"DID they have enough left for supper--enough for all the visitors, I
mean?" asks the Little Lady the next evening, when the Story Teller is
ready to go on with the history of the Hollow Tree.
"Oh yes, they had plenty for supper, and more, too. They had been
getting ready a good while for just such a time as this, and had carried
in a lot of food, and they had a good many nice things down in the
store-room where the wood was, but they didn't need those yet. They just
put on what they had left from their big dinner, and Mr. Crow stirred up
a pan of hot biscuits by his best receipt, and they passed them back and
forth across the table so much that Mr. 'Possum said they went like hot
cakes, sure enough, and always took two when they came his way."
And they talked a good deal about the stories that Mr. 'Coon and Mr.
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