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

“Now, I’ll tell you honestly,” said Little Mr. Thimblefinger, popping out from under Mr. Rabbit’s big armchair, “I don’t like such stories. They give me the all-overs. I expect maybe it’s because they are true.”

“No doubt that’s the trouble with them,” remarked Mr. Rabbit in a tone unusually solemn. “You don’t think that at my time of life my tongue is nimble enough for me to sit here and make up stories to suit the hour and the company? By the bye,” he continued, turning around so as to catch Little Mr. Thimblefinger’s eye, “what stories were you talking about?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I was fast asleep, for the most part, but I distinctly remember something about Moons and Monkeys. When I heard that, I just went off to sleep in spite of myself.”

“There’s no accounting for tastes,” said Mr. Rabbit. “There are some tales that put me to sleep, and I have no complaint to make when anybody begins to doze over them that I tell.”

“Oh, you tell ’em well enough,” Little Mr. Thimblefinger declared. “If anything, you make them better than they ought to be. You lift your ears at the right place, and pat your foot when the time comes. I don’t know what more could be asked in telling a story.”

“So far so good,” remarked Mrs. Meadows, who had thus far said nothing. “Suppose you whirl in and tell us the kind of tale that you really admire.”

“That’s easier said than done,” replied Little Mr. Thimblefinger, fidgeting about a little. “You have to take the tales as they come. Sometimes one will pop into your head in spite of yourself. You remember it just because you didn’t like it when you first heard it.”

“Tell us one, anyway, just to pass away the time,” said Sweetest Susan.

“If I tell you one,” Little Mr. Thimblefinger replied, “I’ll not promise it will be one that I like. That would be promising too much. But the talk about the Moon, that I heard before I dozed off just now, reminded me of a tale I heard when I was a good deal smaller than I am now.

“Once upon a time there was a man who had two sons. They were twins, but they were just as different from each other as they could possibly be. One was dark, and the other was light complected. One was slim, and the other was fat. One was good, and the other was what people call bad. He was lazy, and full of fun and mischief. They grew up that way until they were nineteen or twenty years old. The good boy would work hard every day, or pretend to work hard, and then he’d go back home and tell his mother and father that his brother hadn’t done a stroke of work. Of course, this made the old people feel very queer. The mother felt sorrowful, and the father felt angry. This went on, until finally, one day, the father became so angry that he concluded to take his bad son into some foreign country, and bind him out to some person who could make him work and cure him of his mischievousness. In those days people sometimes bound out their children to learn trades and good manners and things of that sort.”

“I wish dey’d do it now,” exclaimed Drusilla. “Kaze den I wouldn’t hafter be playin’ nuss, an’ be gwine in all kind er quare places whar you dunner when ner whar you kin git out.”

“Stuff!” cried Buster John. “Why don’t you be quiet and listen to the story?”

“It go long too slow fer ter suit me,” said Drusilla in a grumbling tone.

“Well,” remarked Mr. Thimblefinger, turning to Buster John, “you’ve come mighty close to telling a part of the tale I had in my mind.”

“I don’t see how,” replied Buster John with some surprise.

“You said ‘stuff!’” responded Mr. Thimblefinger, “and that’s a part of my story. If you listen, you’ll soon find out. As I was saying, people in old times bound out their sons to some good man, who taught them a good trade or something of that kind. Well, this man that I was telling you about took his bad son off to a foreign country, and tried to find some one to bind him out to. They traveled many days and nights. They went over mountains and passed through valleys. They crossed plains, and they went through the wild woods.

“Now, the man who was taking his son into a foreign country was getting old, and the farther they walked, the more tired he grew. At last, one day, when they were going through the big woods, he sat down to rest near a tall poplar-tree, and, turning to his son, said angrily:—

“‘Stuff! you are not worth all this trouble. But for you I’d be at home now, enjoying myself and smoking my pipe.’

“The son, who was used to these outbreaks, made no reply, but stretched himself out on the dead leaves that littered the ground. He had hardly done so when there was a tremendous noise in the woods, and then both father and son saw rushing toward them an old man with a long beard, followed by a small army of fierce-looking dwarfs armed with clubs and knives and pikes. They rushed up and surrounded the father and son.

“‘Which of you called my name and abused me?’ cried the old man with the long beard.

“‘Not I,’ said the bad son.

“‘Not I,’ said the father. ‘I am sure I never saw you or heard of you before.’

“This made the old man more furious than ever. He fairly trembled with rage. ‘Didn’t I hear one of you say, “Stuff! but for you I’d be at home now enjoying myself, and smoking my pipe?”’

“‘I did say something like that,’ replied the father in great astonishment.

“‘How dare you?’ cried the old man, beside himself with rage. ‘How did I ever harm you? Seize him!’ he said to his army of dwarfs. ‘Seize him, and bind him hard and fast! I’ll show him whether he can come into my kingdom and abuse me!’

“The father was speechless with astonishment, and made no attempt to prevent the dwarfs from seizing and binding him. They had him tied hard and fast before he could say a word, even if he had had a word to say. But by this time the son had risen to his feet.

“‘Wait!’ he cried, ‘let’s see what the trouble is! Who are you?’ he inquired, turning to the old man with the long beard.

“‘My name is Stuff,’ he replied, ‘and I am king of this country which you are passing through. I’m not going to allow any one to abuse me in my own kingdom. You may go free, but mind you go straight back the way you came.’

“The son thought the matter over a little while, and then turned on his heel and went back the way he had come, and, as he walked, he whistled all the lively tunes he could think of. For a time he was glad that his father was no longer with him to quarrel and complain; but finally he grew lonely, and then he began to think how his father had raised him up from a little child. The more he thought about this, the sorrier he was that he had given his father any trouble. He sat down on a log by the side of the road and thought it all over, and presently he began to cry.