STORY VI

BUMPER AND CARLO


The little white rabbit found a home already waiting for him in the
prettiest corner of the garden, but before that the red-haired girl
harnessed him to a ribbon, and let him eat grass and vegetables to his
heart's content wherever he took a fancy to go. Edith lost her appetite
apparently in watching her pet eat, for she wouldn't go into breakfast
even after the nurse had called her several times; but finally, when her
mother came out, and took her by the hand, she obeyed.

"Can't I take the rabbit in with me?" she asked.

"No, dear, put him in the pen over there. He'll be quite content alone."

So Bumper found himself alone in the garden, or rather in a pen shut off
from the rest of the garden by stout chicken wire. There was a box in back
of the pen, filled with soft grass and straw, and a tin pan filled with
fresh water. There was such a variety of things to eat that he kept
nibbling first a carrot, then a cabbage, then a blade of grass, then some
corn, then a piece of bread, then some crackers, then a red beet, then a
spear of grass again, and so on through all the long list of good things.

It was such a mixture that he was never sure just what he had in his
mouth. It was just as if a boy or girl had crammed the mouth full of gum
drops, chocolates, fudge, lollypops, taffy, peppermint, lemon and