THE YELLOW DOG TRAMP
Reading edition
"I'm a plain rag doll in a dress of blue, And I've been lost, an hour or two By a little girl with a curly head Who will cry for me when she goes to bed."
This is what the Rag Doll said to the two little rabbits who picked her up in the last story, you remember.
"Dear me!" exclaimed the old gentleman bunny. "What's the name of the little girl?"
"Lucy Locket," said the Rag Doll. And then Little Jack Rabbit began to laugh, for he had once read of a little Lucy Locket who had lost her pocket, and he remembered that she lived not far away. So he steered the Bunnymobile while the old gentleman bunny talked to the Rag Doll, and by and by, not so very long, they came to a pretty house, and right there on the front porch sat a little girl crying.
"Hello, don't cry; wipe your eye!" shouted kind Uncle John Hare. "We have found your rag dolly!" And in another minute the Rag Dolly was in the little girl's arms.
"Good-by," said the two little rabbits, and they drove away to find another adventure, and pretty soon they found one. Oh, my yes! The Yellow Dog Tramp came out of the wood and said:
"I've been tramping, tramping, tramping For many a weary mile; Across the way, through fields of hay, And through the old turnstile. Oh, won't you take me for a ride? I've a dreadful pain in my poor old side."
"Jump in," said the old gentleman rabbit with a kind smile. "You're not the kind of a dog who bothers little bunnies."
"No, I'm not," answered the Yellow Dog Tramp, "I'd like to find a nice home and stay there."
"Well, you come with us," said the little bunny. "You can clean the Bunnymobile and work in the garden."
"Hurrah!" barked the Yellow Dog Tramp. "I feel like a boy again already, I used to do those things before I became a hobo doggy."
Well, by this time they were almost home, and in less than five hundred more short seconds they were in the garage where the old gentleman rabbit fixed up a little room for the Yellow Dog Tramp, with a looking glass at one end and a little white bed at the other.
"Now you brush your coat and trousers and part your hair in the middle and then come in to supper," said the old gentleman rabbit. And in the next story you shall hear what happened after that.