Mr. Rabbit at Home by Joel Chandler Harris (good books to read for adults TXT) 📖
- Author: Joel Chandler Harris
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“Not choosing to be late, I showed myself and passed the time of day with Brother Fox. I said, says I, that if he was going to Brother Bear’s barbecue, I’d be glad to have his company. But he said, says he, that he wouldn’t keep me waiting. He had just come down to the forks of the road to see if that would help him to make up his mind. I told him I was mighty sorry to miss his company and his conversation, and then I tipped my hat and took my cane from under my arm and went down the road that led to Brother Bear’s house.”
Here Mr. Rabbit paused, straightened himself up a little, and looked at the children. Then he continued:—
“I reckon you all never stood on the top of a hill three quarters of a mile from the smoking pits and got a whiff or two of the barbecue?”
“I is! I is!” exclaimed Drusilla. “Don’t talk! Hit make me dribble at de mouf. I wish I had some right now.”
HE WENT A LITTLE WAY DOWN ONE ROAD
“Well,” said Mr. Rabbit, “I got a whiff of it and I was truly glad I had come—truly glad. It was a fine barbecue, too. There was lamb, and kid, and shote, all cooked to a turn and well seasoned, and then there was the hash made out of the giblets. I’ll not tell you any more about the dinner, except that I’d like to have one like it every Saturday in the year. If I happened to be too sick to eat it, I could sit up and look at it. Anyhow, we all had enough and to spare.
“After we had finished with the barbecue and were sitting in Brother Bear’s front porch smoking our pipes and talking politics, I happened to mention to Brother Bear something about Brother Wolf’s barbecue. I said, says I, that I thought I’d go by Brother Wolf’s house as I went on home, though it was a right smart step out of the way, just to see how the land lay.
“Says Brother Bear, says he: ‘If you’ll wait till my company take their leave, I don’t mind trotting over to Brother Wolf’s with you. The walk will help to settle my dinner.’
“So, about two hours by sun, we started out and went to Brother Wolf’s house. Brother Bear knew a short cut through the big canebrake, and it didn’t take us more than half an hour to get there. Brother Wolf was just telling his company good-by; and when they had all gone he would have us go in and taste his mutton stew, and then he declared he’d think right hard of us if we didn’t drink a mug or two of his persimmon beer.
“I said, says I, ‘Brother Wolf, have you seen Brother Fox to-day?’
“Brother Wolf said, says he, ‘I declare, I haven’t seen hair nor hide of Brother Fox. I don’t see why he didn’t come. He’s always keen to go where there’s fresh meat a-frying.’
“I said, says I, ‘The reason I asked was because I left Brother Fox at the forks of the road trying to make up his mind whether he’d eat at your house or at Brother Bear’s.’
“‘Well, I’m mighty sorry,’ says Brother Wolf, says he; ‘Brother Fox never missed a finer chance to pick a bone than he’s had to-day. Please tell him so for me.’
“I said I would, and then I told Brother Wolf and Brother Bear good-by and set out for home. Brother Wolf’s persimmon beer had a little age on it, and it made me light-headed and nimble-footed. I went in a gallop, as you may say, and came to the forks of the road before the sun went down.
“You may not believe it, but when I got there Brother Fox was there going through the same motions that made me laugh in the morning—running down one road and licking his chops, and then running down the other and licking his chops.
“Says I, ‘I hope you had a good dinner at Brother Wolf’s to-day, Brother Fox.’
“Says he, ‘I’ve had no dinner.’
“Says I, ‘That’s mighty funny. Brother Bear had a famous barbecue, and I thought Brother Wolf was going to have one, too.’
“Says Brother Fox, ‘Is dinner over? Is it too late to go?’
“Says I, ‘Why, Brother Fox, the sun’s nearly down. By the time you get to Brother Bear’s house, he’ll be gone to bed; and by the time you go across the swamp to Brother Wolf’s house, the chickens will be crowing for day.’
“‘Well, well, well!’ says Brother Fox, ‘I’ve been all day trying to make up my mind which road I’d take, and now it’s too late.’
“And that was the fact,” continued Mr. Rabbit. “The poor creature had been all day trying to make up his mind which road he’d take. Now, then, what is the moral?”
Sweetest Susan looked at Mrs. Meadows, but Mrs. Meadows merely smiled. Buster John rattled the marbles in his pocket.
“I know,” said Drusilla.
“What?” inquired Mr. Rabbit.
“Go down one road an’ git one dinner, den cut ’cross an’ git some mo’ dinner, an’ den go back home down de yuther road.”
Mr. Rabbit shook his head.
“Tar-Baby, you are wrong,” he said.
“If you want anything, go and get it,” suggested Buster John.
Mr. Rabbit shook his head and looked at Sweetest Susan, whereupon she said:—
“If you can’t make up your mind, you’ll have to go hungry.”
Mr. Rabbit shook his head.
“Eat a good breakfast,” said Mrs. Meadows, “and you won’t be worried about your dinner.”
“All wrong!” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit, with a chuckle. “The moral is this: He who wants too much is more than likely to get nothing.”
“Well,” remarked Mrs. Meadows dubiously, “if you have to work out a moral as if it was a sum in arithmetic, I’ll thank you not to trouble me with any more morals.”
“The motion is seconded and carried,” exclaimed Mr. Thimblefinger.
THE LITTLE BOY OF THE LANTERN.
“Of course,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, “all of you can tell better stories than I can, because you are larger. Being taller, you can see farther and talk louder; but I sometimes think that if I was to climb a tree, I’d see as far as any of you.”
“Well, I hope your feelings are not hurt,” remarked Mr. Rabbit sympathetically. “It’s not the fault of your stories that I fall asleep when you are telling them. It’s my habit to sit and nod at certain hours of the day, and if you’ll watch me right close, you’ll see that I sometimes drop off when I’m telling a story myself. I’ll try and keep awake the next time you tell one.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to prop Mr. Rabbit’s eyelids open with straws,” said Mrs. Meadows, laughing.
“I’ll just try you with a little one,” Mr. Thimblefinger declared. “I’ll tell you one I heard when I was younger. I want to see whether Mr. Rabbit will keep awake, and I want to see whether there’s a moral in the tale.”
So he took off his little hat, which was shaped like a thimble, and run his hand over the feather ornament to straighten it out. Then he began:—
“A long time ago, when there was a great deal more room in the country next door than there is now, there lived a man who had a wife, one son, a horse, a cow, and a calf. He was a hard-working man, so much so that he had little or no time to devote to his family. He worked hard in the field all day, and when night came he was too tired to trouble much about his son. His wife, too, having no servant, was always busy about the house, sewing, washing, cooking, cleaning, patching, milking, and sweeping. Day in and day out it was always the same. The man was always working, and the woman was always working. They had no rest except on Sunday, and then they were too tired to pay much attention to their son.
“The consequence was, that while the boy was a very bright lad, he was full of mischief, up to all sorts of tricks and pranks that some people call meanness. By hook or by crook—or maybe by book—he had learned how to spell and read. But the only book he had to read was one with big pictures of men dressed in red clothes, and armed with yellow cutlasses. The book was called ‘The Pirooters of Peruvia.’”
“Maybe the name was ‘The Pirates of Peru,’” suggested Buster John.
“Oh, no,” replied Mr. Thimblefinger. “I don’t suppose any such country as Peru had been found on the map when that book was written. But never mind about that. The boy read only that book, and he became rather wild in his mind. He wanted to be a pirooter, whatever that was, and so he armed himself with old hoe helves and called them pikes, and he tied a shingle to his side and called it a cutlass, and he got him a broom-handle and called it a horse.
“This boy’s name was Johnny, but sometimes they called him Jack for short. Some people said he was mean as he could be; but I don’t say that. He was fonder of scampering over the country than he was of helping his mother. Maybe he didn’t know any better because he wasn’t taught any better. But one morning his mother was so tired that she couldn’t get out of bed. She had worn herself out with work. The next morning she couldn’t get up, nor the next; and then the neighbors, who had come in to see what the matter was, said that she would never get up any more. So one day Johnny found everything very still in the house, and the neighbors who were there were kinder to him than they ever had been, and then he knew that his mother would never get tired any more.
“He felt so bad that he wandered off into the woods, crying as he went. His eyes were so full of tears that he couldn’t see where he was going, and he didn’t care. He went on and on, until, finally, when he took heart to look around, he found himself in a part of the country that was new to him. This caused him to dry his eyes, for he was perfectly sure that he had traveled neither fast nor far enough to be beyond the limits of the numberless journeys he had made in all directions from his father’s house; and yet, here he was, suddenly and without knowing how he got there, in a country that was altogether new to him.
“It was just like when you came down through our spring gate,” said Mr. Thimblefinger. “The grass was different and the trees were different, and even the sand and the gravel were of a color that Johnny had never seen before. Suddenly, while he was wondering how he could have missed seeing all these strange things when he had journeyed this way before, a lady, richly dressed, came out of the woods and stood before him. She neither smiled nor looked severe, but pity seemed to shine in her face.
“‘What now?’ she said, raising her hand to her head. ‘You have come fast and come far. You are in trouble. Go back. When you want me, go to the Whispering Poplar that stands on the hill and call my name.’
“‘Who are you?’ asked Johnny, forgetting to be polite, if he ever knew how.
“‘The Keeper
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