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The hounds come to the very spot and halt and cast about; and halt and cast in vain. Their spell is broken by the merry stream, and the wild thing lives its life. And this was one of the great secrets that Raggylug learned from his mother "after the Brierrose, the Water is your friend." One hot, muggy night in August, Molly led Rag through the woods.
Then the sound came nearer, "rustle rustle rustle"; then grew fainter, then came nearer; in and out, nearer and nearer, like something coming; only, when Raggylug heard anything coming he always heard its feet, stepping ever so softly. What could it be that came so smoothly, rustle rustle without any feet? He forgot his mother's warning, and sat up on his hind paws; the sound stopped then.
And every morning, when Molly Cottontail went out to get their food, she said to Raggylug, 'Now, Raggylug, remember you are only a baby rabbit, and don't move from the nest. No matter what you hear, no matter what you see, don't you move!" all this is different still, yet it is familiar, too; it appears that rabbits are rather like folks.
With all the strength of his tiny limbs he tried to run. But in a flash the Snake had him by one ear and whipped around him with his coils to gloat over the helpless little baby bunny he had secured for dinner. "Mammy Mammy," gasped poor little Raggylug as the cruel monster began slowly choking him to death.
Raggylug, or Rag, was the name of a young cottontail rabbit. It was given him from his torn and ragged ear, a life-mark that he got in his first adventure. He lived with his mother in Olifant's swamp, where I made their acquaintance and gathered, in a hundred different ways, the little bits of proof and scraps of truth that at length enabled me to write this history.
Remember you are only a baby rabbit, and lie low." And Raggylug always said he would. One day, after his mother had gone, he was lying very still in the nest, looking up through the feathery grass. By just cocking his eye, so, he could see what was going on up in the world. Once a big blue-jay perched on a twig above him, and scolded someone very loudly; he kept saying, "Thief! thief!"
Hop! hop! she went again, and this time she hurt him so that he twisted and turned; but he held on to Raggylug. Once more the mother rabbit hopped, and once more she struck and tore the snake's back with her sharp claws. Zzz! How she hurt! The snake dropped Raggy to strike at her, and Raggy rolled on to his feet and ran.
Far, far away she led him, through the long grass, to a place where the big snake could not find him, and there she made a new nest. And this time, when she told Raggylug to lie low you'd better believe he minded! I am going to tell you a story about something wonderful that happened to a Christmas Tree like this, ever and ever so long ago, when it was once upon a time.
There is just enough of strangeness to entice, just enough of the familiar to relieve any strain. When the child has lived through the day's happenings with Raggylug, the latter has begun to seem veritably a little brother of the grass to him.
He listens wide-eyed, while you say, "and he lived in a warm, cosy nest, down under the long grass with his mother" how delightful, to live in a place like that; so different from little boys' homes! "his name was Raggylug, and his mother's name was Molly Cottontail.
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