th them?"

"Do with them?" asked Mary Jane. "What is there to do?"

Grandfather looked down at the little girl; by this time she was on her
knees beside the nest, and bending over the little rabbits as though
she'd like to touch them but didn't feel quite well enough acquainted.
"Shall we leave them out here or--"

But Mary Jane didn't give him a chance to finish his sentence.

"Oh, Grandfather!" she exclaimed, "could we take them home?"

"I guess we could if you wanted to," he said. "Your mother was always
a great hand for pet rabbits and I believe that the very house I once
built for her, is up in the loft to this day. Let's cover them over
again and go find it."

"Will they stay here while we're gone?" asked Mary Jane as he tenderly
laid the leaves back over the little creatures.

"They will till their mother gets a chance to take them away," answered
Grandfather. "If she thinks we'll hurt them, she'll carry them to some
other hiding place. But if we hurry, we'll get them first."

"Won't she know that we'll take good care of them?" asked Mary Jane.

"She won't know it at first," replied Grandfather, "but she'll soon
find out. We'll fix them up in a comfortable box and they'll be as
safe and happy and perhaps even better fed than if they'd stayed out
here in the woods where stray dogs might hurt them. Come on, now,
Pussy; let's hurry for the box."

Mary Jane took hold of his hand again and they hurried back through the
pasture and the cornfield to the barn.

It didn't take Grandfather long to find the little rabbit house he had
made for Mary Jane's mother years ago. "The box part is good as new,"
he said, "and I'll get some fresh screening from the attic to cover
over this open side."

Mary Jane trotted along beside him up to the mysterious, big attic at
the top of the house, where, from a dark corner, he pulled a strip of
new wire screen. They took it down to the back porch where he had left
the box and in less than half an hour he had the new home all ready for
the rabbits.

Of course Grandmother heard them working around and came to see what
was going on.

"Oh, the cunningest bunnies, five of them, we found," Mary Jane told
her, "little and soft and gray and white just like the Easter bunnies
in the store, and we're going to bring them up to your house to live so
not any bad dogs will hurt them and so I can feed them."

"Won't that be fun," said Grandmother approvingly, "but how are you