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Chapter 3

May Baskets

JOEL: May baskets _what_?
TOM: May baskets bless and keep your New Year's resolution to be organized.

Jimmy Rabbit was very busy.

TOM: How busy is that?
CROW: Oh, maybe six or seven.

He was getting ready for
May Day. And he intended to hang two May baskets.

JOEL: Fer cattle rustlin'!

One of them
was already finished,

CROW: So don't go thinking he does everything at the last moment.

and filled with things that Jimmy
himself liked--such as strips of tender bark from Farmer
Green's young fruit trees,

JOEL: Well, naturally.

and bits of turnip from his
vegetable cellar.

TOM: Cellar turnips? Jimmy *does* know how to live!

You might almost think that Farmer Green
himself ought to have hung that basket.

CROW: Yeah, if you're a dupe.

But Jimmy Rabbit
never once thought of such a thing.

JOEL: Did Farmer Green write this paragraph?

He expected to hang it on
the door of a neighbor's house, where there lived a young
girl-rabbit.

TOM: [ Singing 'Marion, the Librarian' ] Marion, the li-bunny-an ...

Jimmy had made that basket the best he knew how.

CROW: Please remember, this is before you could look up how-to videos.

The one he was working on now was a very different
sort of basket.

JOEL: The kind he didn't best knew how.

But then--you see, he intended to give it to
a very different sort of person. He was going to hang _this_
one on Henry Skunk's door.

TOM: He better not be putting a basket of soap together, that's being mean.

Frisky Squirrel, who happened to be passing Jimmy's
house,

CROW: Hold on. Fatty Raccoon, Grumpy Weasel, Jimmy Rabbit, Henry Skunk, Frisky Squirrel, do all Arthur Scott Bailey's characters have two-syllable first names ending in 'y'?
TOM: You know his friends called him Arty Scotty Bailey.

stopped and watched him. And he was surprised to learn
that Jimmy was going to give a May basket to Henry Skunk.

JOEL: [ As Frisky ] I didn't even know you cared about Henry! Or whatever it means when you give someone a May basket!

"What are you going to put in it?" Frisky asked.

CROW: International labor solidarity literature.

"Hens' eggs!" said Jimmy Rabbit.

TOM: [ As offended ] Yeah --- well --- the bee's knees right back at you!

That surprised Frisky Squirrel still more. If it had
been a joke--a trick of some sort--

JOEL: A prank, in the manner of some jackanapes's caper.

that Jimmy was going to
play on Henry Skunk, he could have understood that.

TOM: Yes, I for one totally know enough about Henry Skunk to favor playing a practical joke on him!

But hens'
eggs! Why, everyone knew how fond of hens' eggs Henry Skunk
was!

CROW: Well, duh, you already *said* Henry Skunk.

"I thought you didn't like Henry Skunk," Frisky said.

TOM: What with how he never brings you May baskets and all.

"Well, can't I hang a May basket on his door just the
same?" asked Jimmy.

JOEL: Checks out, there's nothing in the rule book that says a rabbit can't hang a May basket on a skunk's door.

Frisky Squirrel said he supposed so--but it was a
strange thing to do.

TOM: Why are you putting Mr Mink's tail in Henry Skunk's May basket?

"Look out he doesn't catch you when you're doing it!"

CROW: Make him go to the airwave and offer a reward for information leading to the capture of whoever put a May basket on his door!

he warned Jimmy. Henry Skunk was a quarrelsome fellow.

TOM: He had a vast, deep pit you could dig rocks from and sometimes film an episode of the original Doctor Who.

There
was no knowing what he wouldn't do if he caught anyone tying
anything to his doorknob.

JOEL: I mean, we can think of *some* things he wouldn't do, like he probably wouldn't single-handedly dig the Panama Canal.

"By the way," Frisky added, "where
did you get the hens' eggs?"

CROW: Hens'eggs dot cluck.

"Down at Farmer Green's!" Jimmy said.

TOM: Where the values never stop !

"I suppose there are lots more," said Frisky.

JOEL: What a peculiar thing to suppose out loud.

Jimmy Rabbit smiled.

"Not like these!" he said.

CROW: Oh, Jimmy, are you collecting basilisk eggs again?

"I suppose you had to be careful not to break
them--bringing them so far," Frisky Squirrel remarked.

JOEL: What are you, Frisky, the broken-egg-prank police?

"Oh, it's easy when you know how," Jimmy Rabbit told
him.

TOM: It gets a lot easier to not break eggs when you don't throw them at trees.

"Well, Henry Skunk will break them fast enough, when
he finds them," Frisky said.

CROW: You know you can't break a few eggs without making a Henry Skunk.

"Yes, he'll break them!" Jimmy Rabbit laughed.
"That's just the point! _He'll break them!_"

JOEL: [ Cackling ] He'll break them! It's foolproof!

You notice that
Jimmy didn't say what it was that Henry Skunk would break.

TOM: Yeah, everyone who doesn't know how antecedents to pronouns work noticed that.


[ End of the chapter! What! Will! Happen! And more baffling, why? ]

--
Joseph Nebus
Math Blog: https://nebusresearch.wordpress.com
Humor Blog: https://nebushumor.wordpress.com --------------------------------------------------------+---------------------

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