BUDDY JIM ran around the house to the back porch where Mary the cook was busy shelling green peas for dinner.

"I wonder what kind of pie I can have for dessert tonight," she said. "The red raspberries are all gone, so Old Bob the gardener says, and I'm tired of pie-plant, aren't you, Buddy?"

"I was just thinking I would go and get some blueberries," said Buddy Jim, "and I'll get some so you can make a pie, if you want me to, Mary."

"Bless the lad," said Mary the cook, "that will be fine. Wait till I make you some sandwiches, and find a pail for the berries."

So with one pocket full of doughnuts and one full of sandwiches and one full of cookies—(you never can tell how hungry a boy is going to get when he is working hard picking berries, so Mary the cook said)—Buddy Jim called to Old Dog Sandy and started for the blueberry bushes.

Old Bob the gardener was very proud of those bushes. He had found them many years before, bravely growing in the open pasture, just little wild bushes that had strayed up there from the low places, and he had treated them well, and had given them what they liked best to eat, and had taken such good care of them they had grown into a wonderful blueberry orchard, and the sweet dusky berries were twice as large as any blueberries had ever been before.

So, Buddy Jim had lots of fun filling his pail with them, and long before it was filled he simply could not have eaten a single berry more, and his face looked just like a little black boy's face.

Blueberries do stain so! But Buddy could not see his face, and he would not have cared if he could have seen it, he was having so much fun.

All at once, Old Dog Sandy barked at something. Buddy knew what that meant. Sandy had found some Little Neighbor. So he ran quickly. He was always afraid that the silly old dog would at some time hurt some little helpless creature.

He found him in a thicket of brakes at the edge of the woods, dancing around an old stump, barking like mad at Molly Cotton-tail and her two babies, who were trying to squeeze themselves into a little hollow at the foot of the stump.

Molly Cotton-tail was trying to shelter the two little ones with her body, but she wasn't quite big enough.

"Sandy," said Buddy, "stop that barking and go and lie down until I come!"

Old Dog Sandy trotted off, looking foolish and disgusted, and talking to himself. He could not understand Buddy! Here he took all this trouble to hunt up game for him, and every time he got blamed for it. It was no way to treat a dog. He was going to stay at the house after this.

"My!" said Molly Cotton-tail, drawing a long breath, "I'm glad you called off that old dog. I thought we were surely done for just before you came. I thank you ever so much, not only for me, but for my poor babies who are only four weeks old."

"I am sorry my old dog was so rude," said Buddy. "Somehow he won't stop barking at the little neighbors. He thinks it's fun!"

"It may be—for him," said Molly Cotton-tail, "but not for us. You see we cannot climb trees, as some animals can, and we do not swim to speak of, and we have no holes in the ground to dodge into, unless we use some other person's house, and then we may be running into danger, because the snakes use the old houses of the wood-chucks and gophers, and of course mothers cannot run away and leave their babies—so you can see it's not very easy being a rabbit."

"I guess not," said Buddy. "Do you live near here?"

"My home is right around the corner, under an old log," said Molly Cotton-tail. "I have a very nice home, all lined with my last year's coat, and as comfy as can be. But I brought the children out here to sleep today, it was so pleasant and cool and dim in here. We were having such a good nap when your old dog found us."

"It is so early in the day," said Buddy, "that I don't see how you could have needed a nap."

"Oh, but you see," said Molly Cotton-tail, "we work nights and sleep days!"

"Why do you do that?" asked Buddy Jim. "Well," said Molly Cotton-tail, "it is so light in the day, and we can see so many things to frighten us—we're not very brave you know—and it's so much fun to come out when it's cool and dark to play our games and find our food."

"It's a funny way to live," said Buddy. "I couldn't find my way about in the dark."

"I suppose we are made differently," said Molly Cotton-tail, "so that we can all use the same world; it would be too crowded if we all had to be out in it at the same time. But if you will excuse me now I will get my children to sleep again, so Goodbye," and she started for the comfy fur-lined nest under the old log.

"Goodbye," said Buddy Jim. "I'm glad I met you."

"Get many blueberries, Buddy?" asked Old Bob the gardener.

"Lots," answered Buddy. "And Old Dog Sandy scared up Molly Cotton-tail and her two little baby Cotton-tails, in the edge of the woods."

"That so?" said Old Bob the gardener, "did you see them?"

"Yes, I did," answered Buddy, "the babies were cute little things. Say, Bob," he went on, "why do people always say that rabbits have no brains?"

"I don't know," said Old Bob the gardener, "I've always thought myself that Molly Cotton-tail was a pretty bright Little Neighbor."

"I think so too," said Buddy.