"Oh, please come and help me out,
I'm caught so tight and fast
I haven't seen my dear old home
For two weeks Sunday last."
"Who can it be?" asked the old gentleman rabbit in a whisper, slowing up
the Bunnymobile.
"I don't see anybody," answered his little bunny nephew, "but there must
be somebody in trouble, just the same." And then the voice came again,
only louder than before:
"Oh, please, oh, please, come rescue me.
I'm caught so tight in this old oak tree."
And then, all of a sudden, the two little rabbits saw a tiny dwarf
wedged in between a tree and a big rock.
"Wait a minute! We'll see what we can do," and in less than five hundred
short seconds Little Jack Rabbit and his uncle were tugging away at the
little dwarf and pretty soon they had him out, all except his left foot.
"Slip your foot out of your boot," said the old gentleman rabbit.
"No, that would never do," answered the little man. "If I should do that
I would lose my power."
"Are yours magic boots?" asked the old gentleman rabbit, looking down at
his own, which he considered about the finest in the world, let me tell
you.
"Indeed they are," answered the dwarf, "they are thousand league boots.
I can run away from a giant as easily as an automobile from a pushcart."
"Goodness me," exclaimed Uncle John Hare, "they are certainly wonderful.
But what are you going to do? Stay fast to that tree all the rest of
your life, or walk about like other people?"
Well, this made the dwarf think pretty hard, and by and by he said:
"Pull me out and leave the boot. Maybe I can hop on one leg fast enough
to get away from a giant anyway." So both little rabbits gave a big tug
and out came the dwarf, but the boot was left behind, which made the
dwarf quite unhappy until he was asked to take a ride in the
Bunnymobile.
"There's an old cobbler who lives near here," said the dwarf. "Perhaps
he might make me a boot. I hear he's a very wonderful cobbler." So the
two little rabbits set off to find him and soon they came to a hut in
the middle of the wood, on the roof of which sat a little robin
redbreast singing. But what he said you must wait to hear in the next
story.
THE TINY COBBLER
"Tick, tack, two
The Cobbler makes a shoe
That takes a stride
The whole world wide,
Tick, tack, two."
"Did you hear that?" whispered the little dwarf, who in the last story
has lost one of his wonderful thousand league boots, you remember. And
if you don't, please take my word for it, as there won't be space enough
in this story to tell you how it happened.
"Let's go in and ask the price," said Uncle John Hare. So the two little
bunnies and the dwarf hopped out of the Bunnymobile and went into the
hut. On a wooden bench sat a tiny man dressed in a big leather apron and
red-peaked hat, busily making a boot. He didn't seem a bit surprised
when the door opened, and he said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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