Mr. Rabbit at Home, Joel Chandler Harris [ap literature book list TXT] 📗
- Author: Joel Chandler Harris
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“Now, the good son heard all this, but he said nothing. He just folded his hands and fetched a sigh or two, and seemed to be sorry for everything in general. But while the mother was going about wringing her hands and weeping, and the good son was heaving and fetching his sighs, the other son went to the big red cupboard. There on a shelf he saw the awl sticking in a cake of shoemaker’s wax. Near it was a strong piece of leather, and close by was a handful of shoe-pegs. He took these, changed his ragged coat, and started back on his journey.
“Now, although the good son did nothing but sigh and look sorry, he had deep ideas of his own. The reason he was called the good son was because he was so cunning. He thought to himself that now would be a good time to do a fine stroke of business. He knew that his brother had something more on his mind than the awl, the leather, the pegs, and the shoemaker’s wax, and he wanted to find out about it. So he ran after his brother to ask him what the real trouble was. He caught up with him a little way beyond the limits of the village, but no satisfaction could he get. Then he began to abuse his brother and to accuse him of all sorts of things.
“But the son, who was trying to get his father out of trouble, paid no attention to this. He went forward on his journey, turning his head neither to the right nor to the left. The good brother (as he was called) followed along after the best he could, being determined to see the end of the business. But somehow it happened that, on the second day, the brother who was going to meet the Man in the Moon was so tired and worn out that he was compelled to crawl under a haystack and go to sleep. In this way the good brother passed him on the road and went forward on his journey, never doubting that the other was just ahead of him. Finally, one day, the good brother grew tired and sat down on a log to rest. He sat there so long that the brother he thought he was following came up. He was very much surprised to see his nice and good brother sitting on a log and nodding in that country. So he woke him up and asked him what the trouble was.
“‘Stuff!’ cried the other, ‘you know you have made way with our father!’
“At once there was a roaring noise in the woods and a rustling sound in the underbrush, and out came an old man with a long beard, followed by an army of dwarfs.
“‘How dare you abuse me in my own kingdom?’ he cried to the good brother. ‘How did I ever harm you?’
“The brother, who had seen this game played before, tried to explain, but King Stuff would listen to no explanation. He commanded his armed dwarfs to seize and bind the good brother, and they soon carried him out of sight in spite of his cries.
“Now, the young man who had gone home for the awl and the axe and the shoemaker’s wax was very much puzzled. He had more business on his hands than he knew what to do with. He saw that he must now rescue his brother as well as his father, and he didn’t know how to go about it. He had the awl and the axe and the shoemaker’s wax. He also had the shoe-pegs and leather that he found together. But what was he to do with them? He sat on the log and thought about it a long time.
“While he was sitting there, and just as he was about to go forward on his journey, he heard some one coming briskly down the road singing. He heard enough of the song to be very much interested in it. It ran thus:—
“Of course, it was the Man in the Moon who was coming along the road singing the song, and he seemed to be in high good humor. He caught sight of the solemn face of the young man and began to laugh.
“‘There you are!’ cried Mum, the Man in the Moon, ‘and I’m glad to see you; but I’d feel a great deal better if you didn’t look so lonesome. I don’t know what to do about it. Your face is as long as a hind quarter of beef.’
“‘I can’t help it,’ replied the young man. ‘I am in deeper trouble than ever. My brother has been carried off by the same people that captured my father.’
“‘What of it?’ exclaimed the Man in the Moon. ‘If you knew as much about that brother of yours as I do, you’d go on about your business, and let him stay where he is.’
“‘No,’ said the young man. ‘I couldn’t do that. I know he is my brother, and that is enough. And then there’s my father.’
“The Man in the Moon looked at the young man a long time, and finally said:—
“‘Since we are to have a sort of holiday together, maybe you won’t mind telling me your name.’
“‘Why, of course not,’ replied the young man. ‘My name is Smat.’
“The Man in the Moon scratched his head and then laughed. ‘It is a queer name,’ he said; ‘but I see no objection to it. I suppose it just happened so.’
“‘Now, I can’t tell you anything about that,’ replied Smat. ‘I was too young when the name was given to take any part in the performance. They seized me, and named me at a time when I had to take any name that they chose to give me. They named me Smat, and that was the end of it so far as I was concerned. They never asked me how I liked it, but just slapped the name in my face, as you may say, and left it there.’
“‘Well,’ said the Man in the Moon, ‘they’ll put another letter in the name when you get back home. Instead of calling you Smat, they’ll say you are Smart, and there’s some consolation in that.’
“‘Not much as I can see,’ remarked Smat. ‘It’s all in your mouth, and what is in your mouth is pretty much all wind and water, if you try to spit it out. What I want now is to get my father and my brother out of the trouble that my mischief has plunged them in. Please help me. They ought to be at home right now. There’s the corn to grind, and the cows are waiting to be milked, and the grain is to be gathered. Times are pretty hard at our house when everybody is away.’
“‘Very well,’ said the Man in the Moon. He had hanging by his side the horn of the new Moon, and on this he blew a loud blast. Immediately there was a roaring noise in the woods, and very soon there swarmed about them a company of little men, all bearing the tiniest and the prettiest lanterns that were ever seen. It was not night, but their lanterns were blazing, and as they marched around the Man in the Moon in regular order, it seemed as though the light of their lanterns had quenched that of the sun, so that Smat saw the woods in a different light altogether. He had not moved, but he seemed to be in another country entirely. The trees had changed, and the ground itself. He was no longer sitting on a log by the side of the big road, but was now standing on his feet in a strange country, as it seemed to him.
“He had risen from his seat on the log when the little men with their lanterns began marching around, but otherwise he had not moved. And yet here he was in a country that was new to him. He rubbed his eyes in a dazed way, and when he opened them again, another change had taken place. Neither he nor the Man in the Moon had made any movement away from the big road and the log that was lying by the side of it, but now they were down in a wide valley, that stretched as far as the eye could see, between two high mountain ranges.
“‘Now, then,’ said the Man in the Moon, ‘you must be set up in business. On the side of the mountain yonder is the palace of King Stuff, and somewhere not far away you will find your father and your brother, and perhaps some one else.’
“He then called to the leaders of the little men with the lanterns, and gave each one a task to do. Their names were Drift and Sift, Glimmer and Gleam, and Shimmer and Sheen. These six leaders waved their lanterns about, called their followers about them, and at once began to build a house.”
“And they so little, too,” remarked Mrs. Meadows sympathetically.
“Why, it was no trouble in the world to them,” said Little Mr. Thimblefinger. “It didn’t seem as if they were building a house. Did you ever see a flower open? You look at it one minute, turn your head away and forget about it, and the next time you look, there it is open wide. That was the way with this house the little men built. It just seemed to grow out of the ground. As it grew, the little men climbed on it, waved their lanterns about, and the house continued to grow higher and higher, and larger and larger, until it was finished. Not a nail had been driven, not a board had been rived, not a plank had been planed, not a sill had been hewn, not a brick had been burned. And yet there was the house all new and fine, with a big chimney-stack in the middle.
“‘Now,’ said the Man in the Moon, when everything was done, ‘here is your house, and you may move in with bag and baggage.’
“‘That is quickly done,’ replied Smat. ‘What then?’
“‘Why, you must set up as a shoemaker,’ said the Man in the Moon.
“‘But I never made a shoe in my life,’ the young man declared.
“‘So much the more reason why you should make ’em before you die,’ the Man in the Moon remarked. ‘The sooner you begin to make shoes, the sooner you’ll learn how.’
“‘That’s so true,’ said Smat, ‘that I have no reply to make. ‘I’ll do as you say, if I can.’
“‘That’s better,’ cried the Man in the Moon. ‘If you do that, you’ll have small trouble. If you don’t, I wouldn’t like to tell you what will happen. Now listen! There is in this kingdom a person (I’ll not say who) that goes about with only
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