 Fatty
Coon
At Home
Written
by: Arthur Scott Bailey, 1915
Recorded by: Patricia Thornton-Houser
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Fatty
Coon was so fat
and round that he looked like a ball of fur,
with a plume-like
tail
for a handle.
But if you looked at him closely you would have seen a pair
of very bright eyes watching you.
Fatty loved to eat. Yes--he loved eating better than anything else
in the world. That was what made him so fat. And that, too, was what
led him into many adventures.
Close by a swamp,
which lay down in the valley, between Blue Mountain and Swift River,
Fatty Coon lived with his mother and his brother and his two sisters.
Among them all there was what grown people call "a strong family resemblance,"
which is the same thing as saying that they all looked very much alike.
The tail of each one of them--mother and children too--had six black
rings around it. Each of them had a dark brown
patch
of fur across the face, like a mask.
And--what do you think?--each of them, even Fatty and his brother
and his sisters, had a stiff,
white moustache!
Of course, though they all looked so much alike, you would have known
which was Mrs. Coon, for she was so much bigger than her children.
And you would have known which was Fatty--he was so much rounder than
his brother and his sisters.
Mrs. Coon's home was in the hollow
branch of an old tree. It was a giant
of a tree--a poplar
close by a brook
which ran into the swamp--and the branch which was Mrs. Coon's home
was as big as most tree-trunks
are.
Blackie was Fatty's brother--for the mask on his face was just a little
darker than the others'. Fluffy was one of Fatty's sisters, because
her fur was just a little fluffier
than the other children's. And Cutey was the other sister's name,
because she was so quaint.
Now, Fatty Coon was forever
looking around for something to eat. He was never satisfied
with what his mother brought home for him. No matter how big a dinner
Mrs. Coon set before her family, as soon as he had finished eating
his share Fatty would wipe
his white moustache carefully--for all the world like some old gentleman--and
hurry off in
search of something more.
Sometimes he went to the edge
of the brook and tried to catch fish by hooking
them out of the water with his sharp
claws.
Sometimes he went over to the swamp and hunted
for duck
among the tall
reeds.
And though he did not yet know how to catch a duck, he could always
capture
a frog
or two; and Fatty ate them as if he hadn't had a mouthful of food
for days.
To tell the truth, Fatty would eat almost anything he could get--nuts,
cherries,
wild grapes,
blackberries,
bugs,
small
snakes, fish, chickens,
honey--there
was no end to the different kinds of food he liked. He ate everything.
And he always wanted more.
"Is this all there is?" Fatty Coon asked his mother one day. He had
gobbled
up every bit
of the nice
fish that Mrs. Coon had brought home for him. It was gone in no time
at all.
Mrs. Coon sighed.
She had heard that question so many times; and she wished that for
once Fatty might have all the dinner he wanted.
"Yes--that's all," she said, "and I should think that it was enough
for a young coon like you."
Fatty said nothing more. He wiped his moustache on the back of his
hand (I hope you'll never do that!) and without another word he started
off to see what he could find to eat.
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