XXI
MAMMY COTTONTAIL’S SECRET
Now Twinkly Eyes had a lively bump of curiosity on that furry black head of his. He was much interested in other people’s affairs. And he used to lie hidden by the hour, just to find out what other wood-folk were up to. But of all the dwellers in that wilderness, none interested him so much as the Cottontail family. That is, none except his old enemy the porcupine!
One day, lying under a clump of high-bush blue-berry bushes, in the early spring sunshine, he learned a secret.
“We have a secret at our house! Truly, truly, truly,” sang Betty Bluebird, sitting on a fencepost with her red blouse turned to the warming glow of the early morning sunshine.
“We have too, we have too, we have too!” trilled Robin Red-breast, running along the roadway with a weather eye for worms.
And down in the marsh behind the barn, Conqueree, the Red Winged Blackbird, was shrilling at the Crows like a little soldier in red epaulettes: “Clear out! Or I’ll put you out! I’m Conqueree! Conqueree! Conqueree!”
“You cawn’t, cawn’t, cawn’t!” the crows retorted, trying to drown out his threats with a hoarse chorus of denial, as they swirled around and around him, keeping just barely out of reach of his swift beak. “We have secrets we won’t tell! Such secrets!—Round, gray green secrets, four to a nest, hidden away up in the tops of the tallest pine trees! And you cawn’t, cawn’t, cawn’t guess what they are!—you cawn’t.”
“Trust a crow to tell all he knows!” chuckled Daddy and Mammy Cottontail, crouched on guard before a small round hole scooped out of the turf and lined with bits of fur from Mammy Cottontail’s breast. “We could tell a pretty cunning secret ourselves, only we have better sense than to shout our affairs to the four winds,” and their slim ears waggled wisely.
Sure enough, packed snugly back under a blanket of dried grass, six of the softest, roundest little wriggly-nosed babies that ever made a bunny feel like kicking his heels in the moonlight slept with their long ears folded close along their backs and their long hind legs doubled up under their fuzzy brown bodies.
“Do you suppose they’ve all got the same kind of secrets?” whispered Mammy Cottontail delightedly.
“Nothing to compare with ours,” sniffed Daddy, then stopped suddenly, as the little Bear snapped a twig in his effort to creep nearer.