  "What kind of a blackbird are you?" asked the Yellow Dog Tramp when he saw the bad owl who had flown down the chimney of the little monkey's house, as I mentioned in the last story. "I'm not any kind of a blackbird—I'm an owl," answered this dreadful old bird, and he shook himself till the soot flew all over the room, and some of it got in the Yellow Dog Tramp's eyes and made him blink. And of course all this noise woke up the little monkey and Little Jack Rabbit, who were sleeping upstairs, you remember. "I wonder what's going on," whispered the little monkey, and he leaned over the banisters. And just then the Yellow Dog Tramp said, "Well, you get out of here!" and he took hold of that sooty old tooty owl and threw him, tail first, out of the door. And then he threw a milk bottle after him. When the little rabbit and the little monkey heard what had happened, they were very grateful to the Yellow Dog Tramp, and told him he could sleep all next day in the sun instead of whitewashing the back fence. Well, after a while, after breakfast, you know, the little bunny set off again on his travels, and by and by, not so very far, he came to a place where so many wild roses grew that it looked like a lovely garden. "Now here is a nice place to rest," he thought, and he sat down and opened his knapsack and took out a lollypop and was just going to bite off the lemon top, when somebody took it right out of his paw. "Ha, ha, ho, ho," laughed a trumpety kind of a voice, and when the little bunny looked around he saw his old friend the Circus Elephant with a bouquet of roses in his long trunk. "Here's your lollypop," said the elephant, and he dropped the bunch of roses, for he only meant to tease the little rabbit for a minute, you know. And then he came over and sat down. But, oh dear me. He jumped up in an awful hurry, for he had sat on the bunch of roses. "Oh, dear and oh dear again," he cried, "why do lovely roses have thorns?" and he wiped a tear from his eye with the end of his ear, and then he sang this song: "Oh, why should roses red have thorns And pears have prickly prickles, And Mr. Dill his glass jars fill With sour little pickles?" And after that my typewriter says you must wait a little while to hear what happened next, because The Circus Elephant took so long To finish this beautiful pickle song, The clock struck twelve before he was through, The Old Red Rooster woke up and blew Twice six times on his big tin horn, And nearly deafened the ears of corn. |
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