In the Reign of Coyote/The Raccoon and the Man-of-Tar
THE RACCOON AND THE MAN-OF-TAR
NE day Antonio was complaining because he could not catch a squirrel in his trap, when Tecla remarked: "Traps are not any good, except to catch silly birds. Animals have too much sense to go into them. You know the old Señora would never have caught the raccoon, if she had depended upon traps."
"Did a Señora catch a raccoon?" and Antonio was all interest. "How did she catch it, if she did n't use a trap?"
"This is what my godfather told me about it." Tecla sat down on a bench, and the two children leaned against her as she recited the tale.
Once an old lady lived in the country and had a very pretty garden. One night a raccoon came and helped himself to her watermelons and corn.
In the morning the old lady said: "Some rascally animal has been at my garden. I must set a trap to catch him."
The next night the raccoon came again, and he saw the trap. "Ah!" cried he, "here is a trap set for me. But I will play a trick on them. I will jump over it." So he jumped over it and ate all the corn and watermelons he wanted.
When the old lady found the trap untouched and her corn and melons gone, she said, "I will set traps all around the garden."
But the raccoon was not afraid of any of the traps. He jumped over them all as easily as could be and had as much supper as he could eat.
The next morning the old lady said, "Well, if I cannot catch the rascal in a trap, I will some other way." So she made a man-of-tar and put it in the garden.
That night the raccoon looked around for the traps, but there were none to be seen. "Why," he said, "they must be tired of trying to catch me."
Then he saw the man-of-tar and said: "What is this? Oh, how do you do, gentleman?"
The man-of-tar did not answer.
"Why don't you speak to me? Don't you think I am good enough to speak to a gentleman like you?"
"That night the raccoon looked around for the traps"
The raccoon waited for a reply, but the man-of-tar said never a word.
"If you don't say, 'How do you do' to me, I shall hit you"; and he raised his right fist.
Still nothing but silence followed his words.
Then the raccoon gave a hard hit, and his fist stuck fast in the tar.
"Let go! Let go, or I 'll hit you with the other."
The strange dark man did not speak, neither did he let the prisoner loose.
So the raccoon struck with his left fist, and it stuck fast in the tar.
The raccoon became very angry, and his voice was loud. "If you don't let me go, I 'll kick you."
The man-of-tar did not answer.
The raccoon kicked out his right foot, and it stuck fast in the tar.
"Let me go home, I say, or I 'll kick you hard with my other foot."
The man-of-tar took no notice of this threat, neither by word nor by action.
The raccoon kicked out with the left foot, and it stuck fast in the tar.
"Well, I 'd better not butt you," he said, "or you might hold my head fast and I could not call for help."
He called and called, but no one came to help him.
In the morning the old lady found him. She tied a rope around him, hung him to a branch of a tree, and called her cats to come and eat him. The cats were afraid and would not touch him, so she called her dog, and it came and ate the raccoon.
"She ought to have eaten it herself," said Antonio. "Wantasson says raccoons are good eating. Say, Nita, you let me take your doll to make a man-of-tar, and if I catch two squirrels, I 'll give you one."
"My doll! My doll that the Good Kings put in my shoe! Why, Antonio Guerrero, I 'll—"
Juanita was on the verge of tears of indignation, when Antonio shrugged his shoulders and replied: "Oh! keep your old doll. Two sticks will do as well."
Now I must explain to Joe and Mabel what Juanita meant when she said, "My doll that the Good Kings put in my shoe." The Spanish-Californian children did not hang up their stockings the night before Christmas as you do, nor did they have a Christmas tree as Dorothy does. They did not even receive any presents on Christmas. That day to them was La Fiesta del Señor, the "Feast of the Master"; and they spent it in rejoicing that Christ had given himself as a gift to the world. But during the Christmastide there came a day when they did receive presents. This was on Little Christmas, the "Feast of the Epiphany," or January the sixth. This feast, you know, is held in honor of the day on which the Three Wise Kings brought their gifts to the Infant Jesus in Bethlehem.
The evening before Little Christmas the Californian children placed their shoes outside the door or window, and the Three Wise Kings always left something in them. It was not very much that the Kings left—just some funny little twirled candies with caraway seeds in them and some odd wooden toys. Juanita's doll would not seem pretty to you to-day, Mabel, but she loved it just as dearly as you do your Arabella from Paris, and she was just as horrified at the idea of turning it into a man-of-tar as you were when Joe wanted to throw Arabella into the pond to teach Ponto to swim for her.