The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss

In "The Butter Battle Book" by Dr. Seuss, the narrator's grandfather tells him about the conflict between the yukes and the zooks. The yukes eat bread with the butter side up, while the zooks eat it with the butter side down. The grandfather explains how he used to be part of the Zook-Watching Border Patrol, but one day a zook named Van Itch broke his sniffberry switch. The yukes then gave the grandfather a triple-sling jigger to confront Van Itch. THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK by Dr. Seuss On the last day of summer, ten hours before fall, my grandfather took me out to the wall. For a while he stood silent, then finally, he said, with a very sad shake of his very old head, As you know, on this side of the wall, we are yukes. On the far other side of this wall live the zooks. Then my grandfather said, It's high time that you knew of the terribly horrible things that zooks do. In every zook house and in every zook town, every zook eats his bread with the butter side down. But we yukes, as you know, when we breakfast or sup, spread our bread, Grandpa said, with the butter side up. That's the right honest way, Grandpa gritted his teeth, so you can't trust a zook who spreads bread underneath. Every zook must be watched, he has kinks in his soul, that's why as a youth I made watching my goal, watching zooks for the Zook-Watching Border Patrol. In those days, of course, the wall wasn't so high, and I could look at a zook square in the eye. If he dared to come close, I could give him a twitch with my tough-tufted prickly sniffberry switch. For a while that went fine, all the zooks stayed away, and our country was safe. Then one terrible day, a very rude zook by the name of Van Itch snuck up and slingshotted my sniffberry switch. With my broken-off switch, my head hung in shame. To the chief yookaroo in great sorrow I came, but our leader just smiled, he said, you're not to blame, we'll dress you right up in a fancier suit, we'll give you a fancier slingshot to shoot. And he ordered the boys in the back room to figure how to build me some sort of a triple-sling jigger. With my triple-sling jigger, I sure felt much bigger. I marched to the wall with my great vim and great vigor, right up to Van Itch with my hand on the trigger, I'll have no more nonsense, I said with a frown, from zooks who eat bread with the butter side down. Van Itch looked quite sickly, he ran off quite quickly.