"Now this," said the Story Teller, "is the story that Mr. Possum told the Snowed-In Literary Club in the Hollow Tree. It must be a true story, because Mr. 'Possum said so, and, besides, anybody that knows Mr. 'Possum would know that he could never in the world have made it up out of his head."
The Little Lady doesn't quite like that.
"But Mr. 'Possum is smart," she says. "He knows ever so much."
"Oh yes, of course, and that's why he never has to make up things. He just tells what he knows, and this time he told
"HOW UNCLE SILAS AND AUNT MELISSY MOVED
"You may remember," he said, "my telling you once about Uncle Silas and Aunt Melissy Lovejoy, who lived in a nice place just beyond the Wide Paw-paw Hollows, and how Uncle Silas once visited Cousin Glenwood in town and came home all dressed up, leading a game chicken, and with a bag of shinny-sticks, and a young man to wait on him; and how Aunt Melissy—instead of being pleased, as Uncle Silas thought she would be—got mad when she saw him, and made him and the young man take off all their nice clothes and go to work in the garden, and kept them at it with that bag of shinny-sticks until fall.[2]
"Well, this story is about them, too. I went to live with them soon after that, because I lost both of my parents one night when Mr. Man was hunting in the Black Bottoms for something to put in a pan with some sweet potatoes he had raised that year, and I suppose I would have been used with sweet potatoes too if I hadn't come away from there pretty lively instead of trying our old playing-dead trick on Mr. Man and his friends.
"I thought right away that Mr. Man might know the trick, so I didn't wait to try it myself, but took out for the Wide Paw-paw Hollows, to visit Uncle Silas Lovejoy, who was an uncle on my mother's side, and Aunt Melissy and my little cousins; and they all seemed glad to see me, especially my little cousins, until they found they had to give me some of their things and most of their food, because I was young and growing, besides being quite sad about my folks, and so, of course, had to eat a good deal to keep well and from taking my loss too hard.
"But by-and-by Uncle Lovejoy said that he didn't believe that he and the hired man—who was the same one he had brought home to wait on him when he came from town—to be his valet, he said—though he got to be a hired man right after Aunt Melissy met him and got hold of the shinny-sticks—Aunt Melissy being a spry, stirring person who liked to see people busy. I remember how she used to keep me and my little cousins busy until sometimes I wished I had stayed with my folks and put up with the sweet potatoes and let Uncle Silas and his family alone."
Mr. 'Possum stopped to light his pipe, and Mr. Rabbit said that he supposed, of course, Mr. 'Possum knew his story and how to tell it, but that if he ever intended to finish what Uncle Lovejoy had said about himself and the hired man he wished he'd get at it pretty soon.