"Oh yes, they had plenty for supper, and more, too. They had been getting ready a good while for just such a time as this, and had carried in a lot of food, and they had a good many nice things down in the store-room where the wood was, but they didn't need those yet. They just put on what they had left from their big dinner, and Mr. Crow stirred up a pan of hot biscuits by his best receipt, and they passed them back and forth across the table so much that Mr. 'Possum said they went like hot cakes, sure enough, and always took two when they came his way."
And they talked a good deal about the stories that Mr. 'Coon and Mr. Rabbit had told them, and everybody thought how sly and smart Mr. 'Coon had been to fool Mr. Dog that way; and Mr. 'Coon said that, now he came to think it over, he supposed it was a pretty good trick, though it really hadn't seemed so specially great to him at the time. He said he didn't think it half as smart as Mr. Tortoise's trick on Mr. Rabbit's Grandpaw Hare, when he beat him in the foot-race and went over the fence first, taking Mr. Hare's tail with him. And then they wondered if that had all really happened as Mr. Rabbit had told it—all but Mr. Turtle, who just sat and smiled to himself and didn't say anything at all, except "Please pass the biscuits," now and then, when he saw the plate being set down in front of Mr. 'Possum.
Then by-and-by they all got through and hurried up and cleared off the table, and lit their pipes, and went back to the fire, and pretty soon Jack Rabbit began to tell
HOW THE REST OF THE RABBITS LOST THEIR TAILS
"Well," he said, "my twenty-seventh great-grandfather Hare didn't go out again for several days. He put up a sign that said 'Not at Home,' on his door, and then tried a few experiments, to see what could be done.
TRIED TO SPLICE HIS PROPERTY BACK IN PLACE
"He first tried to splice his property back into place, as Mr. Tortoise had told him he might, but that plan didn't work worth a cent. He never could get it spliced on straight, and if he did get it about right, it would lop over or sag down or something as soon as he moved, and when he looked at himself in the glass he made up his mind that he'd rather do without his nice plumy brush altogether than to go out into society with it in that condition.
"So he gave it up and put on some nice all-healing ointment, and before long what there was left of it was all well, and a nice bunch of soft, white cottony fur had grown out over the scar, and Grandpaw Hare thought when he looked at himself in the glass that it was really quite becoming, though he knew the rest of his family would always be saying things about it, and besides they would laugh at him for letting Mr. Tortoise beat him in a foot-race.