BILLY BUNNY and JAY BIRD
STORY III.
BILLY BUNNY AND JAY BIRD.
Well, Uncle Bullfrog didn't take off his waistcoat, as I thought he might in the last story, so I'm not going to tell you anything more about him.
We'll just leave him in the old Mill
Pond and go along with Billy
Bunny, who is hopping away toward the Friendly Forest.
By and by, after he had gone into the shady depths for maybe a million and two or three hops, he came across his old friend the jay bird, who had sold him the airship, you remember, and then bought it back again.
"I wish you'd kept your old
flying machine," said the jay bird
sorrowfully.
"But you wanted to buy it back," said the little rabbit, "so
it's not
my fault."
"Perhaps not," replied the sorrowful jay bird, "but that doesn't make matters any better."
"Why, what's the trouble?" asked the little rabbit, sitting down and taking a lollypop out of his knapsack.
"I had an accident," answered the jay bird.
"I ran into a thunder cloud and spilled out all the lightning, and, oh dear, oh dear. I just hate to talk about it, but I will. The lightning jumped all around and then struck the old tower clock and broke the main spring, so that it wouldn't go any more, and now nobody in Rabbitville can tell the day of the month, or when it will be Thanksgiving or Fourth of July."
"Let's go to the clock maker and ask him to fix it," suggested the little rabbit, and this so delighted the sorrowful jay bird that he smiled and flew after Billy Bunny, and pretty soon they came to the old clock maker, who was an old black spider.
"Certainly I'll fix it," he said, "but it will cost you nine million and some billion flies."
"All right," said Billy Bunny. "I'll go down to the 3 and 1-cent store and buy a fly catcher." So off he went and pretty soon he came back with a great big fly catching box, and after he had set it down, they stood and watched the flies go in until it was so full that not another one could even poke in his nose.
"Now, Mr. Spider," said Billy Bunny, "there are maybe a trillion flies in that box, for the storekeeper told me it was guaranteed to hold that many, so please fix the town clock, for it would be too bad if the little boys and girls didn't know it was Christmas when it really came."
So the spider got out his little tool bag and climbed up the steeple and fixed that old town clock so well that it began to play a tune, which it had never done before, and all the people in Rabbitville were so delighted that they gave the spider a little house to live in for the rest of his days.
