So then Mr. c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow ran up and lugged down Mr. Crow"s big wood-box, and got the saw and all the other tools and things they could find, and brought them out to a shady place, for it was a fine spring day and getting quite warm, and Mr. "Possum showed them a round tree, quite large, that had blown down during the winter, and told them they might saw it in two, first, and then cut off four nice slices, two large and two smaller ones, for the four wheels. Mr. "Possum sat down on the end of the log and showed them just how to take hold of the saw, one at each end, and pull first one way and then the other, and walked around and sighted across it to see that they were keeping it straight, and got a little cooking-grease and put on it, so it would work faster, and Mr.
"c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow worked, and sweat, and tugged, and panted, and said it was wonderful exercise, and by and by really did get the log sawed in two.
Mr. "Possum said they had done very well for the first cut, which was always the hardest, and that they"d all better rest and smoke a little, as his mind was quite tired with thinking. But in a few minutes he said they might try now to make a wheel, and see if they could do that as well; and Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow went at it again, and after a while got a slice of the tree cut off, quite smooth and about an inch thick, and Mr. "Possum said it would make a very good wheel, but that they would be likely to improve with each slice, and that they must be very careful to hold the saw just as he told them.
So then they rested and cut off another slice, and rested some more, and cut off another slice, until they had four slices, and were nearly ready to drop from being tired and hot, and were saying how fine it was to have that job done, when Mr. "Possum said that he had just remembered they would need one more slice, for his steering-wheel.
Well, Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow thought they would surely die before they got the last slice off, and Mr. "Possum brought some water and sprinkled a little on their foreheads, and at last that wheel was done, too, and they were all quite exhausted and lay in the shade a while to rest and talk about it. Mr. "Possum said it might take a little longer than he thought, to finish the automobile, and that it was better not to hurry so, as new thoughts were coming to him all the time. He said that next year they would make another and probably change the style a good deal.
Then when they were rested he showed them some nice straight limbs of the tree that they could saw off for the axles, and when they got those sawed off, which was easier to do, of course, he measured them and showed them how to shave the ends nice and smooth with Mr. Man"s drawing-knife, and how to cut out of a strong piece of board some things he called brackets for the back axle to turn in, because the back axle had to turn, and how to bore holes with Mr. Man"s auger, in the back wheels, and drive them on tight, and how to bore holes in the front wheels and put them on loose with pegs to hold them on, because the front wheels have to turn, and how to bore a hole in the middle of the front axle and in the bottom of the big wood-box, for the steering-rod, because the wood-box was going to be used for the body, and the steering-rod would turn the front axle and hold it to the body at the same time.
Mr. "Possum said that he had noticed that on Mr. Man"s car the steering-rod did not stand straight up, but slanted a good deal, which seemed to him a mistake; no doubt if Mr. Man could see their car he would have his changed. Then the "c.o.o.n and the Old Black Crow said, "Of course," and that there never was anybody so smart to invent things as Mr. "Possum, and that it was too bad he couldn"t go over and suggest thoughts to Mr. Man.
The Hollow Tree people didn"t get their car done that first day, but they got it a good deal more than half done, and could hardly wait to get at it next morning. They hurried out right after breakfast, and Mr.
"Possum had Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow sawing, and boring, and shaving with Mr. Man"s drawing-knife, making the crank, which was a sort of double windla.s.s that stood up in the car over the back axle, built so two people could turn it; and there would be a strong strap that went down through a hole in the bottom of the car and around the axle to make that turn, too, which would drive the car. Then Mr. "Possum showed them how to make a seat for the front of the box, so he could sit on it and drive and steer, because that was the hardest thing to do, while Mr. Crow and Mr. "c.o.o.n only had to be the motor and work the windla.s.s. Then they got the strap off of Mr. "c.o.o.n"s trunk, because it was a very strong one, and put it on, and tightened it up, and Mr. "Possum said as far as he could see there was nothing more to be done with his car, now, but to use it. Of course he might think of new things later, to attach to it, but he didn"t see how he could improve it at present, and that they"d better take it out to the race-track and try it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SO THEN MR. "POSSUM GOT UP INTO THE SEAT TO STEER]
So then Mr. "Possum got up into the seat to steer, and Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr.
Crow pushed, but it went pretty hard, until they put some grease on the wheels and transmission; after that it went better, but squeaked so loud that you could hear it all through the Big Deep Woods, and Mr. Rabbit came kiting over, and Mr. Robin and Mr. Squirrel came skipping among the trees, and Mr. Turtle came waddling up from the Wide Blue Water, to see what new thing was going on over at the Hollow Tree. And when they saw what the Hollow Tree people had made they could hardly speak for their surprise. And when they found out how Mr. "Possum had done all the hardest part--the planning it and showing how--they said they had never been so proud in their lives, just to be his friend, and they all helped push it over to the race-track, and when they got there Mr. "Possum invited Mr. Rabbit to sit in the front seat beside him, because Mr.
Rabbit was an author and would want to write something about it; and Mr.
Robin and Mr. Squirrel and Mr. Turtle went down the track a piece to see them dash by.
Then Mr. Crow and Mr. "c.o.o.n took hold of the windla.s.s, and Mr. "Possum told them not to start too suddenly or go too fast at first, as it might injure the transmission, which was quite delicate. So Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr.
Crow put a little strength on the windla.s.s, but it didn"t turn. Then they put some more on it, but it didn"t turn. Then they put all they had on it and it turned just a little bit, but very slow. Mr. "Possum said he didn"t think it would be dangerous to go a little faster, and Mr.
"c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow turned with every bit of strength they had, and worked harder even than they had at sawing up the log, but still Mr.
"Possum said he didn"t believe they were going quite as fast as Mr.
Man"s car had traveled, and Mr. Turtle called to them that perhaps if he and the others pushed until they got it to going well, and the machinery warmed up, it might run better.
Mr. "Possum didn"t much like to have his car pushed, but he said that Mr. Man"s car didn"t always start well, either, and very likely had to be pushed sometimes. So then Mr. Turtle and Mr. Squirrel got one on each corner, and Mr. Robin went ahead to kick stones out of the road, and Mr.
"Possum said "Ready!" and everybody did his best, and the Deep Woods automobile squeaked and squealed and started down the race-track pretty fast, but not always keeping in the middle of it, because Mr. "Possum couldn"t steer perfectly the first time, and went from one side of the road to the other, and said it was because they didn"t push evenly, and he was as proud as could be of his great invention. Then Mr. Squirrel and Mr. Turtle gave it one big push, and let go, and Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr.
Crow ground away at the windla.s.s their level best, and the car went on quite a ways before it stopped. It wouldn"t have stopped then if Mr.
"c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow hadn"t given clean out and let go of the crank and hung over the sides of the car and said it was all so exciting and they were enjoying it so much that they were quite overcome.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GOING FASTER AND FASTER EVERY MINUTE]
Then Mr. Turtle said _he_ had an idea. He said down not far from his house which stood by the Wide Blue Water there was a smooth road with a good deal of a slant in it, and that if the car was over there and got started down that slant it would very likely almost run itself and move a good deal faster. So they all said yes, that was just the thing, and everybody but Mr. "Possum took hold and pushed, because Mr. "Possum had to steer; and by and by they got to the slanting road, which was really quite a hill, and Mr. Rabbit got in again by Mr. "Possum, and Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow took hold of the windla.s.s, and sure enough, that time, the car started well enough, and went without any trouble at all. Mr. Turtle and the others had run a good ways down the road to see them pa.s.s, and pretty soon they did pa.s.s, going faster and faster every minute, and everybody cheered and waved, and Mr. "Possum called back to Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow that they could turn a little slower, so all could enjoy the scenery.
But Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Crow _couldn"t_ turn any slower, and when they tried to hold back on the crank it just jerked them right around, and when they let go entirely they went even faster, for that slanting road had turned into a real hill, and they were going down it as speedy as Mr. Man would go down, and perhaps speedier, and Mr. "Possum wasn"t looking at the scenery any more, but was holding as fast as he could to the steering-wheel; trying to keep in the road, and not doing it the best in the world, though n.o.body was pushing now.
Then all at once Mr. "Possum saw something that scared him--scared him so he nearly fainted away, for just then they rounded a turn, going lickety-split, and right in front of him Mr. "Possum saw the Wide Blue Water. They were headed straight for it, and Mr. "Possum"s thoughts became confused. He could only realize two things clearly--one was that he had forgotten all about putting brakes on his car, to stop with, and the other was that he _must_ stop without delay, or they would all disappear in the Wide Blue Water, and that he couldn"t swim.
Mr. "Possum wondered very rapidly what would stop them, and just then he saw a little tree ahead, right at the side of the road, and he thought _that_ would probably do it. He couldn"t think of anything _but_ that, and he steered for the tree as straight as he could, which wasn"t so very straight, for he hit on the bias.
Still, that was enough to stop the car, but not the people in it. Mr.
"Possum himself flew into a thick blackberry-patch and lost consciousness; Mr. Rabbit sailed clear over the blackberry-patch, and landed in a boggy place, which was soft enough, but quite splashy; Mr.
"c.o.o.n went straight up into the little tree they had hit, and grabbed some limbs and hung on, while Mr. Crow just opened his wings, though he hadn"t used them for ever so long, and went sailing over to a nice gra.s.sy place by the road, and wasn"t injured at all.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MR TURTLE TOOK MR. "POSSUM ON HIS BACK, AND EVERYBODY SAID IT WAS FINE]
There wasn"t really anything fatally damaged except the automobile. When Mr. "Possum came to, and Mr. Rabbit cleaned some of the bog off of himself, and Mr. Crow came back, and Mr. "c.o.o.n climbed down, and the others caught up with them, they all looked around to see what they could find of Mr. "Possum"s invention. Some of it was in the bushes and some in the tree, and two of the wheels they couldn"t find at all. Mr.
"c.o.o.n said his trunk-strap was as good as ever, which was more than Mr.
Crow could say for his wood-box. Mr. "Possum, who limped and seemed suffering, said, when he looked at what they had gathered, that he felt just about as his car looked--a good deal broken up and hardly worth carrying home. Then he said that very likely Mr. Man had had the same experience with his first car, and that next year"s model would be different in several ways.
Then Mr. Turtle took Mr. "Possum on his back, and everybody said it was very fine for the first time, and certainly most exciting, and the Hollow Tree people invited all the others to the Hollow Tree to celebrate Mr. "Possum"s great invention. They stayed quite late, and when Mr. Rabbit started home he said he would certainly write a poem on all the events.
HOW MR. "POSSUM"S TAIL BECAME BARE
MR. "POSSUM RELATES SOME VERY CURIOUS FAMILY HISTORY
ONCE upon a time, when it was a very pleasant afternoon, and the Hollow Tree people were sitting along the edge of the world, hanging their feet over and thinking, Mr. "Possum went to sleep, and would have nodded himself off into the Deep Nowhere if his strong, smooth tail hadn"t been quite firmly hooked around a little bush just behind him. All the others noticed it, and said how lucky it was that a person of Mr. "Possum"s habits had a nice, useful tail like that, which allowed him to sleep in a position that for some was thought dangerous even to be awake in.
Then they wondered how it happened that Mr. "Possum"s family had been gifted in that peculiar way, and by and by, when he woke up, and stretched, and moved back in the shade, and leaned against a stump to smoke, they asked him.
Mr. "Possum said it was a very old story, because it had happened about a hundred and fifty-six great-grandfathers back. He had heard it when he was quite small, he said, and would have to think some, to get it straight. So then he shut his eyes and smoked very slowly, and about the time the Deep Woods people thought he was going to sleep again he began telling.
"My family is a very ancient one," he said--"one of the oldest in the Big Deep Woods, and there used to be only a few, even of us. That was when Mr. Painter, or Panther, as we say now, was King of the Deep Woods, and he was very fond of our family, which helped to make them scarce, and was one reason why they got to slipping out at night for food, when Mr. Painter was asleep.
"We were a pretty poor lot in those days, and whenever Mr. Painter took after one of my ancestors that ancestor would make for a tree and run out on a limb that was too small to bear up Mr. Painter, and just cling there, because Mr. Painter would climb up, too, and shake the limb, and very often he would shake an ancestor down, like a papaw, and the only thing to do then was to make for another tree, or if the next tree was too far, to play dead, because Mr. Painter did not much like anything he hadn"t killed himself. That is how we got the playing-dead habit, which others sometimes try and call it "playing "possum," because n.o.body can do it so well as our family, and I judge some of our family didn"t do it perfectly the one and only chance they got to try it, or else Mr.
Painter was smarter, or hungrier, at those times.
"Well, my ancestors got so that they could hold to those limbs very firmly with their hands and feet, and Mr. Painter had a hard time to shake them down, though he didn"t like to give up, and would go on shaking all day, sometimes, until my folks would get tired out. They used to try to hold and brace themselves with their tails, too, but we had just big, ornamental tails in those days, covered with thick, bushy hair, and of very little use, like Mr. Squirrel"s and Mr. "c.o.o.n"s."
When Mr. "Possum made that remark, Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Squirrel sat up quite straight, and were just about to say something, but Mr. Rabbit motioned to them and said ""Sh!" and Mr. "Possum went right on, without noticing that anything had happened.
"Those tails were no manner of account, but just in the way, and some of my folks thought it would be almost better if they didn"t have them at all, but just a funny bunch of cotton, or something, like Mr. Rabbit"s."
When Mr. "Possum said that, Mr. Rabbit sat up quite straight, and was just about to say something, but Mr. "c.o.o.n and Mr. Squirrel motioned to him and said ""Sh!" and Mr. "Possum didn"t notice anything had happened.
"You see," he went right on, "every little while it happened that one of my ancestors would start up the tree not quite soon enough, and Mr.
Painter would just manage to get his claws in that bushy ornament, which would settle it for that ancestor, right away. Of course, my family were proud of those big, plumy things, people being generally proud of their most useless property, something they would be better off, and live longer, without. My folks thought those great tails were handsome, especially our young people, who would walk about waving them and practise carrying them in new positions, and about once a week would do up the long, thick fur on them in little knots, tied with tough, twisted gra.s.s, which would make the hair curl and look very showy indeed. Even some of my ancestors who happened to get old acted in that foolish way, and when the fur got thin would wear some kind of false stuff, though any one but a blind person could always tell it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "ONE DAY A NEW AND VERY HANDSOME MR. "POSSUM CAME INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD"]
"Well, one day a new and very handsome Mr. "Possum came into the neighborhood, from some place n.o.body had ever heard of before, and none of our folks had ever seen anything like him. He was stouter than our breed and lighter colored, and had a very long, bushy tail that curved in a peculiar way and stayed beautifully curled, without ever being put up in gra.s.s at all. He said so, and my ancestors watched him, to prove it.
"That young man called himself Somers, and he certainly became popular with the young Miss "Possums of our section. They went crazy over him, and of course that made all the young Mr. "Possums jealous of him, though they would have given anything to be like him. They knew they couldn"t be that, so they hoped something would happen to him, and used to tell him of nice new and interesting walks to take when they thought Mr. Painter might be in that neighborhood. Then they would follow, and hide around in the bushes and watch, expecting some time to see Mr. Painter get his claws into that curly blond duster before Somers could reach a limb, or shake him down afterward.
"Well, just as they expected, one day when Somers went out for a little promenade alone Mr. Painter happened along, but Somers saw him first, and made for a tree, with Mr. Painter after him, reaching for that fine plume and just missing it, as the handsome stranger went up the tree and out on a limb, with Mr. Painter right behind and making very savage noises. Then he began shaking the limb as hard as he could, and my ancestors, who were watching from quite a safe place, thought Somers would drop pretty soon, for they didn"t think he could be trained to holding on--such a fine person as he was.
"So they watched, very hopeful, and sure enough, about the third hard shake Somers dropped--just let go with his hands and feet, and rolled off, almost as if he really didn"t care. My ancestors said that was what it looked like, and that was what it was. Somers didn"t care at all, for when he let go and dropped, he didn"t fall, but just swung off into s.p.a.ce, and stayed attached to that limb, hanging head down, by his tail!
[Ill.u.s.tration: "CALLING OUT, "MUCH OBLIGED, MR. PAINTER""]
"My ancestors had never been so astonished in their lives, nor Mr.
Painter, either. He couldn"t believe it. He thought at first Somers had got caught, somehow, and gave one more shake, but when Somers swung back and forth, laughing and calling out, "Much obliged, Mr. Painter--much obliged for the nice swing!" Mr. Painter climbed down and took out for home as hard as he could, without looking behind him, for he thought it was some kind of magic. And pretty soon Somers climbed down, too, and brushed himself off a little, and fixed his tail in a nice position, and walked along, smiling; and my ancestors hurried to him and said they had just arrived in time to witness his great performance, and begged him to show them how he did it, and offered him anything if he would only teach them to handle those useless ornaments of theirs in that grand way.