Mr. Rabbit at Home - Joel Chandler Harris (beach books .txt) 📗

Chickamy Crany Crow and Tickle-My-Toes had stopped frolicking, and were now listening to the stories. While Mrs. Meadows was telling about the lucky conjurer, Tickle-My-Toes became very uneasy. He moved about restlessly, pulled off his big straw hat, put it on again, and seemed to be waiting impatiently for the time to come when he might say something.

So, when Mrs. Meadows had finished, she looked at Tickle-My-Toes to see what he wanted. The rest did the same. But Tickle-My-Toes blushed very red, and looked at his feet.

“You acted as if you wanted to say something,” said Mrs. Meadows, “and if you do, now’s your chance. What’s the matter? Have you run a splinter in your foot? You look as if you wanted to cry.”

“I did want to say something,” replied Tickle-My-Toes.

“What was it?” Mrs. Meadows inquired.

“Nothing much,” answered Tickle-My-Toes, putting his finger in his mouth.

“I declare, I’m ashamed of you,” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows. “Here you are mighty near as old as I am, and yet trying to play boo-hoo baby.”

“I don’t think you ought to talk that way,” said Tickle-My-Toes. “I thread your needles for you every day, and I do everything you ask me.”

“I know what’s the matter with you,” remarked Mrs. Meadows. “You want me to take you in my lap and rock you to sleep.”

“Oh! I don’t!” cried Tickle-My-Toes, blushing again. “I wanted to tell a story I heard, but I’ll go off somewhere and tell it to myself.”

“There wouldn’t be any fun in that,” suggested Buster John.

“No,” said Mrs. Meadows. “Tell the story right here, so we can enjoy it with you.”

“You’ll laugh,” protested Tickle-My-Toes.

“Not unless there’s something in the story to laugh at.”

“This is no laughing story. It’s just as solemn as it can be,” explained Tickle-My-Toes.

“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit. “If there’s anything I like, it is one of those solemn stories that make you feel like you want to go off behind the house and shake hands with yourself, and cry boo-hoo to the ell-and-yard and seven stars.”

Mr. Rabbit’s enthusiastic remark was very encouraging to Tickle-My-Toes, who, after scratching his head a little, and looking around to see if he could find a place to hide when the time came, began his story in this wise:—

“Once upon a time, and in a big town away off yonder somewhere, there lived a little boy who had no father nor mother. He was so small that nobody seemed to care anything about him. But one day a woman, the wife of a baker, heard him crying in the streets, and carried him into the house, and gave him something to eat, and warmed him by the fire, and after that he felt better.

“The baker himself grumbled a great deal when he came home and found what his wife had done. He said he wouldn’t be surprised to come home some day and find his house full of other people’s children. But his wife replied that it would be well enough to complain when he found the house full. As for this little brat, she said, he wouldn’t fill a milk jar if he was put in it, much less a great big house.

“The baker growled and grumbled, but his wife paid no attention to him. She sat in her chair and rocked and sang, and was just as good-natured as she could be. After a while the baker himself got over his grumbling, and began to laugh. He told his wife that he had sold all his bread that day, and had orders for as much the next day.

“‘Of course,’ said she; ‘but if I had left that child crying in the streets your business would have been ruined before the year is out.’

“‘Maybe so,’ replied the baker.

“Well, the little boy grew very fast, and was as lively as a cricket. The baker’s wife thought as much of him as if he had been her own son, and the baker himself soon came to be very fond of him. He was very smart, too. He learned to watch the fire under the big oven, and to make himself useful in many ways. He played about the oven so much, and was so fond of watching the bread bake and the fire burn, that the baker’s wife called him Sparkle Spry.

“For many years the country where the baker and his wife and Sparkle Spry lived had been at peace with all the other countries. But one day a man from a neighboring country had his nose pulled by somebody in the baker’s country, and then war was declared by the kings and queens, and the people fell to fighting.

“Now, when people fight they must be fed, and the cheapest thing to feed them on is bread. A part of the army camped near the town where the baker lived, and there was a great demand for bread. The baker’s oven was not a large one, and by running it day and night he could only bake three hundred loaves.

“He and his wife baked until they were tired out. They told Sparkle Spry to watch the oven so that the bread wouldn’t burn, and to wake them when it was brown. They were so tired that Sparkle Spry was sorry for them, and he wondered why he wasn’t big enough to take their places, if only for one day and night. While he was thinking and wishing, he saw something moving. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, and then he saw an old man, no bigger than a broomstick, and no taller than a teacup, peeping from behind the oven.