"'It's too bad,' says Mr. Crow. 'It's like that story they tell about the fox making me drop the cheese.'
"'Or like Mr. Man making believe that the combs he uses are really made out of my shell,' says Mr. Turtle.
"Mr. 'Coon and Mr. 'Possum shook their heads. They had their troubles, too."
MR. TURTLE'S THUNDER STORY
THE WAY OF THE FIRST THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
HAD JACK RABBIT AND MR. TURTLE IN FOR SUPPER.
Once upon a time, said the Story Teller, when the Crow and the 'Coon and the 'Possum lived together in three big, hollow branches of a big big, hollow tree in the big, big, Big Deep Woods, and used to meet and have good times together in the parlor down stairs, they had Jack Rabbit and Mr. Turtle in for supper. It was a nice supper, too, for it was just about strawberry time, and strawberries grow thicker in the Big Deep Woods than fur on a kitten's back. Mr. Crow, who is a great cook, had made a nice shortcake, and been over to Mr. Man's pantry, where he gets some of his best things, and borrowed a pail of sweet cream when Mr. Man wasn't at home.
"Of course they had fried chicken, too, first, and by the time they were through their shortcake and had lit their pipes Mr. 'Possum, who likes good things better than anybody, almost, could hardly open his eyes. He said he wished he was a poet, like Mr. Jack Rabbit, for he had never been so full of summer happiness since he was born, and if he could only make rhymes, he knew that poetry would slip right off his tongue. Then, of course, Mr. Rabbit wanted to show off, and without stopping a second he commenced to talk poetry—this way:—