“Be careful,” whispered Susie.  “Uncle Wiggily Longears warned us to look on all sides before we ate any cabbage we found.”

“I don’t believe there’s any danger,” spoke Sammie.  “I’m going to eat it,” and he went right up to the cabbage stalk.

But Sammie did not know that the cabbage stalk was part of a trap, put there to catch animals, and, no sooner had he taken a bite, than there came a click, and Sammie felt a terrible pain in his left hind leg.

“Oh, Susie!” he cried out.  “Oh, Susie!  Something has caught me by the leg!  Run home, Susie, as fast as you can, and tell papa!”

Susie was so frightened that she began to cry, but, as she was a brave little rabbit girl, she started off toward the underground house.  When she got there she jumped right down the front door hole, and called out: 

“Oh, mamma!  Oh, papa!  Sammie is caught!  He went to bite the cabbage stalk, and he is caught in a horrible trap!”

“Caught!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily Longears.  “Sammie caught in a trap!  That is too bad!  We must rescue him at once.  Come on!” he called to Papa Littletail, and, though Uncle Wiggily Longears was quite lame with the rheumatism, he started off with Sammie’s papa, and to-morrow night I will tell you how they saved the little boy rabbit.

II

SAMMIE LITTLETAIL IS RESCUED

When Uncle Wiggily Longears and Papa Littletail hurried from the underground house to rescue Sammie, Mamma Littletail was much frightened.  She nearly fainted, and would have done so completely, only Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy brought her some parsnip juice.

“Oh, hurry and get my little boy out of that trap!” cried Mamma Littletail, when she felt better.  “Do you think he will be much hurt, Uncle Wiggily?”

“Oh, no; not much,” he said.  “I was caught in a trap once when I was a young rabbit, and I got over it.  Only I took a dreadful cold, from being kept out in the rain all night.  We will bring him safe home to you.”

While Uncle Wiggily Longears and Papa Littletail were on their way, poor Sammie, left all alone in the woods, with his left hind foot caught in a cruel trap, felt very lonely indeed.

“I’ll never take any more cabbage without looking all around it, to see if there is a trap near it,” he said to himself.  “No indeed I will not,” and then he tried to get out of the trap, but could not.

Pretty soon he saw his father and his uncle coming over the snow toward him, and he felt much better.

“Now we must be very careful,” said Uncle Wiggily Longears, to Papa Littletail.  “There may be more traps about.”

So he sat upon his hind legs, and Papa Littletail sat up on his hind legs, and they both made their noses twinkle like stars on a very frosty night.  For that is the way rabbits smell, and these two were wise bunnies, who could smell a trap as far as you can smell perfumery.  They could not smell any traps, and they could not see any with their pink eyes, so they went quite close to Sammie, who was held fast by his left hind leg.