Written by: Arthur Scott Bailey,
1915
Recorded by: Patricia Thornton-Houser
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Although Fatty
Coon never could get Jimmy Rabbit and his brother to play barbershop
with him again, Fatty saw no reason why he should not play the game
without them. So one day he led his brother Blackie over to the old
hollow
sycamore.
His sisters, Fluffy and Cutey, wanted to go too. But Fatty would not
let them. "Girls can't be barbers," he said. And of course
they could find no answer to that.
As soon as
Fatty and Blackie reached
the old sycamore I am sorry to say that a dispute
arose. Each of them wanted to use his own tail
for the barber's
pole. They couldn't both stick
their tails through the hole in the tree at the same time. So they
finally agreed
to
take turns.
Playing barbershop
wasn't so much fun as they had expected,
because nobody would come near to get his hair cut. You see, the
smaller forest-people were all afraid to go inside that old sycamore
where Fatty and Blackie were. There
was no telling when the two brothers might get so hungry they
would seize
and eat a rabbit or a squirrel
or a chipmunk.
And you know it isn't wise
to run
any such risk as that.
Fatty offered
to cut Blackie's hair. But Blackie remembered
what his mother had said when Fatty came home with his moustache
gone and his head all rough
and uneven. So Blackie wouldn't let Fatty touch him. But HE
offered to cut Fatty's hair--what there was left of it.
"No, thank
you!" said Fatty. "I only get my hair cut once a month."
Of course, he had never had his hair cut except that once, in his
whole life.
Now, since
there was so little to do inside the hollow tree, Fatty and Blackie
kept quarreling.
Blackie would no
sooner stick his tail through the hole in the side of the tree
than Fatty would want HIS turn.
And when Fatty had succeeded
in squeezing
HIS tail out through the opening Blackie would insist
that Fatty's time
was up.
It was Fatty's
turn, and Blackie was shouting
to him to stand aside
and give him a chance.
"I won't!"
said Fatty. "I'm going to stay here just as long as I please."
The words were
hardly out of his mouth when he gave a sharp squeal,
as if something hurt
him. And he tried to pull his tail out of the hole. He wanted to
get it out now. But alas!
it would not come! It was caught fast!
And the harder Fatty pulled the more it hurt him.
"Go out
and see what's
the matter!" he cried to Blackie.
But Blackie
wouldn't move. He was afraid to leave the shelter
of the hollow tree.
"It may
be a bear
that has hold of your tail," he told Fatty. And somehow, that
idea made Fatty tremble
all over.
"Oh,
dear! oh, dear!" he wailed.
"What shall I do? Oh! whatever shall I do?" He began to
cry. And Blackie cried too. How Fatty wished that his mother was
there to tell him what to do!
But he knew
of no way to get her. Even if she were at home she could never hear
him calling from inside the tree. So Fatty gave
up all hope of her helping.
"Please,
Mr. Bear, let
go of my tail!" he cried, when he could stand
the pain
no more.
The only answer
that came was a low growl,
which frightened
Fatty and Blackie more than ever. And then, just as they both began
to howl
at
the top of their voices Fatty's tail was suddenly freed.
He was pulling on it so hard that he fell all in a heap
on the floor of the barbershop. And that surprised him.
But he was
still more surprised when he heard his mother say--
"Stop
crying and come out--both of you!" Fatty and Blackie scrambled
out of the hollow sycamore. Fatty looked all around. But there was
no bear to be seen anywhere--no one but his mother.
"Did you
frighten the bear away, Mother?" he asked.
"There
was no bear," Mrs. Coon told him. "And it's lucky for
you that there wasn't. I saw your tail sticking out of this tree
and I thought I would teach
you a lesson. Now, don't ever do such a foolish
thing again. Just think what a
fix you would have been in if Johnnie Green had come along.
He could have caught you just as easily as anything."
Fatty Coon
was so glad to be free once more that he promised
to be good forever after. And he was just as good as any little
coon could be--all the
rest of that day.
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