Mr. Rabbit shaded his eyes with his hand, and pretended to believe that there might be a wooden horse trying to catch Tickle-My-Toes after all. But Mrs. Meadows said that there was no danger of anything like that. She explained that Tickle-My-Toes was running away because he didn’t want to hear what was said about his story.

“I think he’s right,” remarked Mr. Rabbit. “It was the queerest tale I ever heard in all my life. You might sit and listen to tales from now until—well—until the first Tuesday before the last Saturday in the year seven hundred thousand, seven hundred and seventy-seven, and you’d never hear another tale like it.”

“I don’t see why,” suggested Mrs. Meadows.

“Well,” replied Mr. Rabbit, chewing his tobacco very slowly, “there are more reasons than I have hairs in my head, but I’ll only give you three. In the first place, this Sparkle Spry doesn’t marry the king’s daughter. In the second place, he doesn’t live happily forever after; and in the third place”—Mr. Rabbit paused and scratched his head—“I declare, I’ve forgotten the third reason.”

“If it’s no better than the other two, it doesn’t amount to much,” said Mrs. Meadows. “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t have married the king’s daughter, if the king had a daughter, and if he didn’t live happily it was his own fault. Stories are not expected to tell everything.”

“Now, I’m glad of that,” exclaimed Mr. Rabbit, “truly glad. I’ve had a story on my mind for many years, and I’ve kept it to myself because I had an idea that in telling a story you had to tell everything.”

“Well, you were very much mistaken,” said Mrs. Meadows with emphasis.

“So it seems—so it seems,” remarked Mr. Rabbit.

“What was the story?” asked Buster John.

“I called it a story,” replied Mr. Rabbit, “but that is too big a name for it. I reckon you have heard of the time when Brother Lion had hair all over him as long and as thick as the mane he now has?”

But the children shook their heads. They had never heard of that, and even Mrs. Meadows said it was news to her.

“Now, that is very queer,” remarked Mr. Rabbit, filling his pipe slowly and deliberately. “Very queer, indeed. Time and again I’ve had it on the tip of my tongue to mention this matter, but I always came to the conclusion that everybody knew all about it. Of course it doesn’t seem reasonable that Brother Lion went about covered from head to foot, and to the tip of his tail, with long, woolly hair; but, on the other hand, when he was first seen without his long, woolly hair, he was the laughing-stock of the whole district. I know mighty well he was the most miserable looking creature I ever saw.

“It was curious, too, how it happened,” Mr. Rabbit continued. “We were all living in a much colder climate than that in the country next door. Six months in the year there was ice in the river and snow on the ground, and them that didn’t lay up something to eat when the weather was open had a pretty tough time of it the rest of the year. Brother Lion’s long woolly hair belonged to the climate. But for that, he would have frozen to death, for he was a great hunter, and he had to be out in all sorts of weather.

“One season we had a tremendous spell of cold weather, the coldest I had ever felt. I happened to be out one day, browsing around, when I saw blue smoke rising a little distance off, so I says to myself, says I, I’ll go within smelling distance of the fire and thaw myself out. I went towards the smoke, and I soon saw that Mr. Man, who lived not far off, had been killing hogs.

“Now, the funny thing about that hog-killing business,” continued Mr. Rabbit, leaning back in his chair and smacking his lips together, as old people will do sometimes, “was that, after the hogs were killed, Mr. Man had to get their hair off. I don’t know how people do now, but that was what Mr. Man did then. He had to get the hair off—but how? Well, he piled up wood, and in between the logs he placed rocks and stones. Then he dug a hole in the ground and half buried a hogshead, the open end tilted up a little higher than the other end. This hogshead he filled with as much water as it would hold in that position. Then he set fire to the pile of wood. As it burned, of course the rocks would become heated. These Mr. Man would take in a shovel and throw in the hogshead of water. The hot rocks would heat the water, and in this way the hogs were scalded so the hair on their hides could be scraped off.

“Well, the day I’m telling you about, Mr. Man had been killing hogs and scalding the hair off. When I got there the pile of wood had burned away, and Mr. Man had just taken his hogs home in his wagon. The weather was very cold, and as I stood there warming myself I heard Brother Lion roaring a little way off. He had scented the fresh meat, and I knew he would head right for the place where the hogs had been killed.

“Now, Brother Lion had been worrying me a good deal. He had hired Brother Wolf to capture me, and Brother Wolf had failed. Then he hired Brother Bear, and Brother Bear got into deep trouble. Finally he hired Brother Fox, and I knew the day wasn’t far off when Mrs. Fox would have to hang crape on her door and go in mourning. All this had happened some time before, and I bore Brother Lion no good will.

“So, when I heard him in the woods singing out that he smelled fresh blood, I grabbed the shovel the man had left, and threw a dozen or so hot rocks in the hogshead, and then threw some fresh dirt on the fire. Presently Brother Lion came trotting up, sniffing the air, purring like a spinning wheel a-running, and dribbling at the mouth.

“I passed the time of day with him as he came up, but kept further away from him than he could jump. He seemed very much surprised to see me, and said it was pretty bad weather for such little chaps to be out; but I told him I had on pretty thick underwear, and besides that I had just taken a hot bath in the hogshead.

“‘I’m both cold and dirty,’ says he, smelling around the hogshead, ‘and I need a bath. I’ve been asleep in the woods yonder, and I’m right stiff with cold. But that water is bubbling around in there mightily.’

“‘I’ve just flung some rocks in,’ says I.

“‘How do you get in?’ says he.

“‘Back in,’ says I.

“Brother Lion walked around the hogshead once or twice, as if to satisfy himself that there was no trap, and then he squatted and began to crawl into the hogshead backwards. By the time his hind leg touched the water, he pulled it out with a howl, and tried to jump away, but, somehow, his foot slipped off the rim of the hogshead, and he soused into the water—kerchug!—up to his shoulders.”

Mr. Rabbit paused, shut his eyes, and chuckled to himself.

“Well, you never heard such howling since you were born. Brother Lion scrambled out quicker than a cat can wink her left eye, and rolled on the ground, and scratched around, and tore up the earth considerably. I thought at first he was putting on and pretending; but the water must have been mighty hot, for while Brother Lion was scuffling around, all the wool on his body came off up to his shoulders, and if you were to see him to-day you’d find him just that way.

“And more than that—before he soused himself in that hogshead of hot water, Brother Lion used to strut around considerably. Being the king of all the animals, he felt very proud, and he used to go with his tail curled over his back. But since that time, he sneaks around as if he was afraid somebody would see him.

“There’s another thing. His hide hurt him so bad for a week that every time a fly lit on him he’d wiggle his tail. Some of the other animals, seeing him do this, thought it was a new fashion, and so they began to wiggle their tails. Watch your old house cat when you go home, and you will see her wiggle her tail forty times a day without any reason or provocation. Why? Simply because the other animals, when they saw Brother Lion wiggling his tail, thought it was the fashion; and so they all began it, and now it has become a habit with the most of them. It is curious how such things go.

“But the queerest thing of all,” continued Mr. Rabbit, leaning back in his chair, and looking at Mrs. Meadows and the children through half-closed eyes, “was this—that the only wool left on Brother Lion’s body, with the exception of his mane, was a little tuft right on the end of his tail.”

“How was that?” inquired Mrs. Meadows.

Mr. Rabbit laughed heartily, but made no reply.

“I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said Mrs. Meadows with some emphasis. “A civil question deserves a civil answer, I’ve always heard.”

“Well, you know what you said a while ago,” remarked Mr. Rabbit.

“I don’t know as I remember,” replied Mrs. Meadows.

“Why, you said pointedly that it was not necessary to tell everything in a story.” Mr. Rabbit made this remark with great dignity. “And I judged by the way you said it that it was bad taste to tell everything.”

“Oh, I remember now,” said Mrs. Meadows, laughing. “It was only one of my jokes.”

“But this is no joke,” protested Mr. Rabbit, winking at the children, but keeping the serious side of his face toward Mrs. Meadows. “I took you at your solemn word. Now there is a tuft of wool on Brother Lion’s tail, and you ask me how it happened to be there. I answer you as you answered me—’You don’t have to tell everything in a story.’ Am I right, or am I wrong?”

“I’ll not dispute with you,” remarked Mrs. Meadows, taking up her knitting.

“I don’t mind telling you,” remarked Mr. Rabbit, turning to the children with a confidential air. “It was as simple as falling off a log. When Brother Lion fell into the hogshead of hot water, the end of his tail slipped through the bunghole.”

This explanation was such an unexpected one that the children laughed, and so did Mrs. Meadows. But Mr. Thimblefinger, who had put in an appearance, shook his head and remarked that he was afraid that Mr. Rabbit got worse as he grew older, instead of better.