Joel Chandler Harris

“ Sweetest Susan had black hair and dark eyes like her father, while Buster John had golden hair and brown eyes like his mother. As for Drusilla, she was as black as the old black cat, and always in a good humor, except when she pretended to be angry. Sweetest Susan had wonderful dark eyes that made her face very serious except when she laughed, but she was as full of fun as Buster John, who was always in some sort of mischief that did nobody any harm.
These children were not afraid of anything. They scorned to run from horses, or cows, or dogs. ”

“ Rabbit.
“Is that all?” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows. “Why, he’s as harmless as a kitten.”
“Yes, yes!” said Mr. Rabbit complacently. “No harm in me—no harm in old people. Just give us a little room in the corner—a little place where we can sit and nod—and there’s no harm in us. I’m just as glad you’ve come as I can be. I see you’ve brought the Tar Baby. She’s grown some since I saw her last.” Mr. Rabbit looked at Drusilla with considerable curiosity. “I hope she’s not as sticky as she used to be.”
“Hey!” cried Buster John, laughing. “Mr. Rabbit thinks Drusilla is the Tar Baby!” ”

“ This question was addressed to Buster John, who scorned to answer it.
“Grown people wouldn’t understand me,” Mr. Thimblefinger explained. “They know a great deal too much to suit me.”
“How do you get to your country?” inquired Buster John, who was keen for an adventure.
“The nearest way is by the spring,” replied Mr. Thimblefinger. “That is the only way you could go.”
“Can I go too?” asked Sweetest Susan. “And Drusilla?”
“Oh, of course,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, shrugging his shoulders. “One can go or all can go.”
“Do you go down the spring branch?” asked Buster John. ”

“ Her parents were rich and proud, but they were prouder of their little girl than they were of their money, as well they might be, seeing that she was the smartest and most beautiful child to be found in all the country round.”
“Were there no princes and castles in that country?” inquired Sweetest Susan.
“Oh, dear, no!” replied Mrs. Meadows. [Pg 187] “The folks were just plain, common, every-day people. Those that were fortunate enough to be honest and contented were much better off than any princes you ever heard of; and a hut where happiness lives is a much finer place than the finest castle. ”

“ Thimblefinger, seeing Mr. Rabbit wink at Mrs. Meadows,—“I mean when I was in my teens. Well, when I was younger than I am now, an old witch lived not far from our house. Her eyes were red around the rims, and her eyeballs looked as if they had been boiled. Everybody called her Peggy Pig-Eye, and she answered to that name about as well as she did to any other. Near her house there lived a man who had a wife and a son. He was a tolerably well-to-do man, and all the neighbors thought very well of him. But he used to go to town every sale-day, and at night he would come home feeling very gay. ”

“ It was funny to see Buster John and Sweetest Susan and Drusilla standing there staring first at the Looking-Glass children and then at themselves, not daring to move for fear they would get mixed up with their doubles. The Looking-Glass children stared likewise, first at themselves and then at the others.
“What is the matter?” Mrs. Meadows asked. “Why don’t you go and play with one another and make friends? It isn’t many folks that have the chance you children have got.” ”

“ He said that the pleasure of getting Geraldine out of the hands of the wicked Conjurer was reward enough for him, and so he shook his head and refused the money that was offered him.
“Now, the little girl’s father was rich and prosperous, while Valentine was very poor, and it was natural that the rich man should wonder why the boy, who was poor, should refuse money. Somehow, he took a dislike to Valentine. He said to himself that a boy who would refuse money as a free gift would never be prosperous. ”

“ Meadows. “Why does your shadow in a looking-glass make every motion that you make? Because it’s obliged to—that’s all. That’s just the reason the other black girl would follow you.”
“Don’t mind Drusilla,” said Buster John. “She just talks to hear herself talk. Her mouth flies open before she knows it.”
“Well, the poor things won’t trouble you long,” said Mrs. Meadows. “They’ll want to go back home presently.”
“Do they have to stay in the looking-glass?” inquired Buster John, repeating a question he had already asked. ”

“ I says to myself, ‘Well, old lady, if you are not a witch, there never was one.’ She washed her stocking, mumbling and chewing, and when she had finished she threw it behind her, and sat hugging her knees, and glaring at me in a way that made my flesh crawl. ”

“ Meadows.
“Yes,” remarked Mr. Rabbit, “the proof of the pudding is in chewing the bag.”
“Well,” said Mr. Thimblefinger, “as far back as I can remember, and before that, too, my mother was a widow, and she had a great many children to take care of. The reason she had so many children was because she was poor. I have noticed all my life that when people are very poor they happen to have more children than they know what to do with. This was the way with my mother. She had a houseful of children, and she found it a hard matter to get along. ”

“ Thimblefinger was the smallest grown person they had ever seen,—even if he were a grown person,—nor could they forget that they had never seen a rabbit so wonderfully large as Mr. Rabbit. Drusilla expressed the feelings of all when she remarked that she felt “skittish.” They were ready to take alarm at anything that might happen. Therefore they ran to the door to see what the shadow meant. Finally they looked up at the sky, or what seemed to be [Pg 87] the sky, and there they saw, covering a large part of it, the vague outline of a huge jug. ”

“ Tip-Top laughed as they walked along. ‘This thief,’ he remarked, ‘is a fool. [Pg 77] It is so easy to steal a horse that he will not buy a saddle. He will try to steal mine. Then we shall catch him. He will get the horse—’
“‘What!’ cried the Mayor; ‘get the horse?’
“‘Certainly; nothing is easier,’ replied Tip-Top. ‘He will get the horse, and then he will want a saddle. He will be passing the wall here. He will see me sleeping with my head on my friend and then he will attempt to steal it, but the surcingle will be buckled around my body, and I will awake and cry blue murder. ”

“ The reason they looked so queer was because, although they acted like children, they were old in appearance,—as old as a person past middle age.
“They are country-raised, poor things! You’ll have to excuse them. They don’t know any better.” Mr. Thimblefinger sighed as he said this, and looked thoughtful.
“What about the Talking-Saddle?” Buster John inquired. “You said the story wasn’t finished.”
“To be sure! To be sure!” Mr. Thimblefinger cried. “My mind is like a wagon without a tongue. ”

“ She was perfectly satisfied that she would soon come to her nurse’s house. But the sun doesn’t stop for grown people, much less for children, and the little girl soon found that night was coming on. The only thought she had was that her nurse’s house had been moved farther away, and that by going straight ahead she would find it after a while. ”

“ The other Buster John and the other Sweetest Susan shook hands all round, and the other Drusilla made a curtsey to the company. Then, with a run and a jump, they plunged into the big looking-glass as you have seen youngsters plunge into a pond of water.
“Ho!” cried Mr. Thimblefinger, “they jumped in with a splash, but they never made a ripple.”
“They haven’t room enough in there to turn around,” said Sweetest Susan.
[Pg 120] “Why not?” inquired Mr. Thimblefinger. “To them the world is a looking-glass, and a mighty little one at that. ”

“ Valentine followed fast enough to see the creature enter a cave, and to this, Keen-Point told him he must go. As he went forward, a fierce-looking man came from the cave and stood guarding the entrance. He was covered from head to foot with silver armor, and he brandished a long keen sword with a silver handle. But Valentine went straight forward, holding Butch in his hand. The long sword never touched him, nor did the silver armor stand in his way. With one blow against Butch the long sword was shattered, and the silver armor fell away from Rimrak like the hulls from a ripe hickory-nut. ”

“ There is a spring by yonder tree, but you must not drink the water. There is a pomegranate-tree growing by the spring, but you must eat none of the fruit.’
“Having said this, the old man slung his wallet over his back and went on his way. The little girl went to the spring and looked at the water. Then she looked at the beautiful red fruit growing on the pomegranate-tree. She was very thirsty, very hungry, and very tired. She thought to herself that the old man was very mean and stingy. ”

“ Mr. Rabbit took off his spectacles and wiped them on his coat-tail. “My eyes are getting very bad,” he said, by way of apology. “But you certainly look very much like the Tar Baby. If you were both together in the dark, nobody could tell you apart. Well, well! I’m getting old.”
“You ain’t no older dan you look,” said Drusilla spitefully under her breath.
“Hush!” whispered Sweetest Susan. “He’ll eat us up.”
Mrs. Meadows laughed. “Don’t worry, child. Mr. Rabbit loves his pipe and a joke, but he’ll never hurt you. Never in the world.”
“But this isn’t in the world,” suggested Buster John. ”

“ One day in each week, the gardener would open the big gates of the park in order to trundle away the trash and weeds that he had raked up. The little girl watched him open the gate, and then, when the gardener went for his wheelbarrow, she slipped out at the gate and went running across the fields. ”

“ She lived all alone, and people said she was a witch. She was so old that the skin on her forehead had deep wrinkles in it, and these wrinkles caused everybody to think that the old woman was frowning all the time. People called her Granny Grim-Eye.
“Whenever Granny Grim-Eye got hungry she went to a strawberry-patch in the field near where she lived, and gathered a basket of strawberries. One day when she went after strawberries she found a beautiful little girl asleep in the patch.
“‘Hity-tity!’ said Granny Grim-Eye, ‘what are you doing here? ”

“ Thimblefinger, “Tip-Top hung the saddle in his front porch, as you have seen farmers do. He thought a great deal of it.”
THE MAYOR PARDONING THE THIEF
[Pg 83] “I’ve read something about the great thief,” remarked Buster John. “But the story didn’t end that way. The thief escaped every time.”
“Oh, well, you know how some people are,” exclaimed Mrs. Meadows. “They want everything to happen just so; even a thief must be a big man if he’s in a story; but I don’t believe anybody ever stole anything yet without getting into trouble about it.”
“Who is that crying?” Mr. Rabbit suddenly exclaimed. ”

“ The big spiders ran about on the ground spinning their webs around him, and then they began to jump from tree to tree. Valentine began to have a creepy feeling up and down his back, for he didn’t relish the idea of being caught in a spider’s web like a bluebottle fly. He wondered why Cob-Handle hadn’t warned him of the danger, and then he remembered that the case-knife was wrapped so tightly in his wallet that it couldn’t give a warning if it was to try. So he took all the knives from the wallet,—Keen-Point, Cob-Handle, and Butch,—and placed them in his girdle. ”

“ The queer bird was too much for Mr. Thimblefinger. Mr. Rabbit opened his eyes lazily and looked at it.
“If I’m not much mistaken—” he started to say, but Drusilla broke in without any ceremony:—
“’T ain’t nothin’ ’t all, but one er dem ar meller bugs what swims roun’ in de spring.”
“Why, I expect it is a mellow bug,” said Mrs. Meadows, laughing. “I used to catch them when I was a girl and put them in my handkerchief. They smell just like a ripe apple.”
“I thought it was a buzzard,” said Buster John. ”

“ Sometimes people tell stories just to pass the time away, and if the stories have little fibs in ’em, that don’t do anybody any harm, they just keep them in there. If they didn’t, the story wouldn’t be true.”
“Is that the end of the story of the Talking-Saddle?” asked Buster John.
“No! Oh, no!” Mr. Thimblefinger answered. ”

“ X. MR. RABBIT AS A RAIN-MAKER.
“I hope it won’t rain,” said Sweetest Susan, “for then the spring would fill up so we couldn’t get out, and we should get wet down here.”
“Oh, no,” replied Mr. Thimblefinger, “the water is never wet down here. It is a little damp, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s enough, I’m sure,” remarked Mr. Rabbit. “It’s enough to give me the wheezes when I first get up in the morning, and it’s not at all comfortable, I can tell you.”
“There is one funny thing about springs,” said Mrs. Meadows, “no matter how much it rains, they never get any fuller. ”

“ Meadows shook her head. “From all I can hear,” she said, “matters and things in general are a great deal nicer in books than they are outside of books. Folks are folks, anyway you can fix them, I don’t care what the books say. But I’ll not deny that in my day and time [Pg 186] I have seen folks mighty near as nice and as pretty as those you read about in the books, and one of these was the little girl I am going to tell you about. ”

“ Thimblefinger told the story.
“Once upon a time a farmer had five sons. He was not rich and he was not poor. He had some land, and he had a little money. He divided his land equally among his four oldest sons, giving each just as much as he could till. To each, he also gave a piece of money. Then he called his youngest son, and said:—
[Pg 64] “‘You have sharp eyes and a keen wit. You want no land. All you need is a saddle. That I will give you.’
“‘A saddle! What will I do with a saddle?’ asked the youngest son, whose name was Tip-Top. ”

“ Meadows coaxingly. “The rest won’t listen any more than they can help.”
“Well,” said Chickamy Crany Crow, “one time there was an old woman that lived near a well. For a long time nobody thought she was a witch, but after a while people began to have their suspicions. There was a quagmire in the road right in front of the old woman’s house, and every traveler passing that way was sure to get mud on his feet. No matter whether he was riding horseback or in a buggy, it was all the same. ”

“ The horse seemed to have little taste for such sport, for he snorted and wanted to shy around the dark object. But the man clapped spurs to the horse and drove him right at it. The black thing ran, and the man spurred his horse after it. It ran down the road, then across an old field and back into the road again, the man pursuing it as hard as he could make his horse go. Finally it ran into Peggy Pig-Eye’s yard and under her house, and the man went clattering after it. ”