Welcome to Homeschool Story Time: Week 30.
This week’s story reveals how one act of kindness leads to another and another.
The end result is a lasting friendship between neighbors.
Keep reading to find out how all of this takes place on account of the bunnies.
On Account of the Bunnies
by Emma C. Dowd
Pauline looked through the picket fence and scowled.
“Oh, those poor little rabbits!” she whispered to herself. “I don’t believe that boy has fed them this morning. And now he’s gone off to play ball. It is a shame!” She glanced under the grape arbor, where some chickweed was growing luxuriantly, and for a minute she hesitated. The next, she was down among the chickweed, pulling it up by the handful.
She approached the fence again, looked cautiously around, to make sure nobody was in sight, and then thrust the green stuff between the pickets.
That first time of Pauline’s feeding the rabbits was followed by a second and a third, and finally it came to be a common thing for her to peer through the fence to see if they were supplied with food, and if not to carry them a good meal.
One morning Pauline was feeding them with celery tips, and, having become a bit careless, stopped to see them enjoy their feast. When she looked up she was disconcerted to see their owner watching her—only a few feet away.
“I beg your pardon,” she began, hesitatingly, “but I just thought I’d bring your rabbits a little celery.” And she turned to go.
“Oh—I say—wait a minute!” he returned, as her foot touched the fence. “So it’s you that’s been feeding them, is it? The fact is, I—forgot, you know.”
“I did feel sorry to see them hungry,” confessed Pauline; “and I love pets.”
“Say, you may have a couple of ’em, if you want,” he said generously.
“And I’ll help you fix a pen,” he added.
“Oh, thank you! I’d like them ever so much!” beamed Pauline. And there was the beginning of a firm friendship between the small neighbors.
Pauline was to be satisfied with no such little makeshift as John gave his own pets. Only the biggest sized dry-goods box would do for the house itself, and the yard that he helped to fence off with wire netting made him look disgustedly upon the tiny space allotted to the bunnies on his side of the pickets.
When at last, Pauline’s rabbits were in their new quarters. John gazed at them thoughtfully.
“Say!” he suddenly burst out. “I’m going to have just such a place for mine—big yard and all!”
“Oh, and I’ll help you!” cried Pauline.
The new pen brought about other improvements. Tangled weeds and rubbish heaps seemed most unsuitable surroundings for so dainty a little maid as Pauline Randall; so John cut down the weeds and mowed the grass. He raked up the brush and rags and tin cans. Pauline gave him slips from her own geraniums, and he made a flower bed to put them in.
“Mother says she’s awfully glad you fed my rabbits,” he confided to Pauline, one day, “for if you hadn’t our yard would probably be the same old place it has been for all these years.”
Pauline looked up from the baby bunny she was petting. “I’m glad, too,” she smiled. “If I hadn’t, we might never have been friends.”
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Many blessings,
