On a sunny afternoon, Ricky the Racing Rabbit was practicing hard for the big race at the race track. The sun was shining, and the birds were whistling. Ricky felt fit and healthy, and he practiced and practiced till he could practice no longer. He stopped and sat resting under the shade of a great big umbrella.
While he sat there, he noticed all his friends, great and small. There were his old friends the Florence turtle family eating some nice lettuce and carrots that Mamma Turtle had grown in her little garden. And also Snappy Grumpy, the big Thyco (or the great Australian lobster) from the other track down by the sea. And then came Noah, Tony, and Jimmy, the young turtles, all out for a stroll after a hearty meal. Then Mamma Turtle said to them, “You have all eaten too hearty a dinner, and you should take a good walk to help you to digest it well.”
Grumpy and Mamma Turtle and her children wandered off to pick daisies for their hats, and Ricky meanwhile remarked: “Look at the ants moving about so busily. How nice and clean the big ant hill looks! I wonder how often the ants clean house and tidy up before they go for a walk?”
“There they go, those Chinese men, with their dish and chopsticks. They don’t eat big dinners, but am always cooking, cooking from morning till night.” Just then Ricky’s friend Mané the monkey came past. His face all muddy and dirty.
“What is the matter, Mané?” asked Ricky. “Why is your face so dirty?”
“I have been trailing my cheek in the mud and dust, as it is the only way to learn how to swim properly,” was the reply. “You see, I am going on a long sea voyage to England, and I want to learn to swim very well, so that I may not be in any danger.”
“But,” said Ricky, “you will certainly scratch your cheek, and will hurt it very much while you are learning to float along on the surface of the water.”
“Oh, that’s all right, that’s all right! I want to learn to do it well! I am going to eat a bit of my friend’s face!” he giggled, wiping his muddy hand on the breast of his friend Cha Hoo’s dirty jacket.
In the middle of the footpath lay Tommy the tortoise, and Ricky said to his friend: “Look here! It’s Tommy! I forgot his name. We see so little of him nowadays that I am always forgetting Tommy! I wondered what had become of him.”
Just at the moment Tommy opens one eye and says, “Oh! I am here!”
“But what are you doing here?” said Ricky.
“Oh,” says Tommy, “I’m going to star right in the middle of the street when that great big ship of his comes past, to salute it as is the custom—a salute from an officer of the Old Brigade, you know!”
Oh dear, things were becoming very confused and mixed up! Everybody had come to see the race with his own ideas, and all his friends wanted him to do or become something else!
Just at that moment, Weathercock, the Mayor of the Animals, passes Ricky at full galop. “Weathercock, Weathercock,” said Ricky. “Don’t forget to give a loud whistle when the time is come!”
Gladly! gladly! said Weathercock. “I’ll stand here and be Captain of the Bodyguard at the race, and never notice.”
Then Ricky turned to Mané and said. “Mané, Mané! Can you and your old friends meet me here at sunrise? You know… Oh you do know!”
Then Ricky remarked how tired and sleepy and yawny and gawn and weary and frowsy everybody looked. It would soon be twilight. And what did the stars in Heaven look like?
“By Jove,” said Mané, “there is Greasy Johnny, coming!”
“Who is that, pray?” said Ricky.
“He is even much much greasier than I am,” said Mané, laughing.
“What does he mean to do?”
“He lets himself down the chimney with a rope and will help to demolish the rubbish,” they answered.
“I must go,” said Ricky. “Good-by!”
“Tell me now first, what about Grumpy?” asked Mané.
So Ricky told them how Grumpa goes every day past every house down to the French hadshop to buy horse-hoof jelly, which he eats with cream and sugar; that he himself only eats snakes and rats, and that he was always out looking for beetles! Then they said good-by to one another, and Ricky went home into his little house, and washed his face and bide all over, that he might get as fit as possible.
Tommy the tortoise went to bed, and dreamt it was a Bee that was buzzing in his ears.
Grumpy went into his house and turned down the wick of his gas-lamp. And all the other friends of Ricky did the same.
Then came the night and the sun went to bed, all laughing and playing together, and when the moon was up everybody said good night to everybody else, till Ricky the Racing Rabbit was the only one who was not saying good night, and he was waving the flag by the race-course. Tom Fourbach of the Station went past and said: “What are you doing here at this hour of the night, Ricky?”
“Oh! It’s nothing. I am just waving a flag, that’s all.”
And then Tom Thriller of the pleasure train went past, and Ricky waved his flag.
So up rode the daintily dressed railroad booking-clerk of the Chicago Central, the most railroad of all the railroads of the world.
Up rode the guard up to the very top of the footpath. And then Tommy tried to climb one step of the flight of a stair.
“Now,” said Weathercock, in his official voice, when he turned as he spoke, “We will black your cheeks, Messrs. Flap and Weathercock, and fasten a signal lantern on the tip of your ears. Observe the way master over there has his ears signal-lanternized! First of all they fix a red disk behind the lantern! Then green! Then every color that is in a mermaid’s tail, so that when at last the rainbow appears he can say: “Oh you miserable shadow-kissing-color-changing of a rainbow. I would be ashamed to show myself at sunsets!”
“Fifty-three colors have I in my tail,” said Flap. And every color has another earth name besides, and here is one of each.”
So Weathercock blacken’d his ears, and Flap his nose, and sent a train in all the colors of a rainbow past every reed of his swimming convoy.
And then came Tommy at the turtle pace, and the donkey-cart with the Philosopher Sun in full panoply, demolitionist of minstrals under his arm.
“Look at the boughs!” called out Flap.
“Grow grow greener,” said Weathercock.
The sun shifted slowly to his right shoulder in order to read on the signs of the first class railway station what Warick his inside was like, a post authorized at the Authors Sons of all Animals. Tommy the tortoise turning his eyes just cunningly said. “The name of the Stationmaster is James Horse, you know. And he is no longer young; but he goes on a little quicker every year!”
The donkey was snorting and sniffing and snatching, and drinking and swilling all at once. The cheek of the separation gleamed in the moonshine, as so many spangles and diamonds were all over it. And then Tommy felt tired and went away.
Warmly did the sun bid him good night.