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One time Mr. Man caught Brer Rabbit in his collard green patch. Now don’t come asking me what Mr. Man’s name was. That ain’t in the story. Just Mr. Man. Might have been Slip-Shot Sam. Then again, it could’ve been One-Eyed Riley. Of course, it might as easily been Freddie Eddie, Freddy Teddy, or Stagolee, ’cepting he never did no work far as I knows. I don’t know what Mr. Man’s name was, and don’t care. Mr. Man is good enough for the story so it’s good enough for you.
Like I was saying, Mr. Man caught Brer Rabbit in his collard green patch. Mr. Man had been trying to catch him for a long time and he was overjoyed.
“Got you now! Got you now! I can’t get all my greens out of your stomach, but I sure can take some hair off your hide.”
He tied Brer Rabbit to a tree alongside the road and went to get a stick. He was going to beat the Devil out of Brer Rabbit and whup some Jesus in. That’s the truth!
Brer Rabbit wasn’t none too pleased about this turn of events and he was doing some serious scheming when along comes Brer Fox. He saw Brer Rabbit all tied up and stopped to enjoy the sight.
“Somebody finally got you, huh? Fancy that!” He laughed and laughed.
He was laughing so hard it was a moment or two before he realized that Brer Rabbit was laughing right along with him. And laughing harder! “What you laughing at?”
“Just thinking about all the fun I’m going to have when Miz Meadows comes back.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Miz Meadows is having a wedding at her house today. She say I got to come, but I don’t know as I can. I got to go get the doctor for my children. They sick with the hee-beejitis. Miz Meadows say she don’t care. Say if I ain’t at the wedding, won’t be no fun. She went to town to get the preacher and tied me up to make sure I’d be here when she come back by.”
“I ain’t heard about no wedding,” Brer Fox said, his feelings hurt.
“This is a special wedding and party. She don’t invite just anybody. But I can’t go, Brer Fox. I got to go get the doctor. Now I know that if you took my place at the party, Miz Meadows would find that you just as much of a fine man as me and she might stop all her hard feelings about you.”
Wasn’t nothing Brer Fox wanted more than to be on good terms with Miz Meadows, so he untied Brer Rabbit and let Brer Rabbit tie him to the tree.
“Miz Meadows should be along with the preacher any minute. I sho’ nuf appreciate what you doing for me, Brer Fox.” Brer Rabbit hopped into the woods and hid to see what was going to happen.
When Mr. Man came back with a stick big enough to build a house on, he exclaimed, “What! The one what stole my greens has been replaced by the one what’s been in my hen house. That’s even better.” He started in on Brer Fox with the stick. Blammity-blam-blam-blam. He beat Brer Fox until the stick wasn’t even good for toothpicks, and went off to get another one.
Brer Rabbit come sauntering out of the woods like he hadn’t seen a thing. “That’s strange,” he said. “Miz Meadows and the preacher should’ve been here by now. I done been to the doctor’s, gone to my house and back, and they still ain’t come. That’s mighty strange.”
“Brer Rabbit!” cried Brer Fox. “Turn me loose from here. Maybe Miz Meadows went the back way.” He was trying to pretend like nothing had happened to him.
“Could be,” said Brer Rabbit. “Say, Brer Fox? How come your hair is all messed up and your head is all bashed in? Something been bothering you?”
Brer Fox didn’t say a word.
Brer Rabbit smiled. “Remember that time you was after my children?” He chuckled. “If there ain’t no hard feelings, I reckon I could untie you.”
Brer Fox didn’t have no choice. He apologized for trying to get Brer Rabbit’s children and Brer Rabbit untied him. Just then Mr. Man reappeared with his buggy whip, and Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit didn’t waste no time getting away from there.
If there was one thing in the world Brer Rabbit liked, it was lettuce. He would do anything for lettuce. One day he was going down a road and passed by a field of lettuce, more lettuce than he had seen in all his life! As far as he could see there were rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of lettuce. But between Brer Rabbit and all that lettuce was a wire fence.
Just as he started putting his mind to how he was going to get it, a little girl walked across the road, opened the gate, went in, picked a head of lettuce, and left.
Next morning, bright and early, Brer Rabbit was back. When the little girl came down the road, Brer Rabbit went to meet her.
“Good morning, young lady,” he said.
“How you this morning, Brer Rabbit?”
“Just fine. Just fine. Say, you not Mr. Man’s little girl, are you?”
“I am,” she said proudly.
“Sho’ nuf!” he exclaimed, looking at her admiringly. “He told me about you, but I didn’t expect to meet such a pretty young lady.”
She blushed. “Why, thank you very much.”
“He said he had a daughter who would let me in that field of lettuce over yonder, but I sho’ didn’t expect nobody as pretty as you.”
The little girl just grinned and blushed and giggled. “Well, come on and I’ll open the gate for you.”
“Obliged,” said Brer Rabbit.
He went to a far corner of the field and started eating. And he ate, and he ate, and he ate. The next morning he was back. The little girl let him in again and Brer Rabbit took up where he’d left off. This went on for about a week before Mr. Man noticed he was missing a whole lot of lettuce. He was right angry about it, too, and accused the folks what worked on his place of stealing it. He was about to fire all of them when the little girl said, “Daddy, you must’ve forgot. You told Brer Rabbit he could have all the lettuce he wanted.”
Mr. Man wanted to know what she was talking about, and the little girl told him. Mr. Man nodded. “I see. Well, if Brer Rabbit comes tomorrow, you let him in the field, then come and tell me. There’s something I want to talk to him about.”
Next morning after the little girl let Brer Rabbit in the field, she went and told her daddy. Mr. Man rushed down to the field with a fishing line and slipped in the gate. Brer Rabbit was eyeball deep in the lettuce, going at it like the statute of limitations on eating was about to expire. Suddenly Mr. Man grabbed him around the neck and Brer Rabbit found himself dangling in the air, staring Mr. Man in the face.
Mr. Man tied Brer Rabbit up tight. “You know what I’m going to do to you?”
“No, but I got a feeling it ain’t gon’ be to my liking. In fact, I know it ain’t.”
“It’s gon’ be to mine. First I’m going to give you a whupping. And for that I got a red cowhide whip. Then I’m going to skin you. Then I’m going to nail your hide to the barn door, and then I just might start all over again from the beginning.” Mr. Man told his little girl to watch Brer Rabbit while he went up to the house to get his whip.
No sooner had Mr. Man left than Brer Rabbit began to sing, and he could sing. Women had been known to faint when Brer Rabbit sang. So he started, and this is what he sang:
The Jaybird hunts the sparrow’s nest,
The bee-martin sails all around;
The squirrel hollers from the top of the tree,
Mr. Mole, he stay in the ground;
He hide and he stay til the dark drops down —
Mr. Mole, he hide in the ground.
The little girl thought that was the prettiest song she’d ever heard and she laughed and clapped her hands and asked him to sing another one. Brer Rabbit said he couldn’t. His throat was hurting from where Mr. Man had been holding him. But the little girl begged and pleaded. Brer Rabbit said, “If you think I can sing, you ought to see me dance!”
“Would you dance for me? Please, Brer Rabbit? Please?”
“How can I dance all tied up like this?”
“I’ll untie you,” said the little girl.
“You do and I’ll show you some dancing.”
The little girl untied him, and he danced all right. Danced all the way home. Made up some new steps getting there too!
Mr. Man’s garden was too delicious-looking for Brer Rabbit to leave alone. And anyway, it wasn’t right for Mr. Man to have all them pretty vegetables to himself. Obviously, he didn’t believe in sharing. Being worried about Mr. Man’s soul, Brer Rabbit decided he’d make Mr. Man share.
A few mornings later Mr. Man went to town. As he was leaving he hollered to his daughter, “Janey! Don’t you let Brer Rabbit get in my green peas. You hear me?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said.
Brer Rabbit was hiding in the bushes, listening. Soon as Mr. Man left, Brer Rabbit walked up to the little girl as bold as day.
“Ain’t you Janey?” he asked.
“My daddy call me Janey. What your daddy call you?”
“Well, my daddy dead, but when he was living he called me Billy Malone.” He smiled. “I passed your daddy in the road and he said for me to come tell you to give me some sparrow grass.”
Janey had been warned against Brer Rabbit, but not Billy Malone, so she opened the gate and let Brer Rabbit into the garden. Brer Rabbit got as much sparrow grass as he could carry and left.
Mr. Man came back and saw that somebody had been in his garden. He asked Janey about it. She told him that Billy Malone said it was all right for him to go in and get some sparrow grass. Mr. Man knew something was up but didn’t say anything.
Next morning when he got ready to go, he told Janey to keep an eye out for Brer Rabbit and not let anybody get any sparrow grass.
When Mr. Man was out of sight, Brer Rabbit come walking down the road and greeted the little girl, bowing low like a real gentleman. “I saw your daddy just now. He said I couldn’t have no sparrow grass today, but it would be all right if I helped myself to the English peas.”
The little girl opened the gate and Brer Rabbit made off with enough English peas to feed all of England.
When Mr. Man came back, his pea vines looked like a storm had hit ’em, and he was hot! “Who been in my peas?” he asked his daughter.
“Mr. Billy Malone,” she said.
“What this Billy Malone look like?”
“He got a split lip, pop eyes, big ears, and a bobtail, Daddy.”
Mr. Man didn’t have a bit of trouble recognizing that description. He fixed a box trap and set it in the garden among the peanuts. The next morning he told Janey, “Now, whatever you do today, don’t let nobody have any sparrow grass, and don’t let ’em get any more English peas, the few I got left.”
Soon as Mr. Man was out of sight, here come Brer Rabbit. He bowed low and said, “Good morning, Miz Janey. I met your daddy down the road there and he said I can’t have no more sparrow grass or English peas, but to help myself to the peanuts.”
Janey let him in the garden. Brer Rabbit headed straight for the peanut patch, where he tripped the string and the box fell right on top of him. He was caught and he knew it.
Wasn’t long before Mr. Man came back. He went to the peanut patch and saw the overturned box. He stooped down, peered through the slats, and saw Brer Rabbit inside, quivering.
Mr. Man whooped. “Yes, sir! I got you this time, you devil! I got you! And when I get through with you, ain’ gon’ be nothing left. I’m gon’ carry your foot in my pocket, put your meat in the pot, and wear your fur on my head.”
Words like that always put a chill up and down Brer Rabbit’s spine. “Mr. Man, I know I done wrong. And if you let me go, I promise I’ll stay away from your garden.”
Mr. Man chuckled. “You gon’ stay away from my garden if I don’t let you go too. I got to go to the house to get my butcher knife.”
Mr. Man went to the house, but he forgot to close the garden gate behind him. Brer Fox came down the road, and seeing the open gate, took it as an invitation and walked on in. He heard something hollering and making a lot of racket. He wandered around until he found the noise coming from underneath a box. “What the dickens is that?” he asked.
Brer Rabbit would’ve known that voice anywhere. “Run, Brer Fox! Run! Get out of here right now if you care about your life!”
“What’s wrong, Brer Rabbit?”
“Mr. Man trapped me in here and is making me eat lamb. I’m about to bust wide open I done ate so much lamb. Run, Brer Fox, before he catch you.”
Brer Fox wasn’t thinking about running. “How’s the lamb?”
“It tastes good at first, but enough is enough and too much is plenty. You better get out of here before he catches you.”
Brer Fox wasn’t running anywhere. “I like lamb, Brer Rabbit.” He took the box off Brer Rabbit. “Put the box over me.” Brer Rabbit did so gladly and decided not to wait around for the next chapter.
The story don’t say what happened to Brer Fox. Brer Rabbit took care of himself. Now it’s up to Brer Fox to take care of himself. That’s the name of that tune.
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