“Well, well, well,” he exclaimed. “It has been years and years since I’ve heard the name of Brother Lion. Is he still living and doing well?” Mr. Rabbit turned an inquiring eye on Sweetest Susan.
“She doesn’t know anything about lions,” said Buster John.
“Why, I do!” cried Sweetest Susan. “I saw one once in a cage.”
“In a cage? Brother Lion in a cage?” Mr. Rabbit raised his hands and rolled his eyes in astonishment. “What is the world coming to? Well, I’ve said many and many a time that Brother Lion was not right up here.” Mr. Rabbit tapped his forehead significantly. “In a cage! Now, that pesters me. Why, he used to go roaring and romping about the country, scaring them that didn’t know him mighty nigh to death. And so Brother Lion is in a cage? But I might have known it. I wonder how the rest of the family are getting on? Not that they are any kin to me, for they are not. I called him Brother Lion just to be neighborly. Oh, no! He and his family are no kin to me. They are too heavy in both head and feet for that.”
Mr. Rabbit closed his eyes as if reflecting, and patted the ground softly with his foot.
“Well, well! I remember just as well as if it were yesterday the day I told Brother Lion that if he wasn’t careful, Mr. Man would catch him and put him in a cage for his children to look at. But he just hooted at it—and now, sure enough, there he is! I mind the first time he began his pursuit of Mr. Man. That was the time he got his hand caught in the split of the log.”
“I done hear my daddy tell dat tale,” remarked Drusilla.
“Yes,” said Mr. Rabbit, “it soon became common talk in the neighborhood. Brother Lion had come a long way to hunt Mr. Man, and as soon as he got his hand out of the split in the log he started to go home again. I went part of the way with him, and then it was that I told him he’d find himself in a cage if he wasn’t careful. I made a burdock poultice for his hand the best I could—”
“And it’s mighty good for bruises, I tell you now!” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows.
“And then Brother Lion went on home, feeling better, but still very mad. Crippled as he was, he was a quick traveler, and it was not long before he came to his journey’s end.