a while nobody said anything, but just smoked and felt happy.

Mr. 'Possum was first to say something. He leaned over and knocked the
ashes out of his pipe, then leaned back and crossed his feet, and said
he'd been thinking about Mr. Rabbit's lonely life, and wondering why it
was that, with his fondness for society and such a good home, he had
stayed a bachelor so long. Then the Crow and the 'Coon said so, too, and
asked Jack Rabbit why it was.

Mr. Rabbit said it was quite a sad story, and perhaps not very
interesting, as it had all happened so long ago, when he was quite
small.

"My folks lived then in the Heavy Thickets, over beyond the Wide
Grasslands," he said; "it was a very nice place, with a good school,
kept by a stiff-kneed rabbit named Whack--J. Hickory Whack--which seemed
to fit him. I was the only child in our family that year, and I suppose
I was spoiled. I remember my folks let me run and play a good deal,
instead of making me study my lessons, so that Hickory Whack did not
like me much, though he was afraid to be as severe as he was with most
of the others, my folks being quite well off and I an only child. Of
course, the other scholars didn't like that, and I don't blame them now,
though I didn't care then whether they liked it or not. I didn't care
for anything, except to go capering about the woods, gathering flowers
and trying to make up poetry, when I should have been doing my examples.
I didn't like school or J. Hickory Whack, and every morning I hated to
start, until, one day, a new family moved into our neighborhood. They
were named Bun, and one of them was a little girl named Bunty--Bunty
Bun."

When Mr. Rabbit got that far in his story he stopped a minute and
sighed, and filled his pipe again, and took out his handkerchief, and
said he guessed a little speck of ashes had got into his eye. Then he
said:

"The Buns lived close to us, and the children went the same way to
school as I did. Bunty was little and fat, and was generally behind,
and I stayed behind with her, after the first morning. She seemed a very
well-behaved little Miss Rabbit, and was quite plump, as I say, and used
to have plump little books, which I used to carry for her and think how
nice it would be if I could always go on carrying them and helping Bunty
Bun over the mud-holes and ditches."

Mr. Rabbit got another speck of ashes in his eye, and had to wipe it
several times and blow his nose hard. Then he said:

"She w