One time, long ago, there was a little rabbit
and her coat was gleaming white, and so she was called Little White Rabbit. She
liked to visit her Grandmother who lived in a lodge on the edge of a big
wood.
One day, as she was starting home from her grandmother's lodge, she met
a stranger she had never known before - a big lynx. He sang this song to
her:
Tell me, little one,
Why are your ears thin like leather?
All thin
and straight your ears are,
All thin and straight.
Why is this so, little
White one?
Little White Rabbit was so afraid of this stranger and his big
green eyes that she crouched flat to the ground and said, "E! E! E!". Then she
ran back to her grandmother as fast as she could.
"Oh Grandmother!!" she
said, "I met a stranger, a spotted one with green eyes and fringe on his ears.He
want to know why my ears are thin and straight!"
"Ho, that must be the lynx.
He is bad fellow," said her grandmother. "Run back and if you see the stranger,
tell him that your uncles fixed your ears that way when they came from the
South. Tell him only that.Do not say anything more, but run."
Little White
Rabbit ran back the same way to go home and there was the lynx again so Little
White Rabbit sang this song:
My uncles came from the South
and they fixed
my ears that way:
My uncles fixed my nice long ears
when they came from
the South.
Little White Rabbit would have started home then but the lynx
stared at her with his big green eyes and sang:
Where, pretty white
one,
Where do you go?
Where, pretty white one,
Where do you go?
Little White Rabbit was so frightened that she again said "E! E! E!" and ran
back to her grandmother again as fast as she could run. "Oh, Grandmother," she
said, "the spotted stranger wants to know where I am going. I am afraid of the
spotted one!"
"Ho!" said her grandmother, "you should be afraid of that
stranger. Go back and if you see him again tell him you are going home. Tell him
only that. Do not say more, but run."
Little White Rabbit went back to go
home and there was the stranger waiting again. But instead of repeating only her
grandmother's words, only what her grandmother said, Little White Rabbit
sang:
To the point of Land I go,
for there is where my home is.
To the
Point of Land,
there I am going, where I live.
Then Little White Rabbit
laid her ears flat back on her shoulders and started on, but the lynx stared at
her with those green eyes and sang this song:
Why, why do you run away,
pretty one?
Stay, pretty white one.
Tell me how you run so fast.
Tell
me how you keep your feet so dry.
Little White Rabbit was even more afraid
now, more than ever before and she said "E! E! E!" and she ran back to her
grandmother. She said "Oh, Grandmother, I am very afraid! The spotted one wants
to know how I can run so fast! He wants to know how I keep my feet so
dry!"
"Ho!" said her grandmother, "do not mind the lynx, he is not to be
trusted, we do not know him as a friend. He is a stranger. Do not listen to him
but run home to your mother. The lynx is only bad, an idle one who is not good
to listen to or be with. He is not to be trusted."
So Little White Rabbit ran
away just as fast as she could toward home. She did not see the lynx anywhere as
she ran home, so she began to feel safe. She hurried along the path wishing she
were safe at home with her mother on the Point of Land. Nowhere was she able to
see the spotted one with those big green eyes and fringed ears.
But the lynx
knew where she was going, for Little White Rabbit had told him. She had told him
more than her grandmother has said to tell him. She had told him where she
lived. Because the lynx was told more than he should know, he was able to slip
through the brush unseen and he quietly hid in the grass on the Point of Land,
very very close to Little White Rabbit's home. And when Little White Rabbit came
along the lynx jumped out and ate Little White Rabbit all up to the very last
bit. And Little White Rabbit never was seen again. No one ever knew what
happened to her that day. So it is told...
And so now you can see, it is not
good to stop and talk to strange ones, but rather one must say very little or
nothing to strange ones and run away to safety.
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