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When the animals heard of how Brer Rabbit had gotten rid of Brer Lion, they showed him a new respect. All of them except Brer Wolf. He went over to Brer Rabbit’s house one day when everybody was out and sneaked inside.
In the middle of the afternoon Brer Rabbit came home and noticed that everything was mighty still. The door to the house was open a crack. His wife always shut the door tight. He peeped in the windows but didn’t see nothing. He listened at the chimney. Didn’t hear nothing.
He said to himself, “The pot knows what’s going up the chimney. The rafters know who’s in the loft. The mattress knows who’s under the bed. But I ain’t a pot. I ain’t the rafters, and I ain’t the mattress. But that don’t matter. I’m going to find out if anybody’s in that house and I ain’t going inside to do it either. There’re more ways to find out who fell in the pond without falling in yourself.”
He went off a ways from the house and hollered, “Hey, house! How you doing today?”
House didn’t answer.
“HEY, HOUSE! HOW YOU DOING TODAY?”
House still don’t answer.
Inside, behind the door, Brer Wolf starts to get a little bit nervous. He ain’t never heard of no such goings on as this. He peeped through the crack in the door, but can’t see a thing.
“Hey, House! What’s the matter? You done forgot your manners?”
Brer Wolf is getting nervous sho’ nuf now.
“Hey, House! You feeling sick today? You ain’t never failed to greet me before when I holler.”
Brer Wolf decided he better holler back, except he don’t know what a house sound like when it hollers. He made his voice as hoarse as he could and hollered, “Hey, yourself!”
“You sound like you got a bad cold, House!”
Brer Wolf hollered this time in his own voice. “Hey, yourself!”
Brer Rabbit laughed and laughed and then he shouted, “Brer Wolf! You got to do some practicing if you want to talk like a house!”
Brer Wolf slunk on away and decided he’d better let Brer Rabbit be for a while.
Brer Rabbit and Brer Buzzard decided to grow a crop together and divide it up at the end of the season.
Come harvest time Brer Rabbit looked at his garden. He had carrots big as fence posts. And cabbage! He had cabbage so big he couldn’t fit even one into a wheelbarrow. The lettuce leaves were so wide they looked like shade trees. It was the best crop Brer Rabbit had ever made and he wasn’t about to divide nothing with nobody.
He went to see Brer Buzzard. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but my garden didn’t do well this year. Must’ve been that dry spell we had a while back. Didn’t a thing come up, so I ain’t got nothing to divide with you.”
“Some years are like that, Brer Rabbit. You just go ahead and take half of what I got, ’cause a deal is a deal.”
Brer Rabbit looked around Brer Buzzard’s garden and saw peanuts as big as footballs, and ears of corn with such big, juicy kernels they popped open with juice if you looked at’em too hard. Brer Rabbit loaded up and went home, thinking about the good eating he would have all winter.
Brer Buzzard knew Brer Rabbit was lying. All summer he had made daily reconnaissance flights over Brer Rabbit’s garden. A few days later Brer Buzzard stopped by to see him. “I just found a gold mine on the other side of the river. But it’s too much for me to handle by myself. Give me a hand and I’ll divide it with you.”
Brer Rabbit didn’t need to hear another word. “Lead the way!”
When they got to the river, Brer Rabbit stopped.
“How am I going to get across, Brer Buzzard?”
Brer Buzzard allowed as to how he didn’t know.
Brer Rabbit thought for a minute. “How about I get on your back and you fly me over?”
Brer Buzzard was agreeable. They’d been flying for a while when Brer Buzzard lit in the top of a tall pine tree. Brer Rabbit looked down. The pine tree was stuck in the middle of an island and the island was stuck in the middle of the river. Brer Rabbit understood immediately that he had a serious problem.
“I’m sure glad you stopped to rest, Brer Buzzard. Don’t see how you do it, but flying makes me dizzy. But, you know, I just remembered something. There’s a gold mine near my house. Why don’t we go back and dig that one first and then come and dig yours?”
Brer Buzzard thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He laughed and laughed and laughed until the tree started shaking.
“Wait a minute!” hollered Brer Rabbit. “Hold on! You keep on shaking this tree and I’ll fall right in the river.”
“That so?” said Brer Buzzard, and started laughing again. “I’ll stop laughing if you give me half of your crop what belong to me.”
Wasn’t a thing Brer Rabbit could do. He divided up his crop and that was that, except he was weak in the knees for a month.
Brer Rabbit decided gardening was too much hard work. So he went back to his old ways – eating from everybody else’s garden. He made a tour through the community to see what everybody was planting and his eye was caught by Brer Fox’s peanut patch.
Soon as the peanuts were ready, Brer Rabbit decided to make his acquaintance with them. Every night he ate his fill and started bringing his family, including some second and third cousins of his great-aunt on his daddy’s uncle’s side of the house.
Brer Fox had a good idea who was eating his peanuts, but he couldn’t catch him. He inspected his fence and finally found a small hole on the north side. Brer Fox tied a rope with a loop knot and put it inside the hole. If anybody stepped in it, the rope would grab his leg and hoist’im right up in the air.
That night Brer Rabbit came down to the peanut patch. He climbed through the hole and WHOOSH! Next thing he knew he was hanging in the air upside down.
There wasn’t a thing he could do, so he tried to make himself comfortable and catch a little sleep. He’d worry about Brer Fox when Brer Fox showed up the next morning.
Long about daybreak Brer Rabbit woke up, because he heard somebody coming. It was Brer Bear.
“Good morning, Brer Bear,” he sang out, merry as Santa Claus.
Brer Bear looked all around.
“Up here!”
Brer Bear looked up and saw Brer Rabbit hanging upside down. “Brer Rabbit. How you do this morning?”
“Just fine, Brer Bear. Couldn’t be better.”
“Don’t look like it to me. What you doing up there?”
“Making a dollar a minute,” said Brer Rabbit.
“How?”
“I’m keeping the crows out of Brer Fox’s peanut patch.”
Brer Bear was overjoyed. He’d been on his way down to the welfare ofice, ’cause his family had gotten too big for him to support. “Say, Brer Rabbit. Could you let me take over for a while? I need the work and I promise I won’t work too long, but it sure would be a help to me and my family.”
Brer Rabbit didn’t want to appear too anxious, so he hemmed and hawed before agreeing. Brer Bear let Brer Rabbit down, and Brer Rabbit helped Brer Bear get the rope around his foot and swung him up in the air.
No sooner was Brer Bear swinging, in the breeze than Brer Rabbit ran to Brer Fox’s house. “Brer Fox! Brer Fox! Come quick! Come quick if you want to see who’s been stealing your peanuts.”
Brer Fox ran down to the garden and there was Brer Bear.
Before Brer Bear could thank Brer Fox for the chance to make a little money, Brer Fox grabbed a stick and was beating on Brer Bear like he was a drum in a marching band.
Brer Rabbit got away from there as quick as he could.
A few days later Brer Rabbit happened on Brer Bear, which he hadn’t planned on. But he greeted him like they were the best of friends.
“Howdy, Brer Bear. Haven’t seen you in a while. How’s Miz Brune and Miz Brindle?” Miz Brune was Brer Bear’s wife and Miz Brindle was his girlfriend. Don’t come asking me how they worked the thing out with each other. From what I hear, folks be doing the same thing now. The animals was doing it long before deodorant, that’s all.
Brer Bear said everybody was doing just fine. Brer Rabbit noticed Brer Bear inching close to him.
“Say, Brer Bear,” he said quickly. “I got business with you, come to think of it.”
“What’s that, Brer Rabbit?” Brer Bear said, suspicious-like.
“I was out in the woods back of my house day before yesterday, and I came across one of them old-time honey trees. You know the kind I mean? Them old trees what are hollow from bottom to top and filled with honey?”
Brer Bear smiled. “My granddaddy told me about trees like that, but I ain’t never found one.”
“Well, why don’t you come along with me? Honey ain’t no use to my family. If you don’t get it, it’s just going to go to waste.”
When they got to the woods, Brer Bear said, “I can smell the honey.”
Brer Rabbit nodded. “I can hear the bees zooming.”
They looked at the tree, wondering how to get the honey.
Finally Brer Rabbit says, “Tell you what. You climb to the top. See that hole up there?” Brer Bear nodded.
“Stick your head in there. I’ll get a tree limb and push the honeycomb up to you.”
Brer Bear spit on his hands, rubbed ’em together, and shinnied up the tree. Brer Rabbit got a limb and went in the bottom of the tree and started pushing. But he wasn’t pushing honeycomb. It was a beehive swarming with bees. He pushed it very gently until the hive was right under Brer Bear’s chin.
It’s a crying shame the way them bees got on Brer Bear’s head. It swelled up so much that Brer Bear couldn’t get his head out of the hole. For all anybody know, them bees are stinging him still.
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