it was quite by accident that peter rabbit first heard of miser the trade rat. you know how it is with peter; he is forever using those big ears of his to learn interesting things. that is what ears are for; but there is a right way and a wrong way to use them, and i am afraid that peter isn't always over-particular in this respect. i suspect, in fact i know, that peter sometimes listens when he has no business to listen and knows he has no business to listen. again he sometimes overhears things quite by accident when he cannot very well help hearing. it was in this way that he first heard of miser the trade rat.
peter had crept into a hollow log in the green forest to rest and to feel absolutely safe while he was doing it. he had been there only a little while when he heard light footsteps outside and a moment later a voice which made him shiver a little in spite of himself and the knowledge that he was perfectly safe. the footsteps and the voice were old man coyote's.
very carefully peter peeped out. old man coyote had sat down close by the log in which peter was hiding. on a dead tree close at hand sat ol' mistah buzzard, who had come up from way down south for the summer, and it was to him that old man coyote was talking.
"i was over by farmer brown's barn last night," said old man coyote, "and i caught a glimpse of robber the brown eat. what a disgrace he is to the whole rat tribe! for that matter, he is a disgrace to all who live on the green meadows and in the green forest. he isn't much like his cousin, miser the trade rat."
"mah goodness! do yo' know miser?" exclaimed ol' mistah buzzard.
"do i know miser? i should say i do!" replied old man coyote. "i've tried to catch him enough times to know him. he kept a junk shop very near where i used to live way out west. do you know him, mr. buzzard?"
"ah cert'nly does," chuckled ol' mistah buzzard. "ah cert'nly does. ah never did see such a busy fellow as he is. ah done see his junk shop many times, and always it done be growin' bigger. ah wonders, brer coyote, if yo' ever heard the story of his great-great-ever-so-great-gran'-daddy, the first of the family, and how and where he started the business that's been kept in the family ever since."
"no," said old man coyote, "i never did, and i've wondered about it a great deal."
peter rabbit almost forgot that he was hiding. he was so eager to hear that story that he was right on the point of speaking up and begging ol' mistah buzzard to tell it when he remembered old man coyote. just in the nick of time he clapped a hand over his mouth. it seemed to peter a long, long time before old man coyote said:
"i'd like to hear that story, mr. buzzard, if it isn't too much to ask of you."
"not at all, brer coyote; not at all. ah'll be mor'n pleased to tell it to yo'. ah cert'nly will," said ol' mistah buzzard, and peter settled himself comfortably to listen.
"yo' see it was this way," began ol' mistah buzzard. "ah got it from mah gran'daddy, and he got it from his gran'daddy, and his gran'daddy got it from—"
"i know," interrupted old man coyote. "it was handed down from your greatest-great-grandfather, who lived in the days when the world was young and what you are going to tell me about happened. isn't that it?"
"yes, suh," replied ol' mistah buzzard. "yes, suh, that's it. ol' mother nature treat 'em all alike in those days. she's a right smart busy person, and she ain't got no time fo' to answer foolish questions. no, suh, she ain't. so, quick as she get a new kind of critter made, she turn him loose and tell him if he want to live he got to be right smart and find out for hisself how to do it. ah reckons yo' know all about that, brer coyote."
old man coyote nodded, and ol' mistah buzzard scratched his bald head gently as if trying to stir up his memory. peter rabbit almost squealed aloud in his impatience while he waited for ol' mistah buzzard to go on.
"when ol' mother nature made brer trade rat in the beginning and turned him loose in the great world, he was just plain mistah rat and nothing more, same as his no 'count cousin, robber the brown rat," continued ol' mistah buzzard. "he had to win a name for hisself same as ev'ybody else. he had mighty sharp wits, had this mistah rat, and directly he found he had to shift for hisself he began to study and study and study what he gwine to do to live well and be happy. he watched his neighbors to see what they did, and it didn't take him long to find out that if he would be respected he must have a home. those without homes were mostly no 'count folks, same as they are today.
"so brer rat made a nest close to the trunk of a tree on the edge of the green forest, a soft, warm nest, and in collectin' the stuff to make it of he learned the joy of bein' busy. person'ly, yo' understand, ah thinks he was all wrong. ah never am so happy as when ah can take a sun-bath with nothin' to do. but brer rat was never so happy as when he was busy, and when he got that li'l nest finished time began to hang heavy on his hands. yes, suh, it cert'nly did. just because he didn't have anything else to do he began to add a little more to his house. one day he stepped on a thorn. 'ouch!' cried brer rat, and then right away forgot the pain in a new idea. he would cover his house with thorns, leavin' just a little secret entrance for hisself! then he would be safe, wholly safe from his big neighbors, some of whom had begun to look at him with such a hungry look in their eyes that they made him right smart uncomfortable. so he spent his time, did brer rat, in huntin' for the longest and sharpest thorns and in cuttin' the branches on which they grew. these he carried to his house and piled them around it and on it until it had become a great pile with sharp thorns stickin' out in every direction, and the hungriest of the big people of the forest passed it at a respectful distance.
"when brer rat had all the thorns he needed and more, he began to collect other things and added these to his pile. yo' see, he had found that it was great fun to collect things; to find the queerest things he could and bring them home and look at them and wonder about them. so little by little his house became a sort of junk shop, the very first one in all the great world. bright stones and shells, bones, anything that caught his bright eyes and pleased them, he brought home. when he was tired of huntin' fo' food or more strange things he would sit and gloat over his treasures and play with them. and then the first thing he knew he had a name. yes, suh, he had a name. he was called miser.
"of course brer miser hadn't lived ve'y long befo' he found out that one law of the great world was that things belonged to whoever could get them and keep them. he saw that some thought themselves ve'y smart when they stole from their neighbors. brer miser didn't like this at all. he was ve'y, ye'y honest, was brer miser. perhaps he wasn't really much tempted, not fo' a long time anyway.
"but at last came a time when he was tempted. quite by accident he found one of mr. squirrel's storehouses. in it were some nuts different from any he ever had seen befo'. 'brer squirrel won't mind if ah taste just one,' said he, and did it. it tasted good; it tasted ve'y good indeed. brer miser began to wish he had some nuts like those. when he got home he couldn't think of anything but how good those nuts tasted. he knew that all he had to do was to watch until brer squirrel was away and then go he'p hisself. he knew that was just what any of his neighbors would do in his place. but brer miser couldn't make it seem just right any way he looked at it. he was too honest, was brer miser, to do anything like that.
"he was sitting staring at his treasures but thinking about those nuts when an idea popped into his head, an idea that made him smile until ah reckons he most split his cheeks. 'ah knows what ah'll do,' said he. 'ah'll just he'p mahself to some of those nuts and ah'll leave something of mine in place of them. that's what ah'll do.'
"and that's what he did do. he picked out a bright shell of which he was very fond and he left it in brer squirrel's storehouse to pay fo' the nuts that he took. after that he always helped himself to anything he wanted, but he always left something to pay fo' it. it wasn't long befo' his neighbors found out what he was doing, and then they called him miser the trade rat. whenever anybody found something he didn't want hisself, he took it to the little junk shop of miser the trade rat and traded it fo' something else, or left it where miser would find it, knowing that miser would leave something in its place.
"and it's been just so with miser's family ever since. there is one rat who is a credit to his family instead of a disgrace," concluded ol' mistah buzzard.
