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“I really have a
weird problem.” Marsha made the statement as she visited on the phone
with her friend, Dee.
“I can't imagine you
having a weird problem. Dee thought about what a good mother her friend
was. “You always have such an organized way about everything around you.”
She told her.
“I've done it this
time. You see. I allowed the children to bring home a baby rabbit from
one of their school projects.”
“Oh I see.” Dee had
the picture. “Unfortunately, little things become big things?”
Dee could hear
Marsha's sigh on the telephone. “Oh yes. I'm afraid what was a cute little
bunny is now a very big, white, rabbit. Since you live in the country do,
you think you could find a place for it?”
It was now Dee's
time to sigh. “Well, I'll have to think about it. Maybe so, maybe not.
I'll come by when I pick the kids up from school just to take a look.”
“Oh thank you.”
Marsha was thankful for even such a small thing. Dee stopped to look in on
her friend's pet. She could see the problem. The poor rabbit had grown
until it was filling the cage. There was hardly room for a turn around
space.
“The poor thing.”
Dee thought.
“Your Dad will just
have to help me find a place for this little animal.” Dee told the
children as they rode home with the rabbit secure in its cage and in the
back seat.
Of course, Sam was
always ready for a solution. He simply used an old cage he already had.
He took the bottom out and set it directly on green grass. The cage was
quite large. Because it was made of wire it was light and easily moved.
The bunny had no possible chance of outgrowing this one. The advantage of
having green grass to continually nibble was nice too.
The children played
endlessly with the rabbit at first while it was in the cage. It had
obviously been a pet because it was so tame. Eventually they lifted the
cage away. The bunny stayed close to where they were. It had looked so big
in the first cage but now it seemed small as it hopped about playing with
the children.
At night Sam set the
bunny, cage and all, up on a large table. With a rock on top to weigh it
down the animal was protected from wandering dogs in the neighborhood.
The children would run
off to other parts of the yard. The bunny left behind didn't seem to mind.
He stayed close about the back door. When Dee looked out to see if he was
there she often took the cage and set it over him just in case a stray dog
or cat happened by.
“You know,” Dee spoke
to the children that evening at the table, “It might be a good idea for
you to put the cage on Rabbit when you leave him. He just could wander
off. You surely would feel bad if something happened to him.”
As it is the way
with kids though a lot of the time Rabbit was wandering about out of the
cage. It seemed he was farther and farther away from the back door too.
Dee wasn't centered on worrying about the rabbit. Endless chores about the
house kept her preoccupied.
Finally, one night
when the time came for Rabbit to be put up he wasn't anywhere around.
“I told you.” Dee
said. “You know that anything can happen to a rabbit. They haven't any
protection or way to fight back. However, the next morning there was
rabbit at the back door.
“Rabbit's back!
Rabbit's back! He's not dead.” The youngest one was elated to think his
pet rabbit was okay.
So it went like
this. The rabbit was with them during the day but at night he would not be
there to go in his cage. Finally a day passed with no Rabbit only for him
to show up again the next day. His on and off appearance began to be a
pattern they simply accepted. And then, all at once, he didn't show up at
all. Days went by with no Rabbit.
“Do you think
something got Rabbit?” Dee asked Sam.
“Oh, who knows?”
He wasn't going to be bothered.
Dee was waking up
early to enjoy the on coming summer. The weather was warm and this allowed
them to have the windows open. She stood at the kitchen door gazing out
the back door, coffee cup in hand. Rabbit's cage was still where they had
last used it. She was thinking they needed to put it away. All at once
there was a movement close to the cage. What was it? As Dee looked more
closely she could see two tiny baby bunnies. They were odd looking. Part
of their body was the brown-grey color of the wild rabbits but there were
large patches of white.
Dee chuckled to
herself. Well! Well! Apparently we should have referred to Rabbit as She
instead of He. For years and years the tame, wild, rabbits about the lawn
were interesting to visitors.
“They are so tame!”
Someone might comment. “Why do they have those patches of white on them?”
“It's a long
story!” Dee told them without volunteering any more information. |
