Rabbit had told them, and everybody thought how sly and smart Mr. 'Coon
had been to fool Mr. Dog that way; and Mr. 'Coon said that, now he came
to think it over, he supposed it was a pretty good trick, though it
really hadn't seemed so specially great to him at the time. He said he
didn't think it half as smart as Mr. Tortoise's trick on Mr. Rabbit's
Grandpaw Hare, when he beat him in the foot-race and went over the fence
first, taking Mr. Hare's tail with him. And then they wondered if that
had all really happened as Mr. Rabbit had told it--all but Mr. Turtle,
who just sat and smiled to himself and didn't say anything at all,
except "Please pass the biscuits," now and then, when he saw the plate
being set down in front of Mr. 'Possum.
Then by-and-by they all got through and hurried up and cleared off the
table, and lit their pipes, and went back to the fire, and pretty soon
Jack Rabbit began to tell
HOW THE REST OF THE RABBITS LOST THEIR TAILS
"Well," he said, "my twenty-seventh great-grandfather Hare didn't go out
again for several days. He put up a sign that said 'Not at Home,' on his
door, and then tried a few experiments, to see what could be done.
[Illustration: TRIED TO SPLICE HIS PROPERTY BACK IN PLACE]
"He first tried to splice his property back into place, as Mr. Tortoise
had told him he might, but that plan didn't work worth a cent. He never
could get it spliced on straight, and if he did get it about right, it
would lop over or sag down or something as soon as he moved, and when he
looked at himself in the glass he made up his mind that he'd rather do
without his nice plumy brush altogether than to go out into society with
it in that condition.
"So he gave it up and put on some nice all-healing ointment, and before
long what there was left of it was all well, and a nice bunch of soft,
white cottony fur had grown out over the scar, and Grandpaw Hare thought
when he looked at himself in the glass that it was really quite
becoming, though he knew the rest of his family would always be saying
things about it, and besides they would laugh at him for letting Mr.
Tortoise beat him in a foot-race.
[Illustration: GRANDFATHER WOULD LIGHT HIS PIPE AND THINK IT OVER]
"Sometimes, when there was nobody around, my grandfather would go out
into the sun and light his pipe and lean up against a big stone, or
maybe a stump, and think it over.
"And one morning, as he sat there thinking, he made up his mind what he
would do. Mr. Lion lived in the Big Deep Woods in those days, and he was
King. Whenever anything happened among the Deep Woods People that they
couldn't decide for themselves, they went to where King Lion lived, in a
house all by himself over by the Big West Hills, and he used to settle
the question; and sometimes, when somebody that wasn't very old, and
maybe was plump and tender, had done something that wasn't just right,
King Lion would look at him and growl and say it was too bad for any one
so young to do such things, and especially for them to grow up and keep
on doing them; so he would have him for breakfast, or maybe for dinner,
and that would settle everything in the easiest and shortest way.
"Of course Grandfather Hare knew very well that Mr. Tortoise and Mr. Fox
wouldn't go with him to King Lion, for they would be afraid to, after
what they had done, so he made up his mind to go alone and tell him the
whole story, because he was as sure as anything that King Lion would
decide that he had really won the race, and would be his friend, which
would make all the other Deep Woods People jealous and proud of him
again, and perhaps make them wish they had nice bunches of white cottony
fur in the place of long dragging tails that were always in the way.
"And then some day he would show King Lion where Mr. Fox and Mr.
Tortoise lived.
[Illustration: SET UP HIS EARS AND WENT BY, LICKETY-SPLIT]
"My Grandfather Hare didn't stop a minute after he thought of that, but
just set out for King Lion's house over at the foot of the Big West
Hills. He had to pass by Mr. Fox's house, and Mr. Fox called to him, but
Grandpaw Hare just set up his ears as proud as could be and went by,
lickety-split, without looking at Mr. Fox at all.
"It was a good way to King Lion's house, but Grandpaw Hare didn't waste
any time, and he was there almost before he knew it.
"When he got to King Lion's door he hammered on the knocker, and when
nobody came right away he thought maybe the King was out for a walk. But
that wasn't so. King Lion had been sick for two or three days, and he
was still in bed, and had to get up and get something around him before
he could let Grandpaw in.
"Grandpaw Hare had sat down on the steps to wait, when all at once the
door opened behind him and he felt something grab him by the collar and
swing him in and set him down hard on a seat, and then he saw it was
King Lion, and he didn't much like his looks.
[Illustration: "'GLAD TO SEE YOU,' SAID KING LION; 'I WAS JUST THINKING
ABOUT HAVING A NICE RABBIT FOR BREAKFAST'"]
"'So it was you, was it, making that noise,' he said. 'Well, I'm glad to
see you, for I was just thinking about having a nice rabbit for
breakfast.'
"Then my twenty-seventh great-grandfather knew he'd made a mistake,
coming to see King Lion when he was feeling that way, and he had to
think pretty quick to know what to say. But our family have always been
pretty quick in their thoughts, and Grandpaw Hare spoke right up as
polite as could be, and said he would do anything he could to find a
nice young plump rabbit for King Lion, and that he would even be proud
to be a king's breakfast himself, only he wasn't so very young nor so
very plump, and, besides, there was that old prophecy about the king and
the cotton-tailed rabbit, which of course, he said, King Lion must have
heard about.
"Then King Lion said that my twenty-seventh great-grandfather was plenty
young enough and plenty plump enough, and that he'd never heard of any
prophecy about a cotton-tailed rabbit, and that he'd never heard of a
cotton-tailed rabbit, either.
"Then Grandpaw Hare just got up and turned around, and as he turned he
said, as solemnly as he could:
"'When the King eats a hare with a cotton tail,
Then the King's good health will fail.
"Well, that scared the King a good deal, for he was just getting over
one sick spell, and he was afraid if he had another right away he'd die
sure. He sat down and asked Grandpaw Hare to tell him how he came to
have a tail like that, and grandpaw told him, and it made the King laugh
and laugh, until he got well, and he said it was the best joke he ever
heard of, and that he'd have given some of the best ornaments off of his
crown to have seen that race.
"And the better King Lion felt the hungrier he got, and when my
Grandfather Hare asked him if he wouldn't decide the race in his favor,
he just glared at him and said if he didn't get out of there and hunt
him up a nice, young, plump, long-tailed rabbit, he'd eat him--cotton
tail, prophecy, and all--for he didn't go much on prophecies anyway.
"Then Grandpaw Hare got right up and said, 'Good-day' and backed out and
made tracks for the rest of his family, and told them that King Lion had
just got up from a sick spell that had given him an appetite for
long-tailed rabbits. He said that the King had sent him out to get one,
and that King Lion would most likely be along himself pretty soon. He
said the sooner the Rabbit family took pattern after the new
cotton-tailed style the more apt they'd be to live to a green old age
and have descendants.
"Well, that was a busy day in the Big Deep Woods. The Rabbit family got
in line by a big smooth stump that they picked out for the purpose, and
grandpaw attended to the job for them, and called out 'Next!' as they
marched by. He didn't have to wait, either, for they didn't know what
minute King Lion might come. Mr. Tortoise and Mr. Fox came along and
stopped to see the job, and helped grandpaw now and then when his arm
got tired, and by evening there was a pile of tails by that stump as big
as King Lion's house, and there never was such a call for the
all-healing ointment as there was that night in the Big Deep Woods.
"And none of our family ever did have tails after that, for they never
would grow any more, and all the little new rabbits just had bunches of
cotton, too, and that has never changed to this day.
"And when King Lion heard how he'd been fooled by Grandpaw Hare with
that foolish prophecy that he just made up right there, out of his head,
he knew that everybody would laugh at him as much as he had laughed at
Mr. Hare, and he moved out of the country and never came back, and
there's never been a king in the Big Deep Woods since, so my
twenty-seventh great-grandfather did some good, after all.
"And that," said Mr. Rabbit, "is the whole story of the Hare and the
Tortoise and how the Rabbit family lost their tails. It's never been
told outside of our family before, but it's true, for it's been handed
down, word for word, and if Mr. Fox or Mr. Tortoise were alive now they
would say so."
Mr. Rabbit filled his pipe and lit it, and Mr. Crow was just about to
make some remarks, when Mr. Turtle cleared his throat and said:
"The story that Mr. Rabbit has been telling is all true, every word of
it-- I was there."
Then all the Deep Woods People took their pipes out of their mouths and
just looked at Mr. Turtle with their mouths wide open, and when they
could say anything at all, they said:
"_You were there!_"
You see, they could never get used to the notion of Mr. Turtle's being
so old--as old as their twenty-seventh great-grandfathers would have
been, if they had lived.
"Yes," said Mr. Turtle, "and it all comes back to me as plain as day. It
happened two hundred and fifty-eight years ago last June. They used to
call us the Tortoise family then, and I was a young fellow of
sixty-seven and fond of a joke. But I was surprised when I went sailing
over that fence, and I didn't mean to carry off Mr. Hare's tail. Dear
me, how time passes! I'm three hundred and twenty-five now, though I
don't feel it."
Then they all looked at Mr. Turtle again, for though they believed he
was old, and might possibly have been there, they thought it pretty
strange that he could be the very Mr. Tortoise who had won the race.
Mr. 'Possum said, pretty soon, that when anybody said a thing like that,
there ought to be some way to prove it.
Then Mr. Turtle got up and began taking off his coat, and all the others
began to get out of the way, for they didn't know what was going to
happen to Mr. 'Possum, and they wanted to be safe; and Mr. 'Possum
rolled under the table, and said that he didn't mean anything--that he
loved Mr. Turtle, and that Mr. Turtle hadn't understood the way he meant
it at all.
But Mr. Turtle wasn't the least bit mad. He just laid off his coat,
quietly, and unbuttoned his shirt collar, and told Mr. 'Coon and Mr.
Crow to look on the back of his shell.
And then Mr. Dog held a candle, and they all looked, one after another,
and there, sure enough, carved right in Mr. Turtle's shell, were the
words:
BEAT MR. HARE
FOOT-RACE
JUNE 10, 1649
"That," said Mr. Turtle, "was my greatest joke, and I had it carved on
my shell."
And all the rest of the forest people said that a thing like that was
worth carving on anybody's shell that had one, and when Mr. Turtle put
on his coat they gave him the best seat by the fire, and sat and looked
at him and asked questions about it, and finally all went to sleep in
their chairs, while the fire burned low and the soft snow was banking up
deeper and deeper, outside, in the dark.
THE "SNOWED-IN" LITERARY CLUB
THE "SNOWED-IN" LITERARY CLUB
MR. RABBIT PROPOSES SOMETHING TO PASS THE TIME
"Did the Hollow Tree People and their company sleep in their chairs all
night?" asks the Little Lady, as soon as she has finished her supper.
"And were they snowed in when they woke up next morning?"
The Story Teller is not quite ready to answer. He has to fill his pipe
first, and puff a little and look into the fire before he sits down, and
the Little Lady climbs into her place. The Little Lady knows the Story
Teller, and waits. When he begins to rock a little she knows he has
remembered, and then pretty soon he tells her about the Snowed-In
Literary Club.
Well, the Hollow Tree People went to sleep there by the fire and they
stayed asleep a long while, for they were tired with all the good times
and all the good things to eat they had been having. And when they woke
up once, they thought it was still night, for it was dark, though they
thought it must be about morning, because the fire was nearly out, and
Mr. 'Possum said if there was anybody who wasn't too stiff he wished
they'd put on a stick of wood, as he was frozen so hard that he knew if
he tried to move he'd break.
So Mr. Turtle, who had been drawn up mostly into his shell, and Mr. Dog,
who was used to getting up at all hours of the night, stretched and
yawned and crept down after some sticks and dry pieces and built up a
good fire, and pretty soon they were all asleep again, as sound as ever.
And when they woke up next time it was still just as dark, and the fire
had gone almost out again, and Mr. 'Coon and Mr. Crow, too, said they
didn't understand it, at all, for a fire like that would generally keep
all night and all day too, and here two fires had burned out and it was
still as dark as ever. Then Mr. Crow lit a splinter and looked at the
clock, and said he must have forgotten to wind it, or maybe it was
because it was so cold, as it had stopped a little after twelve, and Mr.
'Possum said that from the way he felt it was no wonder the clock had
stopped, for if he could tell anything by his feelings it must be at
least day after to-morrow. He said he felt so empty that every time he
breathed he could hear the wind whistle through his ribs.
That made Mr. Rabbit think of something, and he stepped over to the
window. Then he pushed it up a little, and put out his hand. But he
didn't put it out far, for it went right into something soft and cold.
Mr. Rabbit came over to where Mr. Crow was poking up the fire, bringing
some of the stuff with him.
"Now," he said, "you can all see what's the matter. We're snowed in. The
snow is up over the window, and that's why it's so dark. It may be up
over the top of the tree, and we may have been asleep here for a week,
for all we know."
Then they all gathered around to look at the snow, and went to the
window and got some more, and tried to tell whether it was day or night,
and Mr. Crow and Mr. 'Coon and Mr. 'Possum ran up-stairs to their rooms,
and called back that it was day, for the snow hadn't come quite up to
the tops of their windows.
And it _was_ day, sure enough, and quite late in the afternoon at that,
but they couldn't tell just what day it was, or whether they had slept
one night, or two nights, or even longer.
Well, of course the first thing was to get something to eat and a big
fire going, and even Mr. 'Possum scrambled around and helped carry
wood, so he could get warm quicker. They still had a good deal to eat in
the Hollow Tree, and they were not much worried. Mr. 'Possum and Mr.
'Coon remembered another time they were snowed in, when Mr. Crow had fed
them on Johnnie cake and gravy, and they thought that if everything else
gave out it would be great fun to live like that again.
When they had finished eating breakfast, or dinner, or whatever it was,
for it was nearer supper-time than anything else, they began to think of
things to do to amuse themselves, and they first thought they'd have
some more stories, like Mr. Rabbit's.
But Mr. Rabbit, who is quite literary, and a good poet, said it would be
better to make it a kind of a club, and each have a poem, or a story, or
a song; or if anybody couldn't do any of those he must dance a jig.
[Illustration: GOT AROUND THE TABLE AND BEGAN TO WORK]
Then they all remembered a poetry club that Mr. Rabbit had got up once
and how nice it was, and they all said that was just the thing, and they
got around the table and began to work away at whatever they were going
to do for the "Snowed-In" Literary Club.
Mr. Rabbit wasn't very long at his piece, and pretty soon he jumped up
and said he was through, and Mr. 'Possum said that if that was so, he
might go down and bring up some wood and warm up the brains of the rest
of them. So Mr. Rabbit stirred up the fire, and sat down and looked
into it, and read over his poem to himself and changed a word here and
there, and thought how nice it was; and by-and-by Mr. Dog said he was
through, and Mr. Robin said he was through, too.
Then Mr. Rabbit said he thought that would be more than enough for one
evening anyway, and that the others might finish their pieces to-morrow
and have them ready for the next evening.
So then they all gathered around the fire again, and everybody said that
as Mr. Rabbit had thought of the club first he must be the first to read
his piece.
Mr. Rabbit said he was sure it would be more modest for some one else to
read first, but that he was willing to start things going if they wanted
him to. Then he stood up, and turned a little to the light, and took a
nice position, and read his poem, which was called
SNOWED IN
_By J. Rabbit_
Oh, the snow lies white in the woods to-night--
The snow lies soft and deep;
And under the snow, I know, oh, ho!
The flowers of the summer sleep.
The flowers of the summer sleep, I know,
Snowed in like you and me--
Under the sheltering leaves, oh, ho,
As snug and as warm as we--
As snug and as warm from the winter storm
As we of the Hollow Tree.
Snowed in are we in the Hollow Tree,
And as snug and as warm as they we be--
Snowed in, snowed in,
Are we, are we,
And as snug as can be in the Hollow Tree,
The wonderful Hollow Tree.
Oh, the snow lies cold on wood and wold,
But never a bit comes in,
As we smoke and eat, and warm our feet,
And sit by the fire and spin:
And what care we for the winter gales,
And what care we for the snow--
As we sit by the fire and spin our tales
And think of the things we know?
As we spin our tales in the winter gales
And wait for the snow to go?
Oh, the winds blow high and the winds blow low,
But what care we for the wind and snow,
Spinning our tales of the long ago
As snug as snug can be?
For never a bit comes in, comes in,
As we sit by the fire and spin, and spin
The tales we know, of the long ago,
In the wonderful Hollow Tree.
Mr. Rabbit sat down then, and of course everybody spoke up as soon as
they could get their breath and said how nice it was, and how Mr. Rabbit
always expressed himself better in poetry than anybody else could in
prose, and how the words and rhymes just seemed to flow along as if he
were reeling it off of a spinning-wheel and could keep it up all day.
And Mr. Rabbit smiled and said he supposed it came natural, and that
sometimes it was harder to stop than it was to start, and that he
_could_ keep it up all day as easy as not.
Then Mr. 'Possum said he'd been afraid that was what _would_ happen, and
that if Mr. Rabbit hadn't stopped pretty soon that he--Mr. 'Possum, of
course--would have been so tangled up in his mind that somebody would
have had to come and undo the knot.
[Illustration: MR. 'POSSUM WANTED TO KNOW WHAT MR. RABBIT MEANT BY
SPINNING THEIR TAILS]
Then he said he wanted to ask some questions. He said he wanted to know
what "wold" meant, and also what Mr. Rabbit meant by spinning their
tails. He said he hadn't noticed that any of them were spinning their
tails, and that he couldn't do it if he tried. He said that he could
curl his tail and hang from a limb or a peg by it, and he had found it a
good way to go to sleep when things were on his mind, and that he
generally had better dreams when he slept that way.
He said that of course Mr. Rabbit's poem had been about tails of the
long ago, and he supposed that he meant the ones which his family had
lost about three hundred years ago, according to Mr. Turtle, but that he
didn't believe they ever could spin them much, or that Mr. Rabbit could
spin what he had left.
Mr. 'Possum was going on to say a good deal more on the subject, but Mr.
Rabbit interrupted him.
He said he didn't suppose there was anybody else in the world whose food
seemed to do him so little good as Mr. 'Possum's, and that very likely
it was owing to the habit he had of sleeping with his head hanging down
in that foolish way. He said he had never heard of anybody who ate so
much and knew so little.
Of course, he said, everybody might not know what "wold" meant, as it
wasn't used much except by poets who used the best words, but that it
meant some kind of a field, and it was better for winter use, as it
rhymed with cold and was nearly always used that way. As for Mr.
'Possum's other remark, he said he couldn't imagine how anybody would
suppose that the tales he meant were those other tails which were made
to wave or wag or flirt or hang from limbs by, instead of being stories
to be told or written, just as the Deep Woods People were telling and
writing them now. He said there was an old expression about having a
peg to hang a tale on, and that it was most likely gotten up by one of
Mr. 'Possum's ancestors or somebody who knew as little about such things
as Mr. 'Possum, and that another old expression which said "Thereby
hangs a tale" was just like it, because the kind of tales he meant
didn't hang, but were always told or written, while the other kind
always did hang, and were never told or written, but were only sometimes
told or written about, and it made him feel sad, he said, to have to
explain his poem in that simple way.
Then Mr. 'Possum said that he was sorry Mr. Rabbit felt that way,
because he didn't feel at all that way himself, and had only been trying
to discuss Mr. Rabbit's nice poem. He said that of course Mr. Rabbit
couldn't be expected to know much about tails, never having had a real
one himself, and would be likely to get mixed up when he tried to write
on the subject. He said he wouldn't mention such things again, and that
he was sorry and hoped that Mr. Rabbit would forgive him.
And Mr. Rabbit said that he was sorry, too--sorry for Mr. 'Possum--and
that he thought whoever was ready had better read the next piece.
[Illustration: MR. DOG SAID HE HAD MADE A FEW SKETCHES]
Then Mr. Dog said that he supposed that he was as ready as he'd ever be,
and that he'd like to read his and get it off his mind, so he wouldn't
be so nervous and could enjoy listening to the others. He wasn't used to
such things, he said, and couldn't be original like Mr. Rabbit, but he
knew a story that was told among the fowls in Mr. Man's barnyard, and
that he had tried to write it in a simple way that even Mr. 'Possum
would understand. His story was about a duck--a young and foolish
duck--who got into trouble, and Mr. Dog said he had made a few sketches
to go with it, and that they could be handed around while he was
reading. Now he would begin, he said, and the name of his story was
ERASTUS, THE ROBBER DUCK
_By Mr. Dog, with Sketches_
Once upon a time there was a foolish young duck named Erastus (called
'Rastus, for short). He was an only child, and lived with his mother in
a small house on the bank of a pond at the foot of the farm-yard.
Erastus thought himself a brave duck; he would chase his shadow, and was
not afraid of quite a large worm.
As he grew older he did not tell his mother everything. Once he slipped
away, and went swimming alone. Then a worm larger than any he had ever
seen came up out of the water, and would have swallowed Erastus if he
had not reached the shore just in time, and gone screaming to his
mother.
His mother said the great worm was a water-snake, and she told Erastus
snake-stories which gave him bad dreams.
Erastus grew quite fast, and soon thought he was nearly grown up. Once
he tried to smoke with some other young ducks behind the barn. It made
Erastus sick, and his mother found it out. She gave Erastus some
unpleasant medicine, and made him stay in bed a week.
Erastus decided that he would run away. While his mother was taking her
morning bath he packed his things in a little valise she had given him
for Christmas. Then he slipped out the back door and made for the woods
as fast as he could go. He had made up his mind to be a robber, and make
a great deal of money by taking it away from other people.
He had begun by taking a small toy pistol which belonged to Mr. Man's
little boy. He wore it at his side. His mother had read to him about
robbers. Erastus also had on his nice new coat and pretty vest.
He did not rob anybody that day. There was nothing in the woods but
trees and vines. Erastus tripped over the vines and hurt himself, and
lost the toy pistol.
Then it came night, and he was very lonesome. For the first time in his
life Erastus missed his mother. There was a nice full moon, but Erastus
did not care for it. Some of the black shadows about him looked as if
they might be live things. By-and-by he heard a noise near him.