to cough and choke at a
rate that made me feel as if I were doing a pretty good job.

"'Look here, you long-eared old hopper, you! Stop kicking up so much
dust, or I'll chew you into shoe-strings when I get at you!' he cried,
and I knew from the sounds that he was trying to wipe the dirt from
his eyes.

"'Yes, and that's what you count on doing whether I kick up a dust or
not,' I said, speaking as if I were as brave and big as Senator Bear.
'If you eat rabbit stew for supper to-night, you'll have to work for
it, that's what!'

"It was quite a spell before he went to work again, and I sat there
ready to use my hind feet the minute he had his nose anywhere near the
door, knowing all the while that Mrs. Bunny and Sonny were working for
dear life at the other end of the house.

"I hadn't much more than begun to scratch gravel again when I heard
the sharpest kind of a yelp from Mr. Fox, and I couldn't help laughing
out loud, for I thought I'd most likely sent a stone into his eye; but
I soon found out that wasn't the cause of it.

"Now what do you think had happened? Why, Mr. Man's boy Tommy's dog
Towser had happened along just in the nick of time, so far as I was
concerned, and dear me! how he was jumping into Mr. Foxy Fox! Talk
about fighting! I never heard such a row. As I afterward learned,
nearly every member of our club was awakened by the racket, and you
might have searched them all without finding anything like pity for
Foxy.

"We never had any love for Mr. Towser before; but now it seemed as if
he were the very nicest kind of animal that ever lived. I knew Mr. Fox
was bound to get the worst of it, so back I ran to tell Mrs. Bunny.
When she heard the good news, instead of sitting down with me to
laugh, she said real sharp-like:

"'Don't get to feeling good too soon, Bunny. Nobody knows how many
wicked animals will come around to see what is going on, and when Mr.
Towser finishes the job we may find ourselves nearer to a stew than
before. Sonny and I have nearly finished making another door, and the
best thing you can do is to close up the front one while Mr. Foxy Fox
and Mr. Towser are so busy. Then we'll go over and visit your cousins
till we can build a new house, for I wouldn't stay in this one another
night.'

"When Mrs. Bunny really sets her mind on anything, the easiest way for
me is to give in to her, and back I went, scratching the dirt against
the door the best I knew how, though I was aching to