Bella Bunny was a cheerful little creature who lived in a sunny, quiet place called Bunny Meadow. Every morning, she would hop out of her cozy burrow, sniff the fresh flowers, and sample the crisp morning dew. But the tall grasses and colorful blooms of Bunny Meadow, though beautiful, could not contain Bella’s curiosity. She gazed longingly at the edge of the meadow where the forest grew thick and mysterious.
“Bella, you must never go near that frightful place,” her mother would often warn. “There are great dangers beyond the meadow—foxes, wolves, and even bad men with traps. Promise me you’ll always stay close to home.”
One bright morning in early spring, Charlie Mouse grouped the little Bunny with a timid smile. “Do you ever wish, Bella, to visit the Forest and see what may lie beyond the meadow?”
“Oh, yes!” replied Bella with sparkling eyes. “But don’t you remember what our mothers tell us?”
“Well, they have surely never been there. You can go as far as that big rock at the corner of the meadow. I will show you the way, and once we are outside, you will learn all by yourself. Just then a man came out of the Forest and began to gather up stones from the field. He carried away all that he could find, leaving a big bare space everywhere. Charlie crouched close to the ground, and Peter Bunny followed his example.
“I am afraid that man will see us,” he whispered, “and if he does, he may try to catch us in his net, as he did pretty little Thumper the other day. I do not want to see you in that fix, Bella, so let us go back to the meadow.”
They jumped quickly to the nearest big rock, where they stayed until the man disappeared. Then they went out, more easy in their minds, as the wild roses and honeysuckles began to bloom on the bushes near by. The next morning, Bella, resting after lunch on the green grass near the stone, spied in the meadow something like a nasty green snake, which went gliding along.
“What do you think that can be?” she cautiously inquired of Charlie. “I should be afraid to touch it!”
“It does look like a snake, that is certain,” Charlie replied doubtfully; “but why don’t what we know come out and tell us? Perhaps it is only a nasty caterpillar in a hurry to put on its dress of butterflies.”
“Well, I shall do nothing until I am sure of the facts,” Bella courageously replied.
In the evening she rose and stretched herself as high as she could in her power of to walk upon her hind feet. She then caught hold of the tip of the long green thing which seemed to come from a stone not very far off in the meadow. How much astonished was she when she found out that it was no snake or any animal of the kind! On the tip of one side was an angry little face, and looking at her out of two very wicked small eyes in the direction from which she was coming, was a tiny voice headed by a needle-like, quill-shaped nose and pointed chin.
“Hurt not the tip of my tail, if you please,” said the new comer. “It is not quite the way one ought to treat his neighbor! My sister, downstairs in that stone crib, wants me to ask you, young lady, if you choose to become one of the first coolies in her company of pensioners? We provide the best of food, and will show you great attentions if you only take charge of the dining-table and never leave your seat.”
“I must speak first to my mother,” was Bella’s answer.
“As for myself,” said Charlie Mouse, “your crying and screaming on some special occasion might make it agreeable to me beneath the ground, since I could be removed to a safer spot without experiencing inconvenience, provided the dishes were not on the tableland.”
But Charlie thought the diet was not quite the thing for him, and as the other coolies had to be taken into account, he changed his mind. To Bella, on the other hand, the offer appeared to promise well and have many interesting points. The next morning her health being better, she packed her knapsack and got her mother’s leave to enter upon the new service.