HOW THE FUNNY BUNNY SMELLED A JOKE Lipity, lipity, lipity, Rabbit down the long lane from Tommy Peele’s red barn. He was in a dreadful hurry to get home to the Woods and Fields.
 
Out in the Snowy Pasture the wind blew cold. The Red Cow stood with her back to it, looking very sad and thoughtful, but she to Nibble politely, for she’d found her temper again. Pretty soon he was passing the cornstalk tents in the Broad Field, but one of them smelled so foxy that he didn’t wait there for Silvertip to come back. Now he was in the Clover Patch. He stole past the oak that blew down in the Terrible Storm, and around the Brush Pile. Then he went straight for his own old hole.
 
How he had dreamed of it when Tommy had him in that cage! No one had been there since the Terrible Storm, for the was drifted shut. So in he popped. And then he almost popped right out again, for there was someone in it.
 
Yes, someone was in his very own home, and he couldn’t tell who. But it was someone with a nice clovery breath, like White Cow’s, so Nibble thought he couldn’t be dangerous. “Here!” he called. “Whoever you are, wake up! This hole is mine!”
 
But Someone never answered.
 
He felt Someone’s warm fur, listened to Someone’s breathing. He touched Someone’s fat side with his paw. Then he tried to shake Someone by the scruff of his neck, but Someone was much too big for him. And Someone wouldn’t wake.
 
Nibble cocked his head on one side and thought about it. Then he tried a few experiments. At last he said: “Very well. There’s plenty of room for both of us in here. I don’t know but we’ll both be more comfortable. But you just remember when you do wake up that this hole is really mine.” Someone just slept on. But Nibble didn’t care, for he made a lovely foot-warmer.
 
The next morning Nibble brushed the sleep out of his eyes with his paws and nudged Someone. “Come along,” he urged. “We’ll hunt some breakfast.” For it was the dark of the moon when rabbits feed at early dawn and dusk. They prefer moonlight at other times. “I’ll get him out,” he thought, “and have a look at him.”
 
Someone only made a little sucking noise as though he were eating something perfectly delicious in his dream, and went on sleeping.
 
“You’re a funny beast,” said Nibble, right out loud. “I’m going to ask Doctor about you.” Someone slept right on. So off Nibble set for the pond among the cattails. And all the breakfast he found along the way was some coarse grass, very dry and wind-whipped, and the dry brown seed heads of yarrow. And that wasn’t much after the wonderful breakfast Tommy had given him.
 
Everything was all changed. The cattails were drifted waist deep in snow, and the pond was all ice, so he could walk right up to Doctor Muskrat’s house in the middle of it. He No answer. He thumped again, and then he danced as hard as he could on top of it. He was having a very busy time, all by himself, when he heard Doctor Muskrat’s gruff voice calling, “Who’s that? What do you think you’re trying to do, anyway?”
 
Nibble flashed about and saw the doctor’s tousled head from a hole among the cattails. “Good morning,” he said politely, “I was just looking for your front door.”
 
“Well, you’ll find it here, over this warm spring—the one spot in the pond that doesn’t freeze shut, so I always have a place to come for a breath of fresh air.” The old doctor was as he made his way through the crusty hillocks between the bulrush stems. “Duck me, but it’s Nibble! Dear, dear! What did you want? You aren’t ill?” And he was all ready to dive back after one of his famous roots.
 
“No, indeed, but you know everything,” Nibble began confidently. “Won’t you pl............