Little Jack Rabbit's big blue book

Little Jack Rabbit looked out of the tiny white bungalow in the Old Bramble Patch. The rain was falling and the Sunny Meadow wasn’t the least bit sunny. No, indeed. The Bubbling Brook was making a great fuss as it rushed along, sometimes overflowing its banks and making little lakes in the hollow spaces.

“Ker dunk! ker dunk!” croaked Granddaddy Bullfrog from his log in the Old Duck Pond. He didn’t mind the rain. His rubber coat kept him nice and dry. As for his shoes, I guess he’d never outgrown his boyhood’s delight in bare legs.

Down from the Farmyard waddled Duckey Waddles on his big wide wabbly yellow feet. He loved the wet weather, oh, my yes. Pretty soon he went in for a swim, now and then, and sometimes oftener, standing on his head in the water to catch a little minnow.

“Quack, quack!” he shouted in answer to Granddaddy Bullfrog’s solemn “Ker dunk, ker dunk!”

Up at the Farmyard Cocky Doodle, Henny Jenny, Goosey Lucy and Turkey Tim stood out of the wet under the old cowshed, wondering how long Mr. Merry Sun would hide behind the gray rain clouds.

On the top of the Big Red Barn the weathercock turned to and fro on his gilded toe, for Billy Breeze was blowing across the open spaces, now sending the clouds helter-skelter over the sky, now bending the dripping bushes or shaking the raindrops from the apple trees.

“I wish you’d let me point to the West,” sighed the Weathercock. “Then it would soon clear up.”

“Maybe I will,” answered Billy Breeze, and all of a sudden he blew away a dark cloud and out came Mr. Merry Sun with a smile.

“Hurray!” shouted the Weathercock, swinging about on his toe to point to the West. “Now we’ll have a beautiful day.”

“I think so,” laughed Little Jack Rabbit, hopping out of his pretty white bungalow and down the narrow path through the rough brambles to the Sunny Meadow.

Just then who should come along but Timmie Meadowmouse. My, but he was glad to see the lovely sunshine.

“Howdy! Have you heard the news?” he asked.

“What news?” asked the little rabbit, curiously, thinking, “Goodness me! Something dreadful has happened,” as he twinked his little pink nose and winked his two big pink eyes.

“Stop!” cried the tiny meadowmouse, “you make me so dizzy, I can’t think.”

“All right,” replied the little rabbit, “but hurry. I’m afraid something has happened to Chippy Chipmunk or the Big Brown Bear.”

“Not a bit of it,” answered Timmie Meadowmouse, taking off his little fur cap. All of a sudden, quick as a flash, or a smash or a dash, down from the sky swooped Hungry Hawk.

“Look out!” shouted the little rabbit, hopping under a bush. But, dear me! The tiny meadowmouse was just a second too late. The next minute up in the air he went, held tightly in the cruel claws of the old hawk.

“Help! help!” shouted poor frightened Timmie Meadowmouse, as higher and higher flew the big feathered robber until pretty soon he looked like a tiny speck in the sky.

“How can I save my little friend?” cried the unhappy bunny boy. But nobody answered him, not even Billy Breeze, who is such a good friend to all the little people of the Shady Forest and the Sunny Meadow.

The anxious little rabbit looked this way and that way, but all he could see was a tiny speck in the blue sky as the old robber bird flew swiftly away.

Just then the bunny boy noticed another speck in the sky, only larger and of a different shape.

“What is that?” he asked himself, hoping it might be the kind American Eagle who had once befriended him.

But no, it was not. No, indeed, it was something very, very different. Oh, my, yes, I should say so.

As there was nothing to be gained by standing still on the Sunny Meadow, the dis-con-so-late (which means hopelessly unhappy, little readers) bunny boy rabbit hopped away until, all of a sudden, just like that, he almost bumped into the Farmer’s Boy, who was holding a long string that rose up and up and up into the air until it ended in a queer shaped something with a long tail that swung to and fro as Billy Breeze laughed and whistled across the white cloud meadows of the sky.

Yes, sir, Little Jack Rabbit almost bumped into the Farmer’s Boy. You see, the little bunny, looking up into the sky as he hopped along, had paid little attention to his feet.

“Hello!” exclaimed the Farmer’s Boy. “Your eyes are filled with tears. What’s the matter, little rabbit?”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” cried the little bunny. “Hungry Hawk has carried off little Timmie Meadowmouse.”

“Where to?” asked the Farmer’s Boy, curiously.

“Do you see that little speck?” asked the sorrowful little rabbit, pointing upward.

“Yes,” answered the Farmer’s Boy. “Just to the right of my kite. Yes, I see it.”

“That’s Hungry Hawk,” sobbed the little bunny boy. “He has Timmie Meadowmouse in his claws.”

“I’m sorry,” answered the Farmer’s Boy, and then, all of a sudden, he started to run across the Sunny Meadow, pulling in the kite string at the same time. For a moment Little Jack Rabbit was too surprised to move. Then away he hopped after the Farmer’s Boy. You see, the little bunny was so sorry for the poor little mouse that he forgot all about his fear of the Farmer’s Boy. Yes, indeed, that’s what sorrow does sometimes, and maybe oftener. When we are sorry for some one else we often forget our own troubles.

By the time the little rabbit had caught up to the Farmer’s Boy there was a great commotion going on ’way up in the big blue sky. Oh, my, yes. I tell you what, that Farmer’s Boy was a clever fellow. He hadn’t lived on a farm all his life for nothing. No, indeed. He had taught himself things which the old schoolmaster never dreamed of as he sat at his desk in the little red school house on the hill, where the children’s feet were never still. My, how strangely that boy behaved! Suddenly he would dash off to the right, then away to the left; then backward, next forward, sometimes letting out the string, or winding it up again.

“What is he doing?” thought the little bunny boy, gazing up into the sky at the big kite, which seemed only a trifle larger than Hungry Hawk. Oh, dear, I’m so worried for fear that poor little mouse will be eaten by that dreadful old robber bird.

All of a sudden the Farmer’s Boy, with a yell of delight, started to run backward as fast as he could go. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you!” he kept shouting, as he pulled in the kite, hand over hand.

“What do you mean?” asked Little Jack Rabbit, all a-tremble, hopping about on one leg.

“I’ve caught the old hawk in my kite! I’m pulling him down, you betcher!” answered the Farmer’s Boy, as he carefully pulled in the string hand over hand, taking care to keep the string taut lest by a sudden slip backward the kite might untangle itself from the struggling bird. As the good home-made, brown paper kite slowly descended the little rabbit boy could make out the figure of Hungry Hawk pressed tight against the frame, his wings entangled in the face-strings.

“Ha, ha!” laughed the Farmer’s Boy. “If I only had four hands and my gun along, I’d shoot the old bird from here.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” cried the little bunny boy rabbit. “You might hit Timmie Meadowmouse.”

“Like enough. Never thought about it,” answered the Farmer’s Boy. “Mebbe it’s just as well the old gun is home.”

By this time the kite was just overhead. Billy Breeze was helping all he could. He blew hard and strong, with a steady pressure, keeping the big brown paper kite from dipping. Maybe he was laughing at the old robber bird! Just then a little black figure dropped on a pile of hay on the Sunny Meadow.

“It’s Timmie Meadowmouse!” shouted the little bunny boy, but the Farmer’s Boy was so intent on his job he never turned his head. No, siree. He had all he could do to manage the kite. Frantically beating his wings, the old hawk wiggled and jiggled, this way and that, vainly trying to free himself from the clinging tied-together pieces of rags that formed the rudder to the big brown kite.

But, dear me! Just as the Farmer’s Boy reached up to grasp the fierce bird, either Billy Breeze forgot himself, or the good old kite could stand the strain no longer, or something gave way, a string or two, maybe a knot. All of a sudden, with a wiggle and jiggle, Hungry Hawk slipped out and sailed away, up and up, across the Big Red Barn to the freedom of the open sky.