“But it was cold weather,” suggested the little boy. “Where did he go when he kicked the chimney down?”
Uncle Remus smiled as he took another chew of tobacco. “Dey wa’n’t but one thing he could do,” he replied; “he went on ter nex’ house an’ got in de chimbley an’ he been livin’ in chimbleys off an’ on down ter dis day an’ time.”
“‘Does you call dis good luck?’”
II
HOW WILEY WOLF RODE IN THE BAG
Uncle Remus soon had the wagon loaded with corn, and he and the little boy started back home. The plantation road was not a good one to begin with, and the spring rains had not improved it. Consequently there were times when Uncle Remus deemed it prudent to get out of the wagon and walk. The horses were fat and strong, to be sure, but some of the small hills were very steep, so much so that the old darky had to guide the team first to the right and then to the left in order to overcome the sheer grade. In other words, he had to see-saw as he explained to the little boy. “Drive um straight up, an’ dey fall back,” he explained, “but on de see-saw dey fergits dat deyer gwine uphill.”
All this was Dutch to the little boy, who knew nothing about driving horses, but he had been well trained, and so he said, “Yes, that is so.” The last time that Uncle Remus had to vacate the driver’s seat in order to relieve the horses of his weight, he stumbled into a ditch that had been dug on the side of the road to prevent the rains from washing it into gullies. He recovered himself immediately, but not before he had startled a little rabbit, which ran on ahead of the horses for a considerable distance. Instinct came to its aid after a while, and it darted into the underbrush which grew profusely on both sides of the road.
Before the little rabbit disappeared, however, Uncle Remus had time to give utterance to a hunting halloo that aroused the echoes all around and made the little boy jump, for he was not used to this sort of thing. “I declar’ ter gracious ef it don’t put me in min’ er ol’ times—de times dey tell ’bout in de tales dat been handed down. Ef dat little rab had ’a’ been five times ez big ez he is, an’ twice ez young, I’d ’a’ thunk we’d done got back ter de days when my great-grandaddy’s great-grandaddy lived. You mayn’t b’lieve me, but ef you’ll count fum de time when my great-grandaddy’s great-grandaddy wuz born’d down ter dis minnit, you’ll fin’ dat youer lookin’ back on many a long year, an’ a mighty heap er Chris’mus-come-an’-gone.