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While Brer Fox was sitting on the ground with Brer Buzzard’s tail feathers in his hand, wondering if God had something against him, Brer Rabbit was eleventeen miles away. He was tired, sweaty, and out of breath, and when he saw Sister Cow grazing in a field, he thought how nice it would be if she gave him some milk to drink. But he knew she wouldn’t. One time his wife had been sick and Brer Rabbit had asked her for some milk and she’d refused him. But that didn’t make no never mind. He was going to get him some of her milk.
“How you, Sister Cow?” asked Brer Rabbit, walking up to her.
“Reckon I be getting on all right, Brer Rabbit. How you be?”
“Fair to middling. Fair to middling.”
“How’s your family?”
“’bout the same, I reckon. How’s Brer Bull and all your young’uns?”
“They doing fine, just fine.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Brer Rabbit looked around for a minute and noticed a persimmon tree. “There’s some mighty nice persimmons on that tree. I’d love to have some.”
“How you gon’ get ’em?” Sister Cow wanted to know.
“Well, I was wondering if you would butt the tree for me a time or two and shake some down.”
Sister Cow allowed as to how she thought she could do that. She took a running start and banged her head into the tree, but no persimmons fell. And there was a good reason too. The persimmons were green and weren’t ready to fall, which Brer Rabbit knew. Sister Cow backed up farther and galloped toward the tree like a racehorse and – BAM! – hit that tree so hard that one of her horns got stuck. Brer Rabbit jumped up and did the shimmy, ’cause that was just what he’d been waiting for.
“I’m stuck,” called out Sister Cow. “Come give me a hand, Brer Rabbit.”
“Don’t believe there’s much I can do, but I’ll run and get Brer Bull.” Brer Rabbit ran all right, ran straight home to get his wife and all the children. They come back with buckets and milked Sister Cow dry.
“You have a good night, Sister Cow!” Brer Rabbit called out as him and his family were leaving. “I be back in the morning.”
Sister Cow worked hard all through the night trying to get her horn unstuck, and nigh on to daybreak she finally got loose. She grazed around in the field for a while, because she was mighty hungry. Long before the time she thought Brer Rabbit would be coming back, she stuck her horn back in the hole. However, Sister Cow didn’t know that Brer Rabbit had been watching all the while.
“Good morning, Sister Cow!” says Brer Rabbit, coming up to her. “How you this morning?”
“Ain’t doing too good, Brer Rabbit. Couldn’t sleep last night for trying to get out of this hole. Brer Rabbit? You suppose you could grab on to my tail and yank it real hard? I believe if you did that, I might be able to get free.”
“Tell you what, Sister Cow. You do the pulling and I’ll do the grunting.”
Sister Cow had had enough. She turned around and took off after Brer Rabbit. She was a lot faster than Brer Rabbit had given her credit for and it was all he could do to stay a hop in front of her horns. He dived into the first briar patch he saw, and Sister Cow come to a screeching halt.
After a while she saw two big eyes staring out at her. “How you this morning, Brer Big-Eyes?” she says. “You seen Brer Rabbit pass here?”
“I did. He was looking mighty scared too.”
Sister Cow went galloping down the road. Brer Rabbit lay there in the briar-patch just laughing and laughing. Brer Fox was mad at him; Brer Buzzard was mad at him; and now, Sister Cow was mad at him. And he just laughed and laughed.
First thing next morning Brer Rabbit went to see Miz Meadows and the girls. He wasn’t far from their house when he came upon Brer Turtle. He knocked on Brer Turtle’s roof.
You know, Brer Turtle is a cautious kind of creature and he always carries his house with him. Don’t know whether he’s afraid of robbers or just what. (The way folks be breaking into houses these days, seems to me Brer Turtle got the right idea.)
Anyway, Brer Rabbit knocked on the roof and asked if anybody was in. Brer Turtle allowed as to how he was. Brer Rabbit wanted to know where he was going.
Brer Turtle thought that was an interesting question, ’cause he hadn’t thought about it. Going was so much of a problem that where he went wasn’t important. Chances were he wasn’t gon’ get there anyway. As far as he was concerned, he was going to wherever he got to. That being the case, Brer Rabbit said he’d carry him along and they could call on Miz Meadows and the girls. That was all right with Brer Turtle.
Miz Meadows and the girls were glad to have some company and invited them in to set a spell. Brer Turtle was too low to sit on the floor and take part in the conversation, and when they sat him in a chair, he still wasn’t high enough. Finally, Miz Meadows put him on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, where he could take part in everything that was going on.
Very quickly the conversation got around to Brer Rabbit riding Brer Fox like a horse the day before.
“I would’ve ridden him over this morning,” said Brer Rabbit, “but I rode him so hard yesterday that he’s kinna lame in one leg this morning. I may be forced to sell him.”
Brer Turtle spoke up. “Well, Brer Rabbit, please sell him out of the neighborhood. Why, day before yesterday Brer Fox passed me on the road, and do you know what he said?”
Quite naturally nobody did, since they weren’t there.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Hello, Stinkin’ Jim!’”
“He didn’t!” exclaimed Miz Meadows. She and the girls were dismayed that Brer Fox would talk like that to a fine gentleman like Brer Turtle.
Now, while all this was going on, Brer Fox was standing in the back door, hearing every word. He sho’ heard more than he bargained for, which is always how it is with folks who put their ears in other folks’ conversations. The talk about him got so bad that the only way to stop it was to walk in like he’d just got there.
“Good day, everybody!” he said, grinning, and having taken care of all the pleasantries, he made a grab for Brer Rabbit.
Miz Meadows and the girls commenced to hollering and screaming and carrying on. Brer Turtle was scampering around on the mantelpiece and he got so excited that he tripped, fell off, and landed right on Brer Fox’s head.
That brought all the commotion to a halt. Brer Fox rubbed the knot on his head, looked around, and Brer Rabbit was nowhere to be seen. Brer Fox looked and looked until finally, he saw some soot falling out of the chimney and into the fireplace.
“Aha!” says he. “I’m gon’ light a fire in the fireplace and smoke you out, Brer Rabbit.” He started stacking wood in the fireplace.
Brer Rabbit laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Ain’t gon’ tell, Brer Fox.”
“What you laughing at, I said.”
“Well, nothing, except I just found a box of money hid up here behind a loose brick.”
Brer Fox wasn’t gon’ get fooled this time. “That’s a lie, and you know it.” He commenced to stacking the wood again.
“Don’t have to take my word for it,” Brer Rabbit said, just as calmly as he could be. “Look up here and see for yourself.”
Brer Fox peered up the chimney. Brer Rabbit dropped a brick square on his head. If somebody dropped a brick on your head, that would pretty well take care of things, now wouldn’t it?
After Brer Rabbit dropped the brick on Brer Fox’s head, Brer Fox was laid up in the hospital for a week or so. The day he got out he commenced to scheming again.
He was walking down the road and ran into his cousin, Brer Wolf. They hadn’t seen each other since the big family barbecue last Juvember, so they hugged and exchanged news about their kin, and then Brer Fox brought his cousin up to date on all that Brer Rabbit had been doing.
“This has got to stop,” says Brer Wolf. “We got to get that rabbit.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Well, I got a plan, but for it to work, we got to get him inside your house, Brer Fox.”
“He wouldn’t come in my house if you promised him free lettuce and yogurt for a year.”
“Don’t you worry about that. I can get him there,” says Brer Wolf.
“How?”
“You go home, Brer Fox, get in bed and make like you dead. And don’t say nothing until Brer Rabbit puts his hands on you. When he does, grab him, and we got us a good supper!”
Brer Wolf went over to Brer Rabbit’s house and knocked on the door. Bam! Bam! Bam! Nobody answered. Brer Wolf commenced to banging and kicking on the door like he didn’t have no manners, which he didn’t. BLAMMITY BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAMMITY!
Finally a teenichy voice came from inside. “Who’s there?”
“A friend.”
“All them what say friend ain’t friend,” Brer Rabbit answered. “Who’s there?”
“I got bad news.”
Bad news will get folks to listen when good news won’t. Brer Rabbit cracked the door and peeked half-a-eyeball out.
“Brer Fox died this morning,” Brer Wolf said real mournfullike.
Brer Rabbit raised half-a-eyebrow. “That so?”
“He never recuperated from that lick on the head when you dropped the brick on him. I just thought you’d want to know.”
This was bad news that was sho’ nuf good news. But it wasn’t news to be accepted on somebody else’s say-so. He decided to sneak over to Brer Fox’s and verify it.
When he got there, everything was quiet and still. He peeped through the open window, and there, lying on the bed, hands folded across his chest, eyes closed, was Brer Fox.
“Po’ Brer Fox,” said Brer Rabbit. “He sho’ is dead. Leastwise he look dead. Of course, I always heard that when folks was dead and somebody came to see ’em, dead folks would raise up a leg and holler ‘Wahoo!’”
Brer Fox raised up his leg and hollered, “Wahoo!”
Brer Rabbit didn’t waste no time getting away from there.
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