And I've been lost, an hour or two
By a little girl with a curly head
Who will cry for me when she goes to bed."
This is what the Rag Doll said to the two little rabbits who picked her up in the last story, you remember.
"Dear me!" exclaimed the old gentleman bunny. "What's the name of the little girl?"
"Lucy Locket," said the Rag Doll. And then Little Jack Rabbit began to laugh, for he had once read of a little Lucy Locket who had lost her pocket, and he remembered that she lived not far away. So he steered the Bunnymobile while the old gentleman bunny talked to the Rag Doll, and by and by, not so very long, they came to a pretty house, and right there on the front porch sat a little girl crying.
"Hello, don't cry; wipe your eye!" shouted kind Uncle John Hare. "We have found your rag dolly!" And in another minute the Rag Dolly was in the little girl's arms.
"Good-by," said the two little rabbits, and they drove away to find another adventure, and pretty soon they found one. Oh, my yes! The Yellow Dog Tramp came out of the wood and said:
For many a weary mile;
Across the way, through fields of hay,
And through the old turnstile.
Oh, won't you take me for a ride?
I've a dreadful pain in my poor old side."
"Jump in," said the old gentleman rabbit with a kind smile. "You're not the kind of a dog who bothers little bunnies."
"No, I'm not," answered the Yellow Dog Tramp, "I'd like to find a nice home and stay there."
"Well, you come with us," said the little bunny. "You can clean the Bunnymobile and work in the garden."
"Hurrah!" barked the Yellow Dog Tramp. "I feel like a boy again already, I used to do those things before I became a hobo doggy."
Well, by this time they were almost home, and in less than five hundred more short seconds they were in the garage where the old gentleman rabbit fixed up a little room for the Yellow Dog Tramp, with a looking glass at one end and a little white bed at the other.
"Now you brush your coat and trousers and part your hair in the middle and then come in to supper," said the old gentleman rabbit. And in the next story you shall hear what happened after that.
"ALWAYS TRUST THE FAIRIES"
Is full of bright flowers
And the fairies play tag
Through all the bright hours.
"Dear me," said the Yellow Dog Tramp, to himself, peeping out of the garage, where we left him in the last story, "they seem to be having a fine time!" And he sighed, for he was thinking of another garden up in Vermont and the old farm where he was a boy, long ago, before he had run away from home.
"Who's eye is watching us?" cried one of the fairies, all of a sudden, just like that. And then, of course, all these little people stopped playing but they couldn't see anything but the Yellow Dog Tramp's right eye, which, I forgot to tell you, was peeping through a tiny knothole.
Is watching you play your tag-a-rag game,"
he answered, whereupon all the fairies said:
Drop your scowl and put on a nice smile."
And when the Yellow Dog Tramp heard that, he couldn't help but laugh, and in less than five hundred short seconds he was over the wall. But, oh dear me. In a few minutes the big Ragged Rabbit Giant leaned over the tree top and said in a deep gruff voice:
I smell the blood of a yellow dog."
"Quick, I must change you into a fairy puppy," said the queen fairy, and she waved her bright wand, and in less time than I can take to tell it he became small enough to creep into a tulip flower.
"Where has that dog gone?" asked the big Ragged Rabbit Giant, peeking under the bushes and behind the sunflowers, but he never thought to look in the tulip.
"Thunder and lightning! What happened to that dog," and the Giant Rabbit dusted off the knees of his trousers after creeping under a lilac bush; "he must be here somewhere." But not a fairy said a word, and pretty soon a mosquito stung that wicked old Giant Rabbit on the back of his neck, which made him so angry that he stepped over the garden wall and walked away.
And when he was out of sight the queen fairy changed the Yellow Dog Tramp back again into his natural shape:
If danger you are in.
And always say 'A lucky day!'
When e'er you find a pin,"
sang the queen fairy as the happy Yellow Dog Tramp ran into Uncle John Hare's little house.
And there we will leave him for the present, but in another book, entitled "Little Jack Rabbit and Professor Crow," you'll hear more about the little rabbits and their friends.
THE END
LITTLE JACK RABBIT BOOKS
(Trademark Registered)
BY DAVID CORY
Little Jack Rabbit and Danny Fox
Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers
Little Jack Rabbit and Chippy Chipmunk
Little Jack Rabbit and the Big Brown Bear
Little Jack Rabbit and Uncle John Hare
Little Jack Rabbit and Professor Crow
Little Jack Rabbit and Old Man Weasel
Little Jack Rabbit and Mr. Wicked Wolf
Little Jack Rabbit and Hungry Hawk
Little Jack Rabbit and the Policeman Dog
Little Jack Rabbit and Miss Mousie