THE MAYOR PARDONING THE THIEF
“I’ve read something about the great thief,” remarked Buster John. “But the story didn’t end that way. The thief escaped every time.”
“Oh, well, you know how some people are,” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows. “They want everything to happen just so; even a thief must be a big man if he’s in a story; but I don’t believe anybody ever stole anything yet without getting into trouble about it.”
“Who is that crying?” Mr. Rabbit suddenly exclaimed.
“I hear no crying,” said Mrs. Meadows.
“I certainly thought I heard crying,” persisted Mr. Rabbit.
“It is Chickamy Crany Crow and Tickle-My-Toes singing. Listen!”
Sure enough the queer-looking boy and the queer-looking girl were singing a song. One sang one line and the other the next line, and this made the song somewhat comical. The words were something like these:—
Oh sing it slow,This song of woe,Of the girl who went to wash her toe!Her name was Chick—(Oh run here quick—The word’s so thick)—Chickamy—Chickamy Crany Crow!Chickamy what? and Chickamy which?She went to the well and fell in the ditch;What o’clock, old Witch?The clock struck oneAnd bowed to the sun;But the sun was fast asleep you know;And the moon was quick,With her oldtime trick—To hide from Chick—Chickamy—Chickamy Crany Crow!Chickamy what? and Chickamy which?She went to the well and fell in the ditch;What o’clock, old Witch?Oh, sad to tell!She went to the well—The time was as close to eve as to dawn—To Chickamy Chick,So supple and slick,The clock said “Tick!”But when she came back her chicken was gone!Oh, whatamy, whichamy, chickamy, oh!Moonery, oonery, tickamy Toe!Wellery, tellery, gittery go!Witchery, itchery, knitchery know.
Oh sing it slow,This song of woe,Of the girl who went to wash her toe!Her name was Chick—(Oh run here quick—The word’s so thick)—Chickamy—Chickamy Crany Crow!
Chickamy what? and Chickamy which?She went to the well and fell in the ditch;What o’clock, old Witch?
The clock struck oneAnd bowed to the sun;But the sun was fast asleep you know;And the moon was quick,With her oldtime trick—To hide from Chick—Chickamy—Chickamy Crany Crow!
Chickamy what? and Chickamy which?She went to the well and fell in the ditch;What o’clock, old Witch?
Oh, sad to tell!She went to the well—The time was as close to eve as to dawn—To Chickamy Chick,So supple and slick,The clock said “Tick!”But when she came back her chicken was gone!
Oh, whatamy, whichamy, chickamy, oh!Moonery, oonery, tickamy Toe!Wellery, tellery, gittery go!Witchery, itchery, knitchery know.
CHICKAMY CRANY CROW AND TICKLE-MY-TOES
“What kinder gwines on is dat?” exclaimed Drusilla, whose mind had never been quite easy since she walked through the dry water in the spring without getting drowned. “We all better be makin’ our way to’rds home. Time we git dar—ef we ever is ter git dar—it’ll be dark good. Den what yo’ ma gwine to say? She gwine ter talk wid de flat er her han’—dat what she gwine ter talk wid. Come on!”
“Can’t you be quiet?” cried Buster John. “It’s nothing but a song.”
“Oh, you kin stay, an’ I’ll stay wid you,” said Drusilla; “but when Mistiss git you in de wash-room, don’t you come sayin’ dat I wouldn’t fetch you home.”
“I want to see everything,” said Buster John.
“I done seed much ez I want ter see,” replied Drusilla, “an’ now I want ter live ter tell it.”
Before Buster John could say anything more, everything suddenly grew a little darker, and in the middle of the sky—or what ought to have been the sky, but which was the enlarged bottom of the spring—there was a huge shadow. The children looked at it in silence.
The shadow that seemed to fall over everything caused Buster John and Sweetest Susan and Drusilla to run to the door. It was not a very dark shadow, but it was dark enough to attract their attention and excite their alarm. They were not yet used to their surroundings, for, although a great many things they saw and heard were familiar to them, they could not forget that they had come through the water in the spring. They could not forget that Mr. Thimblefinger was the smallest grown person they had ever seen,—even if he were a grown person,—nor could they forget that they had never seen a rabbit so wonderfully large as Mr. Rabbit. Drusilla expressed the feelings of all when she remarked that she felt “skittish.” They were ready to take alarm at anything that might happen. Therefore they ran to the door to see what the shadow meant. Finally they looked up at the sky, or what seemed to bethe sky, and there they saw, covering a large part of it, the vague outline of a huge jug. The shadow wobbled about and wavered, and ripples of light and shadow played about it and ran down to the horizon on all sides.
An astronomer, seeing these fantastic wobblings and waverings of light and shadow in our firmament, would straightway send a letter or a cable dispatch to the newspapers, declaring that an unheard-of convulsion was shaking the depths of celestial space. And, indeed, it was all very puzzling, even to the children, but Drusilla, who had less imagination than any of the rest, accounted for it all by one bold stroke of common sense.
“Shuh! ’T ain’t nothin’ ’t all!” she exclaimed. “Dey done got froo wid dinner at home, an’ ol’ Aunt ’Cindy done put de buttermilk-jug back in de spring.”
Sweetest Susan caught her breath with a gasp, and laughed hysterically. She had been very much alarmed.
“I expect that’s what it is,” said Buster John, but there was some doubt in his tone. He turned to Mr. Thimblefinger, who had followed them. “What time is it, please?”
Mr. Thimblefinger drew his watch from his pocket with as much dignity as he could assume, and held his head gravely on one side. “It is now—let me see—ahem!—it is now precisely thirteen minutes and eleven seconds after one o’clock.”
“Is that the jug in the spring?” asked Sweetest Susan, pointing to the huge black shadow that was now wobbling and wavering more slowly.
Mr. Thimblefinger shaded his eyes with his hand and examined the shadow critically. “Yes, that is the jug—the light hurts my eyes—yes, certainly, that is the jug.”
Presently a volume of white vapor shot out from the shadow. It was larger than the largest comet, and almost as brilliant.
“What is that?” asked Sweetest Susan.
Mr. Thimblefinger felt almost as thoughtful as a sure-enough man of science.
“That,” said he, “is an emanation—an exhalation, you might say—that we frequently witness in our atmosphere.”
“A which?” asked Buster John.
“Well,” replied Mr. Thimblefinger, clearing his throat, “it’s—er—an emanation.”
“Huh!” cried Drusilla, “’t ain’t no kind er nation. It’s des de milk leakin’ out’n dat jug. I done tol’ Aunt ’Cindy ’bout dat leakin’ jug.”
Mr. Rabbit and Mrs. Meadows had come out of the house in time to hear this, and they laughed heartily. In fact, they all laughed except Mr. Thimblefinger and Drusilla.
“It happens every day,” said Mrs. Meadows. “We never notice it. I suppose if it happened up there where you children live, everybody would make a great to-do? I’m glad I don’t live there where there’s so much fussing and guessing going on. I know how it is. Something happens that doesn’t happen every day, and then somebody’ll guess one way and somebody another way, and the first thing you know there’s a great rumpus over nothing. I’m truly glad I came away from there in time to get out of the worst of it. You children had better take a notion and stay here with us.”
“Oh, no,” cried Sweetest Susan. “Mamma and papa would want to see us.”
“That’s so,” said Mrs. Meadows. “Well, I just came out here to tell you not to get too near the Green Moss Swamp beyond the hill yonder.There’s an old Spring Lizard over there that might want to shake hands with you with his tail. Besides it’s not healthy around there; it is too damp.”
“Oh, we are not going anywhere until we start home,” Sweetest Susan remarked.
“How large is the Spring Lizard?” inquired Buster John.
“He’s a heap too big for you to manage,” replied Mrs. Meadows. “I don’t know that he’d hurt you, but he’s slept in the mud over there until he’s so fat he can’t wallow scarcely. He might roll over on you and hurt you some.”
“Are there any lions over there?” inquired Sweetest Susan.
“No, honey, not a living one,” said Mrs. Meadows.
By this time Mr. Rabbit had come out on the piazza, bringing his walking-cane and his pipe. He presently seated himself on the steps, and leaned his head comfortably against one of the posts.
“Well, well, well,” he exclaimed. “It has been years and years since I’ve heard the name of Brother Lion. Is he still living and doing well?”Mr. Rabbit turned an inquiring eye on Sweetest Susan.
“She doesn’t know anything about lions,” said Buster John.
“Why, I do!” cried Sweetest Susan. “I saw one once in a cage.”
“In a cage? Brother Lion in a cage?” Mr. Rabbit raised his hands and rolled his eyes in astonishment. “What is the world coming to? Well, I’ve said many and many a time that Brother Lion was not right up here.” Mr. Rabbit tapped his forehead significantly. “In a cage! Now, that pesters me. Why, he used to go roaring and romping about the country, scaring them that didn’t know him mighty nigh to death. And so Brother Lion is in a cage? But I might have known it. I wonder how the rest of the family are getting on? Not that they are any kin to me, for they are not. I called him Brother Lion just to be neighborly. Oh, no! He and his family are no kin to me. They are too heavy in both head and feet for that.”
Mr. Rabbit closed his eyes as if reflecting, and patted the ground softly with his foot.
“Well, well! I remember just as well as if itwere yesterday the day I told Brother Lion that if he wasn’t careful, Mr. Man would catch him and put him in a cage for his children to look at. But he just hooted at it—and now, sure enough, there he is! I mind the first time he began his pursuit of Mr. Man. That was the time he got his hand caught in the split of the log.”
“I done hear my daddy tell dat tale,” remarked Drusilla.
“Yes,” said Mr. Rabbit, “it soon became common talk in the neighborhood. Brother Lion had come a long way to hunt Mr. Man, and as soon as he got his hand out of the split in the log he started to go home again. I went part of the way with him, and then it was that I told him he’d find himself in a cage if he wasn’t careful. I made a burdock poultice for his hand the best I could—”
“And it’s mighty good for bruises, I tell you now!” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows.
“And then Brother Lion went on home, feeling better, but still very mad. Crippled as he was, he was a quick traveler, and it was not long before he came to his journey’s end.
MR. RABBIT BANDAGING BROTHER LION’S PAW
“Well, when his mother saw him she was verysorry. But when he told her what the matter was she was vexed. ‘Aha!’ said she, ‘how often have I told you about meddling with somebody else’s business! How often have I told you about sticking your nose into things that don’t concern you! I’m not sorry for you one bit, because if you had obeyed me you wouldn’t be coming home now with your hand mashed all to flinders. But, no! daddy-like, you’ve got to go and get yourself into trouble with Mr. Man, and now you see what has come of it. I’m not feeling at all well myself, but now I’ve got to go to work and make a whole parcel of poultices and tie your hand up and nurse you—and I declare somebody ought to be nursing me this very minute.’
“That was what Brother Lion’s mother said,” continued Mr. Rabbit, “but Brother Lion didn’t say anything. He just lay on the sheepskin pallet she made him and studied how he would be revenged on Mr. Man. After a while his hand got well, but still he said very little about the matter. The more he thought about the way he had been treated, the madder he got. He gnashed his teeth together and waved his longtail about until it looked like a snake. Finally he sent word to all his kin—his uncles and his cousins—to meet him somewhere in the woods and hold a convention to consider how they should catch the great monster, Mr. Man, who had caused a log of wood to mash Brother Lion’s hand.
“Well, it wasn’t long before the uncles and cousins began to arrive. They came from far and near, and they seemed to be very ferocious. They shook their manes and showed their tushes. They went off in the woods and held their convention, and Brother Lion laid his complaint before them. He told them what kind of treatment he had received from Mr. Man, and asked them if they would help to get his revenge. He made quite a speech, and when he sat down, his uncles and cousins were very much excited. They roared and howled. They said they were ready to tear Mr. Man limb from limb. They declared they were ready to go where he was, and gnaw him and claw him on account of the scandalous way he had treated their blood-kin.
“But when Brother Lion’s mother heard what they proposed to do she shut her eyes and shookher head from side to side, and told the uncles and the cousins that they had better go back home, all of them. She said that before they got through with Mr. Man they’d wish they had never been born. But go they would and go they did.
“So they started out soon one morning, and traveled night and day for nearly a week. They were getting very tired and hungry, and some of the younger blood-cousins wanted to stop and rest, and some wanted to turn around and go back home. But one morning while they were going through the woods, feeling a little shaky in head and limb, they suddenly came in sight of Mr. Man. He was cutting down trees and splitting them into timber. He had his coat off, and seemed to be very busy.
“But he was not so busy that he didn’t hear Mr. Lion and his uncles and blood-cousins sneaking through the woods over the dry leaves, and he wasn’t so busy that he couldn’t see them moving about among the trees. He was very much astonished. He wondered where so many of the Lion family came from, and what they were doing there, but he didn’t stop to ask anyquestions. He dropped his axe and climbed a tree.
“Brother Lion and his uncles and his blood-cousins were very much pleased when they saw Mr. Man climb the tree. ‘We have him now,’ said Brother Lion, and the rest licked their jaws and smiled. Then they gathered around the tree and sat on their haunches and watched Mr. Man. This didn’t do any good, for Mr. Man sat on a limb and swung his legs, just as contentedly as if he was sitting in his rocking-chair at home.
“Then Brother Lion and his uncles and his blood-cousins showed their teeth and growled. But this didn’t do any good. Mr. Man swung his feet and whistled a dance-tune. Then Brother Lion and his blood-cousins opened their mouths wide and roared as loud as they could. But this didn’t do any good. Mr. Man leaned his head against the trunk of the tree and pretended to be nodding.
“This made Brother Lion and his blood-kin very mad. They ran around the tree and tore the bark with their claws, and waved their tails back and forth. But this didn’t do any good.Mr. Man just sat up there and swung his feet and laughed at them.
“Brother Lion and his blood-kin soon found that if they intended to capture Mr. Man they’d have to do something else besides caper around the foot of the tree. So they talked it over, and Brother Lion fixed up a plan. He said that he would stand at the foot of the tree and rear up against the trunk, and one of his blood-cousins could climb on his back and rear up, and then another cousin or uncle could climb up, and so on until there was a ladder of bloodthirsty Lions high enough to reach Mr. Man.
“Brother Lion, mind you, was to be at the bottom of the Lion ladder,” remarked Mr. Rabbit, with a chuckle, “and he had a very good reason for it. He had had dealings with Mr. Man, and he wanted to keep as far away from him as possible. But before they made the Lion ladder, Brother Lion looked up at Mr. Man and called out:—
“‘What are you doing up there?’
“‘You’ll find out a great deal too soon for your comfort,’ replied Mr. Man.
“Brother Lion said, ‘Come down from there.’
“Mr. Man answered, ‘I’ll come down much sooner than you want me to.’
“Then Brother Lion, his uncles, and his blood-cousins began to build their ladder. Brother Lion was the bottom round of this ladder, as you may say,” continued Mr. Rabbit. “He reared up and placed his hands against the tree, and one of his uncles jumped on his shoulders, and put his hands against the tree. Then a cousin, and then another uncle, and so on until the ladder reached a considerable distance up the tree. It was such a high ladder that it began to wobble, and the last uncle had hard work to make his way to the top. He climbed up very carefully and slowly, for he was not used to this sort of business. He was the oldest and the fiercest of the old company, but his knees shook under him as he climbed up and felt the ladder shaking and wobbling.
“Mr. Man saw that by the time this big Lion got to the top of the ladder his teeth and his claws would be too close for comfort, and so he called out in an angry tone:—
THE LADDER OF LIONS
“‘Just hold on! Just stand right still! Wait! I’m not after any of you except that fellow atthe bottom there. I’m not trying to catch any of you but him. He has bothered me before. I let him go once, but I’ll not let him get away this time. Just stand right still and hold him there till I climb down the other side of the tree.’
“With that Mr. Man shook the limbs and leaves and dropped some pieces of bark. This was more than Brother Lion could stand. He was so frightened that he jumped from under the ladder, and his uncles and his blood-cousins came tumbling to the ground, howling, growling, and fighting.
“They were as sorry-looking a sight as ever you saw when they came to their senses. Those that didn’t have their bones broken by the fall were torn and mangled. They had acted so foolishly that out of the whole number, Mr. Man didn’t get but three lion-skins that could be called perfect.
“Brother Lion went home to his mother as fast as he could go and remained quiet a long time. And now you tell me he’s in a cage.”
Mr. Rabbit paused and shook his head until his ears flopped.
The children seemed to enjoy the story very much; so much so, indeed, that Mrs. Meadows wanted Mr. Rabbit to tell some of his own queer experiences, but Mr. Rabbit laughed and said that it didn’t seem exactly right to be telling his own stories. He said if he told the stories just as they happened, he’d have to talk about himself a good deal, and people would think he was boastful. He declared he didn’t feel like making his young friends think he was bragging.
“Oh, we shan’t mind that,” said Sweetest Susan, “shall we, brother?”
“Why, of course not,” replied Buster John.
“La! we all done hear folks brag, till we got hardened ter braggin’!” exclaimed Drusilla.
So the children, aided by Mrs. Meadows, coaxed Mr. Rabbit until he finally consented to tell some of his queer adventures.
Mr. Rabbit moved his body uneasily about, and scratched his head, and crossed and uncrossed his legs several times before he began.
“I declare it isn’t right!” he exclaimed after a while. “I don’t mind telling about other folks, but when it comes to talking about myself, it is a different thing.”
“Don’t you remember the time you tried to get Brother Terrapin to give you a fiddle-string?” asked Mrs. Meadows, laughing a little.
“Oh, that was just a joke,” replied Mr. Rabbit.
“Call it a joke, then,” said Mrs. Meadows. “You know what the little boy said when the man asked him his name. He said, says he, ‘You may call it anything, so you call me to dinner.’”
“He wasn’t very polite,” remarked Sweetest Susan.
“No, indeed,” Mrs. Meadows answered; “but you know that little boys can’t always remember to be polite.”
“I think we were at your house,” suggested Mr. Rabbit, rubbing his chin.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Meadows. “In the little house by the creek. The yard sloped from the front door right to the bank.”
“To be sure,” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit, brightening up. “I remember the house just as well as if I had seen it yesterday. There was a little shelf on the left-hand side of the door as you came out, and there the water-bucket sat.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Meadows; “and there was just room enough up there by the bucket for Brother Terrapin.”
“That’s so,” Mr. Rabbit replied, laughing, “and when he used to go to your house to see the girls they’d set the bucket on the table in the house and lift Brother Terrapin to the shelf so he could see and be seen. I remember it used to make him very mad when I’d tell him he would be a mighty man if he wasn’t so flat-footed.”
“Oh, you used to talk worse than that,” cried Mrs. Meadows, laughing heartily at the remembranceof it. “You used to tell him he was the only man you ever saw that sat down when he stood up. I declare! Brother Terrapin’s eyes used to get right red.”
“Well,” said Mr. Rabbit, after a pause; “I remember I went to your house one day and I carried my fiddle. When I got there, who should I see but old Brother Terrapin sitting up on the shelf. I expected to find the girls by themselves, but there was Brother Terrapin. So I began to joke him.
“‘Howdy, Brother Terrapin?’ says I. ‘If you had a ladder handy you could come downstairs and shake hands, couldn’t you?’
“He began to get sullen and sulky at once. He wouldn’t hardly make any reply. But I didn’t care for that. Says I: ‘Cross your legs and look comfortable, Brother Terrapin; don’t be glum in company. I’ve got my fiddle with me, and I’m going to make your bones ache if you don’t dance.’
“Then I whirled in,” said Mr. Rabbit, “and played the liveliest tunes I could think of,—‘Billy in the Low Grounds,’ ‘’Possum up the Gum-Stump,’ ‘Chicken in the Bread-Tray,’ andall those hoppery-skippery, jiggery-dancery tunes that make your feet go whether or no. But there Brother Terrapin sat, looking as unconcerned as if the fiddle had been ten miles away. He didn’t even keep time to the music with his foot. More than that, he didn’t even wag his head from side to side.”
“I always knew Brother Terrapin had no ear for music,” remarked Mrs. Meadows. “If that was a fault, he certainly had more than his share of it.”
“I ought not to talk about people behind their backs,” Mr. Rabbit continued, trying to shake a fly out of his ear, “but I must say that Brother Terrapin was very dull about some things. Well, I played and played, and the girls danced and seemed to enjoy it. I believe you danced a round or two yourself?” Mr. Rabbit turned to Mrs. Meadows inquiringly.
“I expect I shook my foot a little,” said Mrs. Meadows with a sigh. “I was none too good.”
“They danced and danced until they were tired of dancing,” Mr. Rabbit resumed; “but there sat Brother Terrapin as quiet as if he were asleep. Well, I was vexed—I don’t mind sayingso now—I was certainly vexed. But I didn’t let on. And between tunes I did my best to worry Brother Terrapin.
MR. RABBIT FIDDLING FOR BROTHER TERRAPIN
“‘Ladies,’ says I, ‘don’t make so much fuss. Let Brother Terrapin get his nap out. You’ll turn a chair over directly, and Brother Terrapin will give a jump and fall off the shelf and break some of the furniture in his house.’ This made the girls laugh very much, for they remembered the old saying that Brother Terrapin carries his house on his back. ‘Don’t laugh so loud,’ says I, ‘Brother Terrapin has earned his rest. He’s been courting on the other side of the creek, and he has no carriage to ride in when he goes back and forth. Sh-h!’ says I, ‘don’t disturb him. When a person sits down when he stands up, and lies down when he walks, some allowance must be made.’
“Brother Terrapin’s eyes grew redder and redder, and the skin on the back of his head began to work backward and forward. What might have happened I don’t know, but just as the girls were in the middle of a dance one of my fiddle-strings broke, and it was the treble, too. I wouldn’t have minded it if it had been any ofthe other strings, but when the treble broke I had to stop playing.
“Well, the girls were very much disappointed and so was I, for I had come for a frolic. I searched in my pockets, but I had no other string. I tried to play with three strings, but the tune wouldn’t come. The girls were so sorry they didn’t know what to do.
“Just then an idea struck me. ‘Ladies,’ says I, ‘it’s a thousand pities I didn’t bring an extra treble, and I’m perfectly willing to go home and fetch one, but if Brother Terrapin was a little more accommodating the music could go right on. You could be dancing again in a little or no time.’
“‘Oh, is that so?’ says the girls. ‘Well, we know Brother Terrapin will oblige us.’
“‘I’m not so sure of that,’ says I.
“‘What do you want me to do?’ says he. His voice sounded as if he had the croup.
“‘Ladies,’ says I, ‘you may believe it or not, but if Brother Terrapin has a mind to he can lend me a treble string that will just fit my fiddle.’
“‘Brother Rabbit,’ says he, ‘you know I have no fiddle-string. What would I be doing with one?’
“‘Don’t mind him, ladies. He knows just as well as I do that he has a fiddle-string in his neck. I can take my pocket-knife and get it out in half a minute,’ says I.
“This made Brother Terrapin roll his eyes.
“‘Be ashamed of yourself, Brother Terrapin,’ says the girls. ‘And we were having so much fun, too.’
“‘If my neck was as long and as tough as Brother Terrapin’s, I’d take one of the leaders out and make a fiddle-string of it, just to oblige the ladies,’ says I.
“The girls turned up their noses and tossed their heads. ‘Don’t pester Brother Terrapin,’ says they. ‘We’ll not ask him any more.’
“‘Ladies,’ says I, ‘there is a way to get the fiddle-string without asking for it. Will you please hand me a case-knife out of the cupboard there?’
“I rose from my chair with a sort of a frown,” continued Mr. Rabbit, laughing heartily, “but before I could lift my hand Brother Terrapin rolled from the shelf and went tumbling down the slope to the creek, heels over head.”
“Did it hurt him much?” asked Sweetest Susan, with a touch of sympathy.
“It didn’t stop his tongue,” replied Mr. Rabbit. “He crawled out on the other side of the creek and said very bad words. He even went so far as to call me out of my name. But it is all over with now,” said Mr. Rabbit, with a sigh. “I bear no grudges. Let bygones be bygones.”
“I never heard before that Brother Terrapin had a fiddle-string in his neck,” said Buster John, after he had thought the matter over a little.
“In dem times,” said Drusilla, as if to satisfy her own mind, “you couldn’t tell what nobody had skacely.”
“Why, as to that,” replied Mr. Rabbit, “the fiddle-string in his neck was news to Brother Terrapin.”
There was a pause here and the children seemed to be somewhat listless.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” remarked Mrs. Meadows to Mr. Rabbit; “these children here are lonesome, and they’ll be getting homesick long before the time comes for them to go. Oh, don’t tell me!” she cried, when the children would have protested. “I know how I’d feel if I was away from home in a strange country and had nobody but queer people to talk to. We aretoo old. Even Chickamy Crany Crow and Tickle-My-Toes are too old, and Mr. Thimblefinger is too little.”
BROTHER TERRAPIN TUMBLING INTO THE CREEK
“Well, what are we going to do about it?” asked Mr. Rabbit, running his thumb in the bowl of his pipe.
“I was just thinking,” responded Mrs. Meadows. “Hadn’t we better bring out the Looking-Glass family?”
“Well,” said Mr. Rabbit, “I leave that to you.” To hide the smile that gathered around his mouth Mr. Rabbit leaned his head over and scratched his left ear lazily with his left foot.
“That’s what I’ll do,” Mrs. Meadows declared decisively. “These children want company they can appreciate, poor things!”
She went into the house, and presently came out again, bringing a mirror about three feet wide and five feet high.
The frame of the mirror was of dark wood, curiously carved, and it was set on pivots between two small but stout upright posts, made of the same kind of wood. As Mrs. Meadows brought the looking-glass out, it swung back and forth between these posts, and its polished surface shone with great brilliancy. The children wondered how they were to amuse themselves with this queer toy. Mrs. Meadows placed the looking-glass a little way from them, but not facing them. The frame was in profile, so that they could see neither the face nor the back of the mirror.
“You come first,” she said to Buster John.
He went forward, and Mrs. Meadows placed him in front of the looking-glass. As he turned to face it, his reflection (as it seemed) stepped from the mirror and stared at him. Buster John looked at Mrs. Meadows for an explanation, but at that moment she beckoned to Sweetest Susan.When Buster John moved, his image moved. Mrs. Meadows pushed him gently aside to make room for Sweetest Susan, and it seemed that some invisible hand pushed his reflection gently aside.
SWEETEST SUSAN MEETING HER REFLECTION
Sweetest Susan stepped before the looking-glass, and her reflection walked out to meet her. Drusilla now came forward, and her image stepped forth, looking somewhat scared and showing the whites of its eyes. Mrs. Meadows went to the looking-glass, gave it a sudden turn on its pivots, and carried it into the house.
All this happened so rapidly that the children hardly had time to be surprised, but now that the looking-glass had been carried away and they were left with their reflections, their shadows, their images (or whatever it was), they didn’t know what to do, or say, or think. They could only look at each other in dumb astonishment. Drusilla was the first to break the silence. In her surprise she had moved quickly back a few steps, and her image, which had come out of the looking-glass, had as quickly moved forward and toward her a few steps.
“Don’t come follerin’ atter me!” she criedexcitedly. “Kaze ef you do, you’ll sho’ git hurted. I ain’t done nothin’ ’t all ter you. I ain’t gwine ter pester you, an’ I ain’t gwine ter let you pester me. I tell you dat now, so you’ll know what ter ’pen’ on.”
“Don’t move! Please don’t move!” cried Sweetest Susan to Buster John. “If you do I can’t tell you apart. I won’t know which is which. That wouldn’t be treating me right nor Mamma, either.”
Naturally, the children were in a great predicament when Mrs. Meadows came back. She saw the trouble at once, and began to laugh. It was funny to see Buster John and Sweetest Susan and Drusilla standing there staring first at the Looking-Glass children and then at themselves, not daring to move for fear they would get mixed up with their doubles. The Looking-Glass children stared likewise, first at themselves and then at the others.
“What is the matter?” Mrs. Meadows asked. “Why don’t you go and play with one another and make friends? It isn’t many folks that have the chance you children have got.”
“I don’t feel like playing,” said SweetestSusan. “I’m afraid we’ll get mixed up so that nobody will know one from the other.”
“Why, there’s all the difference in the world,” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows, trying hard not to laugh. “The Looking-Glass children are all left-handed. You have a flower on the left side of your hat, the other Susan has a flower on the right side of hers. Your brother there has buttons on the right side of his coat; the other John has buttons on the left side. There is a flaw in the looking-glass, and Drusilla, being a little taller than you two, was just tall enough for the end of her nose to be even with the flaw. That’s the reason the other Drusilla’s nose looks like it had been mashed with a hammer.”
“Yes ’m, it do!” exclaimed Drusilla. She involuntarily took a step forward to take a nearer view of the flawed nose, and of course the other Drusilla took a step forward as if to show the flawed nose. “Don’t you dast ter come ’bout me!” exclaimed Drusilla. “Goodness knows, I don’t look dat away. Go on, now! Go ’ten’ ter yo’ own business ef you got any.”
“I don’t want to play with you,” said the otherDrusilla. “You’ve got smut on your face. I don’t like to play with dirty-faced girls.”
“My face cleaner’n yone dis blessed minnit,” retorted Drusilla.
“And your hair is not combed,” said the other Drusilla. “It is wrapped with strings, and you couldn’t comb it if you wanted to. I think it is a shame.”
“Look at yo’ own head!” retorted Drusilla angrily. “It’s mo’ woolly dan what mine is. ’T ain’t never been kyarded much less combed. An’ who got any mo’ strings roun’ der hair dan you got on yone?”
“How could I help it?” the other Drusilla asked. “You came and looked at me in the glass and I had to be just like you, smutty face and all. I don’t think it is right. I know I never looked like this before, and I hope I never shall again.”
“Tut, tut!” said Mrs. Meadows; “don’t get to mooning around here. You might look better, but you don’t look so bad. It will all come right on wash-day, as the woman said when she put her dress on wrong side outwards. Here comes Chickamy Crany Crow and Tickle-My-Toes. They’ll be glad to see you, no matter how you look.”
And they were. They ran to the Looking-Glass children and greeted them warmly. Tickle-My-Toes stared at the other Drusilla in surprise, but he didn’t laugh at her. “You look as if you had fallen down the chimney,” he said, “but that doesn’t make any difference. So long as you are here, we are satisfied.”
“Oh, I don’t mind it,” said the other Drusilla.
“Now, then,” remarked Mrs. Meadows, “you couldn’t please us better than to sing us a song. You haven’t practiced together for a long time.”
The other children looked at one another in a shamefaced way, and then, without a word of objection or explanation, they began to sing as with one voice, the most plaintive song that ever was heard. It may be called:—
It’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!Oh, what could you say and what could you doIf you lived all alone in the toe of a shoe?You could hop, you could skip, you could jump, you could dance,And you’d hear very little of “shouldn’ts” and “shan’ts.”You could stump your big toe, and it would never get hurt;You could kick up the sand, you could play in the dirt.But it’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!Oh, what could you do, and what would you sayIf you lived in the pantry all night and all day?You could say it was jolly, and splendid, and nice;You could eat all the jelly, and frighten the mice.You could taste the preserves, you could nibble the cheese—You could smell the red pepper, and sit down and sneeze.But it’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!Oh, what could you do if you lived under ground?You could ride Mr. Mole and go galloping round;You could hear the black cricket a-playing his fife,For to quiet the baby and please his dear wife.You could hear the green grasshopper frying his meat,Near the nest of the June-Bug under the wheat.You could get all the goobers and artichokes, too—You could peep from the window the grub-worm went through.But it’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!
It’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!
Oh, what could you say and what could you doIf you lived all alone in the toe of a shoe?You could hop, you could skip, you could jump, you could dance,And you’d hear very little of “shouldn’ts” and “shan’ts.”You could stump your big toe, and it would never get hurt;You could kick up the sand, you could play in the dirt.
But it’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!
Oh, what could you do, and what would you sayIf you lived in the pantry all night and all day?You could say it was jolly, and splendid, and nice;You could eat all the jelly, and frighten the mice.You could taste the preserves, you could nibble the cheese—You could smell the red pepper, and sit down and sneeze.
But it’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!
Oh, what could you do if you lived under ground?You could ride Mr. Mole and go galloping round;You could hear the black cricket a-playing his fife,For to quiet the baby and please his dear wife.You could hear the green grasshopper frying his meat,Near the nest of the June-Bug under the wheat.You could get all the goobers and artichokes, too—You could peep from the window the grub-worm went through.
But it’s oh! and it’s ah! It’s alack! and alas!Just imagine you lived in a big looking-glass!
“Oh, I think that is splendid,” cried Sweetest Susan.
“Mr. Rabbit doesn’t like it much,” replied Mrs. Meadows, “but I tell him it is pretty good for children that were raised in a Looking-Glass.”
“It will do very well,” remarked Mr. Rabbit,“but you’ll hear nicer songs by the time you are as old as I am.”
“Dem ar white chillun done mighty well,” said Drusilla, “but I don’t like de way dat ar nigger gal hilt her head.”
“Do they have to stay in the looking-glass?” asked Buster John. “If they do I’m sorry for them.”
“I ain’t sorry fer dat black gal,” said Drusilla spitefully. “She too ugly ter suit me.”
“Whose fault is it but yours?” cried Chickamy Crany Crow.
“Yes, whose fault is it?” cried Tickle-My-Toes.
“Come, come!” cries Mrs. Meadows. “We want no trouble here.”
“We’ll not trouble her,” answered Tickle-My-Toes. “Old Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones will do the troubling.”
“Now you all heah dat!” exclaimed Drusilla, in some alarm. “I ain’t pesterin’ nobody, an’ I ain’t doin’ nothin’ ’t all. Ef I can’t talk I des ez well quit livin’. I’m gwine home, I am, an’ ef I can’t fin’ de way, den I’ll know who’ll have ter answer fer it.”
“Well, if you go,” said Mrs. Meadows, “you’llhave company. The other black girl will have to go too.”
“How come dat?” exclaimed Drusilla.
“It would take me too long to tell you,” replied Mrs. Meadows. “Why does your shadow in a looking-glass make every motion that you make? Because it’s obliged to—that’s all. That’s just the reason the other black girl would follow you.”
“Don’t mind Drusilla,” said Buster John. “She just talks to hear herself talk. Her mouth flies open before she knows it.”
“Well, the poor things won’t trouble you long,” said Mrs. Meadows. “They’ll want to go back home presently.”
“Do they have to stay in the looking-glass?” inquired Buster John, repeating a question he had already asked.
“Well, they were born and raised there,” replied Mrs. Meadows. “It is their home, and, although they are glad to get out for a little while, they wouldn’t be very happy if they had to stay out.”