Part 14

“‘I want to fly fast and not too far, So I’ll fly to the place where the dead trees are!’

“Then the Diddypawn fluttered his feathers and hopped about, and, after a while, took a running start and began to fly. He didn’t fly very well at first, being a new hand at the business. He wobbled from side to side, and sometimes it seemed that he was going to fall in the water, but he always caught himself just in time. After a while he reached the island where everything was dead, and landed with a tremendous splash and splutter in the wet marsh grass.

“As dark had not set in, the most of the birds flew along with the Diddypawn, to see how he was going to come out. The Diddypawn had hardly lit, before Brother Turkey Buzzard ups and says:—

“‘I don’t want my feather to get wet, and so I’ll just take it back again.’ This was the sign for all the birds. None wanted his feather to get wet, so they just swooped down on the Diddypawn and took their feathers one by one. When the fluttering was over, the Diddypawn had no more feathers than fins. But he made no complaint. He had it in his mind that he’d rest easy during the night and begin his complaints the next morning.

“Says he, ‘I’ve got the birds and the fishes so trained that when I want to fly, all I’ve got to do is to turn over on my left side and grunt, and when I want to swim, all I’ve got to do is to turn over on my right side and groan.’ Then the Diddypawn smiled, until there were wrinkles in his countenance as deep and as wide as a horse-trough.

“But the birds went back to their roosting-place that night, and there was nothing to disturb them; and the fishes swam around the next day, and there was nothing to bother them.

“Matters went on in this way for several days, and at last some of the birds began to ask about the Diddypawn. ‘Had anybody seen him?’ or ‘Did anybody know how he was getting on?’

“This was passed around among the birds, until at last it came to the ears of Brother Turkey Buzzard. He stretched out his wings and gaped, and said that he had been thinking about taking his family and calling on the Diddypawn. So that very day, Brother Turkey Buzzard, his wife and his children and some of his blood kin, went down to the dead island, to call on the Diddypawn. They went and stayed several days. The rest of the birds, when they came home to roost, could see the Turkey Buzzard family sitting in the dead trees; and after so long a time they came back, and went to roost with the rest of the birds. Some of them asked how the Diddypawn was getting on, and Brother Turkey Buzzard made this reply:—

“‘The Diddypawn needs neither feather nor fin, He’s been falling off, till he’s grown quite thin, He has lost all his meat and all of his skin, And he needs now a bag to put his bones in.’

“This made Brother Owl hoot a little, but it wasn’t long before all the birds were fast asleep.”

Mr. Rabbit never knew how the children liked the story of the Diddypawn. Buster John was about to say something, but he saw little Mr. Thimblefinger pull out his watch and look up at the bottom of the spring.

“What time is it?” asked Mrs. Meadows, seeing that Mr. Thimblefinger still held his watch in his hand.

“A quarter to twelve.”

“Oh,” cried Sweetest Susan, “we promised mamma to be back by dinner time.”

“There’s plenty of time for that,” said Mrs. Meadows. “I do hope you’ll come again. It rests me to see you.”

The children shook hands all around when Mr. Thimblefinger said he was ready to go, and Mr. Rabbit remarked to Buster John:—

“Don’t forget what I told you about Aaron.”

There was no danger of that, Buster John said; and then the children followed Mr. Thimblefinger, who led them safely through the spring, and they were soon at home again.

● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

End of Project Gutenberg's Mr. Rabbit at Home, by Joel Chandler Harris