Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-09-20
LTTILES1oRIEs
fBEDTIriE
BY THORNTON ". BURGESS.
10y in the Old Briar-Patch.
You'll find the longer that you live
The more you can aud will forgive.


Peter Rabbit.
Peter Rabbit led the wey Iipperty-
across the Green Meadows
toward the dear Old Briar-patch and
close at his heels hoped the little
Rabbit who had been SO long lost. 1t
was dark, for it was night and Mis-
tress Moon had not yet climbed up to
light the way. The little Rabbit never
once took his eyes from the white
spot bobbing along ahead of him. OF
course, that white spot was Peters
| tail.
| There had been time when that
/ little Rabbit would have thought it
white spot every minute. but that was
| when he was willful and foolish and
| thought he knew all there was to
knoy. 1t seemed like a long, long
time before that he had been SO will
full and foolish, though really it was
had been out in the Great World and
he had learned a great deal. The most
important thing he had learned was
that he really knew very little after
all.
| So he was very humble little Rab-
perty-lip, at Peters heels. and he
didn't intend to be, lost again If he
| could help 1t. He had had quite
enough of the Great World and he
knew, he just knew that in it there
was no place like home. The dear
Old Briar-patch he had once thought
a place to get away from had become
. the very dearest place in all the Great
World.
Whenever Peter stopped to sit UP
and look and listen, and this was
often. the little Rabbit sat up right
behind him and looked and listened.
When Peter. forgetting that his small
sons legs were not as long as his
own, ran faster than he should have,
the little Rabbit ran with all his
might and always managed to keep
Peters white tail in sight thought at
times he was so out of breath that it
seemed to him that he couldn't hop
another hop.
So at last they came to the dear Old
Briar-patch just as Mistress Moon
flooded the Green Meadows with Sill
very light. The little Rabbit had
dreaded reaching home, much as he
dreaded meeting his mother. He
knew that he richly deserved to be
scoided and punished. He couldn't
know how he had made his mother
suffer from worry. but he guessed that
/ he had given her reason to be very
angry with him.
! prised he was when just outside the
dear Old Briar-patch Peter Stoned
and thumped loudly. and then out
rushed little Mrs. Peter. with Shining
eyes. and fairly knocked her small
| son over in her haste to get to him
| and feel him all over to make sure
that nothing had happened to him
and that he was really safe and sound
There wasn't a word Of scolding, NOT
| a single little word. There was moth
ing but love-.
When that little Rabbit could get
in a word he said, and he hung his
head as he said it.: Tim sorry tina
d!sobeyed and ran away. Il
But that was as far as he got. you
| see. his mother promptly rabbed b;s
nose with her nose, which is the pahS
bit way Of kissing, and wouldn't eive
him chance to say another word
His brothers and sisters danced around
him and didn't seem to mind in the
least that their mother and fa+har
paid no attention to them. Then III.
| tie Mrs. Peter led the way to a certain
patch of the sweetest clover on ali
the Green Meadows and picked ont
the tenderest leaves for him. When
all had stuffed until they could stuff
no more they went back to the dear
Old Briar-patch. and there. sitting
close to his mother, the once willfuI
little Rabbit told of all his a6iyen-
lures out in the Great World, his
brothers and sisters sitting in front
OF MN, round-eyed and open-mouth-
cd. Never before had there been so
much JOY In the dear Old Briar-patch
Copyright. 1920, by T. W. Burgess.