and said, 'Good-day' and backed out and
made tracks for the rest of his family, and told them that King Lion had
just got up from a sick spell that had given him an appetite for
long-tailed rabbits. He said that the King had sent him out to get one,
and that King Lion would most likely be along himself pretty soon. He
said the sooner the Rabbit family took pattern after the new
cotton-tailed style the more apt they'd be to live to a green old age
and have descendants.

"Well, that was a busy day in the Big Deep Woods. The Rabbit family got
in line by a big smooth stump that they picked out for the purpose, and
grandpaw attended to the job for them, and called out 'Next!' as they
marched by. He didn't have to wait, either, for they didn't know what
minute King Lion might come. Mr. Tortoise and Mr. Fox came along and
stopped to see the job, and helped grandpaw now and then when his arm
got tired, and by evening there was a pile of tails by that stump as big
as King Lion's house, and there never was such a call for the
all-healing ointment as there was that night in the Big Deep Woods.

"And none of our family ever did have tails after that, for they never
would grow any more, and all the little new rabbits just had bunches of
cotton, too, and that has never changed to this day.

"And when King Lion heard how he'd been fooled by Grandpaw Hare with
that foolish prophecy that he just made up right there, out of his head,
he knew that everybody would laugh at him as much as he had laughed at
Mr. Hare, and he moved out of the country and never came back, and
there's never been a king in the Big Deep Woods since, so my
twenty-seventh great-grandfather did some good, after all.

"And that," said Mr. Rabbit, "is the whole story of the Hare and the
Tortoise and how the Rabbit family lost their tails. It's never been
told outside of our family before, but it's true, for it's been handed
down, word for word, and if Mr. Fox or Mr. Tortoise were alive now they
would say so."

Mr. Rabbit filled his pipe and lit it, and Mr. Crow was just about to
make some remarks, when Mr. Turtle cleared his throat and said:

"The story that Mr. Rabbit has been telling is all true, every word of
it-- I was there."

Then all the Deep Woods People took their pipes out of their mouths and
just looked at Mr. Turtle with their mouths wide open, and when they
could say anything at all, they said:

"_You were there!_"

You see, they could never get