Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
"You see," said Mother Wa-poose, "if it wasn't for the fire-sticks, the hounds would not bother us much. Why will the house people be so cruel to us? We never harm them. Last fall the fire-sticks killed six of my children." And Mother Wa-poose's eyes filled with tears at the thought.
Up and down beside the fence he ran several times, nosing the ground for the scent. "Look at him! Look at him," said Mother Wa-poose, fairly shaking her sides with laughter. "Isn't he a sight? But that won't teach him anything. He'll do it the next time. Rabbit chasing must be lots of fun for him." "I really do think he enjoys it," said little Luke.
Both of them have been around here several times. They know that I and my babies are here, but they can't get in. Old Boze tried it the other day, but went back to the house with a pair of bloody ears for his pains." "Yes, I noticed his ears," said little Luke, "and wondered what he had been up to." The little boy sat down as comfortably as he could and looked at Mother Wa-poose and her babies.
All the creatures in that strange assembly stirred slightly and looked at Wa-poose the big Rabbit. Wa-poose hopped forward a step or two and stood up on his hind legs. His ears were stretched straight up over his head, his paws were crossed in front of him, and he looked very queer. Then to little Luke's surprise, he spoke. "Man Cub," said Wa-poose, "a wonderful thing has happened to you.
Old Boze jumped over the fence and found the trail again. He followed it until he came to the creek. There he was puzzled. But he crossed the brook and found the trail at last. Over in the pasture he lost it again. Mother Wa-poose had been too cunning for him this time. After nosing the ground in all directions for a long time in vain, the old hound gave it up, and went back to the house.
I fairly shiver when I think of him. He nearly got me once. His sharp claws scratched my ears." Ko-ko-ka was very hungry. He knew the rabbits were in that meadow, and hated to go off without one. While Wa-poose had been talking, he had been sailing slowly round the field. Now he was coming back again. As he flew over little Luke's head he looked down.
"Mother Wa-poose," said he after a while, "what makes you wriggle your nose so?" "Oh," said Mother Wa-poose, "I do that to keep my smeller clear. You see we have so many enemies that we have to be on the watch all the time, and I can smell a fox or a dog almost as far as I can see them. You see I always sit with my nose to the wind, and my ears in the other direction.
But they refused to take part in the killing and flesh eating, and so they suffered more from hunger than some of the wild kindreds. Year by year, on account of the scarcity of food, the Wa-poose folk became smaller until they were as you see them now. "In the beginning, as I have said, the Red Men and the wild kindreds spoke one language.
I was down in the garden last night after a meal of cabbage leaves, and I suppose he has found my track." Mother Wa-poose sprang out of her hiding place and went down the slope ten feet at a bound. She crossed her old track near the pasture bars and hopped slowly on to the edge of the blackberry patch. There she sat till she was sure that Old Boze had found her new trail.
Over the heap of half-rotted brushwood a tangle of wild vines had spread, and up through them a thicket of blackberry bushes had grown. This was just the place for a rabbit nest. Mother Wa-poose could squat anywhere in the pile and her brown coat would blend with the dead brush so perfectly that only the keenest eye could see her.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking