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Towards evening they came to a pretty little grove, where they decided to spend the night.
The small bunnies and squirrels gathered sticks for a camp-fire; Mrs. Gray-Squirrel and Mrs. Bunny prepared supper; while Mr. Bunnikins-Bunny and Mr. Gray-Squirrel gaveNeddy his supper and unpacked the cart; Mr. Gray-Squirrel doing most of the work, while Mr. Bunny talked and made suggestions.
There was a cunning little white tent for the children and their mothers, Mr. Gray-Squirrel preferring to sleep in a tree, while Mr. Bunnikins-Bunny decided to try his new hammock, swung between two strong bushes near the tent.
They were all so tired out, thatsoon after supper they went to bed. The little bunnies and squirrels were asleep in two minutes; and soon after, Mr. Gray-Squirrel, warmly covered up with his broad tail, could be heard snoring away, up in his tree.
[Squirrel]
[Bunny]
Mr. Bunnikins climbed into his fine silk hammock, stretched himself out lazily, and was drowsily thinking how comfortable he was, when suddenly he felt a sharp sting in one of his soft paws.
“Mosquitoes!” he growled, as he drew his legs up under him, and made himself into as small a bunch as possible.
“Bzz,” “Bzz,”—and a sting on the end of his long silky ear.
“Bzz,” “Bzz,”—another stingon the tip of his small pink nose.
[Bunny]
Poor Mr. Bunnikins twisted and turned, trying to forget the mosquitoes, and go to sleep; but it was of no use. When morning came, and the mosquitoes went, they left in the hammock a very tired and cross gentleman rabbit. He told Mrs. Bunnikins that he had had too much of camp-life and wasgoing home as soon as he had eaten his breakfast.
“No, no, my dear,” said his gentle little wife, “you must not do that. I have plenty of mosquito-netting, and I can easily make you perfectly comfortable.”
At first Mr. Bunnikins utterly refused to stay, but finally his friend Gray-Squirrel persuaded him to try one more night, and if the mosquitoes still bothered him, they all promisedto go home with him the following morning.
[Bunnies]
All day Mrs. Bunnikins-Bunny cut and sewed, andbefore bedtime she had made her husband a lovely pink mosquito-netting nightgown.
[Bunnies]
It covered him from the tips of his ears to the very ends of his toe-toes, and when he was in his hammock Mrs. Bunnikins tied it up like a bag below his paws, so that not a singlemosquito ever again had even a taste of him.