Читать книгу The Tales of Uncle Remus / Сказки дядюшки Римуса. Книга для чтения на английском языке - Джоэль Чендлер Харрис - Страница 9

While Brer Fox was sitting on the ground with Brer Buzzard’s tail feathers in his hand, wondering if God had something against him, Brer Rabbit was eleventeen miles away. He was tired, sweaty, and out of breath, and when he saw Sister Cow grazing in a field, he thought how nice it would be if she gave him some milk to drink. But he knew she wouldn’t. One time his wife had been sick and Brer Rabbit had asked her for some milk and she’d refused him. But that didn’t make no never mind. He was going to get him some of her milk.

“How you, Sister Cow?” asked Brer Rabbit, walking up to her.

“Reckon I be getting on all right, Brer Rabbit. How you be?”

“Fair to middling.[44] Fair to middling.”

“How’s your family?”

“’bout the same, I reckon. How’s Brer Bull and all your young’uns?”

“They doing fine, just fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Brer Rabbit looked around for a minute and noticed a persimmon tree. “There’s some mighty nice persimmons on that tree. I’d love to have some.”

“How you gon’ get ’em?” Sister Cow wanted to know.

“Well, I was wondering if you would butt the tree for me a time or two and shake some down.”

Sister Cow allowed as to how she thought she could do that. She took a running start and banged her head into the tree, but no persimmons fell. And there was a good reason too. The persimmons were green and weren’t ready to fall, which Brer Rabbit knew. Sister Cow backed up farther and galloped toward the tree like a racehorse and – BAM! – hit that tree so hard that one of her horns got stuck. Brer Rabbit jumped up and did the shimmy, ’cause that was just what he’d been waiting for.

“I’m stuck,” called out Sister Cow. “Come give me a hand[45], Brer Rabbit.”

“Don’t believe there’s much I can do, but I’ll run and get Brer Bull.” Brer Rabbit ran all right, ran straight home to get his wife and all the children. They come back with buckets and milked Sister Cow dry.

“You have a good night, Sister Cow!” Brer Rabbit called out as him and his family were leaving. “I be back in the morning.”

Sister Cow worked hard all through the night trying to get her horn unstuck, and nigh on to daybreak she finally got loose. She grazed around in the field for a while, because she was mighty hungry. Long before the time she thought Brer Rabbit would be coming back, she stuck her horn back in the hole. However, Sister Cow didn’t know that Brer Rabbit had been watching all the while.

“Good morning, Sister Cow!” says Brer Rabbit, coming up to her. “How you this morning?”

“Ain’t doing too good, Brer Rabbit. Couldn’t sleep last night for trying to get out of this hole. Brer Rabbit? You suppose you could grab on to my tail and yank it real hard? I believe if you did that, I might be able to get free.”

“Tell you what, Sister Cow. You do the pulling and I’ll do the grunting.”

Sister Cow had had enough. She turned around and took off after Brer Rabbit. She was a lot faster than Brer Rabbit had given her credit for and it was all he could do to stay a hop in front of her horns. He dived into the first briar patch he saw, and Sister Cow come to a screeching halt[46].

After a while she saw two big eyes staring out at her. “How you this morning, Brer Big-Eyes?” she says. “You seen Brer Rabbit pass here?”

“I did. He was looking mighty scared too.”

Sister Cow went galloping down the road. Brer Rabbit lay there in the briar-patch just laughing and laughing. Brer Fox was mad at him; Brer Buzzard was mad at him; and now, Sister Cow was mad at him. And he just laughed and laughed.