One sunny afternoon, I, Benny the Bunny, was hopping around Bunny Meadows, my favorite place to explore. Everything looked so nice and green, and there were so many beautiful flowers all around me. I felt all cheerful and warm inside, just bouncing through the woods.
But then I remembered that my big brother, Bartholomew Bunny, had gone exploring on his own. I stopped hopping and thought, “Benny, why don’t you go back home for a while?” You know how it is. Unhappily, I had to admit that I was a little afraid exploring the meadow all by myself. But then I got a happy thought. “I’ll wait right here, and when big brother gets back, he can go with me. Then we’ll have double fun.”
So, I lay down on the green grass, nice and shady from the branches of the trees. And after an hour or two, what should happen but I heard something behind me and, turning around, I saw Bartholomew coming toward me.
“Oh, where have you been, big brother?” I cried. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’ve just been over in the next meadow to see the tulips,” Bartholomew said.
“Did you see any, or did you just spell it?” I asked him, for I know that he loves good jokes.
“No tulips at all,” said my big brother, “just some nice clover and plenty of buttercups.”
“Did you find any horses?”
“I wasn’t looking for them,” he said. “But if any horses were there, they wouldn’t have been good for much, as some very funny-looking sheep were eating them up.”
“Sheep eating horses!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, but don’t you be alarmed, Benny, for they were green horses,” Bartholomew said. “And all in good fun.”
“Oh, I see!” I answered, bursting out laughing. “You’re just making this up, big brother, New I’m glad you’re back. For I was getting a bit scary waiting for you here all alone; I don’t want to explore this meadow all by myself, and now you’ll help me! Together we’ll have such fun hopping and hopping from place to place.”
So, we started out at once, I hopping beside big brother Bartholomew. And soon we came to where some pretty red-and-white mushrooms were poking their heads up all through the green grass. We named it the mushroom patch, of course, which tickled Bartholomew, the name if nothing else.
Then we went over to a brook which was running, running, and rippling over the stones and puddling by old Mr. Toad’s tree.
“Bow wow wow, come to dinner, come to dinner! Bow wow wow,” the water seemed to be saying.
I listened as hard as I could.
“What does it mean, big brother?” I asked, hopping as close to the bank of the brook as I could.
“It means, Benny,” Bartholomew replied, holding one of my ears down so I could hear better, “it means come to dinner, can’t you hear?”
“I can hear all right,” I told him. “But who on earth would want a lot of wet water to eat for dinner? Excuse me, please; I don’t want any.”
“No, no, you don’t understand. It just sounds like bow wow wow. It really means to invite everybody on the other side of the brook to come to dinner.”
For you see, whenever Mr. Toad is going to have a party at his house, he puts his sign out just like he does at a hotel, which says: “Come to Dinner,” you know. And all the little furry animals and feathered creatures come hopping and flapping as near as they can and stand waiting till they get their dinner.
Now, I was too young to go, because it was just only the other day that I was having good times in a nursery. And, anyhow, I’m never invited to Mr. Toad’s; that’s logical enough. As I told big brother Bartholomew, it would never do.