"That's just what I was going to say," called out Uncle Wiggily.

"Come with me, and I'll show you where there are plenty of vines," went on the possum, so they followed him, and pretty soon they came to the place. Sammie and Uncle Wiggily cut a long piece, and then they took hold of each end and began to turn the rope for Susie. At first she could not do very well, even though there was a nice, smooth, gra.s.sy place to learn on. Then out of a pond jumped Bully, the frog, and, as he was one of the best jumpers in the woods, or, for that matter, on Orange Mountain, he showed Susie just how to do it.

So she learned to jump "salt," which is slow, and "pepper," which is fast, and "double pepper," which is very fast indeed. Then she learned to jump with two ropes, one going one way and one the other, and finally she could skip as well as any little rabbit girl in the owl's school.

Uncle Wiggily tried to jump, but he was so stiff and his rheumatism hurt him so that he couldn't do it.

Then they all started for home, and what do you think happened?

Something quite serious, I do a.s.sure you, and I'm not fooling. A big hawk, not the kind, good fish-hawk, but another kind, who was out looking for early spring chickens, swooped down and tried to carry Susie Littletail off to his nest. Now Uncle Wiggily was so old he couldn't do much, but Sammie was not going to see his little sister harmed, so what did he do but jump at that hawk with his sharp little feet, and kick him until the bad bird let go of poor Susie. She was quite frightened, but not much hurt, and maybe she didn't hug and kiss Sammie for saving her.

Then they all hurried home to the burrow, and if there is nothing to prevent it, to-morrow night's story will be about Sammie turning sky-blue-pink.

XXII

SAMMIE COLORED SKY-BLUE-PINK

Susie Littletail was out on a nice, gra.s.sy place in front of the underground house, jumping her grapevine rope, and having a very good time, indeed. She had gotten all over the fright caused by the bad hawk trying to grab her, and felt quite happy. Sammie Littletail had been searching for the hawk, to have him arrested for being so cruel to the little rabbit girl, but he could not find the big bird, so he had come back to watch Susie jump. You see it was Easter week, and they had no school. The old owl teacher was very glad of it, too, for he had more time to sleep and doze in the sun.

Just as Susie finished doing "three slow, pepper," Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy came to the door of the burrow, and called:

"Sammie, your mamma wants you."

"What does she want?" he asked.

"She wants you to go to the drug store and get some stuff to color the Easter eggs with. Hurry, please, because she has lots to do."

"May we help color them?" asked Susie, hanging up her grapevine rope on a low bush.

"I think so," answered the muskrat nurse. "Now, hurry, Sammie; your mamma wants to get all done before your papa comes home from the carrot factory to-night."

"All right," answered the little boy rabbit. "I guess I can help color the eggs, too," and he hurried off to the drug store, that was near Dr.

Possum's house.

Now pretty soon--in fact, almost immediately--something is going to happen to Sammie Littletail, so I want you all to sit quietly, and not wiggle so that you'll break the couch, or I can't go on. That's better.

Well, then, Sammie went through the woods, and, on his way, he felt so happy that he sang this little song, which he had heard the kindergarten children singing at the owl school a few days before. This is the song, but of course I can't sing it very well. Please don't laugh. I'll do the best I can, although, perhaps, I shan't get the words just right:

"'Soldier boy, soldier boy, where are you going, Waving so proudly your red, white and blue?'

'I'm going to the war to fight for my country, And if you'll be a soldier boy, you may come too.'"

That's the way Sammie sang it, anyhow, and just as he finished he got to the drug store.

"Who was that singing?" asked Dr. Possum, who happened to be in the store just then.

"I was," said Sammie.

"Oh, indeed; I didn't know you sang," went on Dr. Possum. "That is very good indeed. I could not do better myself. Will you kindly sing it again?" So Sammie sang it again, and then he got the colors for his mamma to put on the Easter eggs.

"Now, children," said Mamma Littletail, when Sammie reached home. "Get the eggs that Mrs. Cluck-Cluck gave you the other day, and we will color them."

"Oh, won't we have fun!" cried Susie.

"Indeed we will!" said Sammie.

So they first boiled the eggs good and hard, so that if they happened to drop one, it wouldn't get all over the floor, and you know how unpleasant it is, to say the least, when an egg drops, and gets all over the floor. Isn't it, really? Well, they boiled the eggs, and then Mamma Littletail had the dye ready.

Well, you should have seen all the colors she had! There was red and blue and yellow and green and purple and pink and old rose and crushed strawberry and ashes of roses and magenta and Alice blue and Johnnie red and Froggie green and toadstool brown and skilligimink. That last, the storekeeper told Sammie, was a new color, very scarce. As there isn't any more of it at the store, I can't just tell you what it looked like, except that it was a very fine color indeed, Oh, yes!

Well, Sammie and Susie helped their mamma dip the eggs in the dye and stained them all sorts of pretty colors. Some were all one shade, and some were half one tint and half another, and then there were some all speckled with different colors, and very hard to make. Then, after they were all dry, Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with her sharp teeth, just like chisels that a carpenter uses, drew pretty things on the eggs; pictures of trees and birds and mountains and flowers and fairy castles and lakes and hills, and all sorts of things. Oh, they were the prettiest Easter eggs you ever saw!

"Here is the last egg," said Sammie. "May I dip this one in, mamma?"

"Yes," she answered, but she never would have let him if she had known what was going to happen.

"I'll make this a skilligimink color," said Sammie, and he stood over the pot. Then, what do you think occurred? Why, Sammie leaned too far over and he fell right in that pot of skilligimink color; he and the egg together. And oh, dear me! what a time there was. He splashed around and scattered the skilligimink color all over the kitchen, and when his mamma and Susie fished him out, if he wasn't dyed the most beautiful sky-blue-pink you ever saw! Oh, but he was a sight! The skilligimink color made him look like a piece of the rainbow. "Oh, Sammie!" cried Susie, "how funny you do look?" And Sammie grunted: "Huh! I guess it's nothing to laugh at!" So they dried him with a towel, but the color didn't come off for ever so long, honest it didn't. But they had a lovely lot of Easter eggs, anyhow, ready for the children, and so Sammie didn't mind much. Now, how about Hot Cross Buns for to-morrow night, eh?

Oh, of course, I mean a story about them.

XXIII

SUSIE LITTLETAIL'S HOT CROSS BUNS

Let's see, where did we leave off last night? Oh, I remember now, it was about how Sammie fell down and hurt his nose, wasn't it? Oh, no, it wasn't either. It was about how he was colored sky-blue-pink; to be sure. Well, now I'm going to tell you about Hot Cross Buns, how Susie Littletail made some very especially fine ones, and what happened to them. But the last part is a secret, so I wish you wouldn't tell any one.

Susie was out skipping her grapevine rope, and thinking what a nice day it was, when her mamma called to her:

"Susie, don't you want to help Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy make some Hot Cross Buns?"

"Of course," the little rabbit girl said, and, being a very kind little creature, she added: "Can Sammie help me, mamma?"

"Oh, I don't want to," said Sammie, who was playing marbles with Bully, the frog. They were using old hickory nuts and acorns for their shooters and for the agates in the ring. "I'm going to be a soldier or run an automobile when I grow up, so I don't want to learn to cook."

"Humph! I guess soldiers and automobile men are glad enough to eat when some one else cooks for them," said Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy. "Anyhow, I can't have you mussing around my kitchen, Sammie, so Susie is the only one who can help me make Hot Cross Buns."

"Ask her if we can have the batter dishes and the one she mixes the frosting in, to clean out," prosed Bully, in a whisper, and when Sammie asked the nurse, who was also a cook, she said:

"Oh, I suppose so. But don't come around bothering while Susie and I are busy. I'll set the dishes out for you."

Then Sammie and Bully felt very good, for it's lots of fun to clean out the cake dishes when any one is baking, especially when Hot Cross Buns are being made. So the little boy rabbit and the little frog, who was such a good jumper, played marbles under the trees in the big woods.

Then Susie and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy went to work in the kitchen. First they took some flour, milk, eggs, sugar and whatever else goes into Hot Cross Buns, and mixed them all up in a big dish.

"Oh, my! How good that smells!" exclaimed Susie. "Won't Sammie and Bully be glad to get that?"

"Yes," said the nurse-cook, "but now we must make the frosting to go on top, and I think I'll mix in it some of the maple sugar that Uncle Wiggily boiled."