“Presently they went away, but it wasn’t long before they came back, bringing with them all the neighbors for miles around. They gathered in the porch and in the yard and outside the gate, and begged me, if I was a rain-maker, to make it rain there and then to save their crops. They begged me and begged me, but I sat cross-legged and smoked my pipe—this same pipe you see here. Brother Fox, who had done me many a mean trick (though he was always well paid for it), got on his knees and begged me to make it rain for them.
“Finally I told them that I’d make it rain for the whole settlement on two conditions. The first condition was that every one was to pay toll.”
MR. RABBIT SAYING NOTHING
“Toll is the pay the miller takes out at the mill,” remarked Buster John.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Rabbit, “you take your turn of meal to the mill and the miller takes his payment out of the meal. Well, I told them they’d have to pay toll. They agreed to that, and then asked what else they’d have to do, but I said we’d attend to one thing at a time. First let the toll be paid.
“They went off, and in due time they came back. Some brought corn and some brought meal; some brought wheat and some brought flour; some brought milk and some brought butter; some brought honey in the clean, and some brought honey in the comb; some brought one thing and some brought another, but they all brought something.
“Then they gathered around and asked what else they had to do. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘you certainly act as if you wanted rain—all of you—there’s no disputing that. You have paid the toll according to agreement. You have surely earned the rain, and now there’s nothing for me to do but to find out how much rain you want.’
“With that they all began to talk at once, especially Brother Bear, who lived in the upland district, where the drouth had been the worst, but I put an end to that at once.