But the
strange thing does not move nor see him. To get a better view he leaps
up high above the ferns two or three times. Still the big thing
remains quite still and harmless. "Now," thinks Bunny, "I'll frighten
him, and find out what he is." Leaping high he strikes the ground
sharply two or three times with his padded hind foot; then jumps up
quickly again to see the effect of his scare. Once he succeeded very
well, when he crept up close behind me, so close that he didn't have
to spring up to see the effect. I fancy him chuckling to himself as he
scurried off after my sudden start.
That was the first time that I ever heard Bunny's challenge. It
impressed me at the time as one of his most curious pranks; the sound
was so big and heavy for such a little fellow. Since then I have heard
it frequently; and now sometimes when I stand at night in the forest
and hear a sudden heavy thump in the underbrush, as if a big moose
were striking the ground and shaking his antlers at me, it doesn't
startle me in the least. It is only Br'er Rabbit trying to frighten
me.
The next night Bunny played us another trick. Before Simmo went to
sleep he always took off his blue overalls and put them under his head
for a pillow. That was only one of Simmo's queer ways. While he was
asleep the rabbits came into his little _commoosie_, dragged the
overalls out from under his head, and nibbled them full of holes.
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