The Tale of Fatty Coon Part 6

XVI

FATTY c.o.o.n PLAYS ROBBER

After Fatty c.o.o.n played barber-shop with Jimmy Rabbit and his brother it was a long time before he met them again. But one day Fatty was wandering through the woods when he caught sight of Jimmy. Jimmy dodged behind a tree. And Fatty saw Jimmy's brother peep from behind another.

You see, his ears were so long that they stuck far beyond the tree, and Fatty couldn't help seeing them.

"h.e.l.lo!" Fatty called. "I'm glad to see you." And he told the truth, too. He had been trying to find those two brothers for weeks, because he wanted to get even with them for cutting off his moustache. Jimmy and his brother hopped out from behind their trees.

"h.e.l.lo!" said Jimmy. "We were just looking for you." Probably he meant to say, "We were just looking AT you." He was somewhat upset by meeting Fatty; for he knew that Fatty was angry with him.

"Oh, ho! You were, were you?" Fatty answered. He began to slide down the tree he had been climbing.

Jimmy Rabbit and his brother edged a little further away.

"Better not come too near us!" he said. "We've both got the pink-eye, and you don't want to catch it."

Fatty paused and looked at the brothers. Sure enough! their eyes were as pink as anything.

"Does it hurt much?" Fatty asked.

"Well--it does and it doesn't," Jimmy replied. "I just stuck a brier into one of my eyes a few minutes ago and it hurt awful, then. But you'll be perfectly safe, so long as you don't touch us."

"How long does it last?" Fatty inquired.

"Probably we'll never get over it," Jimmy Rabbit said cheerfully. And his brother nodded his head, as much as to say, "That's so!"

Fatty c.o.o.n was just the least bit alarmed. He really thought that there was something the matter with their eyes. You see, though the Rabbit brothers' eyes were always pink (for they were born that way), he had never noticed it before. So Fatty thought it would be safer not to go too near them.

"Well, it's too bad," he told Jimmy. "I'm sorry. I wanted to play with you."

"Oh, that's all right!" Jimmy said. "We can play, just the same. I'll tell you what we'll play. We'll play--"

"Not barber-shop!" Fatty interrupted. "I won't play barber-shop, I never liked that game."

Jimmy Rabbit started to smile. But he turned his smile into a sneeze.

And he said--

"We'll play robber. You'll like that, I know. And you can be the robber.

You look like one, anyhow."

That remark made Fatty c.o.o.n angry. And he wished that Jimmy hadn't the pink-eye. He would have liked to make an end of him right then and there.

"What do you mean?" he shouted. "Robber nothing! I'm just as good as you are!"

"Of course, of course!" Jimmy said hastily. "It's your face, you know, That black patch covers your eyes just like a robber's mask. That's why we want you to be the robber."

Fatty had slipped down his tree to the ground; and now he looked down into the creek. It was just as Jimmy said. Fatty had never thought of it before, but the black patch of short fur across the upper part of his face made him look exactly like a robber.

"Come on!" said Jimmy. "We can't play the game without you."

"Well--all right!" said Fatty. He began to feel proud of his mask. "What shall I do?"

"You wait right here," Jimmy ordered. "Hide behind that tree. We'll go into the woods. And when we come back past this spot you jump out and say 'Hands up!' ... You understand?"

"Of course!" said Fatty. "But hurry up! Don't be gone long."

"Leave that to us," said Jimmy Rabbit. He winked at his brother; and they started off together.

Fatty c.o.o.n did not see that wink. If he had, he wouldn't have waited there all the afternoon for those Rabbit brothers to return. They never came back at all. And they told everybody about the trick they had played on Fatty c.o.o.n. For a long time after that wherever Fatty went the forest-people called "Robber!" after him. And Jasper Jay was the most annoying of all, because whenever he shouted "Robber!" he always laughed so loudly and so long. His hoa.r.s.e screech echoed through the woods. And the worst of it was, everybody knew what he was laughing at.

XVII

FATTY FINDS THE MOON

Wandering through the woods one day, Fatty c.o.o.n's bright eyes caught a strange gleam from something--something that shone and glittered out of the green. Fatty wanted to see what it was, though he hardly thought it was anything to eat. But whenever he came upon something new he always wanted to examine it. So now Fatty hurried to see what the strange thing was.

It was the oddest thing he had ever found--flat, round, and silvery; and it hung in the air, under a tree, just over Fatty's head. Fatty c.o.o.n looked carefully at the bright thing. He walked all around it, so he could see it from all sides. And at last he thought he knew what it was.

He made up his mind that it was the moon!

He had often seen the moon up in the sky; and here it was, just the same size exactly, hanging so low that he could have reached it with his paw.

He saw nothing strange in that; for he knew that the moon often touched the earth. Had he not seen it many a time, resting on the side of Blue Mountain? One night he had asked his mother if he might go up on the mountain to play with the moon; but she had only laughed. And here, at last, was the moon come to him! Fatty was so excited that he ran home as fast as he could go, to tell his mother, and his brother Blackie, and Fluffy and Cutey, his sisters.

"Oh! the moon! the moon!" Fatty shouted. He had run so fast that, being so plump, he was quite out of breath. And that was all he could say.

"Well, well! What about the moon!" Mrs. c.o.o.n asked. "Anybody would think you had found it, almost." And she smiled.

Fatty puffed and gasped. And at last he caught his breath again.

"Yes--I've found it! It's over in the woods--just a little way from here!" he said. "Big, and round, and shiny! Let's all go and bring it home!"

"Well, well, well!" Mrs. c.o.o.n was puzzled. She had never heard of the moon being found in those woods; and she hardly knew what to think. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, Mother!" Fatty could hardly wait, he was so eager to lead the way. And with many a shake of the head, Mrs. c.o.o.n, with her family, started off to see the moon.

"There!" Fatty cried, as they came in sight of the bright, round thing.

"There it is--just as I told you!" And they all set up a great shouting.

All but Mrs. c.o.o.n. She wasn't quite sure, even yet, that Fatty had really found the moon. And she walked close to the shining thing and peered at it. But not too close! Mrs. c.o.o.n didn't go too near it. And she told her children quite sternly to stand back. It was well that she did; for when Mrs. c.o.o.n took her eyes off Fatty's moon and looked at the ground beneath it--well! she jumped back so quickly that she knocked two of her children flat on the ground.

A trap! THAT was what Mrs. c.o.o.n saw right in front of her. And Farmer Green, or his boy, or whoever it was that set the trap, had hung that bright piece of TIN over the trap hoping that one of her family would see it and play with it--and fall into the trap. Yes--it was a mercy that Fatty hadn't begun knocking it about. For if he had he would have stepped right into the trap and it would have shut--SNAP! Just like that. And there he would have been, caught fast.

It was no wonder that Mrs. c.o.o.n hurried her family away from that spot.

And Fatty led them all home again. He couldn't get away from his moon fast enough.