, Nursy, and we had a beautiful time playing hide-and-seek under the
bedclothes."

The nurse stared hard at Edith, and then shook her head. "You're a naughty
girl, and I'll give the rabbit to Carlo. See if I don't?"

This didn't frighten the girl a bit, and she laughed in the nurse's face;
but it gave Bumper such a shock that he missed three heart beats and one
of his whiskers, for he knew Carlo was the dog he had heard barking all
night long.

STORY VI

BUMPER AND CARLO

The little white rabbit found a home already waiting for him in the
prettiest corner of the garden, but before that the red-haired girl
harnessed him to a ribbon, and let him eat grass and vegetables to his
heart's content wherever he took a fancy to go. Edith lost her appetite
apparently in watching her pet eat, for she wouldn't go into breakfast
even after the nurse had called her several times; but finally, when her
mother came out, and took her by the hand, she obeyed.

"Can't I take the rabbit in with me?" she asked.

"No, dear, put him in the pen over there. He'll be quite content alone."

So Bumper found himself alone in the garden, or rather in a pen shut off
from the rest of the garden by stout chicken wire. There was a box in back
of the pen, filled with soft grass and straw, and a tin pan filled with
fresh water. There was such a variety of things to eat that he kept
nibbling first a carrot, then a cabbage, then a blade of grass, then some
corn, then a piece of bread, then some crackers, then a red beet, then a
spear of grass again, and so on through all the long list of good things.

It was such a mixture that he was never sure just what he had in his
mouth. It was just as if a boy or girl had crammed the mouth full of gum
drops, chocolates, fudge, lollypops, taffy, peppermint, lemon and
wintergreen drops, and a few pieces of fruit cake by way of change. How
could he or she tell just what the teeth were munching on?

Bumper tasted them all, and thought that each one was sweeter and better
than the other; but when he got around to the end of his circle he had to
begin all over again to see if they didn't all taste better the second
time. My, it was a feast that made his eyes open and his stomach swell
like a toad's trying to swallow a gnat.

Edith came out so soon that Bumper knew right away that she hadn't eaten
much breakfast, and half of it was in her hands, and apparently the other
half was on her face instead of bein