The Tale of That Rabbit

A THUMPING GOOD STORY OF A WONDROUSLY LIBERATED LADY

- BY R. M. Lockley

MR. X WAS a tabby cat with a white bow tie. Lordly and lazy, he was a much indulged neuter, with his own fireside basket and a cat door on the back porch of our country home. Occasionally he would bring in a field mouse to prove he had earned his breakfast bowl of milk. One January morning, my young son Martin rushed in screaming that Mr. X had caught a baby rabbit and was about to kill it. The victim was a tiny, grey-brown ball of fur, too terrified to do more than stay hunched up as the cat boxed with his paw. Its left ear bled from two punctures made by Mr. X's fangs.

"Save it, Daddy!" Tears of despair were in Martin's eyes as he stamped his feet, scaring the cat enough for me to grab the little rabbit, which flopped sideways in my arms, apparently dead from shock.

That Rabbit (as she became known, or TR for short) was kept alive only by Martin's determination that she should not die. She was barely breathing, but he hugged her for more than an hour. When at last she woke from her coma, she stayed hunched up, eyes closed, refusing all food. In the evening, Martin and I force-fed her with milk laced with glucose and brandy, through the rubber tube from my fountain pen. Then Martin sat up all night, watching her uneasy breathing as she lay wrapped in a doll's blanket in Mr. X's basket. Mr. X was furious at this indignity, but Martin sensibly made him stay in the room, determined that he must be taught never again to harm That Rabbit.