see it clearly

Jumper The Hare Gets A New Coat

By Thornton W. Burgess

Now that snow covered all the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, Jumper the Hare was worried. Jumper isn't much given to worrying but after two or three narrow escapes from fierce old Roughleg the Hawk who had come from somewhere up north to spend the winter on the Green Meadows, and after that he had found that though he was safe enough from old Granny Fox when he was in the dear Old Brier Patch she could still see him as she prowled around the edge, Jumper began to worry a little.

In the summer he had a thousand hiding places, but now that the leaves were gone his hiding places were gone, too, that is most of them were. Then, once he was really in the Old Brier Patch he was hidden from everybody, but now sharp eyes could look all through the Brier Patch. It hadn't been so bad when there was no snow on the ground for Jumper's coat was so nearly the color of the dry leaves that covered the ground that when he sat still it took very sharp eyes indeed to tell him from a little bunch of those same brown leaves. But now that everything was white, Jumper's brown coat gave him away and every time he went out for a walk he felt as if he looked as big as an elephant.

So Jumper began to worry and lost his appetite. You know when Jumper loses his appetite there must be something very wrong with him. And he lost all his curiosity, and when Jumper loses both his appetite and curiosity something is very, very wrong. He kept very, very close to the Old Brier Patch and he grew thin for there was very little to eat in the Old Brier Patch. Jumper had begun to think that winter wasn't so fine after all.

One morning he got ready to start out for his breakfast. As usual he began to brush his clothes, for when he happens to think of it Jumper can be very neat. The back of his coat was quite white and Jumper, supposing that it was snow, brushed and brushed.

"What's the matter with it?" growled Jumper, brushing away as hard as ever he could. But the tail of his coat remained as white as ever, and finally Jumper looked at it more closely. There was no snow on it! The whiteness was in the coat itself! Jumper's big eyes opened wider than ever as a great hope grew and grew. What if his whole coat should turn white? It seemed too much to really hope for.

But Jumper did hope, and every morning the first thing he did was to look at his coat, and every morning it seemed to him that his coat was a little bit whiter. Pretty soon he was sure of it. Then his trousers and his waistcoat began to grow white also, and even his face and long ears. Finally Jumper was so white that when he ran the white patch that he had always worn on the seat of his pants didn't show at all, for, you see, the whole seat of his pants was white, too. And when Jumper sat still all humped up he looked for all the world like nothing but a little mound of snow.

Then did Jumper find once more
That he could hide, just as before.
And Jumper felt his heart grow light
Because his suit was now of white.

He jumped, he hopped, he skipped, he danced.

And forth once more he gaily pranced.