The Mythology & Folklore Database
Brer Rabbit was a mighty man at a frolic. I don't expect he'd show up much in these days, but in the times when the creatures were bossing their own jobs, Brer Rabbit was up for pretty nigh everything that was going on, if there wasn't too much work in it. There couldn't be a dance or a quilting anywhere around but what he'd be there. He was the first to come and the last to go.
Well, there was one time when he went too far and stayed too late, because a big rain came during the time when they were playing and dancing, and when Brer Rabbit put out for home, he found that a big freshet had come and gone. The drains had got to be creeks, the creeks had got to be rivers, and the rivers -- well, I'm not going to tell you what the rivers were, because you'd think that I'd told the truth good-bye.
By making big jumps and going out of his way, Brer Rabbit managed to get as close to home as the creek, but when he got there, the creek was so wide that it made him feel like he'd been lost so long that his family had forgotten him. Many and many a time he'd crossed that creek on a log, but the log was gone, and the water was spread out all over creation. The water was wide, but that wasn't more than half -- it looked like it was the wettest water that Brer Rabbit had ever laid eyes on.
There was a ferry there for times like this, but it looked like it was a bigger freshet than what they had counted on. Brer Rabbit, he sat on the bank and wiped the damp out of his face and eyes, and then he hollered for the man that ran the ferry. He hollered and hollered, and by and by he heard someone answer him, and he looked a little closer, and there was the man -- his name was Jerry -- way up in the top limbs of a tree. And he looked still closer, and he saw that Jerry had company, because there was old Brer Bear sitting at the foot of the tree waiting for Jerry to come down, so he could tell him howdy.
Well, sir, Brer Rabbit took notice that there was something more than dampness between them, and he started to holler again, and he hollered so loud and he hollered so long that he woke up old Brer Alligator.
Now it didn't make old Brer Alligator feel good to be woken up at that hour, because he'd just had a nice supper of pine-nuts and sweet potatoes and was lying out at full length on his mud bed. He allowed to himself, he did, "Who in the nation is this trying to holler the bottom out of the creek?"
He listened, and then he turned over and listened again. He shut one eye, and then he shut the other one, but there was no sleeping in that neighborhood.
Jerry in the tree, he hollered back, "Can't come -- got company!"
Brer Alligator, he heard this, and he said to himself that if nobody else can come, he can, and he rose to the top with no more fuss than a featherbed makes when you leave it alone. He rose, he did, and his two eyes looked exactly like two bullets floating on the water. He rose and winked his eye and asked Brer Rabbit howdy, and more especially how was his daughter.
Brer Rabbit, he said that there was no telling how his daughter was, because when he left home her head was swelling. He said that some of the neighbors' children had come and flung rocks at her and one of them had hit her on top of the head right where the cowlick is, and he had had to run after the doctor.
Brer Alligator allowed, "You don't tell me, Brer Rabbit, that it's come to this! Your children getting chunked by your neighbors' children. Well, well, well! I wish you'd tell me where it's all going to end. Why it'll get after a while that there's no peace anywhere except at my house in the bed of the creek."
Brer Rabbit said, "Isn't it the truth? And not only do Brer Fox's children chunk my children on their cowlicks, but no sooner have I gone after the doctor than here comes the creek a-rising. I may be wrong, but I'm not scared to say that it beats anything I have ever laid eyes on. Over yonder in the far wood is where my daughter is lying with a headache, and here is her pa, and between us is the boiling creek. If I were to try to wade, ten to one the water would be over my head, and if that's not bad, all the pills that the doctor gave me would melt in my pocket. And they might poison me, because the doctor didn't say that they were to be taken outside."
Old Brer Alligator floated on the water like he didn't weigh more than one of these here postage stamps, and he tried to drop a tear. He groaned, he did, and floated backwards and forwards like a tired canoe.
He said, "Brer Rabbit, if there ever was a rover, you are one. Up you come and off you go, and there is no more keeping up with you than if you had wings. If you think you can stay in one place long enough, I'll try to put you across the creek."
Brer Rabbit kind of rubbed his chin while he wiggled his nose. He allowed, said he, "Brer Gator, how deep is that water that you are floating in?"
Brer Alligator said, "Brer Rabbit, if my old woman and I were to join heads, and I were to stand on the tip end of my tail, there'd still be room enough for all of my children before we touched bottom."
Brer Rabbit, he fell back like he was going to faint. He allowed, "Brer Gator, you don't tell me! You surely don't mean those last words! Why you make me feel like I'm further from home than those who are done lost for good! How in the name of goodness are you going to put me across this slippery water?"
Brer Alligator, he blew a bubble or two out of his nose, and then he said, "If you can stand still in one place long enough, I'm going to take you across on my back. You needn't say "thank you," but I want you to know that I'm not everybody's water-horse."
Brer Rabbit allowed, said he, "I can well believe that, Brer Gator, but somehow I kind of got a notion that your tail is mighty limber. I hear old folks say that you can knock a chip from the back of your head with the tip end of your tail and never half try."
Brer Alligator smacked his mouth and said, "Limber my tail may be, Brer Rabbit, and far reaching, but don't blame me. It was that way when it was given to me. It's all jointed up according to nature."
Brer Rabbit, he studied and he studied, and the more he studied, the worse he liked it. But he pleased to go home -- there were no two ways about that -- and he allowed, said he, "I suspect what you say is somewhere in the neighborhood of the truth, Brer Gator, and more than that, I believe that I'll go along with you. If you'll ride up a little closer, I'll make up my mind, so I won't keep you waiting."
Brer Alligator, he floated by the side of the bank the same as a cork out of a pickle bottle. He didn't do like he was in a hurry, because he dropped a word or two about the weather, and he said that the water was mighty cold down there in the slushes. But Brer Rabbit took notice that when he smiled one of his smiles, he showed up a double row of tusks that looked like they'd do mighty good work in a sawmill.
Brer Rabbit, he began to shake like he was having a chill. He allowed, "I feel that damp, Brer Gator, that I might just as well be in water up to my chin!"
Brer Alligator didn't say anything, but he couldn't hide his tusks. Brer Rabbit looked up, he looked down, and he looked all around. He scarcely knew what to do. He allowed, "Brer Gator, your back is mighty rough. How am I going to ride on it?"
Brer Alligator said, "The roughness will help you to hold on, because you'll have to ride a-straddle. You can just get your feet on the bumps and kind of brace yourself when you think you see a log floating at us. You can just sit up there the same as if you were sitting at home in your rocking chair.
Brer Rabbit shook his head, but he got on, he did, and he had no sooner gotten on than he wished mighty hard that he was off.
Brer Alligator said, "You can pant if you want to, but I'll do the paddling," and he slipped through the water just like he was greased.
Brer Rabbit sure was scared, but he kept his eyes open, and by and by he took notice that Brer Alligator wasn't making for the place where the landing was at, and he up and said so. He allowed, "Brer Gator, if I'm not much mistaken, you're not heading for the landing."
Brer Alligator said, "You sure have got mighty good eyes, Brer Rabbit. I've been waiting for you a long time, and I'm the worst kind of waiter. I must know you haven't forgot that day in the stubble when you said you were going to show me Old Man Trouble. Well, you didn't only show him to me, but you made me shake hands with him. You set the dry grass afire and burned me scandalously. That's the reason my back is so rough, and that's the reason my hide is so tough. Well, I've been a-waiting since that time, and now here you are. You burned me until I had to quench the burning in the big quagmire."
Brer Alligator laughed, but he had the laugh all on his side, because that was one of the times when Brer Rabbit didn't feel like giggling. He sat there a-shaking and a-shivering. By and by he allowed, said he, "What are you going to do, Brer Gator?"
Brer Alligator said, "It looks to me like since you set the dry grass afire, I've been having symptoms. That's what the doctor said. He looked at my tongue, and he felt my pulse, and he shook his head. He said that beings he's my friend, he didn't mind telling me that my symptoms are getting worse than what they have been, and if I don't take something I'll be falling into one of these here inclines that make folks flabby and weak."
Brer Rabbit, he shook and he shivered. He allowed, "What else did the doctor say, Brer Gator?"
Brer Alligator kept on a-slipping along. He said, "The doctor didn't only look at my tongue. He measured my breath, and he hit me on my bosom -- tip-tap-tap! -- and he said there was but one thing that will cure me. I asked him what it is, and he said it's rabbit gizzard."
Brer Alligator slipped and slid along and waited to see what Brer Rabbit was going to say to that. He didn't have to wait long, because Brer Rabbit did his thinking like one of these here machines that has lightning in it. He allowed, he said, "It's a mighty good thing you struck up with me this day, Brer Gator, because I have exactly the kind of physic you are looking for. All the neighbors say I'm mighty queer, and I suspect I am, but queer or not queer, I've long been looking for the gizzard-eater."
Brer Alligator didn't say anything. He just slid through the water and listened to what Brer Rabbit was saying.
Brer Rabbit allowed, he said, "The last time I took sick the doctor came in a hurry, and he sat up with me all night -- not a wink of sleep did that man get. He said he could tell by the way I was going on, rolling and tossing, and moaning and groaning, that no physic was going to do me any good. I've never seen a doctor scratch his head like that doctor did. He acted like he was stumped, he sure did. He said he had never seen anybody with my kind of trouble, and he went off and called in one of his brer doctors, and the two knocked their heads together, and they said my trouble all comes from having a double gizzard. When my old woman heard that she just flung her apron over her head and fell back in a dead faint, and a little more and I'd have had to pay a doctor bill on her account. When she squalled, some of my children got scared and took to the wood, and they hadn't all got back when I left home last night."
Brer Alligator, he just went a-slipping along through the water. He listened, but he didn't say anything.
Brer Rabbit allowed, said he, "It's the fatal truth, all this that I'm a-telling you. The doctor, he flew around until he fetched my old woman to, and then he said there was no need to be skittish on account of my having a double gizzard, because all I had to do was to be kind of careful with my chewings and gnawings, and my comings and goings. He said that I'd have to suffer with it until I find the gizzard-eater. I asked him whereabouts he is, and he said that I'd know him when I see him, and if I fail to know him, he'll make himself known to me. This kind of irritates me, because when a man's a doctor, and he's got the idea of curing anybody, there is no need of dealing in riddles. But he said that there was no use in telling all you know, especially before dinner."
Brer Alligator went a-sliding along through the water. He listened and smacked his mouth, but he didn't say anything.
Brer Rabbit, he talked on. He allowed, said he, "And there was one thing he told me plainer than all the rest. He said that when anybody was afflicted with the double gizzard, they daresn't cross water with it, because if there's anything that a double gizzard won't stand, it's the smell of water."
Brer Alligator went slipping along through the water, but he felt like the time had come when he pleased to say something. He said, "How come you are crossing water now, if the doctor told you that?"
This made Brer Rabbit laugh. He allowed, "Maybe I oughtn't tell you, but before I can cross water, that double gizzard has got to come out. The doctor told me that if she ever smells water, there'll be such a swelling up that my skin won't hold me. And no longer ago than last night, before I came to cross this creek -- it was a creek then, whatsoever you may call it now -- I took out my double gizzard and hid it in a hickory hollow. And if you are the gizzard-eater, now is your chance, because if you put it off, you may rue the day. If you are in the notion, I'll take you right there and show you the stump where I hid it at -- and if you want to be lonesome about it, I'll let you go by yourself and I'll stay right here."
Brer Alligator, he slipped and slid through the water. He said, "Where'd you say you'd stay?"
Brer Rabbit allowed, said he, "I'll stay right here, Brer Gator, or anywhere else you may choose. I don't care much where I stay or what I do, so long as I get rid of that double gizzard that's been a-terrifying me. You better go by yourself, because bad as that double gizzard has done me, I got kind of a tendersome feeling for it, and I'm afraid if I were to go along with you and see you grab it, there'd be some boo-hooing done. If you go by yourself, just rap on the stump and say, 'If you are ready, I'm ready and a little more so,' and you won't have any trouble with her. She's hid right in those woods yonder, and the hollow hickory stump isn't so mighty far from where the bank of the creek ought to be."
Brer Gator didn't have much more sense than what it'd take to climb a fence after someone had pulled it down, and so he kind of slewed himself around and steered for the woods -- the same woods where there are so many trees, and where old Sis Owl starts all the whirlwinds by fanning her wings. Brer Alligator swam and steered until he came close to land, and when he did that, Brer Rabbit made a big jump and landed on solid ground. He might have got his feet wet, but if he did, that was all. He allowed, said he:
You poor old Gator, if you'd have known A from Izzard,
You'd know mighty well that I'd keep my Gizzard.
And with that he was done gone -- done clean gone!