When I was little, I threw a birthday party for my bunny. My friends all brought over birthday bunny presents—most of them were carrots wrapped in lettuce. ¶ My friends had a bunny that could go indoors or outdoors. It was so cool. ¶ My friend had a rabbit. Cats and dogs and rabbits, if you rub between their eyes, fall asleep. One time they did that to their rabbit and it never woke up. ¶ One time when I was little, I shook talcum powder around the room. My mom was too frustrated to deal with it, so my dad sat me down and told me the story of Peter Rabbit being bad by shaking talcum powder. ¶ When I was a kid, my parents got a bunny. When we were on vacation something ripped the cage open and ate it. ¶ My friend Justine had a bunny. It was litter box trained. It would hop around and poop in the litter box. ¶ I think the most powerful thing is: If you hurt an animal, you have to give birth to an animal. ¶ I think my bunny died in a terrible way. I’m not sure, but she got some kind of parasite, vomited and pooped at the same time, and died. ¶ I used to like to put my bunny in a clover patch. She’d hop around and eat the clover flowers. ¶ I was told my family had another rabbit that ran free in our yard. The neighbor’s dog ate it. I might be getting this confused with a cat. (Hannah Converse, Anne Lewenberg, Jack McAuliffe, Rebecca Rothberg, Sally Schwab, and Chris “Rabbit” Warren)

From the January 2012 issue of Happiness Pony. [PDF]

On November 24,1990, a nine-foot-long wooden sleigh was pulled from Worcester’s Indian Lake. It had been there for nearly 70 years. The result of a suicide pact by star-crossed lovers? A WPI fraternity prank? Neither—it was a vestige of a time when, each winter, men used horses and sleighs to haul 18,000 tons of ice from the lake, first to be stored in icehouses along the shore, and then, in the summer, to be used in residents’ iceboxes. If a horse fell through the ice, the men would choke it with a rope until it passed out and then pull it out. Otherwise, it would thrash and drown. (Nicole Apostola)

The Cold, Increased by the Tremendous Speed, Deprived Them of the Power of Speech

There Mr. Fogg examined a curious vehicle, a kind of frame on two long beams, a little raised in front like the runners of a sledge, and upon which there was room for five or six persons. A high mast was fixed on the frame, held firmly by metallic lashings, to which was attached a large brigantine sail. This mast held an iron stay upon which to hoist a jib-sail. Behind, a sort of rudder served to guide the vehicle. It was, in short, a sledge rigged like a sloop. During the winter, when the trains are blocked up by the snow, these sledges make extremely rapid journeys across the frozen plains from one station to another. Provided with more sails than a cutter, and with the wind behind them, they slip over the surface of the prairies with a speed equal if not superior to that of the express trains. (Written by Jules Verne. Translated by Geo. M. Towle. Illustration by Léon Benett.)

From the January 2012 issue of Happiness Pony. [PDF]