HOW THE 'COON AND 'POSSUM AND THE OLD BLACK CROW MOVED AND SET UP HOUSEKEEPING
Well, the Widow Crow set a very good table, and everything in her boarding-house went along quite well for a while, and Mr. 'Possum and Mr. 'Coon both said what a good thing it was to have a home, and Mr. Crow said so too, though he didn't look as if he enjoyed it as much as he said, for his mother-in-law kept him so busy cutting and carrying wood and helping her with the cooking that he never had any time for himself at all.
HAD TO STAY AT HOME AND PEEL POTATOES
Even when Mr. Rabbit and some of his friends had the great fall handicap race he had to stay at home and peel potatoes, and not see it, besides being scolded all the time for wanting to go to such a thing as a rabbit race anyway. And Mr. Crow was sad because it reminded him of his married life, which he was trying to forget—Mrs. Crow having been the image of his mother-in-law and exactly like her about races and peeling potatoes and such things.
And by-and-by, Mr. 'Possum and Mr. 'Coon didn't like it so much, either. Widow Crow got so she scolded them, too, about their habits, especially about being out nights and lying in bed next morning, and she wouldn't give them any breakfast unless they got up in time.
At last she even asked them to take care of their own rooms and to do other work, the same as Mr. Crow did; and she didn't cook as good things, nor as many of them, as she did when they first came. Then one day when they complained a little—not very much, for they were afraid of the Widow Crow, but a little—she told them that if they didn't like what she gave them they could find a place they liked better, and that she was tired of their ways anyhow.
So then Mr. Crow and Mr. 'Coon and Mr. 'Possum all got together and talked it over. And Mr. Crow said they might be pretty tired of it, but that they couldn't in a hundred years, thinking night and day, think how tired of it he was. He said if they would just say the word he would take the things that belonged to him out of that house, and the three of them would find some good place and all live together, and never have anything more to do with mothers-in-law or their families. He said he knew how to cook as well as she did, and really liked to cook when he was in a pleasant place and wasn't henpecked to death.
And he said if they moved his things they had better do it at night while his mother-in-law was asleep, so as not to disturb her.