The Tale of Old Mr. Crow

XVII

THE STRANGE BUT­TONS

To Mr. Crow's de­light, it did not oc­cur to Fat­ty Coon that Mr. Crow might be play­ing a trick on him. You see, as was usu­al­ly the case, Fat­ty was hun­gry. And he had no thought for any­thing ex­cept food. When Mr. Crow ex­plained what a fix he was in, and asked Fat­ty to un­but­ton his coat for him, Fat­ty stepped up to him at once.

But he didn't try to un­but­ton the coat. He sniffed at the but­tons, while his face wore a puz­zled look. And then he be­gan to smile.

“I'll tell you what I'll do!” Fat­ty said. “If you'll give me these but­tons, I'll take them off for you. And then, of course, you'll have no more trou­ble with your coat. You can throw it off any time you please.”

“Good!” Mr. Crow ex­claimed. “The but­tons shall be yours. I don't want them, for I shall nev­er wear this coat again.”

So Fat­ty Coon set to work to take off the but­tons. He re­moved them in a very odd way, too. In­stead of tear­ing them off he be­gan eat­ing them!

“Good­ness!” Mr. Crow cried. “Aren't you afraid you'll be ill?”

But Fat­ty Coon nev­er an­swered. He kept on nib­bling the but­tons and crunch­ing them in his mouth. And he nev­er stopped un­til he had swal­lowed the very last one.

Then he smacked his lips (for he knew no bet­ter).

“Those were the finest gin­ger­snaps I ev­er tast­ed,” he re­marked. “It's a pity there weren't a bak­er's dozen of them, in­stead of on­ly ten.”

Old Mr. Crow near­ly fell over, he was so sur­prised. He had nev­er dreamed that those big brown but­tons, which Mr. Frog had sewed up­on his coat, were noth­ing but gin­ger­snaps.

“If I'd known that I would have eat­en them my­self!” he ex­claimed. “But I don't care. Now that I can get out of this heavy coat, I'm sat­is­fied.”

But to Mr. Crow's dis­may, the coat clung round him as tight­ly as ev­er. He couldn't throw it open at all. And he turned the least bit pale.

“This is strange!” he mur­mured. “What can be the mat­ter, I won­der!”

Fat­ty Coon looked at the coat again. And then he laughed.

“The trou­ble--” he said--“the trou­ble is, there are no but­ton­holes! Your coat doesn't open in front. And it doesn't open any­where else, ei­ther. It's _sewed on you_, Mr. Crow.”

Poor Mr. Crow be­gan to feel faint. He leaned against a tree and did not speak for some time. But he was think­ing deeply. And all at once he un­der­stood what had hap­pened.

“It's all the fault of that sil­ly tai­lor, Mr. Frog!” he groaned. “He made me stand still a long time. And that was when he sewed my coat up the back.... What can I do?” he asked help­less­ly.

“If I were you I'd go straight to Mr. Frog's shop and make him take the stitch­es out,” Fat­ty Coon said. “And if he has any more of those gin­ger­snaps, I wish you'd let me know.”