Mrs. Rabbit was surprised. She was worried, too, for it was no easymatter to get a new hot-water bottle where she lived.
"Aunt Polly said to send for her again if everything wasn't all right,"she said to Mr. Rabbit. "So you'd better go and tell her to come over atonce."
20 A Queer Cure]
20
A Queer Cure
When that famous doctor, Aunt Polly Woodchuck, reached Mrs. Rabbit'shouse, she said:
"Is Jimmy worse? He ought to be almost well by this time; for mumpsdon't last long, as a rule."
"It isn't Jimmy," Mrs. Rabbit told her. "It's the hot-water bottle! Ifind that it's full of holes; and I can't think how they came there."
Aunt Polly put on another pair of spectacles.
"Let me see it!" she said. "Aha!" she exclaimed, as she looked at thehot-water bottle closely. "I thought so!" she said.
"What is it?" Mrs. Rabbit inquired. "I hope it's nothing catching. Forjust think what a fix we'd be in if all the children should have thatsame trouble!"
Aunt Polly told her not to worry.
"You'd better get a new bottle," she said, "for this one can't be cured.But I'll show you what to do to prevent the new hot-water bottle fromgetting full of holes like this one.... Get me a piece of string!" saidAunt Polly.
Now, for some reason or other, Jimmy Rabbit began to feel veryuncomfortable. He was no longer in bed. And when he heard Aunt Polly askfor a piece of string he started to sneak out of the room.
But Aunt Polly saw him.
"Come back here!" she said. "I want you!" And she made Jimmy sit at herfeet and wait until his mother returned.
"Here!" Mrs. Rabbit said when she came back at last. "Is this stringwhat you need? It's a very strong piece."
"Just the thing!" Aunt Polly told her. And she took hold of JimmyRabbit.
He began to howl. And he squirmed. And he would have kicked, if he haddared.
Aunt Polly Woodchuck did a strange thing then. She hung the hot-waterbottle from Jimmy's neck.
"There!" she said. "Just let him wear that for a few days! I don't thinkyou'll have any more trouble with holes in hot-water bottles."
"Have you known cases like this before?" Mrs. Rabbit asked her.
"A few!" said Aunt Polly. "And this is by far the best way to treatthem. I've never known it to fail."
"It seems to me it's rather hard on Jimmy," Mrs. Rabbit said.
"Don't you worry about him!" Aunt Polly told her. "It will do him aworld of good."
Jimmy Rabbit hung his head. He hated to have that hot-water bottledangling from his neck. And he made up his mind that he would neverprick another pin-hole in anything else so long as he lived.
But he was glad of one thing. He was glad Aunt Polly hadn't told hismother what he had done.
The End]
The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit Page 5