The Stone Rabbit And The Glass Man: The Story

One morning while the boy was climbing on the mountain, it began to rain. Usually, the boy enjoyed watching the rain, and even playing in it. This rain, however, was very heavy, and began to soak through the boy's bag of food which he had brought with him. The boy knew that if he didn't get out of the rain soon, his bread for lunch would be ruined. The village was too far away, and so he began to search for some other shelter.

Behind a group of bushes, the boy found a cave entrance. Of course he knew that one should never enter an unfamiliar cave alone, but then again one should never allow a perfectly good lunch to be ruined, either. And so the boy stepped just inside the cave to wait for the storm to pass.

He waited for a long time -- so long, in fact, that he had already eaten his lunch and had begun to grow hungry again. Just then, behind him, he heard a voice say, "Who are you?"

It seemed to the boy that the voice was the most beautiful he had ever heard. He turned around, expecting to see a shining angel or perhaps a fairy with thin and papery wings. Instead, he saw a small rabbit made of dark stone, staring at him with big eyes of gleaming copper. She spoke again.

"Who are you?"

The boy was confused for a moment. After all, rabbits ought to have fur and a cottontail, and this stone creature had neither of those things. Finally, the little boy collected his thoughts, and explained, "I live in the village at the bottom of the mountain. I came into this cave so that my lunch would not be spoiled by the rain. It seems, though, that I will have difficulty reaching my home again if this storm continues much longer."

The rabbit laughed, a sound which captured the boy's heart. She really was a very beautiful creature. "You silly boy," she said, "Don't you know that in this very cave, there is a path which leads to your village? I could show it to you, if you would follow me."

The boy was not too sure about this idea. "The cave is very dark," he objected. "How will we find our way?"

With a sweet smile and another gleam in her copper eyes, the rabbit spoke softly to him. "I live here in this cave, sweet boy. I can show you the way, if only you will follow me. Or perhaps you would rather wait for the storm to wane?"

The boy thought for a while longer, then shrugged. She had called him a sweet boy...how bad could it be? He said, "I suppose if you know the way, then it couldn't hurt. Please, show me the way home." And so the boy followed the rabbit deeper into the cave. He could not see her, but he could hear the click of her stone paws as she hopped along.

They walked and hopped beside each other for some time. The boy could tell that they had turned a few corners, and he could only feel a faint breeze to tell him from which way they had come. He tripped over something -- a loose stone, a crack in the ground, he would never know. As he fell, he was surprised to find that he kept falling, down a slope in the cave. Far behind as he rolled further and further down, he heard the rabbit's beautiful voice call to him, "Oh yes, watch your feet there, sweet boy!"

Eventually, the boy stopped rolling, coming to rest in the darkness. He didn't know what to do. Could he find his way back? He waited where he was, listening for the click of the rabbit approaching, but she did not come. He waited longer, hoping that she would find him, but she did not. Just as he began to feel like he might cry, he thought that he could see something in the distance -- which was ridiculous, you understand, for there was no light in the cave.

And yet there it was: a spot of visible cave wall in the distance, gradually growing larger. As he watched, the boy realized that there was a tall man, made of glass, approaching him. There was still no light that he could tell, but somehow when he looked through the man he could see perfectly, as though all the light of the sun had reached into the cave and found him there.

The man reached the place where the little boy had fallen. This close, the boy could tell that in addition to being made completely from clearest glass, the man wore a small hat of that same glass. The man stopped, and looked at the boy for a moment.

"Well? Aren't you going to stand up? I can't lead you out of here if you won't stand up, you know."

The glass man's voice was not like the stone rabbit's. It was rough, and the boy could not imagine that it would ever say the words 'sweet boy'. He stood up slowly, then realized what the man had said.

"You can lead me out of here?" he asked quietly.

"Of course," scoffed the man, "And I'll do a fair sight better than that rabbit of yours. Come along." Without another word, he turned and began to walk. The boy followed, looking carefully through the man into the tunnels before them.

They walked for some time, then the glass man spoke again. "It really was very foolish of you to follow that rabbit. She's not a bad girl, of course. Her voice is quite magnificent, as I'm sure you noticed. But she has no light to guide visitors through this cave, and believe me when I say that it's a very dangerous place for one to get lost. You ought to have waited for someone with a light to come along, so you could see clearly to follow them."

The boy thought carefully about this, but didn't say anything. He knew the glass man was right, but it hurt him to admit it. He decided, though, that it did not hurt nearly as much to admit it as it had hurt him to fall down the slope earlier. As the boy realized this, he began to see light in the distance -- not just the light he could see by looking through the glass man, but actual light coming from the cave's exit. They drew closer and closer to it, until finally the boy was standing, looking at his home. The village was not far away.

The glass man smiled at him briefly, before turning and returning to the cave. After he was gone, the boy realized that he ought to have thanked the man, or perhaps invited him to dinner. The sun was setting, however, and the boy knew better than to enter the cave again without a guide. He turned towards his home and began walking. And as he walked, he decided that the glass man's voice was in fact more beautiful than the stone rabbit's.