Three Little Animals
And a home for a rabbit in need
Three Little Animals, Home for a Bunny and The Sleepy Book by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Gareth Williams
Three little animals live by themselves in the woods. It’s a nice place, the place where they live. They have everything that they may want. But they are still a little curious about the world beyond. Beyond where they live, in the forest, is a city. And that city is full of people. People who wear hats. People who wear coats. People who wear gloves. People who wear clothes. The three animals do not wear clothes because they are animals, not people. And so they can’t go into the city without being spotted. They wouldn’t want to be spotted, so they don’t go into the city.
But their curiosity still gnaws away. They’d still like to know about the city and about the people. One of them, the bravest, breaks first. The first little animal decides to put on some clothes — almost like the people in the city wear — and go off to observe them at first hand.
Now there are two little animals living in their little house away from the city and the people. But then the second little animals starts to get ideas. Perhaps it, too, should don some clothes, disguise itself as a person, and disappear off into the city, looking to see the people at close hand.
Eventually, it decides. It will do so; it gets dressed in clothes, like the people wear, and then disappears itself into the crowd, into the city, into the mass of people — all the better to see what they’re really like.
The other little animal is also the smallest of the three. It holds out as long as it can. The third little animal knows it does not have enough people’s clothes to dress up as a person and disappear off to the big city. But finally, its curiosity overwhelms it. The third little animal cobbles together a human outfit — puts a plant on its head, dresses itself in leaves, and wears small hollow logs as shoes (like the Dutch).
It, too, goes off into the big city to see what the people are really like up close.
The third little animal has some difficulty. It is too hot in its makeshift clothes, the kind vaguely like the ones that people wear. It asks nature to help it out — to cool it with a breeze, then to dry it with the sun when it goes swimming. But because nature believes the little animal is a person — it’s dressed like one, after all — it does not do it. The little animal is too warm, then it is unable to get dry, then it is denied a calming breeze.
Finally, it arrives in the city and it sees the people. People wearing hats and coats and gloves. People moving around in great numbers. It cannot see its fellow little animals because they are part of the crowd. They have disguised themselves too well as people.
But finally, the breeze arrives. It blows a powerful wind storm through this world of people. The people lose their hats, lose their coats, lose their gloves. And then the three little animals can see each other! They can see the others’ furry ears now they all have lost their hats.
Their covers blown, the three furry animals think they have seen all they need to see of the big city and the people who live there. They rush home as fast as their legs can go.
They have enjoyed their time among the people — but there is no need, now, to change. They know precisely who they are. They are little animals, furry animals, and there is no need for any of them to be, or to pretend to be, anything else.
In another story, a rabbit looks initially without success for a home. And in the other, another rabbit, because it does not put its paw in front of its mouth when it yawns, soon becomes host to a small bee who has gone to sleep in its throat, with the only cure for the bee’s presence — a wise other animal suggests — being the rabbit’s learning to make the smallest possible sound. Because bees do not pay attention to loud sounds, only very small ones.
I wonder if this is replicated in real life and the scientific papers written by people.