"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 appetite 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."