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The animals were divided up into two big groups. There were the ones with claws and long teeth, like Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and all them. Then there were the animals with horns – folks like Brer Bull, Brer Steer, Sister Cow, Mr. Benjamin Ram, Brer Billy Goat, Brer Rhinossyhoss, and can’t leave out Miz Unicorn. There were a lots more, but I can’t recollect their names right this minute.
Well, it was late over in the summer one year when the horned animals decided to have a convention and decide what to do about the animals with claws and teeth always chasing them. They went way back out in the woods close to Lost Forty and started their meeting.
Brer Wolf got news of the meeting and sneaked out there to see what was going on. He got a couple of sticks, tied them on his head, and walked up to where a group of horned animals were talking.
“Who you?” Brer Bull demanded to know, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Baaa! I’m little Sook Calf.”
Brer Bull wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t say anything.
Brer Wolf listened to the animals complaining about how he and Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox treated them. He started getting a little nervous. About that time a great big horsefly zoomed by and without thinking Brer Wolf snapped at it.
Somebody laughed loudly.
“Who’s making all that racket and showing they ain’t got no manners?” Brer Bull bellowed.
Nobody said anything, and after a minute they went back to talking.
Brer Wolf knew that laugh. He ought to, as many times as he had heard it coming at him. Yes, Brer Rabbit had sneaked out to the convention too, and he was hiding in the bushes. When he saw Brer Wolf with them sticks tied on his head and snapping at the horsefly, he couldn’t help laughing. Then he sang:
О kittle-cattle, kittle-cattle, where are your eyes?
Whoever saw a Sook Calf snapping at flies?
The horned animals looked around, wondering what that was all about. They went back to talking, but before Brer Wolf could get his ear back in the conversation good, a flea bit him on his neck. Without thinking, he scratched at it with his hind foot.
Brer Rabbit laughed and sang:
Scritchum-scratchum, lawsy, my laws!
Look at that Sook Calf scratching with claws!
Brer Wolf got scared, but none of the horned animals paid him any attention. A few minutes later Brer Rabbit sang out again:
Rinktum-tinktum, ride him on a rail!
That Sook Calf got a long bushy tail!
Brer Wolf was scared sho’ nuf now, especially when he saw Brer Bull looking at him right hard. Brer Rabbit knew this wasn’t the time to stop:
One and one never can make six,
Sticks ain’t horns, and horns ain’t sticks.
Brer Bull and Brer Wolf moved at the same time – Brer Bull at Brer Wolf and Brer Wolf at getting away from there.
Brer Wolf had to keep out of sight for a week or so after that, ’cause Brer Rabbit told everybody that Brer Wolf had been walking in the woods with a chair on his head trying to court Sister Moose.
Brer Wolf had a daughter who was sho’ nuf good-looking. Now, before I go any further I can hear you thinking that Brer Wolf been killed off twice. What that got to do with anything? Am I the tale? Is the tale me? Or is the tale the tale? Well, you can figure that out. If I ain’t the tale, and the tale ain’t me, it don’t make one bit of difference if Brer Wolf was dead or alive. Ain’t that so?
Dead or dead, Brer Wolf had a daughter and she was a fine young thing. All the animals was hitting on her! First one was Brer Fox. He was sitting on the porch talking his stuff to her, and everybody know that Brer Fox could talk stuff sho’ nuf. All of a sudden the mosquitoes started coming around. The mosquitoes at Brer Wolf ’s house was near ‘bout big as airplanes and just as loud. Brer Fox started hitting and slapping at them. Brer Wolf came out of the house and told Brer Fox to go. “Any man what can’t put up with a few mosquitoes can’t court my daughter.”
Next was Brer Coon. He hardly got one foot on the porch before he was slapping and biting at the mosquitoes. Brer Wolf showed him how the road run the same both ways.
Next was Brer Mink and he declared war on them mosquitoes. Brer Wolf told him to fight his war somewhere else.
It went on this way until all the animals had eliminated themselves except Brer Rabbit. He sent word that he was coming courting. Brer Wolf ’s daughter, who had always thought Brer Rabbit was kind of cute, put on her mascara and eyeliner and whatever else it is that the women put on their face. She squeezed herself into a pair of jeans four sizes too small. Have mercy! And she put on a pink halter top! When Brer Rabbit saw her, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.
When Brer Wolf saw what his daughter was looking like, he said there was no way in this lifetime she was gon’ sit there in the porch swing by herself with Brer Rabbit. Not with all he knowed about Brer Rabbit! So he pulled his rocking chair out and sat with them.
They hadn’t been there long before Brer Rabbit heard the mosquitoes coming. Zoom, zoom, zoom.
“Mighty nice place you got here, Brer Wolf.”
Zoom, zoom, zoom.
“Some say it’s too low in the swamps,” Brer Wolf answered.
Zoom, zoom, zoom.
The mosquitoes were zooming so fierce that Brer Rabbit started getting scared, and when Brer Rabbit gets scared, his mind works like a brand-new car motor.
“I was in town today, Brer Wolf, and I saw a spotted horse. Never seen a spotted horse in my life.”
Zoom, zoom, zoom.
“Do tell! I ain’t never seen one of them myself.”
“You’re wonderful,” said the girl. She figured wouldn’t nobody else in the world could’ve seen a spotted horse. Shows you how far gone she was.
Zoom, zoom, zoom.
“My granddaddy was spotted, Brer Wolf.”
“Do tell!”
Zoom, zoom, zoom.
“That’s the naked truth I’m telling you. He was spotted all over. He had one spot right here.” Brer Rabbit slapped his face and killed one of the mosquitoes.
“I don’t want nobody to laugh, but my granddaddy had spots all over. Had that one on the side of his face which I just showed you. Had another one right here on his leg.”
Slap!
Another mosquito gone.
“Even had one right here in between his shoulder blades.”
Blip!
“And one down here at his hipbone.”
Phap!
Brer Rabbit kept on talking about his granddaddy’s spots until near ’bout every mosquito in the county was dead. Brer Wolf was so tired of hearing about Brer Rabbit’s granddaddy’s spots he fell asleep.
At which point, Brer Wolfs daughter dragged Brer Rabbit off to the woods, and the story don’t go no further.
Brer Rabbit was sitting around his house one day with nothing to do, so he decided to pay a call on Brer Bear. Well, not exactly on Brer Bear. On Brer Bear’s house!
He sneaked over there and hid in the woods. After a while, Brer Bear, Miz Brune, and Miz Brindle came out and went off down the road like they were going on a picnic. Miz Brune and Miz Brindle had their parasols and Brer Bear was toting a picnic basket. Brer Rabbit waited until they were out of sight and then went in the house.
Brer Rabbit didn’t have anything in mind. He was just curious how other folks lived and every now and then went in somebody’s house when nobody was home. He peeked in here and poked in there, opened this and rubbed his paws over that. While he was peeking and poking and opening and rubbing, he bumped up against a shelf in the kitchen, and a bucket of honey what Brer Bear kept there tipped over. Before Brer Rabbit knowed it, he was covered with honey, and I mean covered! If you’d seen him, you’d a thought he was a big piece of saltwater taffy. Brer Rabbit couldn’t do a thing until the honey dripped off his eyes and he could open’em up to get a good look at the mess he’d gotten himself in this time.
“What am I gon’ do?” He was scared to go outside, because he might attract every fly and bee in four counties. But if he stayed in the house, Brer Bear would find him and that would be worst.
So he tipped out of the house and made it to the woods. He commenced to rolling around on the ground, trying to get the honey off. But instead of getting it off, all the dead leaves and twigs and trash what was on the ground stuck to him. He rolled, and the leaves stuck. He rolled the other way, and more leaves stuck. He started jumping up and down and whirling around trying to get the leaves off. He shook and he shivered. He quivered and he quavered. He did a front flip and he did a back flip. He spun around like he was a baton in a majorette’s hand. But the leaves and twigs stuck to him like they’d growed there.
“What am I gon’ do now?” he wanted to know. Things had just gone from worse to worser. He had to get home and get himself in the bathtub.
He set off through the woods and every step he took, the leaves went swishy-swushy, splushy-splishy, swishy-swushy, splushy-splishy. If Sister Ocean had had legs and gone for a walk, I reckon that’s what she would’ve sounded like.
Brer Rabbit was afraid that if anybody saw him, they’d laugh him out of the community, and Miz Meadows and the girls wouldn’t allow him to sit on the porch ever again.
He was hurrying across the pasture when he ran into Sister Cow. Sister Cow took one look, raised her tail and took off running like she’d just seen the butcher. Brer Rabbit smiled.
Next person Brer Rabbit run into was a man taking some shoats to market. The man looked at Brer Rabbit. The shoats looked at Brer Rabbit, and I expect the man and them shoats are still running.
Brer Rabbit laughed, but his laugh caught in his throat when he saw Brer Bear, Miz Brune, and Miz Brindle coming back from their picnic. But he squared his shoulders, stood up straight, and walked right at’em. Brer Bear stopped. Miz Brindle, she stopped. Miz Brune, she stopped. Brer Rabbit kept coming. Swishy-swushy. Splushy-splishy. Miz Brune throwed down her parasol and ran. Swishy-swushy. Splushy-splishy. Miz Brindle throwed down her parasol and ran. Brer Bear stood his ground. Takes more than some swishy-swushy to scare him.
Brer Rabbit jumped up in the air and shook himself real hard. The sound of them leaves scraping on one another sounded like graveyard dirt on dry bones. Brer Rabbit hollered out:
I’m Megog de Roy,
The Devil’s baby boy,
My body odor is stronger than you.
That took care of Brer Bear. He dropped the picnic basket, and some farmer lost a whole fence that day ’cause Brer Bear tore it down getting away from there.
Brer Rabbit strutted on down the road and came on Brer Wolf and Brer Fox, who were plotting on how they were going to get him. They was so deep into their plotting that they didn’t see him until he was standing right in front of them, excepting they looked up and saw the most awfulest looking creature the world has ever seen.
Brer Wolf wanted to show Brer Fox how big and bad he was. He looked at the creature and growled, “Who you?”
Brer Rabbit jumped up in the air, shook himself and said:
I’m Megog de Roy,
The Devil’s baby boy.
My body odor is stronger than you.
He jumped up in the air again and then charged. Brer Wolf and Brer Fox got away from there so fast they didn’t even leave tracks behind.
Brer Rabbit went home, got cleaned up, and then went to see Miz Meadows and the girls. He told them he’d heard that some creature called Megog de Roy had put a scare into Brer Fox. For weeks after, every time Brer Fox showed his face, Miz Meadows and the girls asked him if he wasn’t afraid that Megog de Roy might get him.
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