just as
white and smooth as Mrs. Rabbit's best table cloth, for the feathery
snowflakes fell so softly you could almost hear the stillness. Little
Jack Rabbit opened his knapsack and pulled out his rubber boots. Then he
put on his ear muffs and his nice warm mittens and slung his knapsack
over his back, but very carefully, for there were lots of nice things to
eat in that knapsack. Yes, siree. His kind mother always filled it up
with cakes and sweets. I guess the little rabbit knew that very morning
his dear mother had baked lettuce cakes, and how he did love lettuce
cakes. Yes, indeed he did, and so would you and so would I if we could
only get one, I'm sure.

Well, after he had hopped along a little way, he began to sing,

"Three little bunnies a-sliding went
On a winter's day,
The ice was thin, and two fell in,
And the third one ran away."

"Ha, ha!" cawed an old crow from a tree top, "that's a very fine song!"

"Well, if you think it's such a fine song, throw me down an ice cream
pine cone," said the little rabbit. But the selfish old crow wanted it
for himself, and instead threw down a snowball, which hit the little
rabbit on the tip of his tail.

The little rabbit wasn't going to stay there and have snowballs thrown
at him. No, sireemam, he wasn't. And pretty soon, not so very far, he
met Jimmy Mink creeping along by the Old Duck Pond.

"I have to be very careful these winter days," said the little mink.
"Everybody wants to wear fur in the winter time, you know, and if that
dreadful Miller's Boy sees me, he might shoot me and sell my fur for a
muff!"

"They set traps for me," answered the little rabbit. "And Danny Fox and
Mr. Wicked Weasel are always after me. And Hungry Hawk, too. You're not
the only one who has to look out for himself."

Then the little rabbit took a lovely lollypop out of his knapsack and
gave it to Jimmy Mink, and asked him to make a visit at the Old Bramble
Patch.

"I'll get Uncle John to take us riding in his Bunnysnowbile." This
tickled the little mink almost to pieces, for he'd never ridden in
a Bunnysnowbile, and neither have I and neither have you, but perhaps
some day we will if we happen to be around when Mr. John Hare comes by.
And in the next book, if the smoke doesn't blow down our chimney and
choke the cook so that she can't bake the biscuits for breakfast, I'll
tell you more about Little Jack Rabbit and his friends who live in
Bunnyville, U. S. A.