“Oh, that was just a joke,” replied Mr. Rabbit.
“Call it a joke, then,” said Mrs. Meadows. “You know what the little boy said when the man asked him his name. He said, says he, ‘You may call it anything, so you call me to dinner.’”
“He wasn’t very polite,” remarked Sweetest Susan.
“No, indeed,” Mrs. Meadows answered; “but you know that little boys can’t always remember to be polite.”
“I think we were at your house,” suggested Mr. Rabbit, rubbing his chin.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Meadows. “In the little house by the creek. The yard sloped from the front door right to the bank.”
“To be sure,” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit, brightening up. “I remember the house just as well as if I had seen it yesterday. There was a little shelf on the left-hand side of the door as you came out, and there the water-bucket sat.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Meadows; “and there was just room enough up there by the bucket for Brother Terrapin.”
“That’s so,” Mr. Rabbit replied, laughing, “and when he used to go to your house to see the girls they’d set the bucket on the table in the house and lift Brother Terrapin to the shelf so he could see and be seen. I remember it used to make him very mad when I’d tell him he would be a mighty man if he wasn’t so flat-footed.”
“Oh, you used to talk worse than that,” cried Mrs. Meadows, laughing heartily at the remembrance of it. “You used to tell him he was the only man you ever saw that sat down when he stood up. I declare! Brother Terrapin’s eyes used to get right red.”