Rag early learnt what some rabbits never learn at all, that ‘hole-up’ is not such a fine ruse as it seems; it may be the certain safety of a wise rabbit, but soon or late is a sure death-trap to a fool.  A young rabbit always thinks of it first, an old rabbit never tries it till all others fail.  It means escape from a man or dog, a fox or a bird of prey, but it means sudden death if the foe is a ferret, mink, skunk, or weasel.

There were but two ground-holes in the Swamp.  One on the Sunning Bank, which was a dry sheltered knoll in the South-end.  It was open and sloping to the sun, and here on fine days the Cottontails took their sunbaths.  They stretched out among the fragrant pine needles and winter-green in odd, cat-like positions, and turned slowly over as though roasting and wishing all sides well done.  And they blinked and panted, and squirmed as if in dreadful pain; yet this was one of the keenest enjoyments they knew.

Just over the brow of the knoll was a large pine stump.  Its grotesque roots wriggled out above the yellow sand-bank like dragons, and under their protecting claws a sulky old woodchuck had digged a den long ago.  He became more sour and ill-tempered as weeks went by, and one day waited to quarrel with Olifant’s dog instead of going in, so that Molly Cottontail was able to take possession of the den an hour later.

This, the pine-root hole, was afterward very coolly taken by a self-sufficient young skunk, who with less valor might have enjoyed greater longevity, for he imagined that even man with a gun would fly from him.  Instead of keeping Molly from the den for good, therefore, his reign, like that of a certain Hebrew king, was over in four days.

The other, the fern-hole, was in a fern thicket next the clover field.  It was small and damp, and useless except as a last retreat.  It also was the work of a woodchuck, a well-meaning, friendly neighbor, but a hare-brained youngster whose skin in the form of a whip-lash was now developing higher horse-power in the Olifant working team.

“Simple justice,” said the old man, “for that hide was raised on stolen feed that the team would ‘a’ turned into horse-power anyway.”

The Cottontails were now sole owners of the holes, and did not go near them when they could help it, lest anything like a path should be made that might betray these last retreats to an enemy.

There was also the hollow hickory, which, though nearly fallen, was still green, and had the great advantage of being open at both ends.  This had long been the residence of one Lotor, a solitary old coon whose ostensible calling was frog-hunting, and who, like the monks of old, was supposed to abstain from all flesh food.  But it was shrewdly suspected that he needed but a chance to indulge in a diet of rabbit.  When at last one dark night he was killed while raiding Olifant’s hen-house, Molly, so far from feeling a pang of regret, took possession of his cosy nest with a sense of unbounded relief.