BUNNY TALE 21
PHOTOGRAPHER CRANE
telephoned Little Jack Rabbit one morning, oh, so early, as Mr. Merry Sun was climbing the blue sky in his golden chariot.
“All right, I’ll be there in a minute or three,” replied the kind photographer bird and, picking up his camera, he started off through the Shady Forest. It was quite a long walk, for his picture parlor was in Bunnybridge, you know, just over the River Sippi, but by and by, not so very far, for his long legs traveled pretty fast over the ground, he reached the Tall Pine Tree in which Professor Jim Crow had his home.
“Hello, Photographer Crane,” cawed the black bird professor, “where are you going?”
“To take Little Jack Rabbit’s picture,” answered Photographer Crane, setting down his camera and wiping his beak with a red silk pocket handkerchief.
“Wait a minute, my little crow boy wants his taken.”
“Have no time,” answered the picture bird man.
“Oh, please take a photograph of my little crow boy,” begged Professor Jim Crow. “It won’t take you a minute—here he is now.”
“Oh, all right,” answered Photographer Crane, setting up his camera.
sang Photographer Crane in a sing-song voice from under the big black cloth, which he had pulled over his head as Blackie Crow stood very stiff and very still on a big limb of the Tall Pine Tree. Then with a squeeze of the little rubber bulb the picture was taken. “How many do you want?” he asked, folding up the camera.
“Maybe a dozen,” replied Professor Crow. “Send your bill with them.”
“I won’t forget that,” chuckled the Picture Bird as he hurried along. Pretty soon he came to the Big Brown Bear’s Cozy Cave.
“Stop! Wait! Hey there!” shouted the Big Brown Bear, “I want my picture taken.”
“Can’t wait,” answered the nervous crane, “I’m on my way to the Old Bramble Patch.”
“It won’t take you a minute,” answered the Big Brown Bear. “Open up your picture box and take my photo.”
“Oh, botheration!” exclaimed Photographer Crane, again setting up his camera as the Big Brown Bear brushed his hair and combed his trousers. I beg your pardon, I mean combed his hair and brushed his trousers. Then, sitting down on a wooden bench and lighting his pipe, he waited to be photographed. But, dear me! Photographer Crane was so dreadfully nervous and his legs so trembly that the camera wiggled and jiggled and I fear the picture will look like seven or eight bears dancing in front of the Cozy Cave.
“Dear me!” sighed the poor nervous photographer bird as he hurried away, “I’ll never reach the Old Bramble Patch, and I must not disappoint Little Jack Rabbit.” But no sooner had he finished speaking than out jumped Old Man Weasel. I wonder if he wants his photo taken. Maybe he just feels hungry and will eat poor Photographer Crane.
shouted Professor Jim Crow over his radio as that mean Weasel crept out from behind a tree.
Of course he did it so softly that Photographer Crane never heard him. He had been hopping along on his long thin legs, his camera over his back, feeling quite contented at having taken two pictures.
A good day’s work, and the day only half over. Pretty soon he would be at the Old Bramble Patch to make a beautiful photograph of Little Jack Rabbit.
“Maybe I’ll take it in colors,” he was thinking. “This little bunny boy rabbit is such a nice youngster.”
Poor Photographer Crane! He didn’t see Old Man Weasel only a few feet behind. No, indeed. If he had he might have dropped his big camera and maybe hurt the little bird which all good photographers ask us to watch until he squeezes the little rubber bulb.
But, no, sir! the good-hearted Photographer Crane never suspected for a moment that he was in danger. My, but it was mighty lucky that just then Professor Crow chanced to look down from his Tall Pine Tree House. Dear me! I can’t bear to think what would have happened pretty soon, and maybe mighty quick, to Photographer Crane if the good professor bird had looked the other way!
“Bless my gold stripes and twenty-five silver buttons!” exclaimed the brave Policeman Dog on hearing the radio call. Jumping up from his mahogany desk, in less time than I can take to tell it, he picked up his big hickory club and hurried to the Tall Pine Tree.
“Ha, ha!” chuckled the wicked Weasel to himself as he crept after poor Photographer Crane, “in just two minutes or three I’ll bite in two his long skinny left leg, ha, ha!”
“I’ll soon be at the Old Bramble Patch,” thought the kind camera picture bird, strutting along, first on one leg and then on the other. “I’ll make a beautiful picture of the pretty yellow canary swinging in her gold cage on the front porch, the shiny brass knob on the front door, Lady Love standing on the kitchen porch and Little Jack Rabbit feeding the pigeons.”
“Gracious me! I wish the Policeman Dog would hurry,” sighed the anxious but learned old crow bird, peering down from his Tall Pine Tree House. He could just see Old Man Weasel’s tail as he crept, oh, so softly after Mr. Crane.
“I won’t do a thing to that old Weasel,” laughed the Policeman Dog, as he ran swiftly through the forest.
“My, this camera is heavy,” sighed Photographer Crane, slipping it off his back. “I guess I’ll rest a minute or three,” and down he sat on an old log. He didn’t see Old Man Weasel lean around a tree. Oh, my, no!
But don’t worry, little reader, when “Pop goes the weasel!” as they used to sing in the country when I was a boy.
Yes, “Pop” went Old Man Weasel, and the next minute poor Photographer Crane found himself underneath that wicked furry animal.
“Help! Help!” shouted the long-legged camera man bird, giving a kick-out with his long left leg.
“Keep quiet,” snarled Old Man Weasel, trying his best to bite the poor struggling Crane’s bobbing-about head.
“Help! help!” shouted more loudly Photographer Crane. “Help! Help! Please help me, somebody!”
“I will,” replied the Policeman Dog, swinging his big hickory stick in the air. Down it came, whacko! on the wicked Weasel’s little red cap.
“Ouch! Ouch!” he whined, letting Photographer Crane go in a hurry.
The next minute the Policeman Dog slipped a pair of handcuffs over that old Weasel’s front paws.
“Dear, dear me!” sighed poor Photographer Crane, struggling to his feet, no easy matter, let me tell you. Like walking up to the top of the Woolworth Building when the elevators are on strike! At last, when he had straightened out his long, thin knobby legs, he turned to the kind Policeman Dog.
“Whenever you want your picture taken, come to me. I’ll take you in fourteen different poses for less than nothing. Why, I’ll tint them in pretty colors and maybe win a Little Jack Rabbit book for a prize.”
Then off he went to the Old Bramble Patch as the Policeman Dog trotted away with Old Man Weasel to the Jail House in Carrot City.
At last Photographer Crane reached the Old Bramble Patch. There stood Lady Love and Little Jack Rabbit at the front gate, dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, ready and smiling for a picture.
“Now look pleasant,” said Photographer Crane, setting up his big camera on its three long slender yellow legs, though why he said it when both little bunnies were all smiles puzzles me, but I guess it must have been from force of habit.
“All over!” he said in a minute. That is, after he had squeezed a little rubber ball on the end of a rubber tube. “All over,” and he smiled at the two little bunnies.
“I hope my hair wasn’t all mussed,” sighed the little rabbit’s pretty mother.
“You’re the prettiest bunny I ever photographed,” said the picture-taker bird. “Your blue apron will look just lovely in the photo.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Lady Love, hopping into the kitchen to look at the lollypop stew.
Then, folding up his camera, Photographer Crane went home to his picture parlor, to which some day you boys and girls may go to have your photos taken.