SNOW STORIES 49 
and even the dogged, devilish little weasel can run 
him down. 
We looked at the form where he had been lying. 
It was a wet little hollow made in the dank grass, 
with only a few dripping leaves for a mattress — a 
forlorn bed. Yet Runny-Bunny, as some children I 
know have named him, seems to rest well in his open- 
air sleeping porch, and even lies abed there. 
One far-away snowy day in February two of us 
stole a few moments from the bedside of a sick 
child — how long, long ago it all seems now! — and 
walked out among the wild-folk to forget. In a bleak 
meadow, right at our feet, we saw a rabbit crouched, 
nearly covered by the snow. He had been snowed 
under days before, but had slept out the storm 
until half of his fleecy coverlet had melted away. 
He lay so still that at first we thought he was 
dead; but on looking closely, we could see the quick 
throbbing of his frightened little heart. There was 
not a quiver from his taut body, or a blink from his 
wide-open eyes. He lay motionless until my hand 
stroked gently his wet fur. Then, indeed, he ex- 
ploded like a brown bomb-shell from the snow, and 
we laughed and laughed, the first and last time for 
many a weary week. 
Years later, I was coasting down the meadow-hill 
with one of my boys; and, as the sled came to a stop, 
a rabbit burst out of the snow, almost between the 
runners. The astonished boy rolled into a drift as if 
blown clear off his sled by the force of the explosion. 
To-day, as the Brownie sped over the soft snow, we 
