Tales with a Texas Twist

by Donna Ingham

  But come Saturday night she got herself all gussied up and went anyway. It was pretty chilly out, and the wind was blowing something awful by the time she got to the live oak up on the bluff. She got to the tree pretty early, and Mr. Fox wasn’t there yet. She scouted around a little bit and then thought she heard someone coming. She climbed up in that live oak—way up high—and waited and watched. Sure enough, it was Mr. Fox carrying a lantern. Because by this time it was nearly nigh dark. He put that lantern down on a big old flat rock and sat himself down to wait.

  He waited, and he waited, and he waited. Pretty Polly watched. Then Mr. Fox finally stirred around and reached over behind another rock and pulled out a pick and a shovel and started digging. He lined out a rectangle there that Pretty Polly judged was about three feet wide and six feet long. She kept a-watching, and he kept a-digging, and it didn’t take long for her to figure out that he was digging a grave. I told you she was smart. And she got to figuring that it was supposed to be her grave.

  Well, every little bit, Mr. Fox would stop digging and look and listen, turn his head this way and that. Then he’d get all restless again and jump back in the grave and start digging again. Digging and waiting and waiting and digging ’til way on up into the night.

  To tell you the truth, Pretty Polly was about to freeze up in her tree. The wind kept blowing through the top of that tree, making it sway and making the branches creak and the leaves rattle. But Pretty Polly kept holding on and clamping her teeth together to keep them from rattling. Finally, she heard a cock crow somewhere off in the distance, and pretty soon after that Mr. Fox picked up his tools and threw them over his shoulder. He picked up his lantern and left. Pretty Polly waited ’til he was long gone. Then she climbed down out of that tree and high-tailed it for home, taking all the shortcuts she knew.

  Well, Mr. Fox quit coming to call after that, as you might imagine, since he figured she’d stood him up and all. But it wasn’t long ’til Pretty Polly started hearing folks talk about how three young women had disappeared right recently and that Mr. Fox had been courting all three of them. Furthermore, he hadn’t been coming to their houses; he’d met them out somewhere. Now, nobody had any evidence on him, but they were beginning to have their suspicions. They commenced to try to find out where he lived, but nobody seemed to know.

  Then one day there he was back at Pretty Polly’s house. Well, spunky little thing that she was, she didn’t try to run off or anything.

  Why, she didn’t even let on that anything had ever happened or that she’d heard a thing. They got to talking, and directly he asked her to come over to his house. She said, “Well, I might sometime, if you’ll tell me where you live.”

  “Just come on and go with me right now,” he said. “It’s not far.” “No, I can’t go today,” she said. “Maybe later.”

  “Can you come next Saturday?” Mr. Fox asked. “I still don’t know where you live,” she said.

  “I’ll come for you.”

  “No, if I come, I’ll come by myself.” She was almost sassy, she was being so spunky.

  Finally Mr. Fox said, “Okay, if you’ll give me a little sack of flour, I’ll lay you a trail.”

  Pretty Polly fetched him the flour, and off he went. He sifted a little of that flour out every few steps ’til he disappeared from sight.

  Thinking like a smart girl, Pretty Polly didn’t go that next Saturday. It was about a week after that when she finally set out—thinking she would try to find out where Mr. Fox lived and gather some evidence. It hadn’t rained or been very windy in all that time, so she found the trail all right and followed it on and on until she came to a rickety old house way out in the woods. She hid and watched. Pretty soon she saw Mr. Fox come out of the house and go off toward town. When he was clear out of sight, she walked as bold as anything up to that house and went in.

  First thing she saw was a parrot, and he spoke right up, talking to her. She looked around and then climbed the stairs to the second floor, where the door to one room was closed. When she reached out to open it, the parrot hollered from downstairs,

  “Don’t go in, pretty lady. You’ll lose your heart’s blood!”

  But spunky girl that she was, Pretty Polly was bold enough to open the door anyway. When she looked up, she saw sides of meat hanging—but it wasn’t beef and it wasn’t pork, and she knew what had happened to those three missing girls. She shut that door right quick, turned, and started running down the stairs. Then she heard a racket outside—sounded like a woman screaming. She slipped to the window and peeked out, and sure enough, there came Mr. Fox a-dragging some poor woman by the arm.

  “Oh, mercy me,” Pretty Polly said. “What am I going to do?” The parrot answered, “Hide, pretty lady! Hide! Hide!”

  “Don’t tell him I’m here!”

  “No, pretty lady. No! No!”

  Pretty Polly ran and hid under the old rickety stairsteps.

  Mr. Fox came on in the house a-jerking that poor girl along and starting to drag her up the stairs. He stopped long enough to ask the parrot, “Has anybody been here?”

  Pretty Polly held her breath. “No,” squawked the parrot, “no.”

  Meanwhile, the poor girl reached out and grabbed the stair rail, trying to hold back. Mr. Fox just took out his sword and hacked her hand right off. It fell through the cracks in the stairsteps and landed right at Pretty Polly’s feet.

  Mr. Fox finished pulling that girl up the stairs, opened the door to that slaughtering room, pushed her in, and followed in behind her. Figuring she couldn’t do much to save that poor girl now, Pretty Polly reached down and grabbed the girl’s hand, put it in her pocket, and slipped out the front door. Then she ran for her own life. She was bold, but not too bold.

  It was about a week or two after that when the town had a social with party games and all. Everybody went, and when Pretty Polly got there, she saw Mr. Fox in the crowd. Everybody was having a good time singing and dancing and playing games and first one thing and then another until way late in the night, when they all sat down close to the fireplace, where the old folks were, and got to singing songs and telling tales and dreams and riddles. Like “What walks in the water with its head down?”

  “That’s easy,” someone said. “The nails in a horse’s shoe when he walks through water.”

  “What goes around the house and doesn’t make a track?”

  “The wind.”

  Directly Pretty Polly said, “I’ve got a riddle.”

  “What is it? Tell us! Tell us!”

  So she told them.

  Riddle to my left and riddle to my right.

  Where was I that Saturday night?

  All that time in a live oak tree.

  I was high, and he was low.

  The wind did blow, and the cock did crow;

  The tree did shake, and my heart did ache

  To see what a hole that fox did make.

  They all tried to guess. All except Mr. Fox. He sat right still. “What’s the answer?” they all asked her. “Tell us the answer.” “Not now,” she said. “I’ll tell you directly. But first, I had me a

  strange dream the other night. Very peculiar. You might like to hear that.”

  “Ain’t nothing in dreams,” said Mr. Fox.

  But they all begged her to tell them her dream. So Pretty Polly obliged them. She folded her hands up under her apron and said, “I dreamed I went to Mr. Fox’s house. He wasn’t home, but I went in to wait for him. There was a bird there, and when I went to look in one of the rooms, it told me, said, ‘Don’t go in, pretty lady! You’ll lose your heart’s blood!’ But I cracked the door just a little bit, and I saw a lot of dead women in there—a-hanging on the walls.”

  “Not so! Not so!” said Mr. Fox. And the young men all looked at him.

  Pretty Polly just kept on talking. “Then I dreamed I heard a woman screaming
and crying, and I looked out and there came Mr. Fox a-dragging a woman after him.”

  “Not so! Not so!” said Mr. Fox. “It couldn’t have been me!”

  A couple of the men there moved back against the wall behind Mr. Fox.

  “That bird told me to hide, and I ran and hid under the stairsteps,” Pretty Polly continued. “Then I dreamed that girl grabbed hold on the stair rail and Mr. Fox took out his sword and hacked her hand off, and it fell through the stairs and landed right at my feet.”

  That’s when Mr. Fox jumped up and said,

  But it was not so,

  And it is not so,

  And God forbid it should ever be so!

  Several young men moved over between Mr. Fox and the door. Pretty Polly paid Mr. Fox no mind.

  “Then I dreamed he shoved that girl in his slaughtering room and went on in himself and shut the door. And me? I grabbed that hand and ran away from there as fast as I could.”

  Mr. Fox hollered out again,

  But it was not so,

  And it is not so,

  And God forbid it should ever be so!

  This time Pretty Polly answered him back, saying,

  But it was so,

  And it is so,

  For here’s the very hand to show!

  And she took that hand out from under her apron and held it up right in Mr. Fox’s face. Then all the men there closed in on him and got a-hold of him and hauled him off to the jailhouse.

  After they took Mr. Fox out, everybody got to recollecting Pretty Polly’s riddle, and they asked her about it again. She told them about the grave and all.

  Well, they tried Mr. Fox on Pretty Polly’s evidence, and they saw to it that justice was done. And none of that might have happened if Pretty Polly hadn’t also been pretty spunky and pretty smart, too.

  Br’er Rabbit’s ShareCropping

  The Southern trickster Br’er Rabbit made it to Texas in stories told mostly along the Brazos River bottom. The following is my adaptation of a tale collected by A. W. Eddins and included in the Publications of the Texas Folklore Society XXVI.

  Now when Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Bear lived in Texas, down along the Brazos River bottom, they were farmers. Yes sir, Br’er Bear had just acres and acres of that good bottomland, and Br’er Rabbit had this little sandy-land farm. Br’er Bear, the story goes, was always raisin’ Cain with his neighbors while Br’er Rabbit was raisin’—well, most generally children.

  After a while Br’er Rabbit’s boys begun to get big growed up. One day Br’er Rabbit decides he’s going to have to get him some more land if he’s going to make ends meet.

  So he takes himself to Br’er Bear’s house, and he says, “Mornin’, Br’er Bear. I’m hankerin’ to rent your bottom field there next year.”

  Br’er Bear just hums a little and haws a little and finally says, “I’m not sure I can accommodate you, Br’er Rabbit, but since it’s you, I’ll think about it.”

  “Well, when you rent your land, how do you rent it?” asks Br’er Rabbit.

  “Oh, the onliest way I can rent it is by the shares.”

  “And what is your share, Br’er Bear?”

  “Well,” says Br’er Bear, “I take the top of the crop for my share, and you take the rest for your share.”

  Br’er Rabbit thinks about this real hard, and finally he says, “All right, Br’er Bear, I’ll take it. We’ll go to plowin’ next week.”

  Then Br’er Bear goes back into his house just a-laughin’. He is right smart tickled as to how he’s done gone and put one over on old Br’er Rabbit.

  Well, long about May Br’er Rabbit sends his oldest son to tell Br’er Bear to come on down to the field to see about that there sharecrop. Br’er Bear, he comes a-lumbering down to the field, and there’s old Br’er Rabbit leaning against the fence.

  “Mornin’, Br’er Bear,” he says. “See what a fine crop we’ve got. And you’re to have the tops for your share, I believe. Well, I want you to go on and get ’em as quick as you can and haul ’em off to where you’re going to put them so I can dig my potatoes.”

  Oh, Br’er Bear is hot about that, but he’s done gone and made that trade with Br’er Rabbit, so he has to stick to it. He goes off all huffed up, though, and doesn’t even tell Br’er Rabbit what to do with all those vines. Nevertheless, Br’er Rabbit proceeds to dig his potatoes.

  Long about in the fall, then, Br’er Rabbit allows as how he’s going to see Br’er Bear again and try to rent that same bottom field. So he goes down to Br’er Bear’s house, and after passing the time of day and other pleasantries, he says, “Say now, Br’er Bear, how’s about rentin’ that there bottomland field again next year? You goin’ to rent that to me again on the shares?”

  Br’er Bear says, “You cheated me right smart last year, Br’er Rabbit. I just don’t think I can let you have it this year.”

  Br’er Rabbit scratches his head with his behind foot for a long time. Then he says, “Oh now, Br’er Bear, you know I ain’t cheated you. You just cheated yourself. You done made the trade yourself, and I done took you at your word. You said you wanted the tops for your share, and didn’t I give them to you? Now you just think it all over again, and see if you can’t make a new deal for yourself.”

  Then Br’er Bear says, “Well, I’ll rent it to you only on these conditions then: This year you have all the tops for your share, and I’ll have all the rest for my share.”

  Br’er Rabbit, he twists and he turns and then he says, “All right, Br’er Bear, I’ve got to have some more land for my boys, so I’ll take it. We’ll go to plowin’ in there right away.”

  Then Br’er Bear ambles back into his house just a-laughin’ because he’s sure he made a good trade this time.

  Well, long about the next June Br’er Rabbit sends one of his boys to Br’er Bear’s house again and tells him to come on down to the field to see about his rent. When he gets there, Br’er Rabbit is leaning against the fence.

  He says, “Mornin’, Br’er Bear. See what a fine crop we’ve got. I ’spect it’ll make forty bushels to the acre, don’t you? I’m goin’ to put my oats on the market. What are you going to do with your straw?”

  Once again, Br’er Bear is sure ’nough mad, but it’s no use. He sees that Br’er Rabbit has him again. So he lays low and allows to himself that he is going to get even with Br’er Rabbit yet.

  Br’er Bear smiles and says, “Oh, the crop is all right, Br’er Rabbit. Just stack my straw anywhere around here. That’s all right. What about next year? You hankerin’ to rent this field again, Br’er Rabbit?”

  “Oh, sure ’nough, Br’er Bear. Won’t nothin’ else do but what I rent it,” says Br’er Rabbit.

  “All right, all right, you can rent it again. But this time I’m going to have the tops for my share, and I’m going to have the bottoms for my share, too.”

  Br’er Rabbit is nearly nigh stumped. He doesn’t know what to do next. But he finally manages to ask, “Br’er Bear, if you get the tops and the bottoms for your share, what’ll I get for my share?”

  Old Br’er Bear just laughs and says, “Well, I reckon you’d get the middles.”

  Br’er Rabbit worries and frets and pleads and argues, but it doesn’t do any good.

  Br’er Bear stands pat. “Take it or leave it,” he says. Br’er Rabbit takes it.

  Way long into the next summer, old Br’er Bear decides he’ll go down to the bottom field and see about that there sharecrop he has with Br’er Rabbit. While he’s a-walkin’ through the woods, he says to himself, he says, “The first year I rented to old Br’er Rabbit, I made the tops my share, and that old rabbit planted taters. So I got nothin’ but vines. Then I rented again, and Br’er Rabbit was to have the tops and I the bottoms, and that old rabbit planted oats. So I got nothin’ but straw. But I sure ’nough have him this time ’cause I’ve
got both the bottoms and the tops, and that old rabbit only gets the middle. I’m bound to get him this time.”

  Just then old Br’er Bear comes to the field. He stops. He looks. He makes a fist and shakes it in the air. He riles up and says, “That doggoned little scoundrel! Look at him! He done went and planted that field in corn.”

  Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Coon, and the Frogs

  If there is a moral to this Brazos River Br’er Rabbit story, I suppose it is that we must be careful not to dig ourselves in a hole so deep we can’t get out. There are a number of variants of this folktale, but the fate of the frogs is always the same.

  Now when they lived down along the Brazos River bottom in Texas, Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Coon liked to fish. Br’er Rabbit, he fished for fish, but Br’er Coon, he fished for frogs. Only the time came when the frogs got smarter than Br’er Coon and he couldn’t catch them anymore. So he’d go home every day with his frog sack plumb empty.

  That’s when his wife would take in after him a-swinging her broom and talking lickety-split: “When are you going to bring us home some meat for dinner? Can’t you see your little children sitting around the table hungry? You get out there now and catch us up a mess of frogs right this minute, and don’t come back ’til you do.”

  One day Br’er Coon went walking down the path, hanging his head down low and shuffling along, feeling blue. About that time here came Br’er Rabbit just a-hippety hopping along, and he hollered at Br’er Coon, saying, “Good day there, Br’er Coon. How are you?”

  “Not good,” said Br’er Coon, “not good at all. I can’t catch them frogs no more, Br’er Rabbit. They’ve gotten too smart for me. So now my children are hungry, and my wife’s mad and chasin’ me around the house with a broom. I don’t know what I’m goin’ to do.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Br’er Rabbit, “I see. Well, let me think about that for a minute.”

  So Br’er Rabbit, he scratched his head with his behind foot, and he thought and thought and thought. And then he said, “I know what we’re going to do, Br’er Coon. I know what we’re going to do. You see that sandbar down there in the river? I want you to go down to that sandbar and play like you are dead. Yes sir, that’s what I want you to do. Play like you are dead.”