'SUSIE'S BABY RABBIT."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 97, 27 April 1938, Page 22

'SUSIE'S BABY RABBIT."

A STORY OF A GRATEFUL GNOME. Susie was a very little girl and she was still sitting in the wheelbarrow in which Bertie, her big brother, had wheeled her all the way to tlie woods, to find a baby rabbit. She did so want a baby rabbit. She had had one once, but one morning she had found the door wide open and the hutch empty. "Never mind, Susie," Bertie said kindly. "We'll come another day. We shan't get one now," and he picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and turned it in the direction of home. At that very moment they heard a sound like someone running, which gradually came nearer and nearer, until at last a tiny gnome rushed out of the bracken and stopped too out of breath to speak, by the side of the wheelbarrow.

"Oil save me, do save me," lie.{rasped, ;is soon as he could get a word out. "Wliat's up?" asked Bertie, looking down at liim. "Mr. F«.x! Trying to eateli me," the little gnome panted. "Hide nie. Do hide me somewhere or he'll gobble me up." And now, still some little distance away, they could distinctly hear a patter, like a dog running. "Save me, do hide me somewhere," the poor, terrified little gnome pleaded, and Bertie quickly picked him up and popped him in the wheelbarrow, where lie crouched down in a corner and Susie spread her skirts over him, so that he was quite hidden from sight. Then Bertie picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow once more, but he hadn't wheeled it more than a few steps when Mr. Fox rushed out of the bracken,, paused for a moment, as if about to ask some questions, but altered his mind instead and ran on. "Is lie gone?" whispered the little gnome. ' "Yes!" Susie whispered, back, and up came the little head and he peeped cautiously over the side of the wheelbarrow. "Now I really must go home," the gnome remarked, all his courage returning now that the threatening danger was past. "Where do you live?" asked Bertie. "Windy Dell." the gnome replied. "Over there," and he pointed in the very direction they were going.

"We pass there. We'll take you," Bertie, and on they went, the gnome and Susie chattering together in the wheelbarrow, as if they were quite old friends. On the way Susie told the gnome how much she wanted a baby rabbit and when at last they reached Windy Dell, Bertie stopped. "Wait a. moment," the little gnome said, as he jumped out of the wheelbarrow and ran into his tiny house, and he wasn't gone more than a minute or two before lie came back, carrying the prettiest black and white rabbit imaginable and put it in Susie's arms. "That's for you," he said, "because you saved inv life." and he ran quickly into his house again and shut the door. And it was a, very happy little girl and a very happy little rabbit that Bertie wheeled the rest of the way home.