Rabbit in the Garden

A girl was guarding her daddy's garden.
"Hey, girl!" said Rabbit. "Your daddy said let me in at noon and turn me out at one o'clock."
The girl did what Rabbit said, and he ate and ate.
Next day, "Your daddy said let me in at one, turn me out at two."
And so on: two, three, four, five.
The girl's daddy came and saw the ruined garden.
"Next time," he said, "let Rabbit in but don't turn him out."
Rabbit came and the girl let him in, and then she grabbed him.
"Daddy!" she yelled. "I've got him!"
Uh-oh...


Inspired by: South Carolina Folk Tales. Bulletin of University of South Carolina (a WPA project).
Notes: This story is "Duh Rabbit, Fox, and Goose." The book provides detailed comparative notes for the different motifs combined in this story: False Message, Take My Place, and Bag of Troubles. You can read how Rabbit gets away in the next story: Rabbit in the Cage.

This is an illustration for Harris's story; as regularly, the illustrator draws the human characters as white, but for black characters, see the wonderful illustrated edition by Jerry Pinkney.



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