Course Miss Nancy she blushed and laughed a little and hid her face behind her bushy tail for a spell. Then she said sorter shy like, “I does love yo’ sweet voice, brother dawg--but--but I ain’t jes’ exactly set in my mind yit.” Her and Mr. Dog set on a spell, when up comes hopping Mr. Rabbit wid his tail fresh washed and his whiskers shining. He got right down to business and asked Miss Coon to marry him, too. “Oh, Miss Nancy,” he says, “Ma’am, also Ma’am, if you’d see me settin’ straddle of a mud-cat leadin’ a minnow, what would you think? Ma’am also Ma’am?” Which is a out and out proposal as everybody knows. “Youse awful nice, Brother Rabbit and a beautiful dancer, but you cannot sing like Brother Dog. Both you uns come back next week to gimme time for to decide.” They both left arm-in-arm. Finally Mr. Rabbit says to Mr. Dog. “Taint no use in me going back--she ain’t gwinter have me. So I mought as well give up. She loves singing, and I ain’t got nothing but a squeak.” “Oh, don’t talk that a’ way,” says Mr. Dog, tho’ he is glad Mr. Rabbit can’t sing none. “Thass all right, Brer Dog. But if I had a sweet voice like you got, I’d have it worked on and make it sweeter.” “How! How! How!” Mr. Dog cried, jumping up and down. “Lemme fix it for you, like I do for Sister Lark and Sister Mocking-bird.” “When? Where?” asked Mr. Dog, all excited. He was figuring that if he could sing just a little better Miss Coon would be bound to have him. “Just you meet me t’morrer in de huckleberry patch,” says the rabbit and off they both goes to bed. The dog is there on time next day and after a while the rabbit comes loping up. “Mawnin’, Brer Dawg,” he says kinder chippy like. “Ready to git yo’ voice sweetened?” “Sholy, sholy, Brer Rabbit. Let’s we all hurry about it. I wants tuh serenade Miss Nancy from de piney woods tuh night.” “Well, den, open yo’ mouf and poke out yo’ tongue,” says the rabbit. No sooner did Mr. Dog poke out his tongue than Mr. Rabbit split it with a knife and ran for all he was worth to a hollow stump and hid hisself. The dog has been mad at the rabbit ever since. Anybody who don’t believe it happened, just look at the dog’s tongue and he can see for himself where the rabbit slit it right up the middle. Stepped on a tin, mah story ends. Transcriber’s Notes New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Perceived punctuation errors have been silently corrected. The section heading XIV has been added. Otherwise spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.