WISE OLD HARE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 23

WISE OLD HARE

BLACK RABBIT’S COAT Once upon a time there lived a Wise Old Hare. He was fat and he was lazy, and he wore a pair of spectacles on his nose, and sat all day beside the gorse bush at the top of the hill and read his Book. Long ago Wise Old Hare found the Book and the spectacles lying on the hill, and he thought to himself: “Now I will sit all day on the top of the bill and pretend to read my Book, and I will pretend to know all things, and when the animals come to ask me questions they will bring me dandelion leaves, and I need never go to search for food any more.” One, day there came up the hill a Black Rabbit'. He carried a p.awful of dandelion leaves, and he said: “Ob, Wise Old Hare, what shall I do? All the rabbits laugh at me because, my coat is black, and I grow more and more unhappy every day.' Wise Old Hare took the' dandelion leaves and looked at Black Rabbit over his spectacles. Then he turned to his Book and pretended to read out: “It is really quite easy to be popular even though you are a Black Rabbit. All you have to do is to pretend you are pleased you have a black coat.” So Black Rabbit ran off to the warren. . .... “Ha-ha-ha!” hooted a little Grey Rabbit, turning a somersault in front of her door. “There goes Smutty! Won’t your mother give you a bath?” .But Black Rabbit drew himself up proudly and cried: I “Mine’s a beautiful coat. I’d much ; rather have a black coat than a dirty I grey one.” The little Grey Rabbit stared at him in astonishment, and I Black Rabbit capered over the hill, calling down each hole as he passed: “What a beautiful coat I have! How glad I am that my coat is black and not a dirty grey!” and he shouted so loudly that he began really to feel glad that he had been born with a black coat. And all the rabbits came out of their holes and gazed at him enviously, and the baby rabbits ran- into the nearest garden and rolled themselves in a tub of soot, but they- could not make their coats sleek and shiny and black like Black Rabbit’s. And that night, as he sat in his own little home and nobody laughed at him, Black Rabbit tw-itched his whiskers happily and thought: “How true is the Book! How clever is Wise Old Hare!”