XIV

THE BARBER-SHOP AGAIN

Although Fatty c.o.o.n never could get Jimmy Rabbit and his brother to play barber-shop with him again, Fatty saw no reason why he should not play the game without them. So one day he led his brother Blackie over to the old hollow sycamore. His sisters, Fluffy and Cutey, wanted to go too.

But Fatty would not let them. "Girls can't be barbers," he said. And of course they could find no answer to that.

As soon as Fatty and Blackie reached the old sycamore I am sorry to say that a dispute arose. Each of them wanted to use his own tail for the barber's pole. They couldn't both stick their tails through the hole in the tree at the same time. So they finally agreed to take turns.

Playing barber-shop wasn't so much fun as they had expected, because n.o.body would come near to get his hair cut. You see, the smaller forest-people were all afraid to go inside that old sycamore where Fatty and Blackie were. There was no telling when the two brothers might get so hungry they would seize and eat a rabbit or a squirrel or a chipmunk.

And you know it isn't wise to run any such risk as that.

Fatty offered to cut Blackie's hair. But Blackie remembered what his mother had said when Fatty came home with his moustache gone and his head all rough and uneven. So Blackie wouldn't let Fatty touch him. But HE offered to cut Fatty's hair--what there was left of it.

"No, thank you!" said Fatty. "I only get my hair cut once a month." Of course, he had never had his hair cut except that once, in his whole life.

Now, since there was so little to do inside the hollow tree, Fatty and Blackie kept quarreling. Blackie would no sooner stick his tail through the hole in the side of the tree than Fatty would want HIS turn. And when Fatty had succeeded in squeezing HIS tail out through the opening Blackie would insist that Fatty's time was up.

It was Fatty's turn, and Blackie was shouting to him to stand aside and give him a chance.

"I won't!" said Fatty. "I'm going to stay here just as long as I please."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when he gave a sharp squeal, as if something hurt him. And he tried to pull his tail out of the hole. He wanted to get it out now. But alas! it would not come! It was caught fast! And the harder Fatty pulled the more it hurt him.

"Go out and see what's the matter!" he cried to Blackie.

But Blackie wouldn't stir. He was afraid to leave the shelter of the hollow tree.

"It may be a bear that has hold of your tail," he told Fatty. And somehow, that idea made Fatty tremble all over.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" he wailed. "What shall I do? Oh! whatever shall I do?" He began to cry. And Blackie cried too. How Fatty wished that his mother was there to tell him what to do!

But he knew of no way to fetch her. Even if she were at home she could never hear him calling from inside the tree. So Fatty gave up all hope of her helping.

"Please, Mr. Bear, let go of my tail!" he cried, when he could stand the pain no longer.

The only answer that came was a low growl, which frightened Fatty and Blackie more than ever. And then, just as they both began to howl at the top of their voices Fatty's tail was suddenly freed. He was pulling on it so hard that he fell all in a heap on the floor of the barber-shop.

And that surprised him.

But he was still more surprised when he heard his mother say--

"Stop crying and come out--both of you!" Fatty and Blackie scrambled out of the hollow sycamore. Fatty looked all around. But there was no bear to be seen anywhere--no one but his mother.

"Did you frighten the bear away, Mother?" he asked.

"There was no bear," Mrs. c.o.o.n told him. "And it's lucky for you that there wasn't. I saw your tail sticking out of this tree and I thought I would teach you a lesson. Now, don't ever do such a foolish thing again.

Just think what a fix you would have been in if Johnnie Green had come along. He could have caught you just as easily as anything."

Fatty c.o.o.n was so glad to be free once more that he promised to be good forever after. And he was just as good as any little c.o.o.n could be--all the rest of that day.

XV

FATTY VISITS THE SMOKE-HOUSE

The winter was fast going. And one fine day in February Fatty c.o.o.n crept out of his mother's house to enjoy the warm sunshine--and see what he could find to eat.

Fatty was much thinner than he had been in the fall. He had spent so much of the time sleeping that he had really eaten very little. And now he hardly knew himself as he looked at his sides. They no longer stuck out as they had once.

After nosing about the swamp and the woods all the afternoon Fatty decided that there was no use in trying to get a meal there. The ground was covered with snow. And except for rabbit tracks--and a few squirrels'--he could find nothing that even suggested food. And looking at those tracks only made him hungrier than ever.

For a few minutes Fatty thought deeply. And then he turned about and went straight toward Farmer Green's place. He waited behind the fence just beyond Farmer Green's house; and when it began to grow dark he crept across the barnyard.

As Fatty pa.s.sed a small, low building he noticed a delicious smell. And he stopped right there. He had gone far enough. The door was open a little way. And after one quick look all around--to make sure there was n.o.body to see him--Fatty slipped inside.

It was almost dark inside Farmer Green's smokehouse--for that was what the small, low building was called. It was almost dark; but Fatty could see just as well as you and I can see in the daytime. There was a long row of hams hung up in a line. Underneath them were white ashes, where Farmer Green had built wood fires, to smoke the hams. But the fires were out, now; and Fatty was in no danger of being burned.

The hams were what Fatty c.o.o.n had smelled. And the hams were what Fatty intended to eat. He decided that he would eat them all--though of course he could never have done that--at least, not in one night; nor in a week, either. But when it came to eating, Fatty's courage never failed him. He would have tried to eat an elephant, if he had had the chance.

Fatty did not stop to look long at that row of hams. He climbed a post that ran up the side of the house and he crept out along the pole from which the hams were hung.

He stopped at the very first ham he came to. There was no sense in going any further. And Fatty dropped on top of the ham and in a twinkling he had torn off a big, delicious mouthful.

Fatty could not eat fast enough. He wished he had two mouths--he was so hungry. But he did very well, with only ONE. In no time at all he had made a great hole in the ham. And he had no idea of stopping. But he did stop. He stopped very suddenly. For the first thing he knew, something threw him right down upon the floor. And the ham fell on top of him and nearly knocked him senseless.

He choked and spluttered; for the ashes filled his mouth and his eyes, and his ears, too. For a moment he lay there on his back; but soon he managed to kick the heavy ham off his stomach and then he felt a little better. But he was terribly frightened. And though his eyes smarted so he could hardly see, he sprang up and found the doorway.

Fatty swallowed a whole mouthful of ashes as he dashed across the barnyard. And he never stopped running until he was almost home. He was puzzled. Try as he would, he couldn't decide what it was that had flung him upon the floor. And when he told his mother about his adventure--as he did a whole month later--she didn't know exactly what had happened, either.

"It was some sort of trap, probably," Mrs. c.o.o.n said.

But for once Mrs. c.o.o.n was mistaken.

It was very simple. In his greedy haste Fatty had merely bitten through the cord that fastened the ham to the pole. And of course it had at once fallen, carrying Fatty with it!

But what do you suppose? Afterward, when Fatty had grown up, and had children of his own, he often told them about the time he had escaped from the trap in Farmer Green's smokehouse.

Fatty's children thought it very exciting. It was their favorite story.

And they made their father tell it over and over again.