BUNNY, THE WILD RABBIT.
We were now living in England, in a country place--fields and woods andlanes all around. We took great pleasure in all the amusements ofcountry life.
Our Papa had some ferrets, which he used to take out for rat-hunting inthe corn stacks with a terrier we had, named Tawney, and other dogs;and now and then he went to a rabbit warren at some little distance. Aboy one day brought from this warren a hat full of young rabbits forthe ferrets to eat. They were all supposed to be dead; but when Papawas looking at them, he saw that one of the poor little things wasalive, so he brought it into the house and gave it to me and my sister,saying that if we thought we could feed it we might keep it.
The poor little thing was so young, that it was a great chance whetherwe could bring it up; but we had a cook who was very fond of allanimals, and she helped us to nurse it. She fed it with milk for a fewdays, and then it soon began to nibble at bran and vegetables, and in aweek or two could eat quite as well as a full-grown rabbit.
The gardener made us a nice little house for it, by nailing some barsacross the open side of an old box, and it slept in this by the side ofthe kitchen fire; but we never fastened it up so that it could not getout, and in the day-time it was seldom in its box, but running aboutthe kitchen, and it soon found its way along the passage into thesitting-room, and then upstairs to the nursery, and into all thebed-rooms. It went up and down stairs quite easily, and seemedperfectly happy running about the house.
It was a very strange thing that our terrier Tawney, of whom I havemuch to tell afterwards, never thought of touching Bunny, for when outof doors he was most eager after any sort of animal, would run formiles after a rabbit or a hare, went perfectly crazy at the sight of acat, and was famous for rat-hunting and all such things; but as soon ashe entered the house, even if the saucy little Bunny bounded about justbefore his nose, he would quietly pass by, apparently without an ideathat it was a thing to be hunted. In the evenings, when Tawney wouldlie asleep on the rug, Bunny used to run over him, sometimes nestlingitself against his back or legs; then would pat his face with its forepaws, and take all manner of liberties with him, he never so much asgrowled or snapped at it, and seemed really to like the companionshipof the poor little creature.
One very favourite hiding-place of Bunny's was behind the books on thedining-room shelves. These were quite low down to the floor, and if hecould find a gap where a book was taken out, he squeezed himself in,and as the shelves were very wide, there was plenty of room for him torun about behind the books. I suppose he liked the darkness, andthought it was something like one of his native burrows, and if hecould not remember them, it was his natural propensity to live innarrow dark passages, and therefore he preferred such places to theopen daylight. It was very funny to see his little brown face peepingout between the books. Sometimes it happened that a book was replacedwhilst Bunny was snugly hidden behind, and then we missed him when wewent to put him to bed in his box for the night. First we went to lookfor him in all the rooms, and about the passages, and if he was not inthe bookcase he would always come when we called, so when we sawnothing of the little animal, we went and took a book out of eachshelf, and we were sure to see his bright eyes glistening in the dark,and then out came little Bunny with a bound. He did not seem to carefor running into the garden or yard, which was odd; but as he grewolder his taste for burrowing showed itself strongly.
As he used to follow the cook about everywhere, he had of course beenoften down to the cellar and larder. These were paved with small roundstones, and there was an inner cellar, or rather a sort of receptaclefor lumber of all sorts, which was not paved at all; it had a floor ofearth. Old hampers and boxes were put away there, sometimes potatoesand carrots, etc., were spread on the floor there, and altogether theplace had a very damp, earthy sort of smell, perhaps very like theinside of a rabbit burrow, and one day the cook came to ask Mamma tocome and look at the litter Bunny had made in the cellar. We all randown, and saw that Bunny had scratched up a quantity of earth frombetween the little stones with which the cellar was paved; in fact thecellar floor looked almost like a flower-bed, all earth. The door intothe inner cellar happened to be shut, or most probably he would havecommenced his operations where there were no stones to hinder him.
Mamma said that the gardener should press down the earth again betweenthe stones, and tighten any that were loose, and that Bunny must not beallowed at any time to go down into the cellar. But it was verydifficult to prevent his doing so. In summer, the meat and the milkwere kept down there, as being the coolest place, and the beer barrelswere there, and the coals, in different compartments; and to fetch allthese different things somebody or other was perpetually opening thedoor at the top of the stairs. So Bunny frequently found opportunitiesfor slipping in at the open door, and he came every day less and lessinto the sitting-rooms. One evening he had the cunning to hide himselfbehind some of the empty hampers in the inner cellar, and when wecalled him, and looked about for him in the evening, no Bunny appeared.In vain we took books out of all the shelves, hunted behind thecurtains, under the sofas, and in all his usual hiding-places, we wereobliged to give it up, and go to bed without finding him.
The next morning, we renewed our search, and seeing no sign of his workin the outer cellar, we determined to have a regular rummage in theinner one. After moving a great many bottles, baskets, boxes, andbarrels, we found a great hole. The earth had evidently been justscratched out; for it was quite moist and fresh. The busy little fellowhad made a long burrow during the night in the floor of the cellar.When he heard our voices, he came out of his newly-made retreat, and wetook him up stairs and gave him some food; for he was quite ravenousafter his hard work. Then we consulted with his friend the cook, how tomanage about him in future. It would certainly never do to let him goon burrowing under the house; in time we should have all the wallsundermined, and the house would come tumbling down upon us, burying usin the ruins. Terrible, indeed, was the catastrophe that we created inour imagination from the small foundation of Bunny's having scratched ahole in the cellar! And now that he had once tried and enjoyed thepleasures of burrowing, we could scarcely expect that he wouldrelinquish it again.
We went to talk about it to Mamma; and we proposed that Bunny shouldlive in the garden.
"But," said Mamma, "I shall have all my nice borders scratched intoholes; and the roots of my beautiful rose-trees laid bare; and, inshort, the whole flower-garden destroyed, to say nothing of thekitchen-garden, which would, of course, become a mere burrow."
"Well, then, Mamma," we said; "we must make him a much larger house,and keep him in it altogether. We will not let him have his liberty atall; and then it will be impossible for him to do any mischief."
But Mamma said, that although that plan would certainly prevent Bunnyfrom burrowing; she thought that it would not be a very happy life forthe poor little animal, who had been accustomed all his life to perfectliberty, and had never been confined to one place.
We could think of no other plan; so begged Mamma to tell us what shethought we had better do.
"Do you remember," said Mamma, "seeing a number of little brownrabbits, running about and darting in and out of their holes, in thewild part of the fir-woods, where we sometimes drive. There is a greatdeal of fern and grass about there, and nothing at all to prevent therabbits from burrowing and enjoying their lives without any one tomolest them. I advise you to take Bunny there, and to turn him loose inthe fir-wood; he will very soon find some companion and make himself ahome; and do you not think he will be far happier when leading thatlife of freedom, than if kept in a wooden house, or even if allowed toburrow in a cellar?"
After some deliberation, we agreed to follow Mamma's advice; and thenext day we drove to the fir-wood, taking Bunny with us in a basket.
We drove slowly along the skirts of the wood, looking for a nice placeto turn him out. At last, we came to an open space among the fir-trees;the ground was there thickly covered with long grass, ferns, a
ndwild-flowers, and the banks beneath the firs were full of rabbit-holes;we saw many little heads popping in and out.
"This is just the place," we cried. "What a beautiful sweet fresh placeto live in; and we got down and went a little way into the grass; thenwe placed the basket on the ground and opened it. Bunny soon put up hishead, snuffed the sunny sweet air, and glanced about him in alldirections. No doubt he was filled with wonder at the change from ourkitchen or dark cellars, to this lovely wood; with a bright blue sky,instead of a ceiling; waving green trees, instead of white walls; andon the ground, in place of a bare stone floor; inexhaustible delightsin the way of food; and soft earth for burrowing. Having admired allthis, he jumped out of the basket; first he nibbled a little bit ofgrass, then ran a little way among the ferns.
"Do let us watch him till he runs into a rabbit hole," we said toMamma.
And Mamma said she would drive up and down the road that skirted thefirs, for about half-an-hour, and we might watch Bunny.
He wandered about for a long time among the grass and plants; and atlast we lost sight of him in a thick mass of broom and ferns.
Mamma thought it was useless to search for him; there was no doubt thathe would thoroughly appreciate the advantages of the fir-wood. So wegathered a large bunch of wild flowers, jumped into the carriage, andleft Bunny in his beautiful new home.