CHAPTER V.
MANNERS IN SCHOOL
Next morning Aunt Etiquette said, “If you are going to visit me a year and a day, you will have to start to school.”
Healthy Bunny said, “I will go back home, but Pretty Bunny can stay and go to school.”
Pretty Bunny began to feel a little homesick at that but she helped Aunt Etiquette fill up her dinner pail and bade good bye to Healthy Bunny at the crossroads and sang,
A merry voice answered,
Pretty Bunny turned around and saw Shadow Bunny behind her. She laughed at his long ears, but he said,
Pretty Bunny hopped along and said to herself, “I feel rather strange for this will be my first day in the new school. I wonder if Bunny Brag may possibly come to this school.”
Bunny Brag did not appear at school, and Pretty Bunny did not meet him for days and days.
Pretty Bunny looked around when she came to the door of the school; Shadow Bunny had disappeared.
Pretty Bunny hesitated a minute, but the Bunnies in Miss Manner’s school were very polite. They told Pretty Bunny where to hang her wraps and her dinner-pail, and made her feel quite at home. As it was not yet time for school to begin, the Bunnies went and cleaned the blackboard and erasers and hung up all the erasers neatly on the hooks. They said,
The teacher came in with a pleasant “Good Morning.”
She read a story that day that every one liked. The story was called, “Little Rag-Tag.”
“Once upon a time, Little Rag-Tag came to school. She had on a ragged dress and the buttons were off her shoes.
Little Miss Brag said, “Look at her dress,” and Thoughtless Tom said, “Look at her shoes.”
They made so much fun of her that it made Little Rag-Tag very unhappy.
I don’t know what she would have done but Little Miss Shy came and hugged her and showed her where to sit, and made her feel at home. She even loaned her a new blue pencil.
She forgot her torn dress and old shoes, but at recess
After that, Little Rag-Tag did not come to school for days and days and the teacher found out she was ill.
Little Miss Brag and Thoughtless Tom were sorry they had been unkind and Little Miss Shy said,
The pennies came thick and fast and they helped to buy a dress all ready made for Little Rag-Tag, and the next time she came to school she had on the new dress, and her shoes were neatly buttoned, and she said “I love every one.”
A little kindness had made her all smiles and sunshine.
The Bunnies liked this story so well that for three whole days they remembered not to make fun of any one as a lesson in manners and a lesson in kindness.
Next day, when Pretty Bunny got to school, she saw some of the Bunnies in a group laughing at some joke they did not explain to the others. She said,
The Bunnies in this school did really want to learn good manners, so now they shared their joke with Pretty Bunny.
Then Pretty Bunny said, “I know a joke, too.”
The Bunnies said,
The day was cloudy, and Pretty Bunny said, “How much there is to learn in school, and out,” and the School Room Clock quite agreed with her, for by and by, when the Bunnies were asking to borrow pencils and erasers and rulers, the School Room Clock sang,
Some of the Bunnies whispered and the School Room Clock ticked loudly and said,
Some of the Bunnies had to look in the dictionary to see what the last word meant. Do you?
They all became so still in school they could hear the Clock ticking.
That day so many children wanted to go out for a drink of water and so many children asked needless questions that Miss Manners said,
When the Bunnies stopped to think they found many questions they asked were needless. The Clock talked again,
It continued,
Miss Manners taught them all to play games and reminded them to be honest. She said,
Some Bunnies wanted to break into a game already started and some of them boasted they could run faster than any one else. Miss Manners said,
She continued to say that we should be willing to take our turn in playing a game and be good-natured whether we won or not.
Tattle-Tale Bunny stood in the corner of the play-ground talking to a new Bunny, and Miss Manners called him to her quietly and said that we should not repeat tales to any one, even after school; the only ones safe to confide in were the teacher, or one’s own mother.
When the recess games were over the Bunnies came trooping in, still noisy and out of breath. Then the teacher gave them a “Sitting Lesson.” They had to fold their paws and sit so still they could hear the Clock tick.
Miss Manners had them write, as a lesson, something to remember after school. They wrote,
If Pretty Bunny had followed this advice she would not have met with misfortune. As it was, she hung around the school grounds some time and then went loitering along, singing,
She went on humming until some one said,
Pretty Bunny looked around and before she could say a word a large Bunny was leading her off.