Week 9 Story: Jack & Junior

(Brer Rabbit Picture)

     Now, we've all heard the stories of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and all they get up to. All ya'll know how Brer Rabbit always pullin' the wool over Brer Fox's eyes. But what ya'll all ain't never heard about, was their younguns. 

    Well, back in that little holler that all them animals lived in, Miss Meadows would watch the younguns and teach em proper. They learn readin', writin', and countin'. She loved 'em all like they was her own. But the nearest and dearest ones close to her heart were them there lil bunnies from Brer Rabbit and his Missus. Miss Meadows thought they was cute as a bug's ear. So they could no wrong in her eyes. 

    Welp, the littlest out of them lil bunnies was named Jack. Even though he was the cutest, he was also smart as a whip. He could sell ice to a penguin if you asked him to do it. And he mostly used them smarts to always get one over on lil Fox, Jr. He was Brer Fox and Missus Fox's only lil pup. He was a trouble maker, that one. He's always goin' after Jack and the lil bunnies. Course, he just was doin' what his Pa was always doin'. 

  One day all the younguns was out in Miss Meadows garden helpin' her to tend to it. Each youngun had a certain job to do. Jack was supposed to be paintin' the little fence that went round the garden to a nice white color. Well, Jack so got bored. He looked round at ole Junior pullin' up weeds and grinned when an idea came to his head. "I am so lucky that Miss Meadows picked me for this here job. Ain't nobody anywheres that can do this job," he said real loud like gettin' Junior's attention.

"What you over here yammerin' about, Jack? Alls yuns is doin' is paintin' that fence over yonder. It ain't that hard." Junior was snarlin' at him. 

"Yeah, but Miss Meadows said only I can do this job. On count of I'm SPECIAL, and only SPECIAL younguns can do this work," He was sayin' actin' all proud like.

Junior scratched his head a' thinkin'. What if he went over there and made lil ole Jack give his job to him? Then Miss Meadows would think HE was special. "Hmm..yun's is right. So gimmee that brush!" He yanked it out Jack's lil paw and pushed him real good to the ground. 

Jack grinned to hisself. He just sat back and watched the day drifitin' on by while ole Junior painted that whole fence. 

When Miss Meadows called all the younguns to show her their work, she saw that there fence was painted but her garden still afull of weeds. "Well, bless me! Looks like you are lazier than a fat tick on a hound dog, Junior Fox!" Miss Meadows was exclaimin' when she saw that there weren't no weeds pulled up in the garden. "I'm gonna tan your hide fer bein' so lazy! And I'm gonna tell yer Pa when I sees him!" She took him inside by the ear and all the children could hear him gettin a whippin' from Miss Meadows' switch she ain't hardly ever used. All the while, Jack justa sittin' there grinnin' to hisself. 

A/N: 

For this story, I wanted to do something with Brer Rabbit's children. They are mentioned a lot in the stories but we are never given any specific characteristics of one of the little bunnies. So I thought I would make the youngest one a trickster, just like Brer Rabbit. I was thinking of what kind of trick he could pull when I though of also giving the other animals children too. This is how Junior Fox was created. I also took a bit of inspiration from Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer tricks a bunch of boys into painting a fence for him, and ends up not having to do the work. I also used a different kind of Southern language. I'm from East Tennessee and tried to stick with slang from there because that's what I'm more familiar with. Thanks for reading! 

Bibliography:

Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings by Joel Chandler Harris (1881).