VIII

Old Olifant had doubtless a right to burn all those brush-piles in the east and south of the Swamp and to clear up the wreck of the old barbed-wire hog-pen just below the spring.  But it was none the less hard on Rag and his mother.  The first were their various residences and outposts, and the second their grand fastness and safe retreat.

They had so long held the Swamp and felt it to be their very own in every part and suburb—­including Olifant’s grounds and buildings—­that they would have resented the appearance of another rabbit even about the adjoining barnyard.

Their claim, that of long, successful occupancy, was exactly the same as that by which most nations hold their land, and it would be hard to find a better right.

During the time of the January thaw the Olifants had cut the rest of the large wood about the pond and curtailed the Cottontails’ domain on all sides.  But they still clung to the dwindling Swamp, for it was their home and they were loath to move to foreign parts.  Their life of daily perils went on, but they were still fleet of foot, long of wind, and bright of wit.  Of late they had been somewhat troubled by a mink that had wandered up-stream to their quiet nook.  A little judicious guidance had transferred the uncomfortable visitor to Olifant’s hen-house.  But they were not yet quite sure that he had been properly looked after.  So for the present they gave up using the ground-holes, which were, of course, dangerous blind-alleys, and stuck closer than ever to the briers and the brush-piles that were left.

That first snow had quite gone and the weather was bright and warm until now.  Molly, feeling a touch of rheumatism, was somewhere in the lower thicket seeking a tea-berry tonic.  Rag was sitting in the weak sunlight on a bank in the east side.  The smoke from the familiar gable chimney of Olifant’s house came fitfully drifting a pale blue haze through the under-woods and showing as a dull brown against the brightness of the sky.  The sun-gilt gable was cut off midway by the banks of brier-brush, that purple in shadow shone like rods of blazing crimson and gold in the light.  Beyond the house the barn with its gable and roof, new gilt as the house, stood up like a Noah’s ark.

The sounds that came from it, and yet more the delicious smell that mingled with the smoke, told Rag that the animals were being fed cabbage in the yard.  Rag’s mouth watered at the idea of the feast.  He blinked and blinked as he snuffed its odorous promises, for he loved cabbage dearly.  But then he had been to the barnyard the night before after a few paltry clover-tops, and no wise rabbit would go two nights running to the same place.

Therefore he did the wise thing.  He moved across where he could not smell the cabbage and made his supper of a bundle of hay that had been blown from the stack.  Later, when about to settle for the night, he was joined by Molly, who had taken her tea-berry and then eaten her frugal meal of sweet birch near the Sunning Bank.