knees knocked into the tin
pans and made a dreadful noise.
"I've a dandy egg beater," went on the peddler, in a trembling voice,
but after that he never said another word, for that great big bear
jumped right at him and took the egg beater out of his hands and
growled so terribly that the tin peddler turned away and ran down the
forest path as fast as he could go.
And then all the little and big forest folk began to sing:
"Hip, hip hurray, the peddler's gone away.
No more he'll make his tin pans shake
And spoil our singing school beside the Forest Pool."
And in the next story, if the baby who lives in the house opposite
doesn't shake his rattle at me all night so that I can't get to sleep
and dream about the next story in time to write it for to-morrow
night, I'll tell you more about the little rabbit's adventures.
STORY XII.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE RABBITVILLE "GAZETTE."
There was once a little rabbit
Who was very fond of pie,
Apple pie, with sugar on the crust.
And he had a little habit,
When his mother wasn't nigh,
Of eating apple pie until he bust.
This is what Mr. William Bunny, the little rabbit's father, you know,
was singing one day, and the reason was because Mrs. Bunny had found
little Billy Bunny in the pantry.
And what happened to the little rabbit I'm not going to tell you, for
it is so sad that it would make you weep to hear it.
"All day he nibbled pie
Till at last I thought he'd die,"
Said the doctor with a sigh.
And then Mr. William Bunny looked at his small son and sighed, too,
for he had just paid the doctor's bill.
"Please don't sing any more," said little Billy Bunny. "Don't you
remember the doctor said I was to be kept quiet?"
So Mr. William Bunny went out on the porch to smoke a cigar and read
the Rabbitville "Gazette" until after supper time.
And while he was reading Mrs. Bunny looked over his shoulder and read:
"Wanted, a secondhand automobile in good condition."
"Ring up your Uncle Lucky on the telephone," she called to Billy
Bunny. "Here's a chance for him to sell his Luckymobile." So the
little rabbit rang up 000 Lettuceville, and in a few minutes he heard
the old gentleman's voice at the other end of the wire.
"But I don't want to sell my Luckymobile," he said. "It's the only one
in ex-is-tence," which means the only one ever made, and I guess he
was right, for I never rode in a Luckymobile, d
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