Mammy Cottontail, the little brown hare, had been living in the Old Apple Orchard for several weeks now and the bunnies were half-grown.

One moonlight night toward the end of June—the self-same night that Twinkly Eyes had found the bee tree, Mammy said:

“Children, we are going on a frolic tonight. So come along, Flap Ears and Furtive Feet, and Wriggly Nose and Paddy Paws, and Fuzzy Wuzz and Hippity Skip! Daddy’s there waiting for us now!”

Through the moonlight woods she led them in one long line along a little briar-grown rabbit path, the youngsters kicking their heels high in their excitement.

Now they crept under a patch of huckleberry bushes, and now they hugged the shadow of a grapevine. Straight across the blueberry burn, they galloped,—under the fruit-laden bushes, then across a corner of wild meadow where the daisies gleamed high above their heads, and all about them was the aroma of sweet fern.

Their path ran zig-zag, this way and that, here circling back upon itself, there darting off at right angles, till anyone trying to follow it would have had an interesting time, to say the least.

But after various turnings and twistings through the woods, and doublings around the rocky hilltop behind Pollywog Pond, they found themselves away back on the border of a little glade, an opening in the trees where the grass was short and fine like that in a fairy ring. And the moon streamed down, making it all as light as day.

Here on every side were outposts, and the mere crunching of a dead leaf by any creature larger than a rabbit would be the signal for the warning tap-tap of the long hind feet of those on guard.

Within the circle of the moonlit glade a dozen hares were already assembled, and more were coming in from every side.

Mammy Cottontail drew up in the shadow of a tree trunk, that the youngsters might get their courage up before joining those in the open. Soon there were half a hundred bunnies, young and old, together, scampering about and having a glorious good time. They pranced and they danced and they raced one another. They leapt back and forth across a log and they leap-frogged over one another, kicking their heels to the moon. There was never a sound to break the stillness save the chirping of crickets away back in the meadow they had left.

Then, so suddenly that Mammy’s heart gave an extra beat, there came the warning thump! thump! thump! just behind them!