So Mr. Crow hurried over to the swamp where Fatty
Coon lived.
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.”
