_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.
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.
[Illustration: MR. 'POSSUM WANTED TO KNOW WHAT MR. RABBIT MEANT BY
SPINNING THEIR TAILS]
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.
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 barn-yard, 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