How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail Part 4

"Then Mr. Fox scratched his head, and thought about it, and said he didn't see how he could help giving the race to Mr. Tortoise, for it was to be the first one across the fence, and that Mr. Tortoise was certainly the first one across, and that he'd gone over the top rail in style.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SET OUT FOR HOME BY A BACK WAY]

"Well, that made Grandpaw Hare madder than ever. He didn't say another word, but just picked up his property that Mr. Tortoise handed him through the fence, and set out for home by a back way, studying what he ought to do to keep everybody from laughing at him, and thinking that if he didn't do something he'd have to leave the country or drown himself, for he had always been so proud that if people laughed at him he knew he could never show his face again.

"And that," said Mr. Rabbit, "is the true story of that old race between the Hare and the Tortoise, and of how the first Rabbit came to lose his tail. I've never told it before, and none of my family ever did; but so many stories have been told about the way those things happened that we might just as well have this one, which is the only true one so far as I know."

Then Mr. Rabbit lit his pipe and leaned back and smoked. Mr. Dog said it was a fine story, and he wished he could have seen that race, and Mr.

Turtle looked as if he wanted to say something, and did open his mouth to say it, but Mr. Crow spoke up, and asked what happened after that to Mr. Rabbit's twenty-seventh great-grandfather, and how it was that the rest of the Rabbits had short tails, too.

Then Mr. Rabbit said that that was another story, and Mr. Squirrel and Mr. Robin wanted him to tell it right away, but Mr. Crow said they'd better have supper now, and Mr. 'Possum thought that was a good plan, and Mr. 'c.o.o.n, too, and then they all hurried around to get up some sticks of wood from down stairs, and to set the table, and everybody helped, so they could get through early and have a nice long evening.

And all the time the snow was coming down outside and piling higher and higher, and it was getting too dark to see much when they tried to look out the window through the gloom of the Big Deep Woods.

HOW THE OTHER RABBITS LOST THEIR TAILS

MR. JACK RABBIT CONTINUES HIS FAMILY HISTORY

"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 pa.s.sed 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. 'c.o.o.n and Mr.

Rabbit had told them, and everybody thought how sly and smart Mr. 'c.o.o.n had been to fool Mr. Dog that way; and Mr. 'c.o.o.n 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 pa.s.s 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

HOW THE REST OF THE RABBITS LOST THEIR TAILS

"Well," he said, "my twenty-seventh great-grandfather Hare didn't go out again for several days. He put up a sign that said 'Not at Home' on his door, and then tried a few experiments, to see what could be done.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE TRIED TO SPLICE HIS PROPERTY BACK IN PLACE]

"He first tried to splice his property back into place, as Mr. Tortoise had told him he might, but that plan didn't work worth a cent. He never could get it spliced on straight, and if he did get it about right, it would lop over or sag down or something as soon as he moved, and when he looked at himself in the gla.s.s he made up his mind that he'd rather do without his nice plumy brush altogether than to go out into society with it in that condition.

"So he gave it up and put on some nice all-healing-ointment, and before long what there was left of it was well, and a nice bunch of soft, white cottony fur had grown out over the scar, and Grandpaw Hare thought when he looked at himself in the gla.s.s that it was really quite becoming, though he knew the rest of his family would always be saying things about it, and besides they would laugh at him for letting Mr. Tortoise beat him in a foot race.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANDFATHER WOULD LIGHT HIS PIPE AND THINK IT OVER]

"Sometimes, when there was n.o.body around, my grandfather would go out into the sun and light his pipe and lean up against a big stone, or maybe a stump, and think it over.

"And one morning, as he sat there thinking, he made up his mind what he would do. Mr. Lion lived in the Big Deep Woods in those days, and he was King. Whenever anything happened among the Deep Woods People that they couldn't decide for themselves, they went to where King Lion lived, in a house all by himself over by the Big West Hills, and he used to settle the question; and sometimes, when somebody that wasn't very old, and maybe was plump and tender, had done something that wasn't just right, King Lion would look at him and growl and say it was too bad for any one so young to do such things, and especially for them to grow up and keep on doing them; so he would have him for breakfast, or maybe for dinner, and that would settle everything in the easiest and shortest way.

"Of course Grandfather Hare knew very well that Mr. Tortoise and Mr. Fox wouldn't go with him to King Lion, for they would be afraid to, after what they had done, so he made up his mind to go alone and tell him the whole story, because he was as sure as anything that King Lion would decide that he had really won the race, and would be his friend, which would make all the other Deep Woods People jealous and proud of him again, and perhaps make them wish they had nice bunches of white cottony fur in the place of long dragging tails that were always in the way.

"And then some day he would show King Lion where Mr. Fox and Mr.

Tortoise lived.

"My Grandfather Hare didn't stop a minute after he thought of that, but just set out for King Lion's house over at the foot of the Big West Hills. He had to pa.s.s by Mr. Fox's house, and Mr. Fox called to him, but Grandpaw Hare just set up his ears as proud as could be and went by, lickety split, without looking at Mr. Fox at all.

"It was a good way to King Lion's house, but Grandpaw Hare didn't waste any time, and he was there almost before he knew it.

"When he got to King Lion's door he hammered on the knocker, and when n.o.body came right away he thought maybe the King was out for a walk. But that wasn't so. King Lion had been sick for two or three days, and he was still in bed, and had to get up and get something around him before he could let Grandpaw in.

"Grandpaw Hare had sat down on the steps to wait, when all at once the door opened behind him and he felt something grab him by the collar and swing him in and set him down hard on a seat, and then he saw it was King Lion, and he didn't much like his looks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GLAD TO SEE YOU," SAID KING LION; "I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT HAVING A RABBIT FOR BREAKFAST"]

"'So it was you, was it, making that noise?' he said. 'Well, I'm glad to see you, for I was just thinking about having a nice rabbit for breakfast.'

"Then my twenty-seventh great-grandfather knew he'd made a mistake, coming to see King Lion when he was feeling that way, and he had to think pretty quick to know what to say. But our family have always been pretty quick in their thoughts, and Grandpaw Hare spoke right up as polite as could be, and said he would do anything he could to find a nice young plump rabbit for King Lion, and that he would even be proud to be a king's breakfast himself, only he wasn't so very young nor so very plump, and, besides, there was that old prophecy about the king and the cotton-tailed rabbit, which of course, he said, King Lion must have heard about.

"Then King Lion said that my twenty-seventh great-grandfather was plenty young enough and plenty plump enough, and that he'd never heard of any prophecy about a cotton-tailed rabbit, and that he'd never heard of a cotton-tailed rabbit, either.

"Then Grandpaw Hare just got up and turned around, and as he turned he said, as solemnly as he could:--

"'When the King eats a hare with a cotton tail, Then the King's good health will fail.'

"Well, that scared the King a good deal, for he was just getting over one sick spell, and he was afraid if he had another right away he'd die, sure. He sat down and asked Grandpaw Hare to tell him how he came to have a tail like that, and Grandpaw told him, and it made the King laugh and laugh, until he got well, and he said it was the best joke he ever heard of, and that he'd have given some of the best ornaments off of his crown to have seen that race.

"And the better King Lion felt the hungrier he got, and when my Grandfather Hare asked him if he wouldn't decide the race in his favor, he just glared at him and said if he didn't get out of there and hunt him up a nice, young, plump, long-tailed rabbit, he'd eat him--cotton tail, prophecy, and all--for he didn't go much on prophecies, anyway.

"Then Grandpaw Hare got right up and said, 'Good day,' and backed out and made tracks for the rest of his family, and told them that King Lion had just got up from a sick spell that had given him an appet.i.te for long-tailed rabbits. He said that the King had sent him out to get one, and that King Lion would most likely be along himself pretty soon. He said the sooner the Rabbit family took pattern after the new cotton-tailed style the more apt they'd be to live to a green old age and have descendants.

"Well, that was a busy day in the Big Deep Woods. The Rabbit family got in line by a big smooth stump that they picked out for the purpose, and Grandpaw borrowed a hatchet and attended to the job for them, and called out 'Next!' as they marched by. He didn't have to wait, either, for they didn't know what minute King Lion might come. Mr. Tortoise and Mr. Fox came along and stopped to see the job, and helped Grandpaw now and then when his arm got tired, and by evening there was a pile of tails by that stump as big as King Lion's house, and there never was such a call for the all-healing-ointment as there was that night in the Big Deep Woods.

"And none of our family ever did have tails after that, for they never would grow any more, and all the little new rabbits just had bunches of cotton, too, and that has never changed to this day."

"And when King Lion heard how he'd been fooled by Grandpaw Hare with that foolish prophecy that he just made up right there, out of his head, he knew that everybody would laugh at him as much as he had laughed at Mr. Hare, and he moved out of the country and never came back, and there's never been a king in the Big Deep Woods since, so my twenty-seventh great-grandfather did some good, after all.

"And that," said Mr. Rabbit, "is the whole story of the Hare and the Tortoise and how the Rabbit family lost their tails. It's never been told outside of our family before, but it's true, for it's been handed down, word for word, and if Mr. Fox or Mr. Tortoise were alive now they would say so."

Mr. Rabbit filled his pipe and lit it, and Mr. Crow was just about to make some remarks when Mr. Turtle cleared his throat and said:--

"The story that Mr. Rabbit has been telling is all true, every word of it--I was there."

Then all the Deep Woods People took their pipes out of their mouths and just looked at Mr. Turtle with their mouths wide open, and when they could say anything at all, they said:--

"_You were there!_"

You see, they could never get used to the notion of Mr. Turtle's being so old--as old as their twenty-seventh great-grandfathers would have been, if they had lived.

"Yes," said Mr. Turtle, "and it all comes back to me as plain as day. It happened two hundred and fifty-eight years ago last June. They used to call us the Tortoise family then, and I was a young fellow of sixty-seven and fond of a joke. But I was surprised when I went sailing over that fence, and I didn't mean to carry off Mr. Hare's tail. Dear me, how time pa.s.ses! I'm three hundred and twenty-five now, though I don't feel it."