green-eyes, the cat, was very angry when he found that the man thought that he could not catch mice. he was afraid that he would be put out in the kennel with the dog. he and the dog had never been very good friends and he did not like the idea of being in the same house with an animal with such sharp teeth and such a harsh voice.
green-eyes used to sit up all night with his paw on his head, saying, “let me think.” the neighbors’ cats came out on the back fence and made fun of green-eyes all night long.
“it’s too bad,” they meowed, “that you cannot see in the dark. why, you cannot even see a big white rabbit.”
gray mouse and his friend, white rabbit, went every night to the cellar of the man’s house, where they helped themselves to cake and apple pie and cheese and carrots. green-eyes heard the man say that it was time to drown that good-for-nothing cat. he saw it was time for him to do something to save his life, and so he kept on thinking and thinking.
[64]
patrick o’possum pushes over the apple butter jar.
[65]
he crawled under a pile of carrots on the cellar floor one night and the carrots fell all over and hid him all except the tip of his tail. then he waited for white rabbit and gray mouse.
now, that night patrick o’possum went to visit gray mouse and white rabbit. he was a friend of gray mouse’s cousin, field mouse, and whenever he went under the barn floor, where gray mouse and white rabbit lived, he was very welcome.
“gray mouse,” asked patrick o’possum, “do you know where i can get any good, sweet potatoes?”
gray mouse winked at white rabbit and said that he knew where there were sweet potatoes nearly a foot long and so sweet that sugar tasted like vinegar compared to them. patrick o’possum sighed and looked happy.
“i’ll take you to the next moonlight party i have,” he said, “if you will show me where i can find those very fine sweet potatoes.”
so patrick o’possum, gray mouse and white rabbit went running and hopping and laughing to the cellar of the man’s house. patrick o’possum turned to gray mouse and white rabbit after he had taken a good look around the cellar, and then he smiled, and smiled.
“i like sweet potatoes very much,” he whispered as he drew white rabbit and grey mouse close to him, “but i would not give a cent a bushel for all the carrots in the world. if i had white fur and long ears i would rather eschew those carrots over there than chew them.”
then patrick o’possum poked gray mouse and white rabbit in the ribs and laughed inside. the sweet potatoes were in a large swinging box near the pile of carrots. patrick o’possum jumped up and got on top of the box. he took out some sweet potatoes and tossed them down on the floor. white rabbit picked them up and carried them out of the cellar, while gray mouse stood by. there was a long shelf above the swinging box where the sweet potatoes were and on this shelf were jars of jelly and jam and spiced watermelon and all kinds of good things. at one end was a big jar of apple butter. after patrick o’possum had thrown down all the sweet potatoes that he wanted he crept along the shelf and gave the jar of apple butter a hard push. it fell, struck the edge of the sweet potato bin, broke all to pieces and apple butter and broken jar and all fell right on top of the pile of carrots. there were the queerest sounds which came out of that pile of carrots that you ever heard. green-eyes meowed and cried and kicked and arched up his back. he shook up that pile of carrots as though there were an earthquake in the cellar. then all covered over with apple butter and little carrots and bits of broken crock, he went up the cellar stairs yelling and screaming at every step.
white rabbit and patrick o’possum picked up all the sweet potatoes that they could carry and ran away to the barn. gray mouse led the way. as they hurried along they got a glimpse of the man who was coming down the hall in his night clothes with a gun over his shoulder. just as the white rabbit, the gray mouse and patrick o’possum scampered under the barn floor, they heard bang-bang, from the porch of the man’s house.
“that must have been a shot gun,” said white rabbit, as he stroked his whiskers and smiled.
“um, um,” said patrick o’possum, “but these are good sweet potatoes. this is more fun than a coon hunt.”
green-eyes never went back to the man’s house again. many of his friends thought that the man had shot him and the next night out on the back yard fence, all the neighbors’ cats met together and sang his funeral song. i think, though, that green-eyes was not killed. one day, when i was out hunting in the woods, i stopped to take a drink at a little spring and a funny, little lizard stood on the edge and said: “excuse me, mr. hunter, but did you ever see an apple butter cat?”
