Fifteen Rabbits

  THANKS

  FOR DOWNLOADING THIS EBOOK!

  We have SO many more books for kids in the in-beTWEEN age that we’d love to share with you! Sign up for our IN THE MIDDLE books newsletter and you’ll receive news about other great books, exclusive excerpts, games, author interviews, and more!

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  or visit us online to sign up at

  eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com/middle

  If you would keep men from becoming as animals, strive ever to see animals as men.

  Fifteen Rabbits

  WHERE ARE MY BROTHERS and sisters?” The little rabbit, who was sitting beside his mother under the fern fronds, suddenly asked the question.

  He was no bigger than a lump of earth from the forest loam. He looked like a ball of wool, but he seemed almost as soft as the softest down, almost as light as air. He was quite covered with a misty-gray color of that fine mixture which we call pepper and salt. He was as insubstantial, and at the same time as wonderful, as the first pale shimmer of the early morning that was just breaking. On his brow was a white star, the emblem of his childhood.

  “Where are my brothers and sisters?” he asked again. He had just remembered them, he did not know why; and he did not bother his head about it. He was accustomed to asking questions, therefore he asked.

  His mother was silent.

  A large and stately hare, she sat cowering low on her haunches. She had a black stripe at the bend of her spoonlike ears. Her powerful white whiskers kept up a gentle but constant motion. It seemed impossible that the tiny youngster beside her would ever become as large as she was.

  “It seems to me,” he began again, “it seems to me as if I had several brothers and sisters.”

  As no reply was forthcoming he continued, “Brothers and sisters were with me. But I don’t know how many of them now; it was so long ago, and I was still too small, at that time.”

  That “long ago” and “at that time,” had their own meaning, for the little rabbit had been in the world only a few weeks.

  Chapter One

  WITHOUT CHANGING HER POSITION, HIS mother turned toward him very slightly. But her whiskers moved somewhat more energetically. “Yes, yes!” she said, “you’re getting bigger, Hops my dear. It’s really astonishing how fast you’re growing.”

  The diminutive Hops reared himself up straight, sat on his hind legs, raised his ears delightedly. “Where are the others?” he insisted.

  “Disappeared,” his mother answered softly.

  The small ears flattened. “You disappear sometimes, too,” he said, “but you come back again.”

  His mother kept her nose pressed between her forepaws and was silent.

  Hops suspected something bad. “When . . . will the others come back again?”

  His mother pressed her head still closer between her forepaws and answered even more softly, “Never.”

  “Where are they?” Hops was anxious, but he did not give way to it.

  “They are lost.”

  Hops did not quite understand what he heard. But he was alarmed. After a pause he asked, “And I . . . will I be lost, too?”

  His mother trembled. “Hops . . . my beloved Hops . . .” She sighed before she continued, “You must take care, must watch out constantly, constantly. Constantly—do you understand? And you must be able to run quickly, quicker than any other creature in the forest.”

  “Oh, but Mother,” Hops solemnly affirmed, “I always do watch out. I don’t even know exactly why, but I do watch out.”

  “You’re a good boy,” his mother praised him. “Someday you’ll learn for yourself why we must always be on guard. You’re still my little one.”

  “And I can run, too,” Hops exclaimed, “just watch me!”

  He began to run, awkwardly, childishly, but with the best of wills. He bounced around his mother, scampering in wider and wider circles.

  His mother sat still and watched him. A brief sense of satisfaction warmed her heart. Then she muttered to herself, “One way or another . . . no one can hold one’s children . . .” She let her stately ears droop mournfully and slowly as she repeated the words, “One way or another . . . our children never stay with us . . . there comes a day when they need us no more.”

  Hops fell into an ecstasy of running. That little ball of gray wool, as Hops’ mother called him, bounded over the ground, under the fern fronds and lettuce leaves, under the low thin branches of young dogwoods and blackberries. Many of the stalks brushed him softly as they flew back. It was pleasant; it made him want to run still faster.

  The forest began to awaken.

  A pale light filtered into the thicket through the fresh green of the treetops.

  With a loud rustle the pheasants left their roosts, and their metallic calls, splintered and bursting, rang out everywhere. They sounded as though tongues of dazzling flame were flaring up here and there throughout the forest, only to die out again. They sounded like cries regretted even at the very moment of utterance, cries of mingled pain and desire.

  High overhead, on the highest, thinnest, topmost branches of the beeches and lindens sat the blackbirds. Seen from the earth they were no bigger than black specks, but the May morning was alive with the haunting and changeable music of their songs.

  The oriole’s golden-yellow body darted from tree to tree and exulted as it flew, always with the same inspired notes, as if the sun had just risen.

  The angry screaming of the jays shrilled through the air. The dancing, laughing tones in which the magpies chatter could be heard. The bushes were alive with the delicate twittering of the brisk little titmice and the chirping of the hedge-sparrows.

  Again and again, from far and near, the cuckoos called.

  When Hops came back after his run, his mother was gone.

  He did not look for her.

  Several other young rabbits came through the underbrush. Here and there, quite close sometimes, sometimes farther off, they bounced and ran or sat erect, their ears pricked up.

  Hops, who knew them all, joined their revels.

  Chapter Two

  HOPS SPENT MANY OTHER MORNING hours out on the meadow with the companions of his childhood.

  During the long, wondrously varied hour of the waning of night, when the darkness lifted and floated off like a black veil, as the sky grew brighter and the stars paled, during that hour the little rabbits disported on the meadow.

  It lay in the midst of the leafy forest and had no exact shape, either circular or otherwise. In one place the forest flung out an advanced spur like a narrow peninsula. In another place the meadow dug a bay deep into the thicket. Only a lake, a pond, or a wild meadow could be so irregular, so fascinating. It was like a breathing-space in the huge forest, a little spot of freedom, light, air and—danger.

  There the young rabbits romped about in the happy frenzy of childhood.

  They resembled little wisps of clouds still bearing the light of the sky in them. They looked so disembodied, so soft.

  Round and round they chased one another, close to the edge of the forest. Then a Something, always present to their childish senses, told them one can never know what may happen, and that it was to their advantage to vanish with one bound into the thicket.

  Hops was one of the most cautious of them. Often he would feel an urge to run farther and farther into the middle of the meadow. He restrained himself, now and again with an effort, though he did not know why. He always remained quite close to the edge of the thicket, ever prepared to flee and hide himself.

  Little Plana entrusted herself to his guidance. It had come about quite by chance.

  Plana was lively and wanton, though without the least self-consciousness.

  When the others rolled head over heels becau
se they scampered so fast, little Plana was in the thick of it. When they all bounded into the air, transported by their own involuntary somersaults, and first really began to run as though bewitched, Plana was the maddest among them.

  Then Hops would wiggle his ears and call to her.

  “Plana!”

  She came at once.

  “Stay with me.”

  She stayed. She sat beside him, gazing happily at him. He kept silent.

  She was charming, that little Plana. There was something touching about her, some quality of helpless devotion.

  Hops could not understand it so clearly. But he felt it well enough when Plana was sitting beside him.

  Sometimes the little rabbits were almost crazy with joy in themselves, in the strong, enlivening morning air, in the breath of the grasses and flowers.

  Then they would bounce one after the other so swiftly that it was impossible to tell which was the pursuer and which the pursued. They couldn’t have told themselves.

  Plana, too, fell regularly into that ecstasy which even Hops could not withstand. He romped with Plana, back and forth, up and down, but always near the thicket, always close to the protecting bushes.

  If Plana wanted to dash wantonly over the meadow, Hops would instantly recollect himself and call, “Not so far!”

  Plana would come back and sit down beside him, merely saying, “You’re always afraid.”

  Haughty pheasants strutted across the grass, brilliantly colored, proud, with nodding heads. They were the fathers of families on a holiday. Inside, in the more open thicket, the hens were leading about their broods. The mothers, swarmed about by the little chicks, had a downcast, self-conscious air and could never sit quietly because of their constant watchfulness.

  Out on the meadow a deer would lift its head, move its ears gracefully and stare at the playful little rabbits.

  Sometimes they lost their breath, running and jumping. Then they would sit still, assume serious, even grave, expressions. At such moments the shadow of a hard destiny to come seemed to lie upon them all.

  Without stirring they would sit while their chests heaved and their pulses throbbed.

  But such young rabbits do not take long to recover themselves.

  Soon one would begin again, sit up on his hind legs, peer impudently around. A second would hop up to him and nudge his flank. A third would act as if the whole flock were after him and run like mad.

  Then the whole band would begin running at once in circles.

  One day, however, the general happiness was seriously disturbed.

  One diminutive little rabbit was so out of his senses with joy that he kept on running, right out into the middle of the meadow. He was a gay little thing, the maddest, the liveliest of them all. Confident, curious, inexperienced, befuddled by his own joy, he kept on running.

  A pair of crows, who were sweeping over the field, saw the little rabbit bouncing alone across the meadow.

  The blackbirds swooped quickly down upon him, and, before the poor thing could think, he felt a burning pain in both eyes. The beautiful green world vanished, grew black. Agony shot through his brain. It was all over.

  The cry of the dying young one who had hardly begun to live passed unheard. Too softly it sounded, too suddenly it ended.

  Nothing was left but some scattered bits of soft wool and a little blood that clung in ruby-red drops to the grass-stems or soon soaked into the earth.

  Several of the little rabbits had not even noticed the incident. A few had seen the crows swoop down. During the brief moment that they sat erect with their ears lifted, they had guessed rather than witnessed the death overtaking their comrade on the meadow.

  Perturbed, they dropped down and fled in the midst of their game, into the thicket.

  But not one of them said so much as a word to any of the others about what had happened.

  A silent horror possessed them, diminished in time but made them untalkative.

  Hops was sitting under a low, thick elder-shrub on the edge of the meadow, with Plana beside him. Above the elder and the other bushes towered a huge and ancient oak, its branches spreading gloriously.

  Two squirrels chased one another up the tree and down again. Their red plumes twitched among the bright green leaves.

  “It’s dangerous to run out like that . . .” Hops said softly.

  Plana merely sighed.

  They both sat quite still. Now and again their ears moved, their whiskers quivered.

  When the sun rose and its first rays blazed down like far-flung, golden spears, the little rabbits crept into the cool shade of the thicket. They did not remain together. Each of them slipped off to the bed he had hollowed out under the overhanging branches of some bush. Everyone alone and everyone for himself, their thin little bodies nestled into the warm earth, they lay without motion and gave themselves up to a light sleep.

  Only Hops and Plana stayed close together.

  The birds sang, twittered, fluted and rejoiced for a few hours longer, filled the blue morning sky with exultation, talked over their love affairs, their sorrows, joys and differences. Then the midday spread its hot, brooding silence over the forest.

  “How beautiful,” said Plana, waking at times from her half-sleep.

  “Beautiful . . . but hard,” Hops answered each time, and each time added the warning, “Lie still.”

  Chapter Three

  PLANA WAS NOT ALWAYS INCLINED to heed Hops’ warning. She had heard those words too often. She no longer gave them much thought and sometimes even felt herself excited by them. Now and again it happened that the moment Hops whispered, “Lie still,” she would jump up and begin to race around in circles.

  “You’re crazy,” Hops would grumble.

  To which Plana would retort, “Crazy—with joy.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Hops would warn her, “but then it will be too late.”

  Plana would crouch down immediately. “Nothing has happened yet,” she said placatingly.

  “But something may happen any minute.”

  “Well, I’m being quiet now,” Plana assured him, and lay without stirring on her bed.

  But one night they both witnessed an event that made them tremble.

  Huge, silent and majestic, the owl went sweeping over the woods, sometimes high above them, skirting the treetops, sometimes very close to the ground.

  Never before had either of them beheld so marvelous a creature. Still Hops was distrustful; for some unknown reason the apparition seemed weird to him. He did not stir. As quietly as he could, he gave Plana, who was about to spring up, a sharp warning.

  Obediently she crouched down again.

  But another little rabbit, about twenty hops away from them, wanted to see the wonderful, hovering shadow, and moved, barely visibly, ever so softly.

  In an instant he was covered by the owl’s broad pinions, was buried under the noiseless and seemingly tender plumage. Had it not been for the brief, feeble cry of agony that pierced Hops’ and Plana’s ears, they would have thought it a caress.

  Like sharp knives, the owl’s talons penetrated the rabbit’s slender little body. A few blows of its beak, and he was dead in the very act of being lifted, of being borne off through the night air.

  “Horrible,” Plana whispered. She was trembling with terror.

  Hops waited in silence.

  Then Plana understood the warning Hops was constantly giving her. She had seen how one expiates his inquisitiveness, his heedlessness. She was grateful to Hops. In her own blood she now heard an anxious voice whispering, “Lie still.”

  In the morning several of the mothers came to see their little ones.

  Hops, too, crouched again beside his mother and told her the story of the owl.

  “Yes, yes,” she said thoughtfully, “all things threaten us, all creatures hunt us—and yet we hunt no one.”

  “Where is my father?” Hops asked suddenly. He felt a longing for a protector.

  His mother dre
w back. “What are you thinking of?” she cried, while her spoonlike ears fluttered nervously in the air. Her handsome whiskers quivered excitedly as she went on, “What sort of rash idea is that! Don’t dare to dream of so much as crossing his path!”

  Hops conquered the shyness which so easily overcame him. “Why not?” he demanded.

  “Why, my child,” his mother cried, “. . . he’d kill you!”

  Hops was shocked. It took some time before he could grasp it. “. . . kill me?” he stammered.

  “Don’t let him set eyes on you,” his mother commanded, “at least, not at long as you’re so tiny.”

  “Why does he hate me?” Hops wanted to know.

  “Oh, he doesn’t hate you,” his mother sighed a little, “but he’s so terribly in love with me: I’ve got to be with him constantly, constantly . . .”

  Hops sat perplexed. He didn’t understand a single word.

  His mother began to explain. “You see . . . I want to be with my little ones . . . as I am now with you . . . for at present I’ve only got you. But he doesn’t understand, he can’t bear it! If he as much as sees one of the babies, he becomes furious. In his jealousy, in his rage he’s no longer himself.”

  “Did he ever . . . ?” Hops stammered.

  “Almost . . .” his mother said hastily. “Almost . . . Will I ever forget the shock it gave me! But I managed to save the little thing.”

  Hops sat silent, brooding. This was a serious matter which he could not quite understand. It was painful to hear, and at the same time, it was in some strange way beautiful and thrilling.

  “Mother,” he said at last, “is that the reason I see you so seldom?”

  “Don’t be angry with your father, Hops,” she answered quickly.

  He lay crouched as small as possible against the earth, his ears flattened. “No,” he said, “I’m not angry with him . . . I can’t be angry with him . . . only . . . to think that I have to be afraid of him, too . . . even of him!”

  “Not for long, though,” his mother comforted him, “not for long. Soon you’ll be big enough. Soon the white star will disappear from your forehead. Then you can show yourself to him without fear, and he’ll be very nice to you.”