Mr. Rabbit at Home by Joel Chandler Harris (good books to read for adults TXT) 📖
- Author: Joel Chandler Harris
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“But before he went away he gave Eolen the gold ring, and told her to wear it for the sake of his mother, who sat by the Well at the End of the World. She thanked him for his kindness and promised she would keep the ring and treasure it as long as she lived.
“But there was one trouble with this magic ring. It was too large for any of Eolen’s fingers. She had the whitest and most beautiful hands ever seen, but the ring would fit none of her fingers. Around her neck she wore a necklace of coral beads, and on this necklace she hung the ring.
“For many day’s Eolen’s stepmother was kind to her, almost too kind. But the woman was afraid her stepdaughter would inform the judges of her effort to steal and hide her husband’s will. The judges were very severe in those days and in that country, and if the woman had been brought before them and such a crime proven on her, she would have been sent to the rack.”
“What is a rack?” asked Sweetest Susan.
“Hit’s de place whar dey scrunch folks’s ve’y vitals out’n ’em,” said Drusilla solemnly.
“That’s about right, I reckon,” assented Mr. Thimblefinger. “Well, the stepmother was as kind to Eolen as she knew how to be, but the kindness didn’t last long. She hated her stepdaughter worse than ever. She was afraid of her, but she didn’t hate her any the less on that account.
“Eolen had a habit of taking off her coral necklace and placing it under her pillow at night. One night, when she was fast asleep, her stepmother crept into the room and slipped the ring from the necklace. She had no idea it was a magic ring. She said to herself that it would look better on her daughter’s finger than it did on Eolen’s coral necklace, so she took the ring and slipped it on the finger of her sleeping daughter, and then stepped back a little to admire the big golden circle on the coarse, red hand.
“Almost immediately the daughter began to toss and tumble in her sleep. She flung her arms wildly about and tried to talk. The mother, becoming alarmed, tried to wake her, but it was some time before the girl could be roused from her troubled sleep.
“‘Oh!’ she cried, when she awoke, ‘what is the matter with me? I dreamed some one was cutting my finger off. What was it? Oh! it hurts me still!’
“She held up the finger on which her mother had placed the ring and tried to tear off the golden band. ‘It burns—it burns!’ she cried. ‘Take it off.’
“Her mother tried to take the ring off, but it was some time before she succeeded. Her daughter struggled and cried so that it was a hard matter to remove the ring, which seemed to be as hot as fire. A red blister was left on the girl’s finger, and she was in great pain.
HER STEPMOTHER CREPT INTO THE ROOM
“‘What have I done?’ the mother cried, seeing her daughter’s condition. The two made so much noise that Eolen awoke and went to the door to find out what the trouble was.
“‘Go away, you hussy!’ screamed the stepmother when she saw Eolen at the door. ‘Go away! You are a witch!’
“‘Why, what have I done?’ Eolen asked.
“‘You are the cause of all this trouble. For amusement I placed your gold ring on my dear daughter’s finger, and now see her condition!’
“‘Why, then, did you take my ring? If you had left it where I placed it, you would have had none of this trouble.’ Eolen spoke with so much dignity that her stepmother was surprised into silence, though she could talk faster and louder than a flutter-mill. But finally she found her voice.
“‘Go away! You are a witch!’ she said to Eolen.
“But Eolen went boldly into the room. ‘Give me my ring!’ she exclaimed. ‘You shall wrong me no further. Give me my ring! I will have it!’
“This roused the stepmother’s temper. She searched on the floor till she found the ring. Then she opened a window and flung it as far as she could send it.
“‘Now let’s see you get it!’ she cried. With that she seized Eolen by the arm and pushed her from the room, saying, ‘Go away, you witch!’
“Now, then,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, after pausing to take breath, “what was the poor girl to do?” He looked at Sweetest Susan as if expecting her to answer the question.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Sweetest Susan.
“Shake up de bottle,” exclaimed Drusilla.
“Exactly so,” said Mr. Thimblefinger.
THE COW WITH THE GOLDEN HORNS.
“I hope that isn’t all of the story,—if you call it a story,” said Buster John.
“Which?” remarked Mr. Thimblefinger, with an air of having forgotten the whole business.
“Why, that about throwing the gold ring from the window,” replied Buster John.
“Well, no,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, in an absent-minded way. “In a book, you know, you can read right on if you want to, or you can put the book down and rest yourself when you get tired. But when I’m telling a story, you must give me time to rest. I’m so little, you know, that it doesn’t take much to tire me. Of course, if you don’t like the story, I can stop any time. It’s no trouble at all to stop. Just wink your eye at me twice, and I’m mum.”
“Oh, we don’t want you to stop,” said Sweetest Susan.
“No, don’t stop,” remarked Mr. Rabbit, drowsily, “because then everybody gets to talking, and I can’t doze comfortably. Your stories are as comforting to me as a feather-bed.”
“Then I’ll add a bolster to the bed,” exclaimed Mr. Thimblefinger. He hesitated a moment, and then went on with the story:—
“Of course, Eolen didn’t know what to do when her stepmother threw the gold ring from the window and pushed her from the room. She went back to her bed and lay down, but she couldn’t sleep. After a while daylight came, and then she dressed herself and went down into the garden to hunt for the ring. She searched everywhere, but the ring was not to be found.
“Now the ring could have been found very easily if it had been where it fell when Eolen’s stepmother threw it from the window. But that night a tame crow, belonging to the Prince of that country, was roosting in one of the trees in the garden.”
“Oh, was it a sure enough Prince?” asked Sweetest Susan.
“Why, certainly,” replied Mr. Thimblefinger, with great solemnity. “A make-believe Prince could never have reigned in that country. The people would have found him out, and he would have been put in the calaboose. Well, this tame crow that belonged to the Prince had wandered off over the fields, and had gone so far away from the palace that it was unable to get back before dark, and so it went to bed in one of the trees growing in the garden behind the house where Eolen lived.
“Of course, as soon as morning came, the crow was wide awake and ready for any mischief that might turn up. It flew to the ground, hoping to find something for breakfast, and hopped about, searching in the leaves and grass. Suddenly the crow saw the ring shining on the ground and picked it up and turned it over. What could it be? The crow’s curiosity was such that it forgot all about breakfast. It seized the ring in its beak and went flopping to the palace. It was so early in the morning that the palace was closed, but the crow flew straight to the Prince’s window and beat his wings against it until some of the attendants came and opened it, when the crow walked in with great dignity.
“The Prince had been awakened by the noise, but when he saw the bird stalking into the room as stiff as a major-general of militia, he fell back on his bed laughing. The crow hopped to the foot-board of the bed and stood there holding the gold ring in his beak, as much as to say, ‘Don’t you wish you were as rich as I am?’
“The Prince rose from his bed and took the ring from the crow, but it was so hot that he made haste to drop it in a basin of cold water. Then a curious thing happened. The ring seemed to expand in the basin until it was as large as the bottom, and within the circle it made the picture of a beautiful girl standing by a milk-white cow. There were two peculiarities about the milk-white cow. Her ears were as black as jet, and her horns shone and glittered as if they were made of gold.
“The Prince was entranced. He gazed at the beautiful picture long and lovingly, and the crow sat on the rim of the basin and chuckled as proudly as if it had painted the picture. The girl was the loveliest the Prince had ever seen, and the cow was surely the most beautiful of her kind. The Prince’s attendants uttered exclamations of delight when they saw the picture, and his ministers, when they were sent for, were struck dumb with astonishment.
“‘If this bird could only speak!’ cried the Prince.
“But the crow went chuckling about the room saying to itself, ‘What a fool a Prince must be who cannot understand my simple language!’
“The Prince gazed at the picture framed by the gold ring for a long time. At last he concluded to take it from the water. As he did so it shrunk to its natural size, and the picture of the beautiful girl and the Cow with the Golden Horns disappeared, and the ring no longer burnt his fingers. He dropped it in the basin once more, but it remained a simple gold ring and the picture failed to appear again.
“The Prince was disconsolate. He remained in the palace and refused to go out. He moped and pined, until the family doctor was called in. The doctor fussed about and felt of the Prince’s pulse and looked at his tongue, and said that a change of air was necessary; but the Prince said he didn’t want any change of air and wouldn’t have it. In fact, he said he didn’t want any air at all, and he wouldn’t take any pills or powders, and he wouldn’t drink any sage tea, and he wouldn’t have any mustard plaster put on him. He was in love, and he knew that the more medicine he took, the worse off he would be.”
“Well, a little sage tea ain’t bad when you are in love,” remarked Mrs. Meadows. “It’s mighty soothing.”
“Maybe,” continued Mr. Thimblefinger, “but the Prince didn’t want it, and wouldn’t have it. He wanted the beautiful girl he had seen in the picture. He was in love with her, and he wanted to marry her. So his ministers consulted together and finally they sent around a bailiff”—
“Nonsense!” cried Mrs. Meadows.
“Tut—tut!” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit.
“Well,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, “he sent a crier around”—
“A herald, you mean,” suggested Buster John, who had read a good many story books.
“A bailiff could do the work just as well, but you can have it your way. Well,” continued Mr. Thimblefinger, “the Prince’s ministers sent a herald around to inquire at all the people’s houses if any of them had a Cow with Golden Horns, but nobody had such a cow, and everybody wondered what the herald meant. A Cow with Golden Horns! People went about asking one another if
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