That was the first time that I ever heard Bunny’s challenge.  It impressed me at the time as one of his most curious pranks; the sound was so big and heavy for such a little fellow.  Since then I have heard it frequently; and now sometimes when I stand at night in the forest and hear a sudden heavy thump in the underbrush, as if a big moose were striking the ground and shaking his antlers at me, it doesn’t startle me in the least.  It is only Br’er Rabbit trying to frighten me.

The next night Bunny played us another trick.  Before Simmo went to sleep he always took off his blue overalls and put them under his head for a pillow.  That was only one of Simmo’s queer ways.  While he was asleep the rabbits came into his little commoosie, dragged the overalls out from under his head, and nibbled them full of holes.  Not content with this, they played with them all night; pulled them around the clearing, as threads here and there plainly showed; then dragged them away into the underbrush and left them.

Simmo’s wrath when he at last found the precious garments was comical to behold; when he wore them with their new polka-dot pattern, it was still more comical.  Why the rabbits did it I could never quite make out.  The overalls were very dirty, very much stained with everything from a clean trout to tobacco crumbs; and, as there was nothing about them for a rabbit to eat, we concluded that it was just one of Br’er Rabbit’s pranks.  That night Simmo, to avenge his overalls, set a deadfall supported by a piece of cord, which he had soaked in molasses and salt.  Which meant that Bunny would nibble the cord for the salt that was in it, and bring the log down hard on his own back.  So I had to spring it, while Simmo slept, to save the little fellow’s life and learn more about him.

Up on the ridge above our tent was a third tiny clearing, where some trappers had once made their winter camp.  It was there that I watched the rabbits one moonlight night from my seat on an old log, just within the shadow at the edge of the opening.  The first arrival came in with a rush.  There was a sudden scurry behind me, and over the log he came with a flying leap that landed him on the smooth bit of ground in the middle, where he whirled around and around with grotesque jumps, like a kitten after its tail.  Only Br’er Rabbit’s tail was too short for him ever to catch it; he seemed rather to be trying to get a good look at it.  Then he went off helter-skelter in a headlong rush through the ferns.  Before I knew what had become of him, over the log he came again in a marvelous jump, and went tearing around the clearing like a circus horse, varying his performance now by a high leap, now by two or three awkward hops on his hind legs, like a dancing bear.  It was immensely entertaining.