il trees," declared Sammie, though he just then remembered
that his Uncle, Wiggily Longears, had once said something about
apple-tree bark being very good to eat.

"There's another reason," went on the squirrel, chattering away.

"What is it?" asked Sammie.

"Look over there and you'll see," was the reply, and when Sammie looked,
with his little body half out of the hole he had made, he saw a great
animal, with long horns, coming straight at him. He tried to run back
down the hole, but he found he had not made it large enough to turn
around in.

So Sammie Littletail, frightened as he as at the dreadful animal, had to
jump out of the burrow to get ready to run down it again, and, just as
he did so, the big animal cried out to him:

"Hold on there!"

Sammie shook with fright, and did not dare move. But, after all, the big
animal did not intend to harm him. And what happened, and who the big
animal was I will tell you to-morrow night.

VI

SAMMIE AND SUSIE HELP MRS. WREN

The big animal with the horns came close to Sammie.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I--I don't know," replied the little rabbit boy.

"How did you get here?"

"I was digging a new burrow, and I--I just happened to come out here.
But I'll go right away again, if you'll let me."

"Of course I'll let you. Don't you know it's against the rules of the
park to be here? What do you suppose they have different parts of the
park for, if it isn't to keep you rabbits out of certain places?"

"I'm sure I don't know," was all Sammie could say.

"Do you know who I am?" asked the horned creature.

"No--no, sir."

"Well, I'm a deer."

"My--my mother calls me that, sometimes, when I've been real good," said
Sammie.

"No, I don't mean that kind at all," and the deer tried to smile. "My
name is spelled differently. I'm a cousin of the Santa Claus reindeer.
But you must go now. No rabbits are allowed in the part of the park
where we live. You should not have come," and the deer shook his horns
at Sammie.

"I--I never will again," said the little rabbit boy, and then, before
the deer knew it, Sammie jumped down his new burrow, ran along to the
front door, and darted off toward home.

When he was almost there he saw a little brown bird sitting on a bush,
and the bird seemed calling to him.

"Wait a minute, rabbit," said the bird. "Why are you in such a hurry?"

"Because I saw such a dreadful animal," was Sammie's reply, and he to