y angry. But Jimmy was not angry at all. _He_ didn't want
to fight.

While he was trying to think of some way out of his trouble, something
suddenly pulled him backward. Looking around, he saw Mr. Mink with his
cruel teeth fastened in that beautiful red tail.

"Let go of me!" Jimmy Rabbit cried.

But Mr. Mink didn't say a word. In order to speak, he would have had to
drop that precious tail. And he had no idea of doing that. Besides,
there was nothing he wanted to say. There was no use of his calling,
"Stop, thief!" when he had already stopped him, you know.

Jimmy Rabbit pulled with all his might. And Mr. Mink dug his four feet
into the ground and pulled with all of _his_.

And then, the first thing Jimmy knew, he fell forward, head over heels.
He was up in a jiffy, and off like a flash, running like the wind.

But this time Mr. Mink did not follow.

When at last Jimmy sat down to rest he discovered why it was that Mr.
Mink had stopped chasing him. His beautiful, new, red tail was gone! The
bit of string had broken under all that pulling. And now Jimmy Rabbit
had no tail except his own.

"Where's your fine, bushy tail?" Mr. Crow asked Jimmy the next morning.

"Oh! I discovered who the owner of it was," Jimmy said. "He came for his
property; and I let him have it."

But Mr. Crow was a wise old chap.

"Did you give him the string, too?" he inquired.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: 3 May Baskets]

3

May Baskets

Jimmy Rabbit was very busy. He was getting ready for May Day. And he
intended to hang two May baskets. One of them was already finished, and
filled with things that Jimmy himself liked--such as strips of tender
bark from Farmer Green's young fruit trees, and bits of turnip from his
vegetable cellar. You might almost think that Farmer Green himself ought
to have hung that basket. But Jimmy Rabbit never once thought of such a
thing. He expected to hang it on the door of a neighbor's house, where
there lived a young girl-rabbit. Jimmy had made that basket the best he
knew how.

The one he was working on now was a very different sort of basket. But
then--you see, he intended to give it to a very different sort of
person. He was going to hang _this_ one on Henry Skunk's door.

Frisky Squirrel, who happened to be passing Jimmy's house, stopped and
watched him. And he was surprised to learn that Jimmy was going to give
a May basket to Henry Skunk.

"What are you going to put in it?" Fris