42 Ways of Wood Folk. 



only a brown rabbit that you almost stepped upon 

 in your autumn walk through the woods. 



Look under the crimson sumach yonder, there 

 in the bit of brown grass, with the purple asters 

 hanging over, and you will find his form, where 

 he has been sitting all the morning and where he 

 watched you all the way up the hill. But you need 

 not follow; you will not find him again. He never 

 runs straight ; the swaying leaves there where he dis- 

 appeared mark the beginning of his turn, whether to 

 right or left you will never know. Now he has come 

 around his circle and is near you again — watching 

 you this minute, out of his bit of brown grass. As 

 you move slowly away in the direction he took, peer- 

 ing here and there among the bushes, Bunny behind 

 you sits up straight in his old form again, with his 

 little paws held very prim, his long ears pointed 

 after you, and his deep brown eyes shining like the 

 waters of a hidden spring among the asters. And he 

 chuckles to himself, and thinks how he fooled you 

 that time, sure. 



To see Br'er Rabbit at his best, that is, at his 

 own playful comical self, one must turn hunter, and 

 learn how to sit still, and be patient. Only you 

 must not hunt in the usual way ; not by day, for then 

 Bunny is stowed away in his form on the sunny slope 

 of a southern hillside, where one's eyes will never 



