The Little Brute Family by Russell and Lillian Hoban For Esme,
Who carries little wandering good feelings in her tiny pocket.
In the middle of a dark and shadowy woods lived a little family of brutes.
They were Papa Brute,
Mama Brute,
Brother and Sister Brute,
And Baby Brute.
In the morning,
Mama cooked a sand and gravel porridge,
And the family snarled and grimaced as they spooned it up.
No one said,
Please.
No one said,
Thank you.
And no one said,
Mmm,
How delicious,
Because it was not delicious.
Baby Brute howled between spoonfuls.
Brother and Sister kicked each other under the table.
Mama and Papa made faces while they ate.
After breakfast,
Papa Brute took up his sack and went off to gather sticks and stones.
Mama stayed home to thump the furniture and bang the pots and scold the baby.
And Brother and Sister pushed and shoved and punched and pinched their way to school.
In the evenings,
Mama served a stew of sticks and stones,
And the family ate it with growls and grumbling.
Then they groaned and went to sleep.
That was how they lived.
They never laughed and said,
Delightful.
They never smiled and said,
Oh,
How lovely.
In the spring,
The little brutes made heavy kites that bumped along the ground and would not.
In the summer,
They flung themselves into the pond and sank like stones,
But never learned to swim.
In the fall,
They jumped into great piles of leaves and stamped on one another,
Yelling.
In the winter,
They leapt onto their crooked,
Clumsy sleds that took them crashing into snowbanks where they stuck headfirst and screamed.
That was how they lived in the dark and shadowy woods.
Then,
One day,
Baby Brute found a little wandering,
Lost,
Good feeling in a field of daisies,
And he caught it in his paw and put it in his tiny pocket.
And he felt so good that he laughed and said,
How lovely.
Baby Brute felt good all afternoon.
And at supper,
When his bowl was filled with sticks and stones,
He said,
Thank you.
Then the little good feeling flew out of his tiny pocket and hovered over the table,
Humming and smiling.
How lovely,
Said Mama,
Without even snarling.
Delightful,
Said Papa,
Forgetting his growl.
Oh,
Please,
Said all the little brutes together,
Let it stay,
Let it stay with us.
And Papa smiled and said,
Oh.
When Papa Brute went out for his sticks and stones the next day,
He found wild berries,
Salad greens,
And honey,
And he brought them home instead.
At supper,
Everyone said,
How delicious,
Because it was delicious.
And everyone said,
Please and thank you.
And they never ate sticks and stones stew again.
Then the little good feeling stopped wandering and stayed with the little brute family.
When springtime came,
The little brutes made bright new kites that flew high in the sky.
And in the summer,
They swam just beautifully.
In the fall,
They gathered nuts and acorns that they roasted by a cozy fire when winter came.
And in the evening,
In the evening,
They sang songs together.
The little good feeling stayed and stayed and stayed and never,
Ever went away.
And when springtime came again,
The little brute family changed their name to Nice.
Sweet dreams to you,
And may all of your dreams come true.
