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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit

CROW: Accept no substitutes!

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States

TOM: Prices higher west of the Rockies.

and most other parts of the world

JOEL: International Space Station astronauts specifically excluded!

at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it

CROW: Can I regift it?

under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org.

TOM: Or write to Pueblo, Colorado, 81009.

If you are not located in the
United States,

JOEL: Please take us with you.

you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

CROW: I'm gonna call up the Thai embassy and make them tell me their rules about reading The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit.

Title: The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit

TOM: o/` Jimmy Rab-bit, and I don't care ... o/`

Author: Arthur Scott Bailey

CROW: Arthur Scott Bailey, come on down! You're the next contestant!

Illustrator: Eleanore Fagan

JOEL: Oh I loved her in _Oliver!_.

Release date: February 16, 2008 [eBook #24628]

TOM: [ As Jack Webb ] It was a Friday, I was working the library watch out of homicide.

Language: English

CROW: Que?

Credits: Produced by Joe and Isaac Longo, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

TOM: You know 'pgdp' stands for 'Pretty Good Proofreading Project' but they didn't double-check before buying the domain ...
JOEL: Whoopsy-doodle!

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALE OF JIMMY RABBIT ***

CROW: NO ONE WILL BE SEATED FROM THIS POINT FORWARD!






TOM: Well, I think someone could have been seated during *that*.

Produced by Joe and Isaac Longo, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

JOEL: [ Sighing melodramatically ] All right, *thank* you, Joe and Isaac Longo, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
CROW: Some people, right?
TOM: Mm.









CROW: Bet they proofread *this* all in like, two seconds.

THE TALE of JIMMY RABBIT

TOM: It's actually longer than you think, it's just curled back on his spine so it looks short.

[Illustration: He trundled the wheelbarrow home again]

CROW: [ Shocked ] In a *children's* book?!

THE TALE
of
JIMMY
RABBIT

JOEL: o/` A book re-port on Jimmy RAB-BIT! o/`

By

Arthur Scott Bailey

TOM: [ As Johnny Olsen ] Come on down!

_Author of_

The Cuffy Bear Books

CROW: I wonder what makes a bear 'cuffy'.
JOEL: It's the end of his sleeves that do it.

Sleepy-Time Series, Etc.

TOM: Wait, *the* author of Etc?

_Illustrations
by_

CROW: Bye!

Eleanore Fagan

JOEL: Nemesis of Olivia Twist.

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers--New York

TOM: Books and rubber tires.

Copyright, 1916, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

CROW: Want to feel old? 1916 was over eight years ago!

CONTENTS

TOM: Guaranteed 100% Cuffy Bear-free!

CHAPTER PAGE

JOEL: You could say that about *any* book.

I Jimmy Finds a New Tail 9

CROW: Oh, we're getting the full de-tails?

II Troublesome Mr. Mink 14

TOM: Voice of George Clooney.

III May Baskets 19

JOEL: April Taskets bring May Baskets ...

IV Making Somebody Happy 23
V The New Wheelbarrow 28

CROW: Huh, doesn't take a lot for some folks.

VI A Narrow Escape 34
VII A Fast Runner 40

TOM: I wonder if that's Jimmy Rabbit.
CROW: It could be his brother.
JOEL: Oh yeah ... his ``brother''.

VIII The Great Race 46

TOM: Starring Tony Curtis.

IX Playing Leap-Frog 52

CROW: Now where are we supposed to find a frog?

X The Tooth Puller 58
XI A Slight Dispute 63
XII The Strange Man 69

TOM: Starring Orson Welles.

XIII Mr. Crow's Picture 74
XIV Boy Lost! 80

CROW: In overtime!

XV Telling Fortunes 85

JOEL: Aw, you can't tell a fortune anything.

XVI Red Leggins 91
XVII The Rabbits' Ball 96

TOM: o/` Jellicle buns come out tonight! o/`

XVIII A Dance Without Music 101

CROW: Shame, isn't it?

XIX Jimmy Grows Too Cheeky 105
XX A Queer Cure 109

JOEL: SO what are we reading, again?

_The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit_

JOEL: Ooooooh.

[Illustration: 1 Jimmy Finds a New Tail]

TOM: It's like I'm _there_.

Chapter 1

CROW: Any questions so far?

Jimmy Finds a New Tail

JOEL: o/` One that won't hurt my head o/`

Jimmy Rabbit wanted a new tail.

TOM: Well, what did you do with your old tail, Jimmy?

To be sure, he
already had a tail--but it was so short that he felt it was
little better than none at all.

CROW: Hey, if you can't have the tail you love, love the tail you have.

Frisky Squirrel and Billy
Woodchuck had fine, bushy tails;

TOM: All right story, have to stop you there. Billy Woodchuck did *not* have a bushy tail.
JOEL: Not since ... the accident.

and so had all the other
forest-people, except the Rabbit family.

TOM: Look, a woodchuck does *not* have a bushy tail. I've *seen* woodchucks.
CROW: When?

Jimmy had tried his hardest to get a handsome tail
for himself.

JOEL: He should try going to a re-tail establishment.
CROW: [ Makes an annoyed sound ]

And once he had nearly succeeded. For he almost
cut off Frisky Squirrel's big brush.

TOM: Um.
CROW: Jimmy's starting to sound less fun than I thought.

But Mrs. Squirrel had
appeared just in time to save her son from so dreadful a
mishap.

TOM: Oh man I do *not* want to be scolded by Mrs Squirrel.
JOEL: I know people been scolded by Mrs Squirrel so hard their grandkids came out grounded.

After that, Jimmy Rabbit tried to _buy_ a tail; but
no one would sell him one.

CROW: Oh, so there *aren't* re-tail places, _Joel_.

Then he set out to _find_ one, in
the hope that some day some one would forget his tail and go
off and leave it lying in the woods, and not be able to
remember where he left it.

TOM: You know, like happens.
JOEL: The Tale of Fall-Apart Rabbit.
CROW: Jimmy looking at this and wondering what joke his life is.

In fact, Jimmy Rabbit often lurked behind trees and
bushes, watching his neighbors as they took naps in the
sunshine.

CROW: Um.
TOM: Can we trade 'creepy protagonist' in on 'glutton' or 'cranky' please?

But when they awaked and stretched themselves, and
went trotting off, there was not one of them that didn't take
his tail right along with him.

JOEL: Oh just grow up and swipe a girl tail, Jimmy.

It was disappointing. Still, Jimmy Rabbit continued
his search.

TOM: Then one day he tried looking at the backside of people and it changed everything!

Now, Jimmy had decided that if he could only get a
long tail he didn't care what color it was, if it was only a
brownish yellow, to match the rest of him.

TOM: Hey, Crow, he's gonna steal *your* tail!
CROW: He can't have it! It's mine!
JOEL: Huh?

And at last, as he
was wandering through the woods one day, to his great joy he
found almost exactly what he wanted.

CROW: But did he find what he *needed*?

Lying near a heap of
chips was a beautiful tail!

JOEL: Some unfortunate kite is going to be so poorly ballasted.

But it was red, with a black tip.
That was the only drawback about it.

TOM: ... It was a carpenter's pencil?

This tail, however, was so handsome that Jimmy made
up his mind that he would wear it, anyhow,

JOEL: And not in a weird way, so don't go thinking that.

even though it did
not match his coat.

CROW: It looked so good with his jammies, though.

So with a bit of string which he had
carried with him for weeks for that very purpose, he tied the
red tail to his own short stub.

TOM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, but what kind of knot did he use?
CROW: Bunnyline hitch.

There was great excitement among the forest-people
when Jimmy Rabbit appeared among them.

JOEL: [ Whispering ] Did you hear about the carpenter's pencil?
TOM: [ Whispering ] I hear he brought the string himself!
CROW: [ Whispering ] What kind of knot is that?

Most everyone told him
how much better he looked. In fact, old Mr. Crow was about
the only person who didn't say something pleasant.

TOM: That's our Crow all right.
CROW: Hey! ... also I wanna know what pleasant thing Grumpy Weasel said.
JOEL: 'That tail really shows off how nice seeing you leave is.'

He only
shook his head, and muttered something to himself about
"handsome is as handsome does."

JOEL: [ As Forrest Gump ] 'Mama always said ... '

But Jimmy Rabbit paid little
attention to him.

TOM: Is ... is he telling Jimmy to smile more?

"Whose tail is that?" Mr. Crow finally asked.

CROW: [ As the Wizard of Oz doorman ] 'WHOSE tail is that?'

"Mine, of course!" Jimmy told him.

JOEL: You think carpenter's pencils like this just grow on trees?

"Well, you'd better look out!" said Mr. Crow.

CROW: Is Santa Claus coming to town?

"Unless
that tail is bought and paid for, there's trouble ahead of
you, young man."

TOM: That's our Crow all right.

To his friends Frisky Squirrel and Billy Woodchuck,

TOM: Who does *not* have a bushy tail.

Jimmy said something about Mr. Crow in a low voice.

CROW: Rude!

And they
laughed loudly. Whereupon Mr. Crow flew away, croaking to
himself about the shocking way children are brought up
nowadays.

JOEL: Bird children are probably all brought up to the nest.

You know, Mr. Crow was a great gossip.

TOM: No lie detected!
CROW: [ grumps ]

And
everywhere he went that day he spread the news about Jimmy
Rabbit's finding a red tail in the woods.

CROW: The cad! He's telling everybody the news Jimmy's really happy about and wants everyone to know!

Probably that was the pleasantest day of Jimmy
Rabbit's life.

TOM: [ downbeat ] Oh.

But toward evening something startled him.

CROW: It's called sunset, Jimmy, you see that every day!

He
had been over to the brook, to look at himself in a pool. And
he was coming back towards home when some one called:

JOEL: Is that you, Myrt? How's every little thing?

"Hi, there, young fellow!"

TOM: Howdy, old interlocutor!

Jimmy Rabbit hurried along faster. He knew that it
was a mink's voice.

JOEL: He saw it in the closed captioning.

And he didn't like minks.

CROW: [ Tuts ]

Mr. Mink ran after him, calling "Stop, thief!" at the
top of his voice.

TOM: [ As Jimmy ] Sorry, the correct call is '*Halt*, thief!'
CROW: The judges would also have accepted 'Hold that roustabout!'

Jimmy Rabbit did not stop.

JOEL: Can't stop won't stop.
TOM: A history of the rabbit hop generation.

But he glanced around. And
his heart sank as he saw that Mr. Mink had no tail!

CROW: Scandal and uproar!
JOEL: Rumor spreads the Mr Mink is secretly a guinea pig!

At the
same time Jimmy ran faster than ever.

TOM: Just has to run faster than Mr Mink.

He did not want even to
speak to Mr. Mink, for he felt that by waiting to talk with
him he had nothing at all to gain, and a great deal to lose.

JOEL: Jimmy's just going to make Thanksgiving the more awkward like this.

There was his new tail! He certainly did not want to
part with that!

TOM: You think Jimmy's parents have seen his new tail by now? What are they telling him about this?
CROW: They're just happy for anything keeping him from talking about his 'brother'.
TOM: Oh yeah.

--
Joseph Nebus
Math Blog: https://nebusresearch.wordpress.com
Humor Blog: https://nebushumor.wordpress.com --------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

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