BUMPER THE WHITE RABBIT - 16 illustrated adventures of Bumper the White Rabbit E-Book

George Ethelbert Walsh

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

This book is for all little boys and girls who love animals and starts by telling readers where BUMPER THE WHITE RABBIT came from. It also tells of why Bumper was left at home and what happened next – an adventure second to none!

It traces Bumper’s adventures, like how he was sold and ended up at the dreadful house. We then read of Bumper’s relationship with the red-headed girl and with Carlo. He also meets a sewer rat and runs into a nest of bats. He makes his escape on a raft and sees his first black crow as well as meets a fox. He gains the admiration of the birds and meets Mr. Bear before finding his country cousins and eventually becomes the White King of the Rabbits.

The 16 illustrated stories and adventures of Buster in this volume are:
Story I Where Bumper Came From
Story II Why Bumper Was Left At Home
Story III Bumper Is Sold
Story IV What Happened In The Dreadful House
Story V Bumper And The Red-Headed Girl
Story VI Bumper And Carlo
Story VII Bumper Meets The Sewer Rat
Story VIII Bumper Runs Into A Nest Of Bats
Story IX Bumper Escapes On A Raft
Story X Bumper Sees His First Black Crow
Story XI Bumper Meets A Fox
Story XII Bumper Admired By The Birds
Story XIII Bumper Needs A Doctor
Story XIV Bumper Meets Mr. Bear
Story XV Bumper Finds His Country Cousins
Story XVI Bumper Becomes The White King Of The Rabbits

This volume is sure to keep you and your young ones enchanted for hours, if not because of the quantity, then their quality. They will have you coming back for more time and again.
============
KEYWORDS/TAGS: Bumper, White Rabbit, fairy tales, folklore, myths, legends, children’s stories, childrens stories, bygone era, fairydom, fairy kingdom, ethereal, fairy land, classic stories, children’s bedtime stories, happy place, happiness, laughter, Where Bumper Came From, Left At Home, Captured, Sold, The Dreadful House, Red-Headed Girl, Carlo, Meet, Sewer Rat, hops, Runs, Nest, Bats, Escape, Raft, Black Crow, Fox, Admiration, Birds, Doctor, Mr. Bear, Find, Country Cousins, White King Of The Rabbits

Leseprobe

BUMPERTHE WHITE RABBIT

ByGeorge Ethelbert Walsh

Colored Illustrations byEDWIN JOHN PRITTIE

Originally Published by

The John C. Winston CompanyChicago, Philadelphia, Toronto[1922]

Resurrected ByAbela Publishing, London[2018]

Bumper the White Rabbit

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2018

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission

of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

ISBN-: -X-XXXXXX-XX-X

email:

[email protected]

Website

Abela Publishing

ABELA: Zulu – to share or distribute

Not Until It Approached Very Close Did He Duck His Head And Look Up

Acknowledgements

Abela Publishing

acknowledges the work that

GEORGE ETHELBERT WALSH

and

EDWIN JOHN PRITTIE

did in writing and illustrating

Bumper The White Rabbit

in a time well before any electronic media was in use.

10% of the net profit from the sale of this book

will be donated to Charities.

Contents

Story I Where Bumper Came From

Story II Why Bumper Was Left At Home

Story III Bumper Is Sold

Story IV What Happened In The Dreadful House

Story V Bumper And The Red-Headed Girl

Story VI Bumper And Carlo

Story VII Bumper Meets The Sewer Rat

Story VIII Bumper Runs Into A Nest Of Bats

Story IX Bumper Escapes On A Raft

Story X Bumper Sees His First Black Crow

Story XI Bumper Meets A Fox

Story XII Bumper Admired By The Birds

Story XIII Bumper Needs A Doctor

Story XIV Bumper Meets Mr. Bear

Story XV Bumper Finds His Country Cousins

Story XVI Bumper Becomes The White King Of The Rabbits

Illustrations

Not until it approached very close did he duck his head and look up Frontispiece

He couldn't believe it was anything but a magic carrot

They tried to land on his back and claw him

Introduction To The Twilight Animal Stories

By the Author

All little boys and girls who love animals should become acquainted with Bumper the white rabbit, with Bobby Gray Squirrel, with Buster the bear, and with White Tail the deer, for they are all a jolly lot, brave and fearless in danger, and so lovable that you won't lay down any one of the books without saying wistfully, "I almost wish I had them really and truly as friends and not just storybook acquaintances." That, of course, is a splendid wish; but none of us could afford to have a big menagerie of wild animals, and that's just what you would have to do if you went outside of the books. Bumper had many friends, such as Mr. Blind Rabbit, Fuzzy Wuzz and Goggle Eyes, his country cousins; and Bobby Gray Squirrel had his near cousins, Stripe the chipmunk and Webb the flying squirrel; while Buster and White Tail were favored with an endless number of friends and relatives. If we turned them all loose from the books, and put them in a ten-acre lot—but no, ten acres wouldn't be big enough to accommodate them, perhaps not a hundred acres.

So we will leave them just where they are—in the books—and read about them, and let our imaginations take us to them where we can see them playing, skipping, singing, and sometimes fighting, and if we read very carefully, and think as we go along, we may come to know them even better than if we went out hunting for them.

Another thing we should remember. By leaving them in the books, hundreds and thousands of other boys and girls can enjoy them, too, sharing with us the pleasures of the imagination, which after all is one of the greatest things in the world. In gathering them together in a real menagerie, we would be selfish both to Bumper, Bobby, Buster, White Tail and their friends as well as to thousands of other little readers who could not share them with us. So these books of Twilight Animal Stories are dedicated to all little boys and girls who love wild animals. All others are forbidden to read them! They wouldn't understand them if they did.

So come out into the woods with me, and let us listen and watch, and I promise you it will be worthwhile.

Bumper the White Rabbit

STORY I Where Bumper Came From

There was once an old woman who had so many rabbits that she hardly knew what to do. They ate her out of house and home, and kept the cupboard so bare she often had to go to bed hungry. But none of the rabbits suffered this way. They all had their supper, and their breakfast, too, even if there wasn't a crust left in the old woman's cupboard.

There were big rabbits and little rabbits; lean ones and fat ones; comical little youngsters who played pranks upon their elders, and staid, serious old ones who never laughed or smiled the livelong day; boy rabbits and girl rabbits, mother rabbits and father rabbits, and goodness knows how many aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, second cousins and distant relatives-in-law! They all lived under one big roof in the backyard of the good old woman who kept them, and they had such jolly times together that it seemed a shame to separate them.

But once every day the old woman chose several of her pets, and carried them away in a basket to a certain street corner of the city where she offered them for sale. She was dreadfully poor, and often when she returned home at night, counting her money, she would murmur: "It's a cabbage for them or a loaf of bread for myself. I can't get both."

She didn't always get the loaf of bread, but the rabbits always had their cabbage. They were all pink-eyed, white rabbits, and people were willing to pay good prices for them. But the whitest and pinkest-eyed of them all was Bumper, a tiny rabbit when he was born, and not very big when the old woman took him away on his first trip to the street corner. Bumper had never seen so many people before, and he was a little shy and frightened at first; but Jimsy and Wheedles, his brothers, laughed at his fears, and told him not to mind.

After that he plucked up courage, and when a little girl suddenly ran out of the crowd and picked him up in her arms, he tried not to be afraid. "Oh, you sweet little thing!" the girl exclaimed, pinching his ears softly. "Where did you come from, and where did you get those pink eyes and those long, fluffy ears?"

Then the girl kissed Bumper and rubbed his nose against her soft, fresh young cheek; but when the old lady approached, all smiles, and said, "Want him, dear?" she put him down in the basket again.

"Want him? Of course, I want him!" she replied a little scornfully. "But I can't buy him to-day. I spent all my birthday money on candies and cakes. Take him now before I steal him and run away."

She was a pretty girl, with red hair, a dimple in her chin, and one big freckle on the end of her nose; but her eyes were blue, and they made Bumper think of the sky which he could see through a hole in the roof of his house. I suppose it was because he had pink eyes that he thought blue was so becoming to little girls.

That night when he got home, Bumper was bursting with excitement. The day's experience was enough to cause this, but the words of the little girl who had spent all of her birthday money for candies and cakes were fresh in his mind. The first thing he did when he got in his box was to pester his mother with so many questions that she had hard work answering them.

"A little girl asked me where I came from, mother, and I couldn't answer her. Where did I come from?"

"Why, dear, from a snowball, of course. How else could you be so white?"

"And have I pink eyes?" That was the little girl's second question.

"What color did you think they were?" asked Bumper's mother, smiling. "Look at the eyes of your brothers and sisters."

Bumper looked in Jimsy's and Wheedle's eyes, and saw they were pink, but he was still doubtful. "But mine," he added, "are you sure they're pink? They might be green or yellow—"

Mother rabbit laughed and hopped over to a basin of water which the good old woman kept filled for her pets. "Look in that," she said, "and then tell me what you see."

Trembling with excitement, Bumper plunged both front paws in the basin, and the water rippled in little waves so that he could see nothing. He was terribly disappointed at first, for the water was a little dirty, and he was afraid the black specks floating in it might be the reflection of his eyes. Then the water cleared as the dirt settled at the bottom, and straight up from the depths there glowed two tiny pink spots. Bumper watched them in silence until his mother asked: "What do you see, dear?"

"Two pink stars!" he murmured.

Mother rabbit, like all fond mothers, smiled and leaned over to kiss the wet nose of her little one. Jimsy and Wheedles and all the other rabbits were anxious to see the two pink stars in the water, and they crowded around the basin to get a look. They held their breath in amazement, for wonder of wonders! instead of two, there were a dozen tiny pink stars! They twinkled and flashed, and when they bobbed their heads up the stars faded away or disappeared entirely.

Mother rabbit, who was very fond of her little ones, smiled proudly, and said:

"All my children have pink eyes!"

"But don't all rabbits have pink eyes?" asked Bumper, whose little brain was still bursting with questions.

"No, dear, they do not—only those rabbits that come from snowballs have pink eyes."

"Oh!" exclaimed one and all, and particularly Bumper, who had started all this probing into the family history.

Then the last question of the little girl popped up into his head, and without waiting to catch his breath, or to give his mother time to think up a suitable answer, he blurted it out.

"Where did I get these long, fluffy ears, mother? The little girl said they were long and fluffy."

Just to make sure he had not been deceived, he pulled them right down between his two front paws, and looked at them. They were, indeed, long, silky and fluffy, and as white as snow.

Mother rabbit shook her head slowly just as if she intended to scold, and then said in the softest, gentlest of voices:

"I'm afraid that little girl has been putting vain ideas into your head, dear. You must be careful, and not let compliments about your eyes and ears spoil you. If you do people won't like you."

Bumper promised not to be spoilt by listening to what little girls said, and then eagerly repeated his question.

"Why, that is simple enough," Mother rabbit answered, having had time to think. "When you were only a little snowball, we had to hang you up to dry, and that pulled your ears out."

That was an answer good enough for any rabbit, and Bumper should have been satisfied, but he had a very inquisitive mind.

"But why didn't I melt when I was hung up to dry?" he asked quickly. "Snowballs melt in the sun, don't they?"

"Yes," gravely, "so they do, dear, if you leave them in the sun too long. But it was mother's business to see that you didn't melt. It's like baking bread or cake. If you leave the dough in the oven too long it burns up, and then it isn't either bread or cake. It's very hard to know just when it's done, and it's harder"—sighing aloud—"for mothers to know just when a snowball is turning into a white rabbit, and when it's beginning to melt away into nothing. Now don't ask me any more questions to-night. It's bed time, and little rabbits with pink eyes should be fast asleep."

Which was true, but Bumper went to sleep dreaming of a million questions he would ask his mother in the morning.

STORY II Why Bumper Was Left At Home

Bumper woke up the next morning so hungry that he couldn't think of any of the million questions to ask until he'd finished eating his breakfast. Besides a cabbage, there were some carrots and beet tops the old woman had fished out of a grocer's backyard, and Bumper had to jump lively to get his share. Jimsy and Wheedles were already on their second carrot when he opened his eyes.

"You'll never catch up with me!" said Jimsy, greedily. "I'm one carrot ahead of you."

"And I'm one and a half," mumbled Wheedles, wit [...]