The White Rabbit

Richard and I continue to walk in the early morning. There is much to attend to. He is super vigilant about walking in the crosswalks. He wants cars to be absolutely stopped before we venture off of the sidewalk and pass in front of them. Today there was only a skiff of snow on the sidewalks. He stopped along the pavement in the park on the brow of the hill to point out tracks – coyotes he said, giving it the Western Canadian pronunciation of coyote without the long e at the end of the word. 

On this morning's walk, when I hadn’t finished one of my stories and we are close to our respective sidewalks to our homes, we walk a few more lengths. He stopped to show me the rabbit that sleeps on my front lawn, just below the cement pieces that encircle the birch tree.

 On being startled the rabbit hopped over a few yards and stopped at my porch.

“See, there it is,” he pointed to a small nest in the snow. “The rabbit has been staying in that spot all winter.”

Alice thinks the rabbit belongs to her. Even though she is barely tall enough to see over the bottom ledge of their front window, she will go there and look for the rabbit, sometimes seeing it hop across the lawn and calling to her parents in her baby language to come and look.  Nothing she calls would alert anyone else to go, but you know something is happening outside the window by the way she is anxiously calling them.

Near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, 

and a scroll of parchment in the other. 

Illustration from John Tenniel, published in 1865.

I don’t disbelieve that the rabbit sleeps there, for I have seen it. Still I went out to Wikipedia to check.  I learned that rabbits sleep in burrows or hutches or nests.

There is nothing about cuddling up to a bunch of stones on a front lawn, or huddling up against the back of the house, which I where I see them.

In the past the only rabbits I have known were Br'er Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, the White Rabbit, the March Hare and Bugs Bunny.

On my early morning walks I have become acquainted with real rabbits who have a charm of their own.

Arta