicko cheerfully. “Gnaw all the bark you like, as long as you do not take off so much that the tree will die. Bark, to trees, is like skin to us animals. If a tree loses too much skin it will die.”

“I won’t take too much,” promised Flop Ear. “I can only stop a little while. I am lost and I’m looking for my home.”

“Wait a minute and I’ll come down and talk to you,” said the squirrel, as she scrambled down from her nest.

CHAPTER IX FLOP EAR MEETS DIDO

“Well, now we’re nice and comfortable, let’s talk,” said Slicko, the jumping squirrel, as she found a soft place on a bed of moss. Flop Ear picked himself out a nice place also.

“How did you happen to get lost?” asked Slicko, and Flop Ear told all about it, just as I have told you so far in this book.

“And I have just run away from the nice boy who was teaching me tricks,” finished Flop Ear.

“So you were caught by a boy too; were you?” asked Slicko. “That same thing happened to me.”

“It did!” cried Flop Ear, in surprise.

“Yes. Some time ago, that was. A boy came to these woods to get some nuts, and he caught me.”

“What did he do with you?” Flop Ear asked.

“He took me home, and put me in a wire cage, that had a wheel which went around very fast. I had some good times in it, and I grew to like the boy very much. One night a bad man came into the house to take money, but I heard him, and made such a noise that he ran out. And for that the boy’s father made him let me go, so I could come back to my woods.”

“My! That was a great adventure!” cried Flop Ear.

“Sort of, yes,” said Slicko.

And if you would like to read more about the things that happened to the squirrel, you may do so in the book called: “Slicko, the Jumping Squirrel; Her Many Adventures.”

“I suppose you met many new animals on your travels?” said Flop Ear.

“Yes, indeed,” answered Slicko. “I met Squinty, the comical pig, and—”

“You did?” cried Flop Ear. “Why, I know Squinty! His pen is near the burrow where I used to live. If you could only show me where Squinty is I could find my way back to my home.”

“I wish I could do that for you,” said Slicko, “but I have forgotten where Squinty’s pen is. Still, I might try.”

“Please do,” begged Flop Ear.

So the squirrel and the rabbit went off in the woods together, looking for Squinty’s pen. But it was farther away than Slicko thought, and, after searching about for some time, Slicko said:

“I don’t believe I can find it, Flop Ear. I am sorry.”

“Well, never mind,” returned the rabbit. “You had better not come too far away from your nest, or you’ll be lost also. I must do the best I can by myself.”

“I’d ask you to stay with me,” went on Slicko, “only I know you can’t climb a tree to get up to my nest.”

“No, I can’t climb trees,” the rabbit said. “But I can jump through a hoop, and stand up on my hind legs and hold a bit of carrot on my nose. The boy taught me how to do that. I can also pull a little wagon, by a collar around my neck.

“But I have no carrot now to put on my nose, and there is no wagon here to draw, and no hoop to jump through. Still, I can jump without one, I suppose.”

“Let me see how well you jump,” said Slicko.

So Flop Ear gave a big jump, and asked:

“Can you jump as far as that, Slicko?”

“Not quite as far. I can best do my jumping up in the tree, this way,” and, scrambling up among the branches, the squirrel leaped from one tree limb to another, landing as lightly as a feather.

“That’s fine jumping, Slicko!” called Flop Ear from down on the ground. “I can’t do that. I’d be afraid up so high.”

“Oh, there is no danger,” the squirrel said.

Then the two friends talked some more, and just before Slicko went back to her nest and Flop Ear traveled on again, the rabbit said:

“I hope I shall find my folks and my home soon, for I am getting quite lonesome. I was glad to see you, Slicko.”

“And I was glad to see you,” chattered the squirrel. “Good-by!”

“Good-by!” called Flop Ear.

“My, he certainly is a funny rabbit,” thought Slicko to herself as she watched him going along through the woods, with one ear up and the other ear down. “He makes me laugh and feel jolly just to look at him. I hope he finds his home.”

On and on through the woods went Flop Ear. Now and then he would stop and thump on the ground with his feet, hoping some of his folks might be near, and hear him.

But no answering thumps came, and Flop Ear felt sad and lonely. That night he found a hollow tree with some dried leaves piled up in it, and there he slept. It was not cold out, and as Flop Ear found some sweet roots to eat, and a nice spring of water out of which to get a drink, he was not so badly off.

The wood in which Flop Ear slept that night was near a road which was between two large cities. In the middle of the night the rabbit was awakened by hearing a rumbling sound.

“That must be thunder,” he said to himself. “It isn’t a hunter’s gun, for they don’t shoot at night. I wonder if a storm is coming up. Well, if it is, I’ll be safe in my hollow tree. I guess I’ll take a look outside though.”

The rumbling noise grew louder, but as Flop Ear looked out he could see no lightning. The moon was shining brightly, too, so the rabbit knew it could not be a storm. Then as he looked toward the road he saw some big wagons being hauled along by many horses, and from the wagons came the smell of wild animals.

“Why—why!” exclaimed Flop Ear, wide awake now. “This must be a circus—a circus such as Blackie, the cat, told me about. She said it went from one city to another by night. I guess I’ll go out and look at it. Nobody will mind me, and I may see Tum Tum, the jolly elephant Blackie told of. I have never seen an elephant.”

Out of his hollow tree hopped Flop Ear. The rumbling noise was very loud now, for many of the big circus wagons were passing along the road. Then some of them stopped, for the horses were tired.

Flop Ear hopped up close to one wagon in which he could see a lot of straw. Suddenly a big, black animal rose up from the straw and looked out through the bars of the cage. The white rabbit, sitting beside the road, was plainly to be seen in the moonlight.

“Hello! Who are you?” asked the black animal in the circus wagon cage. It was standing still now.

“I am Flop Ear, the funny rabbit,” was the answer. “At least I suppose I must be funny because every one says I am.”

“You are,” said the other animal. “It makes me want to laugh when I look at you.”

“Go on, laugh all you like,” urged Flop Ear politely. “But what is your name? Are you Tum Tum, the jolly elephant?”

“No, indeed! He is much larger than I. But how did you hear about Tum Tum?”

“From Blackie, a lost cat, whom I met in the woods.”

“What! Do you know Blackie?” cried the other animal in surprise. “And has she found her home yet?”

“She had not, the time I saw her,” answered Flop Ear. “But how is it you know Blackie?”

“Why,” was the answer, “I am Dido, the dancing bear, and it was in my cage that Blackie hid in the straw, when the bad boys were going to tie a tin can to her tail.”

“Oh, yes, she told me about that,” returned Flop Ear. “So you are Dido, eh? Blackie said you were very good to her. Would you mind dancing for me?”

“Not at all,” said Dido. “Though, really, I have not much room in my cage. I do most of my dancing out in the circus ring. But while the wagons are waiting for the horses to rest I can dance a little for you.”

And Dido did. He had learned to dance when he was first caught in the woods, in the far-away country where he lived.

“How do you like that?” he asked the rabbit, as he sat down on the straw in his cage.

“Very nicely done, indeed!” answered Flop Ear. “I am very glad I met you. I have met many new friends since I began my adventures.”

“So you have had adventures too, have you?” asked Dido. “Tell me about them.” And Flop Ear did so.

“Ha! What is all this talk about?” asked a growling voice in the next cage. “You have awakened me. What is it all about?”

“Why, a friend of mine, a white rabbit, is out in the road, and I am talking to him,” answered Dido. “At least I call him a friend of mine, though I never met him before. But he knows Blackie, a cat whom I know, and as long as he is a friend of Blackie’s he is a friend of mine.”

“Ha! A white rabbit out in the road, eh?” went on the growling voice, and Flop Ear saw some glaring eyes looking at him from the wagon cage next to that of Dido, the dancing bear. “I used to eat white rabbits in my country in the jungle,” growled the voice. “I would eat you too, if I could get at you,” and a big paw, with sharp claws on it, was thrust out of the cage.

“Don’t mind him,” said Dido to Flop Ear, who was getting ready to hop away. “That’s Stripe, the tiger. He’s rather cross to-night, but really he wouldn’t hurt any one.”

“Yes, I would!” growled Stripe.

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. You know you wouldn’t,” laughed Dido, the dancing bear. “Go on, Flop Ear, tell me more about yourself.”

So Flop Ear did, and the bear said he hoped the rabbit would soon find his home.

“I hope so myself,” sighed Flop Ear. “I am getting quite lonesome without my folks.”

From down the road came the sound of a horn.

“Ha! That means the circus wagons are going to start once more,” said Dido. “Good-by, Flop Ear. I am glad I met you. Give my love to Blackie, the cat, if you meet her again.”

“I will,” promised the rabbit. “Do you think, Dido,” he asked, “that I could have a look at Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. I should like to tell my brother and sister—if I ever find them again—that I had seen a real, live circus elephant.”

“See Tum Tum? Why, certainly!” said Dido. “The elephants are farther up ahead. If you run along there you’ll see them. Tum Tum is the first elephant, and the largest. Tell him I sent you.”

“I will,” said Flop Ear.

He hopped forward just as the wagons were beginning to move. Then Flop Ear saw some of the largest animals he had ever seen in his life. There were a number of them, and they were as big as the wagons in which the other animals were carried.

“These must be the elephants,” thought Flop Ear. He was so surprised at their bigness that he stood still in the road. Then, all of a sudden a voice cried right in his ear:

“Look out there, little white animal!”

And, all at once, the next thing Flop Ear knew he was being lifted high in the air.

CHAPTER X FLOP EAR HELPS SOME MICE

Flop Ear did not know what was happening to him. All he knew was that he was going up, much higher than the time he had hopped into the wood basket, and had been lifted up by the boy. And something seemed to be squeezing him, as though a snake had him.

The rabbit knew about snakes. There were some big ones in the wood where he had once lived, and his father and mother had told him that a snake could squeeze a rabbit to death. Once Flop Ear saw a little snake crawling along, and it put its tongue out and in so fast that the rabbit could hardly see it.

“I guess a snake has me,” thought Flop Ear. “Oh, dear! I’m going to ask him to let me go.”

So in the loudest voice he could command, Flop Ear cried:

“Please, Mr. Snake, let me go, and don’t squeeze me so.”

“I am not a snake,” was the answer in a deep, rumbly voice, “and I had to squeeze you just a little bit to lift you out of the way. You were just going to be run over by one of the big circus wagon wheels, and I picked you up in my trunk and lifted you out of the way. Now you are safe, and I will set you down again.”

Flop Ear felt himself being gently lowered to the ground, and he laughed as he said:

“If you lifted me up in your trunk then you must be an expressman or an elephant.”

“I am an elephant,” was the answer, and the big animal laughed.

“I am Flop Ear, a funny rabbit,” said our little white friend. “I am lost, and I just was talking to Dido, the dancing bear. He sent me up here to see Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. I should like to see him. Which of the elephants is he?”

“I am Tum Tum,” was the laughing answer.

“Oh, I am so glad to meet you,” said the rabbit. “And I am ever so much obliged to you for lifting me out of the way of the big wagon wheel. If it had run over me I guess I would have been hurt.”

“Hurt! I should say so!” cried Tum Tum. “You would have been made as flat as a pancake. But you are all right now, Flop Ear, and you had better run away, for more circus wagons are coming and I can not stay to lift you to one side, much as I should like to. So hop along.”

“I will,” answered Flop Ear. “Thank you again, and good-by! I am glad I met you.”

“And I that I met you,” said Tum Tum politely. “Good-by, and I hope you find your home again.”

So Flop Ear hopped to one side of the road where he would be safe.

The rabbit looked at the circus wagons moving along the road in the moonlight. There were many cages of wild animals, but the big elephants walked along by themselves, as did the camels and the horses. Pretty soon along came the cage of Dido, the dancing bear. Dido looked out and saw Flop Ear again.

“Well, little white rabbit, did you see Tum Tum?” asked the bear.

“Yes,” answered Flop Ear, “I did. And he saved me from being run over by lifting me up in his trunk.”

“Good!” cried Dido. “Tum Tum is always helping others. Once my wagon cage was held fast in the mud, and Tum Tum pushed it out with his big head. He is very strong.”

“He is indeed,” said Flop Ear. “Good-by, Dido.”

“Good-by, Flop Ear,” said the bear, and then his cage passed on.

“Well, that was quite an adventure,” said Flop Ear to himself, as he hopped back to the hollow tree where he had been sleeping. “It is not every rabbit who can see a circus in the middle of the night. I think I’ll eat some clover before I go back to bed.”

Flop Ear had to pass through a grassy field to get back to his hollow tree, and he stopped to nibble a few sweet heads of clover. Then he snuggled down in the soft leaves that made his bed, and was soon asleep again.

The morning sun peeped in on Flop Ear as he lay in the hollow tree. The white rabbit opened his eyes, and for a moment he could not think where he was.

“Oh, now I remember!” he said to himself as he looked over toward the road along which the circus had passed. “I remember about last night, and how Tum Tum saved me. I’ll have lots to tell Pink Nose and Snuggle if ever I get back to them. I wonder if I’ll ever find my home again?”

Flop Ear was hungry when he awoke, and he began to look for his breakfast. He did not do as you have to do, wait for a table to be set, and for something to be cooked. All Flop Ear had to do was to hop out of bed, down in among the clover and eat as much as he liked. He could gnaw bark from a tree, too.

But before he ate he took a nice drink of water from a little brook in the field, and washed his face and paws, just as you take a little bath before you have breakfast.

“Well, I wonder what will happen to me to-day?” thought Flop Ear, when he had eaten as much as he needed. “I don’t know whether I am hopping toward my home, or away from it. But still I must keep on. And I am not going near any more houses, for I do not want to be caught by a boy, and made to do tricks—though I will say that Jimmie was very good to me.”

Flop Ear saw a stump in the clover field, and he thought if he could hop up on that he could look around him and see which was the best way to go.

“It will raise me up higher, that stump will,” said Flop Ear. “Not as high as a bird, it is true, but still higher than if I were on the ground. I’ll see what I can look at up on the stump.”

With a big hop up went Flop Ear. Then he looked all around. On one side was woods, on the other a field, on another a running brook and on the last side was a road.

“I’ll see if I can cross the brook,” thought Flop Ear. “Then if there are any dogs around here they can’t so well follow me, at least for a while. Yes, I shall go over on the other side of the brook.”

The brook was not very deep, and Flop Ear could easily wade across it. On the other side he found some sweet roots to eat, and going on a little farther, he came to a field of cabbages.

“Oh! This is fine!” thought Flop Ear. “I shall have a good dinner here. I wish the rest of the folks were with me to enjoy it too. This is just fine.”

Flop Ear picked out a nice tender cabbage, and ate some of the leaves. It was as good to him as candy is to you, and much better for a rabbit.

“If I had a trunk, like Tum Tum, the elephant,” said Flop Ear, “I might carry a lot of this cabbage with me, and when I became hungry again I could eat it. But I can’t do that. I can only carry a little; so I’ll just have to hop on and hope that I’ll find another field of the green heads, or perhaps a field of carrots. They would be fine too.”

Once more the funny bunny hopped on, his one floppy ear hanging down, and the other one sticking up straight. A little toad in the grass laughed as the bunny hopped past.

“What are you laughing at?” asked Flop Ear.

“At you,” answered the toad. “You look so funny. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not a bit,” said Flop Ear. “Laugh all you like,” and the toad did, while the rabbit hopped on.

Flop Ear had not gone very much farther when he heard a funny little squealing, squeaking noise.

“Ha! I wonder what that is?” he asked himself. “I never heard a sound like that before. I must see what it is.”

Flop Ear hopped on a little farther, and then he saw, near a big rock in the field, a box, and the squeaking noise seemed to come from that.

“Ha! A box!” exclaimed Flop Ear. “I’m not going near that. I was kept in a box once, and I don’t want that to happen again. I’ll get away from here.”

Flop Ear was just turning to hop away when he heard some voices speaking in the box.

“Oh, Mother dear!” a little voice said, “do you think we shall ever get out of here?”

“I’m afraid not, Switchy,” was the answer. “We are in this trap, and we can never get out. I have tried and tried, but the wood is so hard that I can not gnaw it with my small teeth.”

“Perhaps papa will come and gnaw us out,” said another little voice.

“I’m afraid he could not get us out, my children. Oh, dear! Why did I ever lead you into this trap.”

“Ha! A trap!” exclaimed Flop Ear. “These are animals, like myself, in trouble. I must see if I can not help them.”

The white rabbit hopped over close to the box, and looking in through some wire netting that was on one side, he asked:

“What is the matter in there?”

“Oh, Mother!” cried a squeaky voice. “Look, there is a big, white rabbit.”

Flop Ear, looking in the box-trap, saw a mother mouse and five little mice. They came close to the wire and the mother mouse said:

“Oh, we are in such trouble. We are a family of field mice, and our home is in a hole in the ground, not far away. A little while ago I went for a walk with my children. We came to this box. Inside was some nice cheese and, thinking of no harm, we went in and began to eat it. All at once the trap snapped shut and we could not get out. We are caught here, and, though I am a pretty good gnawer, I can not gnaw this hard wood.”

“Don’t worry,” said Flop Ear. “Perhaps I can help you.”

“Oh, if you only could,” said Mrs. Mouse. “My husband did not come walking with us, so he did not get caught in the trap. But he may come to look for us, and he will feel very sorry when he finds us caught.”

“Well, I have strong teeth, and I will soon gnaw a hole in that box so you can get out.”

And Flop Ear began to gnaw.

Flop Ear saw a mother mouse and five little mice.

CHAPTER XI 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.

CHAPTER XII FLOP EAR GETS HOME AGAIN

“What are you doing in these woods?” asked Mappo of Flop Ear, as soon as the merry monkey had seated himself on a soft cushion of green moss at the foot of the tree.

“I am hopping through them, trying to find my lost home,” answered Flop Ear. “I live in woods like these, but not in this part. I am lost. What are you doing here?”

“Well, I’m staying here for a while,” answered Mappo. “Years ago, when I was a little fellow, I used to live in the woods, but not here. In my country it was very warm. It was what is called a jungle.”

“Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, lived in a jungle,” said Flop Ear.

“What! do you know about Tum Tum?” asked Mappo in surprise.

“Oh, I have met him,” the rabbit replied. “I was near the circus, where he was, and Dido, the dancing bear; and Tum Tum saved my life.”

Then Flop Ear told how the elephant lifted him up in his trunk, and pulled him out from under the circus wagon wheel.

“But you spoke of Tum Tum as though you knew him,” said Flop Ear to the merry monkey. “How did that happen?”

“It was this way,” explained Mappo. “I had not lived in the jungle very long before I was caught by some men who want monkeys to go around with the hand-organ players. I was put on a ship and brought to this country. There Tum Tum and I became good friends. He was also caught in the jungle and brought over on the ship. Then he went with a circus. I was there, too, for a while. But I ran away and met Squinty, the comical pig.”

“Why, I know him, too!” cried Flop Ear.

“You know many of my friends,” the merry monkey said. “I am glad to hear that. Well, after a while I was taken in by a nice family, and I have lived there ever since until yesterday, when I ran away again.”

“Why?” asked Flop Ear.

“Oh, I wanted to have some adventures. I grew tired of staying in one place so long, so I ran away to the woods, which are a little bit like those of the jungle where I used to climb from tree to tree. After a while I shall run back to the nice people with whom I lived, for I like them very much.”

“I liked the boy from whom I ran away,” said Flop Ear. “Still we animals were made to roam through the woods and over the fields. It is no fun to be shut up in a cage.”

“That’s right,” chattered Mappo, winding his long tail around his neck, as you might put a scarf about yours. “Still Tum Tum, the elephant, and Dido, the dancing bear, do not seem to mind being in the circus.”

“I guess that’s different,” said Flop Ear.

“Perhaps it is,” agreed Mappo.

Flop Ear told his adventures to the merry monkey—how the bunny had been driven away from his burrow home, how he had gone into the wood basket and had been found by the boy, and all that followed.

“My! you certainly had quite a time,” said Mappo. “Now what do you say to this? You and I will live together in these woods for a while. I like it here, and so do you. We will make ourselves a little house of green branches, and stay in it until I want to run back home again.”

“But what about my home?” asked Flop Ear. “I ought to be looking for it. That’s why I ran away from Jimmie, the boy who taught me to do tricks.”

Mappo thought for a second or two.

“I’ll tell you what we can do,” he said. “We’ll stay here a while, and have a good time, and then I’ll come with you and help you look for your home. After that I’ll go back to mine.”

“That will be fine!” said Flop Ear. “You are very kind to me.”

“Oh, I like being kind,” said Mappo. “I learned it of Tum Tum, the jolly elephant.”

Flop Ear thought Mappo a very funny and merry monkey. Mappo could do more things than could Flop Ear, for the monkey really had four hands, though as he walked on his hind ones, I suppose they ought to be called feet. And Mappo’s tail was almost as good as another hand to him, for the merry monkey could hold himself up in a tree by it, and could swing to and fro like the pendulum of a clock.

If you want to read more about the monkey you may do it in the book called “Mappo, the Merry Monkey; His Many Adventures.” In that I have told many things about the jolly four-handed chap.

“Well, if we are going to live together in the woods,” said Mappo to Flop Ear, “we had better start making our house.”

“I will cut down branches of trees with my sharp gnawing teeth,” said Flop Ear.

“And I will make them into a house,” said the monkey. “And since you like to live part of the time down under ground you may dig for yourself a hole in the middle of the house. We will call that a cellar.”

“My, you certainly had quite a time,” said Mappo.

“That will be fine!” cried Flop Ear.

So the two animal friends started to work together. By standing up on his hind legs, Flop Ear could reach the low branches of some evergreen trees. These he gnawed off almost as nicely as if they had been cut with a knife. And, as fast as the tree branches were cut off, Mappo, with his paws, which were like hands, stuck them in the ground, making a sort of green tent.

Then inside that tent Flop Ear dug for himself a hole under ground, for rabbits like to stay beneath the top of the earth part of the time. When the house and the cellar-hole were finished Mappo said:

“Now we are all right, except that we need something to eat.”

“That will be no trouble for me,” said Flop Ear. “I can eat the bark off the trees and sweet roots, and perhaps there may grow, not far from here, some cabbages or carrots.”

“I could eat carrots or cabbages,” said Mappo, “but I would not care for bark from trees. Still I may find some fruit, though in this country there are no banana or cocoanut trees, such as I love, and which grew in my own country. Did you ever climb a cocoanut tree, and pick the nuts?” he asked Flop Ear.

“I never did,” replied the white bunny. “A rabbit would look funny, I think, climbing a tree.”

“Perhaps so,” agreed Mappo. “But, if you will excuse my saying so, you are quite a funny rabbit as it is.”

“So I have been told,” laughed Flop Ear. “I don’t mind a bit being called that. But suppose we go to look for something to eat. It will soon be dark, and though I can see in the night pretty well, I don’t suppose you can.”

“Not very well,” said Mappo.

So, after they had finished making their little house, the monkey and the rabbit set off together. Flop Ear found a field where turnips grew, and Mappo found an orchard where some pears and peaches were growing on trees.

“This fruit will be just fine for me,” Mappo said. “Maybe you would like some of these, Flop Ear,” and he pointed to the trees which grew in an orchard, not far from the carrot field.

“Yes, I think I should like them,” the rabbit answered. “But I can not climb a tree to get them.”

“Oh, I’m just great at climbing trees,” said the monkey. “You just watch me!” With that, merry Mappo sprang over the fence, and before Flop Ear could count up to ten (supposing that he knew how), the monkey had picked some peaches and pears and had scrambled back to the ground again.

“Here, eat some,” he said to Flop Ear, and the rabbit did.

“Are they good?” asked Mappo.

“Oh, fine!” cried Flop Ear. Then the bunny ate some carrots, and, as he had paws in which he could carry them, Mappo took home to the leafy house some fruit and some of the yellow carrots.

“Then we won’t have to come back for more right away,” he said. “I guess the man who owns them won’t mind if we take a few.”

It was very nice for Flop Ear and Mappo, living in the leafy house together. Even when it rained they did not get very wet, for the rabbit could go down cellar, and Mappo made the roof thick with more branches, so the rain drops could not drip through on him.

Still, every now and then, Flop Ear would think of his own burrow, where he had been so happy with his father and mother, and with Pink Nose and Snuggle, before the hunter drove him away.

“When are we going to look for my house?” the rabbit would ask the monkey.

“Oh, pretty soon now,” Mappo would answer. “I don’t want to go home quite yet. I like it here in the woods.”

“So do I,” Flop Ear would say. “But still, I want to go to my own home.”

And one day the two started off to look for Flop Ear’s home. Every time they came to a hole in the ground Mappo would ask:

“Is this it, Flop Ear?”

But the rabbit would look, and then he would say:

“No, I am sorry, but that is not it.”

“Then we must go on some more,” said Mappo, and on they would go.

One day, just as it was getting a little dark, toward evening, Flop Ear, who was hopping along through the woods with Mappo, heard a thumping noise. It was a noise such as rabbits make when they call to one another, and Flop Ear knew at once that some other rabbit was making signals.

“I’ll go and see who that is thumping,” said Flop Ear. “Maybe it’s a rabbit who knows where my home is.”

He ran along a little farther and there, behind a bush, he saw an old lady rabbit.

“Excuse me,” Flop Ear said to her, “but are you thumping for any one?”

The old lady rabbit turned around, and who do you suppose she was? Yes, she was Lady Munch, Flop Ear’s grandmother!

“Oh, Grandma! Grandma!” he cried. “I’ve found you at last! Where is my home, and where are all the others?”

“Oh, Flop Ear! Flop Ear!” cried Lady Munch. “You have come home at last. Oh, we thought you were gone forever! Here, Mr. Bunny! Mrs. Bunny! Snuggle and Pink Nose! Come here. Flop Ear is back!”

Out of a hole near by, in the ground, came running the other rabbits. There they were—all of Flop Ear’s family. They ran up to him, hugging and kissing him the way rabbits do. Oh! how glad they were to see him!

“Where have you been, Flop Ear? Where have you been?” they asked him.

“Oh, everywhere,” he answered. “And I have had so many adventures! But how is it you are living in this new home? This is not where we used to live.”

“We came here after the hunter chased us,” said the papa rabbit, “and we have been living here ever since. We looked everywhere for you but we could not find you.”

“And I was out in front of the new burrow just now, thumping with my feet, and hoping some rabbits might hear it, so I could ask them about you,” said Lady Munch. “And, lo and behold! along you come yourself, Flop Ear.”

“Yes,” said Flop Ear, “and I’m mighty glad I did.”

“But who is your friend?” asked Mamma Bunny, looking at Mappo.

“Oh, he is a merry monkey, who was very kind to me,” said Flop Ear. “He and I have been living in the woods and we have had good times together. His name is Mappo, and he knows Tum Tum, the jolly elephant, in the circus.”

“What’s a circus?” asked Pink Nose.

“And what’s an elephant?” Snuggle demanded.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” said Flop Ear, and he did.

All the adventures that had happened to him since he had run away did Flop Ear tell to his brother and sister. Papa and Mamma Bunny listened also, as did Lady Munch.

“But oh! how glad I am to be at home again,” said Flop Ear. “I hope no more hunters will come along.”

“We hope so, too,” said his father.

Flop Ear was taken down into the new burrow and given something to eat. He liked the new home very much. Mappo, the monkey, was too large to go down into the underground house, but he found a place in a tree where he could stay all night, and the rabbits gave him some supper.

The next morning Mappo said good-by to Flop Ear, and to the other bunnies.

“I’m going back to the house where I live,” said Mappo. “I have had enough of running away.”

“And so have I!” cried Flop Ear. “After this I am going to stay at home.”

And he did. And though he had more adventures they were little ones, in the woods around the new burrow. And Pink Nose and Snuggle were never tired of hearing Flop Ear tell of all the wonderful things that had happened to him, just as I have told you here.

And, now since Flop Ear is safe at home again, we will say good-by to him.

THE END

GOOD STORIES FOR CHILDREN

(From four to nine years old)

THE KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

By RICHARD BARNUM

In all nursery literature animals have played a conspicuous part; and the reason is obvious, for nothing entertains a child more than the antics of an animal. These stories abound in amusing incidents such as children adore, and the characters are so full of life, so appealing to a child’s imagination, that none will be satisfied until they have met all of their favorites—Squinty, Slicko, Mappo, and the rest.

Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated.

BARSE & HOPKINS
Publishers
Newark, N. J.            New York, N. Y.