Fatty
Grows Even Fatter
Written
by: Arthur Scott Bailey, 1915
Recorded by: Patricia Thornton-Houser
Click the icon above to listen online or to download
for your MP3 player.
Click on green words to read a simple definition in English. All
other words are from the first 1000 words on the Nation frequency
word list. If you would like to take a test on the first 1000 English
words, go here.
When
Fatty Coon's burned
feet were well
once more, the very first night he left his mother's house he went
straight
to the loggers'
camp.
He did not wait
long after dark,
because he was afraid
that some of his neighbors
might have found that there were good things to eat about the camp.
And Fatty wanted them all.
To
his delight,
there were goodies
almost without end. He nosed
about, picking
up potato peelings,
and bits of bacon.
And perhaps the best of all was a piece of cornbread, which Fatty
almost gobbled.
And then he found a box half-full
of something--scraps
that tasted
like apples, only they were not round like apples, and they were
quite dry,
instead of being juicy.
But Fatty liked them; and he ate them all, down to the smallest
bit.
He
was thirsty,
then. So he went down to the brook,
which ran close by the camp. The loggers had cut a hole
through the ice, so they could get water. And Fatty crept
close to the edge
of the hole and drank. He drank a
great deal of water, because he was very thirsty. And when he
had finished
he sat down on the ice for a time. He did not care to stir
about just then. And he did not think he would ever want anything
to eat again.
At
last Fatty Coon rose
to his feet. He felt very odd.
There was a strange, tight
feeling about his stomach.
And his sides
were no longer thin.
They stuck
out just as they had before winter came--only more so. And what
alarmed
Fatty was this: his sides seemed to be sticking out more and more
all the time.
He
wondered
what he had been eating. Those dry things that tasted like apples--he
wondered what they were.
Now,
there was some printing
on the outside of the box which held those strange, spongy,
flat
things. Of course, Fatty Coon could not read, so the printing did
him no good at all. But if you had seen the box, you would have
known that the printing said: DRIED APPLES.
The
cook
of the loggers' camp used them to make apple pies. And first, before
making his pies, he always soaked
them in water so they would swell.
Now
you see what made Fatty Coon feel so strange and uncomfortable.
He had first eaten his dried apples. And then he had soaked them,
by drinking out of the brook. It was no wonder that his sides stuck
out, for the apples that he had eaten were swelling and puffing
him out until he felt that he should burst.
In fact, the wonder of it was that he was able to get through his
mother's doorway, when he reached home.
But
he did it, though it cost
him a few groans.
And he frightened his mother, too.
"I
only hope you're not poisoned,"
she said, when Fatty told her what he had been doing.
And
that remark
frightened Fatty more than ever. He was sure he was never going
to feel any better.
Poor
Mrs. Coon was much worried
all the rest of the night. But when morning came she knew that Fatty
was out of danger.
She knew it because of something he said. It was this:
"Oh,
dear! I wish I had something to eat!"
|
