“It so happened that my road took me by Brother Bear’s house every day—right by the front gate. Sometimes Mrs. Bear would be hanging out clothes on the fence, sometimes she would be sweeping off the front porch, and sometimes she would be working in the garden; but no matter what she was doing I’d cough and catch her eye, and then I’d bow just as polite as you please.”
“What were you doing all that for?” asked Buster John.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” Mr. Rabbit replied. “I had a grudge against Brother Bear, and I wanted to work a little scheme. Along at first I just went on by the back of Brother Bear’s house, and around through the woods home, but in a few days I’d pass by the house and then get over the fence and creep back to hear what Mrs. Bear had to say. One morning I heard her talking. She was out in the yard fixing to do her week’s washing while Brother Bear was in the house dozing. I could hear what Mrs. Bear said, but I was too far off to hear what answer Brother Bear made.
MRS. BEAR HANGING OUT CLOTHES
“Mrs. Bear says, says she: ‘Honey, you ain’t asleep, are you? Brother Rabbit has just gone along by the gate dressed to kill.’ A grumbling sound came from the house. Mrs. Bear says, says she, ‘I wonder where he goes every day, with his hair combed so slick?’ Grumble in the house. ‘You’d better wish you looked half as nice,’ says Mrs. Bear. Grumble in the house. ‘Well, I don’t care if he is a grand rascal, he looks nice and clean, and that’s more than anybody can say about you,’ says Mrs. Bear. Growl in the house. Mrs. Bear says, says she, ‘Oh, you can rip and rear, but Brother Rabbit goes about with his head combed, and he looks lots better that way than them that go about with rat nests in their hair—lots better.’”
Here Brother Rabbit chuckled again. “I thought to myself, thinks I, that I’d better be getting on toward home, and so I crept back up the fence and went on my way.
“The next day as I was going along the road, who should I meet but old Brother Bear himself. Well, here’s a row, thinks I, but it didn’t turn out so. Brother Bear was just as polite to me as I had been to his old woman.
“We passed the time of day and talked about the crops a little while, but I could see that Brother Bear had something serious on his mind. Finally, he shuffled around and sat down on a stump beside the roadside.