Read Ebook: Madame Adam (Juliette Lambert) la grande Française from Louis Philippe until 1917 by Whale Winifred Stephens

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Ebook has 492 lines and 17380 words, and 10 pages

FOR weeks and weeks there was great excitement among the Little People of the Shady Forest and Sunny Meadow. From behind trees and bushes, rocks and stumps, they watched the building of the railroad.

Professor Jim Crow came to offer advice, but changed his mind. As for Little Jack Rabbit, he looked out from behind a stump and wondered.

Cousin Cotton Tail had been forced to move from the Big Brush Heap on the hill. She and her little bunnies were now visiting in the Old Bramble Patch.

When Little Jack Rabbit was told that a railroad must be level, he thought a man would come with a big scythe and slice off the top of the hill like a loaf of bread and lay the slices in the hollows.

This wasn't so very strange, seeing that he was only a little bunny boy and, of course, didn't know anything about building railroads.

Every day the railroad came nearer being finished. The hill was dug out. As Mr. Mole remarked, "It was done almost as well as I could have done it, only, of course, I would have made a tunnel."

Then the sleepers were laid. Busy Beaver smiled as he watched the men lay the great logs on the smooth earth.

"Wouldn't they be dandy for my dam?" he remarked.

"You've got all you need," answered Little Jack Rabbit. "I'm glad they didn't break up the Old Rail Fence and make railroad ties out of it."

Finally the rails were fastened on the logs and the railroad was finished; the first train was to run through and everybody was waiting to see it.

Mr. and Mrs. John Rabbit put on their Sunday clothes and took Little Jack Rabbit and Brother Bobby Tail to the end of the Old Rail Fence.

Pretty soon a black speck appeared at the end of the long line. It grew bigger and bigger. A cloud of smoke arose and drifted over to the Shady Forest. There was a rattle and a roar and a din. Little Jack Rabbit hid behind his mother's skirt, but the train had already passed them.

And there on the platform of the last car, stood the Farmer's Boy, holding on by the door, bowing and smiling and proud as a king.

A NARROW ESCAPE

Hear the engine whistle toot! See the smoke and smell the soot! Lucky that the train don't stay, But flashes by and far away!

AT first the Grown-ups in the Shady Forest and the Sunny Meadow were very sorry to have the railroad come so near, but after a while they found it didn't matter so much; for the cars passed through a "cut" so deep that the engine's smokestack hardly reached the top, and you only knew they were there by the sound.

Of course, it took Cousin Cotton Tail ever and ever so long to get used to the Old Bramble Patch. You see, it wasn't anything like the Old Brush Heap, with its covering of trailing vines, and she was glad when she was able to go back to her old home on the other side of the Bubbling Brook.

On this side the Sunny Meadow was just the same; so was the Shady Forest, and by and by everybody almost forgot that there had been a time when there wasn't any railroad.

At the Old Barnyard, however, things were very different, for the railroad made a turn just there and came in very close to the Big Red Barn.

Cocky Doodle had all he could do to keep the Barnyard Folk out of danger. Every morning after his early cock-a-doodle-do he read them a lesson on the dangers of crossing railroad tracks.

For a while Henny Penny laid her eggs in the Henhouse. The truth was that her nest in the corner of the Old Rail Fence happened to be just at the end of the Sunny Meadow where the railroad ran through the "cut," and the noise of the cars made her nervous.

Ducky Waddles was glad that the Old Duck Pond was still safe. He had heard how it had just escaped being bridged over for the noisy cars.

Yes, everyone kept away from the railroad track except Goosey Lucy. And why Goosey Lucy liked to waddle down the steep bank and along the hard wooden logs of the roadbed no one could find out.

But one fine day Goosey Lucy got caught. Yes, sir. Before she could get off the track the train came along. It was very narrow between the two steep banks, and she couldn't fly high enough to reach the top. Cocky Doodle and Henny Penny shut their eyes. They couldn't bear to see what was going to happen.

But Goosey Lucy wasn't such a goose, after all. She sat perfectly still between the rails, and when the train had passed over her, she got up, shook the cinders off her white feathers and waddled back to the Old Barnyard!

SCHOOL

"COME, get your cap, I'm going to take you to school today!"

Little Jack Rabbit was too surprised to answer--he just opened his mouth, and the only sound his mother heard was a funny little noise like a whistle.

"Don't you hear me?" she asked, tying the strings of her Sunday bonnet under her furry chin.

"Whew!" said the little rabbit at last recovering from his surprise. "Why do you want me to go to school?"

"Because all the Shady Forest grown-ups think it's a good thing to have a school for the children," and she gave her bonnet a push and pulled on her black silk mitts.

"Get your cap. Every mother will be there for the opening day, and we mustn't be late."

The little rabbit hopped silently along by his mother's side, wondering how it had all happened so suddenly. He hadn't heard a word about a school, nor had any of his playmates.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" he asked at last.

"Because we didn't want Grandmother Magpie to know anything until the matter was settled," answered Mrs. Rabbit in a low voice. "She is such a busy-body."

Goodness me! Mrs. Rabbit had hardly finished speaking when up flew the very person she had been talking about. Yes, there she stood, right on the Shady Forest Path a few feet in front of them.

"Good morning," said Grandmother Magpie.

Mrs. Jack Rabbit gave her bonnet strings a jerk. She always did this when she was angry, and the sight of that disagreeable bird reminded her of the time she had told tales on Little Jack Rabbit.

"Good morning," answered the little rabbit's mother stiffly. She didn't really want to say good morning, but she had to be polite.

"Where are you going?" asked Grandmother Magpie, hopping along by Mrs. Rabbit's side. Mrs. Rabbit said nothing, only hopped along faster, but she couldn't get rid of that mischievous old bird. Oh, my, no. She stuck around like a chestnut burr.

"Grandmother Magpie," said Mrs. Rabbit at last, "I have some important business to attend to this morning, so I will say goodby." And she gave Grandmother Mischief, as she was often called, such a stiff bow that the old lady magpie stopped short and let them go on without her.

A MISTAKE IN SPELLING

THE Shady Forest School had once been a pigeon house, but when the farm was sold and the old buildings torn down, it had been left to shelter Mr. and Mrs. Pigeon, who wouldn't move away.

One night during a great storm it had toppled off the post on which it stood, and rolled down the hillside, helped along by Billy Breeze, until it had landed on the edge of the Shady Forest.

Here it had been discovered by the Little Forest Folk, and at Parson Owl's suggestion, had been pushed and shoved in and out among the trees until it stood right-side up in a sunlit clearing.

Then Parson Owl had called together all the Grown-ups and persuaded them to make it into a schoolhouse.

And, well, here we are with Mrs. Rabbit and her little bunny on their way to the opening exercises, so there is no need of saying anything more about it, except that it had a nice door in front and a dozen round holes, under which were fastened little pieces of board for wide windowsills, on which the pigeons used to stand and preen their feathers.

As Little Jack Rabbit and his mother drew near they saw Chippy Chipmunk's face at one of the little round windows. Then Busy Beaver looked out of another, and pretty soon every little round window had a head peeping through, while in the doorway stood Professor Jim Crow in his black swallowtail coat.

"Good morning, Mrs. Rabbit," he said, looking over his spectacles. "You have brought another scholar, I see."

When they were seated in the schoolroom, he walked over to the big blackboard.

"John," he said, turning to the little rabbit, "tell me how to spell your name."

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