Albert Paine - Hollow Tree Nights and Days

This is a new map of the Deep Woods, showing a good many new things. The three spots on the Edge of the World, away down, show where the Hollow Tree people and Mr. Rabbit sat when they told their star stories. Mr. 'Coon leaned against the tree, so his spot does not show. The little bush is the one that Mr. 'Possum curled his tail around when he wanted to take a nap, to keep from falling over into the Deep Nowhere. Right straight above the spots is the old well that Mr. 'Possum fell into and lost his chicken. Over toward the Wide Blue Water is Cousin Redfield's cave and his bear ladder. The path leads to where he fell in. You can also find Mr. Turtle's fish-poles which he keeps set, just above his house. The Hill there is where the Deep Woods people tried Mr. 'Possum's car, and the thing that looks like a barber-pole is where they landed. They put it up afterward to mark the place. If you follow the road around you will come to Mr. 'Coon's bee-tree, and Mr. Robin's tree, near the Race Track. There ought to be a good many more roads and things, but the artists said if they put everything on the map it would look too mixed up. Remember, with Deep Woods folks the top of the map is south.

Once upon a time, ever so long ago, the Story Teller told the Little Lady all about the 'Coon and 'Possum and the Old Black Crow who lived in three hollow branches of a Big Hollow Tree that stood in the far depths of the Big Deep Woods. The Crow and 'Coon and 'Possum were great friends and used to meet in the big family room down-stairs and have plenty of good things to eat, and then sit by the fire and smoke and tell stories, and sometimes they would invite the other Deep Woods people, like Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Turtle and the rest, and even Mr. Dog, after they became friends with him, though Mr. Dog did not really live in the Deep Woods, but only on the edge of it, with Mr. Man.

The Hollow Tree people never did get to be friends with Mr. Man. They liked to watch him, sometimes, from a distance, and would borrow things from him when he wasn't at home, but they never just felt like calling on him or asking him to the Hollow Tree. You see, Mr. Man really belonged to one world and the Hollow Tree people belonged to another, and something is always likely to happen when any one, even an author, goes to mixing up worlds.

Well, by and by the Story Teller, and the Artist who drew the pictures, put the Hollow Tree and Deep Woods stories into a book to preserve them, for they thought that was going to be all of them, because Mr. Dog, who told them, had gone away and they did not know where they could ever find any more. Even when other Little Ladies and their brothers wrote and asked for more Hollow Tree stories there were no more to send for a very long time. But then one day the Story Teller and the Artist themselves moved into the very edge of the Big Deep Woods, and there they found some more stories about the 'Coon and 'Possum and the Old Black Crow, because Mr. Dog had left a young relative, very fine and handsome, who was also friends with the Hollow Tree people and could tell everything as it happened, right along. So the Story Teller and the Artist made up The Hollow Tree Snowed-In Book which was all about once when the Hollow Tree people and their friends were "snowed in" and had to sit around the fire and eat good things and play games and tell stories to pass the time.

How Little Ladies do slip away from us! The first Hollow Tree stories were told for one who is now a Big Lady, and the Snowed-In stories for another, who will soon be a Big Lady, too. But in the Deep Woods the years do not count. The Hollow Tree people never grow any older, but stay always the same, and the Story Teller and the Artist have to keep stepping backward to find out the new Hollow Tree stories and to tell them to the new Little People that come along.

So now after a good many years we have a third Hollow Tree book, which will surely be the last one, because things are so likely to go in threes, like three cheers, and three trials, and three strikes and out. The Deep Woods people will never desert the Hollow Tree, and though after this we should not hear from them again, we may imagine they are doing many of the same things, and keeping safe and happy during all the future Hollow Tree Nights and Days.

The Little Lady has been poring over a first reader, because she has started to school now, and there are lessons almost every evening. Then by and by she closes the book and comes over to where the Story Teller is looking into the big open fire.

The little lady looks into the fire, too, and thinks. Then pretty soon she climbs into the Story Teller's lap and leans back, and looks into the fire and thinks some more.

"Did the Hollow Tree people ever go to school?" she says. "I s'pose they did, though, or they wouldn't know how to read and write, and send invitations and things."

The Story Teller knocks the ashes out of his pipe and lays it on the little stand beside him.

"Why, yes indeed, they went to school," he says. "Didn't I ever tell you about that?"

"You couldn't have," says the Little Lady, "because I never thought about its happening, myself, until just now."

"Well, then," says the Story Teller, "I'll tell you something that Mr. Jack Rabbit told about, one night in the Hollow Tree, when he had been having supper with the 'Coon and 'Possum and the Old Black Crow, and they were all sitting before the fire, just as we are sitting now. It isn't really much about school, but it shows that Jack Rabbit went to one, and explains something else, too."

Mr. Crow had cooked all his best things that evening, and everything had tasted even better than usual. Mr. 'Possum said he didn't really feel as if he could move from his chair when supper was over, but that he wanted to do the right thing, and would watch the fire and poke it while the others were clearing the table, so that it would be nice and bright for them when they were ready to enjoy it. So then the Crow and the 'Coon and Jack Rabbit flew about and did up the work, while Mr. 'Possum put on a fresh stick, then lit his pipe, and leaned back and stretched out his feet, and said it surely was nice to have a fine, cozy home like theirs, and that he was always happy when he was doing things for people who appreciated it, like those present.

Mr. Rabbit said he certainly did appreciate being invited to the Hollow Tree, living, as he did, alone, an old bachelor, with nobody to share his home; and then pretty soon the work was all done up, and Jack Rabbit and the others drew up their chairs, too, and lit their pipes, and for a while nobody said anything, but just smoked and felt happy.

Mr. 'Possum was first to say something. He leaned over and knocked the ashes out of his pipe, then leaned back and crossed his feet, and said he'd been thinking about Mr. Rabbit's lonely life, and wondering why it was that, with his fondness for society and such a good home, he had stayed a bachelor so long. Then the Crow and the 'Coon said so, too, and asked Jack Rabbit why it was.

Mr. Rabbit said it was quite a sad story, and perhaps not very interesting, as it had all happened so long ago, when he was quite small.

"My folks lived then in the Heavy Thickets, over beyond the Wide Grasslands," he said; "it was a very nice place, with a good school, kept by a stiff-kneed rabbit named Whack—J. Hickory Whack—which seemed to fit him. I was the only child in our family that year, and I suppose I was spoiled. I remember my folks let me run and play a good deal, instead of making me study my lessons, so that Hickory Whack did not like me much, though he was afraid to be as severe as he was with most of the others, my folks being quite well off and I an only child. Of course, the other scholars didn't like that, and I don't blame them now, though I didn't care then whether they liked it or not. I didn't care for anything, except to go capering about the woods, gathering flowers and trying to make up poetry, when I should have been doing my examples. I didn't like school or J. Hickory Whack, and every morning I hated to start, until, one day, a new family moved into our neighborhood. They were named Bun, and one of them was a little girl named Bunty—Bunty Bun."