“Why, it was the quarrel between the Monkeys and the Dogs. My great-grandfather knew all about the facts, and I’ve heard him talk it over many a time when he was sitting in the kitchen corner chewing his quid. I’ve often heard him wonder, between naps, what caused the dispute.”
“It seems to me I’ve heard something about it,” remarked Mrs. Meadows in an encouraging tone.
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit. “It was notorious in our young days. I reckon it has been settled long before this; anyhow, I hope so.”
“What did your great-grandfather say about it?” inquired Buster John.
“If I were to tell you all he said,” responded Mr. Rabbit, shaking his head slowly, “you’d have to sit here with me for a fortnight, and of course you wouldn’t like to do that. So I’ll just up and tell you about it in my own way. I may not get it exactly right, but I’ll be bound I won’t get it far wrong, for I have nothing else in the round world to do but to sit here and think about old times.
“As well as I can remember, the way of it was about this: Away back yonder, in the times before everybody had got to be so busy trying to get the best of each other, a coolness sprang up between the Monkeys and the Dogs. Nobody knew the right of it, because nobody paid any attention to it along at first. But after awhile it got so that every time a Dog would meet a Monkey in the road, the Monkey would get up in a tree and laugh at him, and then the Dog would stop and scratch up the dirt with all four of his feet and growl.”
“Oh, I’ve seen them do that way,” said Sweetest Susan, laughing.
THE MONKEYS WOULD MAKE FACES AND SQUEAL AT THE DOGS
“Yes,” replied Mr. Rabbit, with a more solemn air than ever. “They have never got out of the habit of that kind of caper from that day to this. Well, the coolness grew into a dispute, and the dispute into a quarrel, and so there it was. The Monkeys would make faces and squeal at the Dogs, and the Dogs would show their teeth and growl at the Monkeys. It went from bad to worse, and after awhile, the Dogs would chase the Monkeys wherever they saw them, and the Monkeys would swing down from the hanging limbs and give the tails of the Dogs some terrible twists.