BILLY BUNNY AND MR. O'HARE'S ESCAPE

You remember in the last story how Willie Wind whispered to Billy Bunny and Uncle Lucky that their cousin, Mr. O'Hare, had fallen into a deep hole? Well, it didn't take the two little rabbits more than five short seconds and maybe five and a half hops to reach the spot, and then they looked over the edge, but very carefully, you know, for fear they might fall in, and there, sure enough, way down at the bottom was Mr. O'Hare looking very miserable indeed.

"Keep up your courage! " cried Uncle Lucky in as cheerful a voice as he could muster, and then he looked around to find a rope or a ladder. But of course there were not any ropes and ladders lying about, so that kind old gentleman rabbit peeped over the edge of the hole and called down again, "Keep up your courage! We'll get you out!"

Although he didn't know how he was going to do it, and neither do you and neither do I and neither does the printer man.

Well, after a while, and it was quite a long while, too, Billy Bunny found a wild grapevine which he let down into the hole. "Make a loop and put it around your waist and Uncle Lucky and I will haul you out," he called down, and then Mr. O'Hare did as he was told, and after the two little rabbits had pulled and pulled until their breath was almost gone, Mr. O'Hare's head appeared at the top of the hole.

And then with one more big pull they brought him out safely, although his waist was dreadfully sore because the grapevine had cut into his fur and squeezed all the breath out of him.

"I'm going to complain to the street cleaning department or the first policeman I see," said Mr. O'Hare. "It's a dreadful thing to have a hole like this right in the middle of the Friendly Forest Trail."

"Never mind that," said Billy Bunny, "let's go back to the Luckymobile. It will be late before we get out of the woods and maybe the electricity will all be gone and then we can't light the lamps, and maybe we'll be arrested."

And this is just what happened. They had only gone a little ways when they heard a voice say:

"Stop your motor car, I say, You have no lamps to light the way. Come, stop your car and get right out! Listen, don't you hear me shout? Stop your car or I will shoot. Don't try away from me to scoot!"

"We don't intend to," said Uncle Lucky, and he put on the brake and the Luckymobile came to a standstill. And there in the road stood a big Policeman Cat, with a club and gold buttons on his coat and a big helmet, and his number was two dozen and a half.

"Get out of your car," he commanded, which means to say something sternly, but before the two little rabbits obeyed, something happened, but what it was you must wait to hear in the next story.

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