time." And then something happened. A little hard ball hit him on the
left hind foot, and a man's voice called out, "If it hadn't been for
that pesky little rabbit I would have made that hole."

And the big man put his golf stick in the bag and watched Billy Bunny
limp away to hide in the woods close by.

STORY XVII.

BILLY BUNNY AND THE FOREST DANCE.

When the moon is big and bright
Little bunnies dance at night.
How they hop and skip and go
On their lucky left hind toe.

Well, sir, that's what Billy Bunny was doing. It was a lovely
moonlight night in August, and the big, round moon was gleaming down
on the Pleasant Meadow just like an electric lamp, only it was up in
the sky, you know, and not on the ceiling.

And Mrs. Bunny was there, too, and so was Cousin Cottontail, and all
the little rabbits for miles around.

Now it's a dangerous thing to be dancing, even if the moon is bright,
for owls and hawks fly by night, and if they happen to see a bunny
dance, they always fly down and break it up. They don't say a word;
they just fly away with one of the little bunny dancers and he never
dances any more. No, sireemam.

Well, on this particular night little Billy Bunny was doing the fox
trot with a nice little lady bunny, when all of a sudden from out of
the Friendly Forest came Slyboots and Bushy Tail, the small sons of
Daddy Fox, you remember.

And the reason they were out so late at night was because their father
had sprained his foot jumping over a stone fence to get away from a
pack of hounds who had chased him for a thousand and one miles and
fourteen feet.

Now Billy Bunny had forgotten all about Daddy Fox. He was thinking
only about Robber Hawk or Old Barney the Owl, and so he never saw the
two foxes until they were so close to him that they almost stubbed
their whiskers on his powder puff tail.

And if it hadn't been for the lady bunny who was dancing with him
maybe Slyboots, or maybe Bushy Tail, would have caught the little
bunny. But the lady rabbit saw them just in time and she gave a scream
and hopped into a hollow stump and Billy Bunny after her, and then all
that the two foxes could do was to stand close by and say:

"Isn't that a shame,
To spoil their little game,
To stop their dancing
And their prancing,
Who do you think's to blame?"

"You are, you two bad foxes," said Billy Bunny, but he didn't come out
of that hollow stump. No, sire