Well, all the Easter eggs were ready, and Sammie and Susie, their papa and mamma, Uncle Wiggily Longears and Nurse Jane-Fuzzy-Wuzzy, set out to hide them.  There were many colors.  I think I have told you about them, but I’ll just mention a few again.  There were red ones, blue ones, green ones, pink ones, Alice blue ones, Johnnie red ones, Froggie green ones, strawberry color, and then that new shade, skilligimink, which is very fine indeed, and which turned Sammie sky-blue-pink.

So the rabbits started off with their baskets of colored eggs on their paws.

“Now, be careful, Sammie,” called his mamma.  “Don’t fall down and break any of those eggs.”

“No, mamma,” answered Sammie, who was still colored sky-blue-pink, for it hadn’t all worn off yet.  “I’ll be very careful.”

“So will I, mamma,” called Susie.

So they walked on through the woods to visit Newark and all the places around where children want Easter eggs.  Of course, if you had gone out in the woods on top of Orange Mountain you could not have seen those rabbits, because they were invisible.  That is, you couldn’t see them, because Mrs. Cluck-Cluck, the fairy hen, had given them all cloaks spun out of cobwebs, just like the Emperor of China once had, and this made it so no one could see them.  For it would never do, you know, to have the rabbits spied upon when they were hiding the eggs.  It wouldn’t be fair, any more than it would be right to peek when you’re “it” in playing blind man’s buff.

Well, pretty soon, after a while, as they all walked through the woods, Sammie kept going slower and slower and slower, because his basket was quite heavy, until he was a long way in back of his papa, his mamma and Susie.  But he didn’t mind that, for he knew he had plenty of time, when all at once what should come running out of the bushes but a great big dog.  At first Sammie was frightened, but then when he looked again he knew the dog was not a rabbit-dog.  No, what is worse, he was an egg-dog.  Now an egg-dog is a dog that eats eggs, and they are one of the very worst kinds of dogs there are.  So the dog saw Sammie and knew what the little rabbit boy had in his basket.  But he asked him, making believe he didn’t know:  “What have you in that basket, my little chap?” You see, he called him “little chap” so as to pretend he was a friendly egg-dog.

“There are Easter eggs in the basket,” said Sammie politely.

“And what, pray, are Easter eggs, if I may be so bold as to ask?” inquired the dog, licking his teeth with his long red tongue, and blinking his eyes, as if he didn’t care.

“Easter eggs,” replied Sammie, “are eggs for children for Easter, and they are very prettily colored.”

“Oh, ho!” exclaimed the dog, just like that, and he sniffed the air.  “Please excuse me.  But would you kindly be so good as to let me see those eggs?  I never saw any colored ones.”

“Well,” answered Sammie, “I am in a hurry, but you may have one peep.”