# SANDMAN’S
RAINY DAY STORIES

Books by

ABBIE PHILLIPS WALKER

SANDMAN’S STORIES OF DRUSILLA DOLL

SANDMAN’S RAINY DAY STORIES

SANDMAN’S CHRISTMAS STORIES

SANDMAN’S TWILIGHT STORIES

TOLD BY THE SANDMAN

SANDMAN’S TALES

THE SANDMAN’S HOUR

Harper & Brothers Publishers

Established 1817

Sandman’s Rainy Day Stories

By Abbie Phillips Walker
Illustrated by Rhoda C. Chase

Harper & Brothers, Publishers

Sandman’s Rainy Day Stories

Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1920
G—U

This book is lovingly dedicated
to the memory of
my father
THOMAS PHILLIPS

## CONTENTS

| PAGE
Princess Cantilla | 3
The Tree of Swords | 18
The Silver Horseshoes | 28
The Blue Castle | 37
Nardo and the Princess | 50
Old Three Heads | 59
The Enchanted Boat | 73
Nicko and the Ogre | 83
The Gingerbread Rock | 91
Prince Roul’s Bride | 100
Sunev | 109
Cilla and the Dwarf | 117
Greta and the Black Cat | 123
The Knight of the Bright Star | 132
The Dolphin’s Bride | 138
Princess Dido and the Prince of the Roses | 144
Catville Gossip | 151
How the Elephant Got His Trunk | 154
Why Rabbits Have Short Tails | 160
The Hunter’s Friend, Johnnie Bear | 166
Plaid Trousers | 170
The Three Runaways | 177

SANDMAN’S
RAINY DAY STORIES

[Pg 3]

## PRINCESS CANTILLA

Princess Cantilla lived in a castle like most princesses, but she was not a rich princess, for her father had lost all his lands and money by quarreling with other kings about the length and breadth of his kingdom and theirs.

So poor little Cantilla had to work just like any common peasant girl and cook the meals for herself and her father.

The old castle where Cantilla and her father lived had fallen into decay, and only a few rooms at one end were now used, so that the bats and owls had taken possession of the towers and once gorgeous halls on the opposite side of the castle, where beautiful ladies and courtly gentlemen were once seen in gay[Pg 4] and festive pleasures. A kitchen and a bedroom apiece were all the rooms that Cantilla and her father, the old King, used, and the furniture was so old it hardly held together.

One day Cantilla was cooking soup for dinner, and as the steam rolled up from the kettle Cantilla thought she saw a face with a long beard looking at her. She drew her hand across her eyes to make her sight more clear, and the next time she looked she did see a face, and a form, too.

A little man with a misshapen back and a long white beard, the ends of which he carried over one arm, stepped from the cover of the boiling pot and hopped to the floor.

“Princess,” he said, bowing low before Cantilla, “I am an enchanted dwarf. I can give you back your once beautiful home and make your father a rich king again.

“I can cause all the rooms of the old castle to become new and filled with beautiful hangings and furniture, as they were before your father became so poor.”

Cantilla began to smile at the thought of all the luxury and comfort the dwarf pictured, and she lost sight of his ugly-looking body and[Pg 5] face for a minute, but she was brought to her senses by what the dwarf next said.

“All this will I give you, Princess Cantilla, if you will become my wife,” he said, taking a step closer to Cantilla.

“Oh no, no! I cannot do that,” said Cantilla, holding up both hands as if to ward off even the thought of such a thing.

“Wait,” said the dwarf. “Do not be so hasty, my Princess. I will come again for your reply to-night at the fountain in the garden where the honeysuckle grows.”

Before Cantilla could reply to this he swung his beard over his head and disappeared in a cloud of what looked like steam or smoke.

Cantilla looked about her and pinched herself to make sure she had not dreamed all she had just seen, and by and by she believed it was a dream—that she must have fallen asleep in her chair by the fire.

That night while she was sleeping she was awakened by feeling some one touch her on the face.

Cantilla had been awakened so many times by the little mice that overran the old castle that she only brushed her face with her hand without opening her eyes and went to sleep again.

[Pg 6]

“Cantilla, open your eyes! Open your eyes!” she heard some one whisper close to her ear, and again she felt the touch of something on her face.

Cantilla opened her eyes and sat up in bed. The room was quite bright, and a beautiful lamp with a pink silk shade gave everything in the room a rose tint.

Cantilla was sure she was dreaming, for it was not her old shabby room at all she was looking at.

She looked down at the covering of her bed—that was pink silk, too; she felt of it and found it was filled with the softest down; she also noticed that she wore a beautiful night-robe of pink silk and lace.

On the floor beside the bed on a soft, pink rug stood two little satin slippers, trimmed with swan’s-down.

“I am dreaming,” said Cantilla, “but I will enjoy it while it lasts,” and she looked about her.

The furniture was white and gold, and soft pink rugs covered the floor. Her bed had little gold Cupids on each post, and they held in their hands the ends of pink silk that formed a beautiful canopy; little frills of lace[Pg 7] fell from the bottom of the silk, making it look very soft and pretty in the lamplight.

On the table beside her bed, which held her lamp, Cantilla saw a big gold-and-glass bottle. She reached for it and took out the gold stopper, then she tipped the bottle and bathed her face and hands with the delicious perfume it held.

Cantilla put her little feet out of bed and slipped them into the slippers and walked over to the gold-and-white dressing-table at the other side of the room.

Everything was so beautiful she just looked at first, then she picked up a gold brush and smoothed her hair. She took up each of the gold toilet articles and saw that on each was the letter “C.”

“They must belong to me,” said Cantilla. “But, of course, it is all a dream,” as she opened a drawer of a big gold-and-white chest.

What she saw made Cantilla gasp with wonder, for the drawer was filled with beautiful clothes, and as she opened the others she found they all were filled with silk and lace-trimmed clothes.

Cantilla forgot all about her dream and ran, just as though she were awake, to a closet[Pg 8] door that was open. She swung it back and looked; there hung before her astonished gaze pink silk dresses and blue silk dresses and white and dainty green and yellow silk dresses.

Now, I did not tell you that Cantilla had black hair which hung in long curls about her pretty face and over her pretty white shoulders, and her eyes were as deep-blue as the deepest blue of a violet, and when she put on one of the pink silk dresses and stepped in front of a long mirror she forgot all else for a moment. Then suddenly she heard her name called softly. “Cantilla, Cantilla,” the voice said.

Cantilla looked up, and on the top of the mirror stood a little fairy dressed in pink gauze.

“Oh! you have a pretty pink dress, too,” said Cantilla, forgetting to be surprised at seeing a fairy in her room.

“Yes, but it is the only dress I own,” said the little creature, with a smile, “while you have a closet full; but then mine never wear out, and yours will.”

“You mean I will wake up in a minute, I suppose,” said Cantilla. “Yes, I know it is[Pg 9] a dream, but I am having a good time. I wish I could have a dream like this every night. I wouldn’t mind being poor through the day.”

“Ah! but you are not dreaming at all, Princess Cantilla,” said the fairy, “and if you will follow me I will show you more of your beautiful home. Come along.”

Cantilla did not answer, but walked after the fairy, who skimmed along before Cantilla like a little pink bird.

The fairy touched a door with her wand and it flew open. Cantilla looked about her in wonder, for the hall, which had been hung with tatters of faded tapestry, now looked like the hall of a king.

The tapestry hung whole and rich-looking upon the walls, which were of deep-blue and gold. The old armor that had been broken and covered with dust and mold was erect as though its former wearer was inside it.

The fairy touched the door of the room where the old King was sleeping, and again Cantilla looked in wonder, for her father slept beneath a canopy of red and gold upon a bed of gold, and all the furnishings of his room were such as a king would have.

[Pg 10]

Cantilla looked at her father. He was smiling in his sleep, and the care-worn look had gone from his face.

The fairy beckoned to her and Cantilla, with one backward glance at her sleeping father, followed.

Next the old dining-hall was opened for Cantilla to see. The once faded and torn draperies were whole, and bats and owls were gone from the corners of the room where they had often made their nests.

The beautiful table of onyx and silver was covered with dishes of silver, and dainty lace napkins lay beside each place as though ready for the coming guests. But the fairy led her away, and next Cantilla saw the beautiful halls where the old King held his grand balls and kings and queens and princes and princesses had danced.

The lights burned in the gold-and-glass fixtures fastened to the walls and made the place look like fairyland.

The blue damask curtains with their edge of priceless lace hung from the windows, whole and shimmering with richness, and chairs of gold stood upright and bright against the walls, and the floor shone with polish.

[Pg 11]

And so through the whole castle the fairy led the wondering little Princess to look at her old ruined home, now beautiful and whole.

Then the fairy took Cantilla to the gardens. The once dry fountains were playing in the moonlight, the nightingales could be heard among the roses, and the air was filled with rich perfume.

When they reached the lower end of the garden Cantilla suddenly stopped and stood very still. She was beside a fountain, and honeysuckle grew over an arbor close beside it.

Cantilla remembered the words of the dwarf she had seen in her dream, and his words, “I will come for your reply to-night at the fountain where the honeysuckle grows.”

The fairy stood on a bush beside her. “You remember now, do you not?” she asked. “You see it was not a dream this morning, and you are not dreaming now, my Princess, but I cannot help you. I have finished my work and must return to my Queen. Farewell!”

Cantilla watched the fairy disappear without uttering a single word. She saw in her mind’s eye only the ugly features of the dwarf and heard his words.

In another minute she saw what looked[Pg 12] like a cloud near the honeysuckle arbor, and in another minute the dwarf of the morning stood before her with the ends of his long white beard thrown over one arm.

“I have come, Princess Cantilla, for my answer,” said the dwarf. “Marry me and all you have seen shall be yours.”

Cantilla threw out her hands as she had in the morning and started to reply, but the dwarf checked her. “Before you give your answer,” he said, “think of your old father and how contented and happy he looked surrounded by the comforts of his former days of prosperity.”

Cantilla let her hands fall by her side, her head bent low, and she stood lost in thought. She saw again her old father in his bed of gold, and the face that looked so happy, then she raised her head without looking at the ugly creature before her and said: “I consent; I will become your wife; I cannot love you, but I will wed you if that will content you.”

“Follow me, then,” said the dwarf, throwing his long beard over his head and letting it fall over Cantilla as he spoke.

Cantilla saw only a fleecy cloud closing all about her, and the next thing she knew she[Pg 13] was on a little island in the middle of a deep blue ocean, with the dwarf standing beside her.

The dwarf, with his beard still over one arm, held his hands to his mouth and gave a long, loud call, which seemed to descend to the depths of the ocean.

Up from the water came an arm and hand holding a twisted shell, and then Cantilla saw a head appear and blow a long, loud blast from the shell.

A splashing was heard, and out of the water came an old man in a chariot of mother-of-pearl.

The chariot was drawn by two horses with feet and manes of gold, and in one hand the old man carried a long wand with three prongs at one end.

The old man struck the water with the queer-looking wand, and from all over the surface of the water come the sea nymphs and all sorts of monsters and creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean.

But when the mermaids appeared the old man sent them back quickly and drove his chariot toward Cantilla and the dwarf.

Cantilla by this time was beyond being frightened or surprised, and she stood beside[Pg 14] the dwarf waiting for the next thing to happen.

“My Lord Neptune,” said the dwarf, bowing low as the old man drove close to the island on which Cantilla and the dwarf stood, “I have come with my Princess for you to perform the ceremony. She has consented to become my wife.”

“What!” cried the old man, in an angry voice, “do you mean you have found a Princess who will consent to have such a husband as you are—ugly and misshapen wretch?”

“Answer him, my Princess,” said the dwarf. “Tell my Lord Neptune you consent to marry me.”

“I do consent to marry the dwarf,” Cantilla managed to say, and again the old man struck the water, this time in anger, and the water spouted about them like huge fountains throwing up rivers.

Cantilla felt the dwarf take her hand, and he said, “Fear not, my Princess; it will soon be over.”

In a few minutes the water was calm again, and the old man in the chariot stood a little way off, surrounded by the nymphs and other[Pg 15] creatures, holding the three-pronged wand high over his head.

“I release you; you are wed; be gone from my sight,” said the old man, and as the trumpet-bearer sounded his loud call, the old man and his chariot passed into the deep water, followed by all his nymphs and the others.

Cantilla looked toward the dwarf, wondering if ever any one had such a strange wedding, but to her surprise he was gone and by her side stood a handsome man, who said: “My Princess, behold in me your husband. I am free from the spell of the old man of the sea, who wanted me to become a sea monster and live under the ocean.

“I was changed into the shape of the ugly dwarf because I would not marry a mermaid who happened to fall in love with me one day while I was bathing, and she called upon a sea witch to change me into a sea monster, but I escaped before I took on the sea shape, but not before I was changed into the ugly dwarf you saw this morning.

“A kind fairy interceded with her Queen to save me, and she went to the old man, who is Neptune, the God of the Waters. He told the Queen if I could find a princess who would[Pg 16] consent to marry me he would release me from the spell the sea witch had cast over me.

“You know how that was accomplished, my Princess, and if you think you can accept me in place of the dwarf for your husband we will return to the castle, where your father is still sleeping, I expect, for the Fairy Queen said she would watch until sunrise for our return.”

Cantilla, no longer looking sad, but smiling and happy, put her hand in her husband’s and told him she was the happiest girl in the world.

“And I am the happiest man in the world,” said her husband, “for I not only am freed from the spell of the sea witch, but I have won the one woman in the world I could ever love for my wife.”

Three times he clapped his hands together, and the little fairy in the pink gauze dress appeared.

“The Queen sends her love to you and this message, ‘Bless you, my children,’ and now I will take you home to the castle.”

She touched the Princess and her husband on the cheek with her wand, and Cantilla found herself back in the castle garden by the fountain and honeysuckle arbor, with her handsome husband standing by her side.

[Pg 17]

“Come, my dear, we must go in to breakfast,” said her husband; “your father will be waiting for us.”

“How will we explain about our wedding and the changed appearance of the castle?” asked Cantilla.

“Oh! the Fairy Queen has arranged all that,” said Cantilla’s husband. “Your father will not remember he ever lost his fortune; he will ask no questions.”

Cantilla and her husband went hand in hand into the castle to their breakfast, and from that day Cantilla never knew another sorrow or unhappy moment.

[Pg 18]

## THE TREE OF SWORDS

Once there lived a king who had a daughter that had been changed by a wicked witch into a brindle cow.

The witch had wanted the King to invite her to the feast when the Princess was born, and because he invited her only into the servants’ hall and not to the feast of the royal family the old witch had thrown a spell over the baby, and when she grew to womanhood she suddenly one day changed into the brindle cow. Great was the surprise of the King and Queen when they went to the room of the Princess one morning and found in her dainty lace bed a cow in place of their pretty daughter.

They sent for the old witch at once, for they knew that some magic spell must have caused[Pg 19] this terrible change, but the old witch sent back word that the only thing that would change the Princess back to her own shape was a pear from the tree which grew by the mountain of ice.

Now this mountain of ice all the people knew was controlled by a three-headed troll, and the tree which grew near by was the chimney to his home under the mountain.

There was nothing to do but to offer money to the one who would get the pear which would restore the little Princess to her own form.

There was another thing that made it very dangerous to try to get the pear, and this was that no sooner did one attempt to touch the tree than all its branches changed to sharp swords.

To reach the tree the mountain must be climbed, and this being of ice, the ones who tried were in danger of slipping and being killed as they fell, sliding down the mountain and striking on the tree, which would be filled with swords as soon as they struck it.

After a while all those who tried gave it up as too dangerous, and the King then sent out word that to the one who would bring the[Pg 20] pear, be he rich or poor, of high or low degree, he would give to him the Princess for a wife, as well as a barrel of gold.

But no one would risk his life for that offer, for they thought perhaps the Princess would not regain her shape even after eating the pear, and who would wish to marry a cow, even if she were royal?

But one day a poor youth came to the palace and told the King and Queen that he would try to get a pear if they would give him the brindle cow before he ventured up the mountain of ice. “For if I fail,” he said, “I wish to leave my poor mother something, and a cow is always useful.”

The King offered money, but the youth would have nothing but the brindle cow, so they led away the cow to the peasant’s barn, while the King and Queen watched her go with sad hearts.

On her back was a velvet blanket trimmed with gold, and the Queen tried to make the peasant take a soft bed for her to sleep on, but this he would not do. “No, she is a cow, and must sleep in the barn like other cows,” he said.

The King and Queen had all this time been[Pg 21] feeding the cow on dainty fruit and all sorts of good things, and the youth had heard that the pear she was to eat to save her would be bitter and bad to taste, and he wanted to get her used to eating anything that was given her.

The peasant youth began his climb up the mountain of ice, but each day for a month he only went one step ahead, for while he sometimes went far up, each time he would slip back.

And all this time the poor little cow was growing thinner and thinner, for she would not eat the food that was put before her.

One day when the peasant youth was about discouraged and thought he would have to give up trying for the pear, he felt the ice under him suddenly grow soft and his feet seemed to stick and not slip any more.

To his surprise, when he looked at his feet he saw a little fairy standing on each foot and touching them with her wand.

Up he went swiftly now, and soon was at a place on the mountain where he could touch the magic tree, and there the little fairies told him they were powerless to help him further.

“We can only tell you that if you can get from the three-headed troll the belt he wears[Pg 22] you can get the pear, but we fairies cannot throw a spell over trolls,” they told him.

When the fairies disappeared the peasant felt more discouraged than before, for there he was in danger of slipping, and before him was the dreadful tree.

But while he stood thinking the tree opened and out came the troll, leaving the tree wide open behind him.

He did not look up or down, to right or left, but walked down the mountain, and the youth, sitting flat upon the ice, slid into the open tree.

Down, down he went! And then suddenly he found himself in a big room, in one corner of which was a huge bed, in another a big stove, in another a big chair and table, and in the fourth corner stood a large sword so tall that the peasant could easily hide behind it.

And lucky it was for him that it was big, for at that moment in came the three-headed troll and rolled all six of his eyes about the room.

“He, hi, ho, hun! I smell the flesh of a mortal son,” he said. “You cannot escape me, so come out from wherever you are hiding!” The frightened youth was trembling so that the sword tipped over, and there he stood before[Pg 23] the three-headed troll, who jumped to catch him.

But though he had three heads, he had only two feet, and, tripping over the sword, he fell sprawling on the floor.

Now his three heads were so heavy that, once he was down, it was hard work to get up, and while he struggled his belt became unfastened and lay under him on the floor.

The peasant saw this and, knowing he was in danger anyway, thought he would risk a little more.

So he ran over to the troll and with both hands tugged at the belt, and as the troll rolled over out from under him it came.

Quickly as he could he put the belt about his waist, and, to his surprise, he felt so strong that the size of the sword on the floor seemed no longer to frighten him.

He picked it up and found that it was as light as a tin one, and then the troll, rolling over again, saw his belt around the peasant’s waist and his sword in his hand, and he cried out, “My power is gone!” as he tried to crawl away.

“Tell me how to get a pear from the tree and I will spare your life,” said the peasant.

[Pg 24]

The troll managed to get upon his feet, but he was no longer the powerful creature he had been a few moments before.

“Follow me,” he said, as he led the peasant out of the door of the tree, which was still open.

The tree was filled with swords, all shiny and sharp-looking, as the sun fell upon them, for as soon as the peasant had slid in the door the swords had appeared and had warned the troll before he entered that some mortal was near by.

“If you will promise to do as I ask you after you have the pear, I will tell you the secret of getting it,” said the troll. “It will not harm any one to grant my last wish.”

So the youth promised and the troll said: “You must strike the swords on the tree with the sword you hold until the sparks fly. Then the pears which you see hanging from the swords will fall to the ground, but the tree will burn up.

“And then there will be nothing for me. My magic power will be gone forever. So I ask that you will then strike me with the sword on my middle head, and that will change me into a shape which will never harm any one again.”

[Pg 25]

This the youth said he would do and began to strike the swords on the tree, making the sparks fly and the pears drop, and then all at once the tree began to burn.

Keeping the sword still in his grasp, the youth looked for the largest of the green pears and picked it up, putting it in his pocket.

“Don’t forget your promise,” said the troll as the youth started to go away. “You need not be afraid,” he said as the youth drew back. “The blow will not hurt me.”

So the youth lifted the sword and brought it down on the troll’s middle head with such force that the sword fell from his hands and struck the mountain of ice with such a bang that the ice began to crack.

At first the youth did not see what had happened, the noise had startled him so, but the next minute he saw that in place of the troll stood a beautiful tree filled with pears, and the mountain was no longer ice, but covered with soft, green moss.

He did not stop, but down the mountain he ran and to his home, where the brindle cow stood in the barn, so hungry she opened her mouth at once and ate the pear, thinking it would be sweet and juicy, but it was far from[Pg 26] that. It was so bitter and bad that had she not been so hungry she could not have eaten it, but it was swallowed before she knew it, and there in the stall of the peasant’s barn stood the pretty Princess looking about her in astonishment.

“How did I come in this horrid place, and what a dirty-looking man you are!” she said. “Take me home at once! My father is the King, and he will punish you if you do not obey me!”

It did not take the peasant long to take her home, and when the Queen and the King saw their daughter in her own form again they fell on their knees before the peasant youth and thanked him.

But the Princess did not understand what it all meant, and said: “Why do you kneel to him? He should kneel to you! Are you not King and Queen of this land, and this man a poor peasant?”

Before the King could explain to the Princess the youth said: “I have brought you your daughter, but you must keep her. I could never marry a maid who thought herself above me. Give me gold and let me go back to my home!”

[Pg 27]

He was wise enough to see that a poor peasant and a princess could not be happy together and a peasant girl was a more fitting bride for him.

The Princess was very sorry for all she had said when she found out the peasant had saved her, and when he was married she sent to his wife a chest of linen and silver which made her the envy of all the other peasants for miles around.

The troll was never heard of again, and only the peasant youth knows that the pear-tree on the side of the mountain which bears such juicy fruit was once the three-headed troll who lived under the tree of swords.

[Pg 28]

## THE SILVER HORSESHOES

Once upon a time there lived a king who wanted a son-in-law who would be a good soldier as well as a good husband, so he put his daughter, the Princess, who, of course, was very beautiful, in a tower on top of a high mountain. Then he sent out word all over his kingdom and to all the other kingdoms that to the youth who could get to the top of the tower he would give the Princess for a wife.

But when the youths came from far and near they found the mountain was slippery as glass, and their horses slipped back faster than they could climb.

In a kingdom far from where the King lived was a poor prince whose father had lost all his[Pg 29] lands and money in wars, so that when he died he left the Prince nothing but the castle and a black horse.

One day the Prince was feeding his horse and thinking of the Princess on top of the high mountain in the tower, and he spoke his thought out loud.

“If only I had some clothes fit to be seen,” he said, “I would try to reach the Princess in the tower, and this poverty would be at an end. And you, my beauty, would have oats in plenty then,” patting the horse on the neck.

“Why don’t you try, master?” said the horse.

The Prince was surprised to hear the horse speak, but still he had heard of such things happening, and he answered, saying: “I have no clothes; besides, many others have tried, and no horse is able to climb the mountain.”

“Master, go to the witch that lives in a cave in the middle of the woods at midnight and get my shoes,” said the horse. And then he fell to eating his scanty dinner and said no more.

The Prince thought there was nothing to lose by doing as the horse told him, so that[Pg 30] night he went to the woods to find the witch. The woods he found easily, but to find the cave was a different matter. First he met a fox, and he asked the way to the cave of the witch.

“Oh, master,” said the fox, “take my advice and go home; no good will come to you if you find it.”

But the Prince would not give up the quest, so he asked a wolf that he met next where the cave was located in the woods.

The wolf ran away, saying: “You better go home. That cave will bring only harm to any one who finds it.”

The Prince was not to be frightened and on he went, and an owl was the next one he saw. “Where is the cave the old witch lives in?” he asked.

“Hoot! hoot!” said the owl, flapping his wings. “Be off, man, while there is time. Don’t go near that cave if you value your life,” and off flew the owl, leaving the Prince no wiser than before.

After going deep into the woods—in fact, he was at the very center and did not know it—the Prince stood still and listened.

A sound reached his ear which seemed like[Pg 31] the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and the Prince went in the direction from which the sound came.

All at once he found himself in front of the cave for which he had searched so long, and, looking in, he saw the old witch prancing about in the craziest manner.

She would climb the side of her cave with as much ease as she could walk across the floor, and then, giving a spring, she would walk on the top of the cave, her head hanging down toward the floor.

While the Prince was looking and wondering at this strange performance he noticed something shining on her feet, and when he looked closer, to his surprise he saw that the witch had on her feet silver horseshoes. Then he knew what his black horse had said was worth listening to—he was to get the shoes the old witch was wearing.

But then he thought: “She has on only two; I must have four. I wonder where are the other two.”

Just then a black cat came dancing into the cave, and on her hind feet the Prince saw the other two shoes he wanted. Such dancing and climbing the Prince had never seen as was[Pg 32] done by the old witch and her black cat. The silver shoes seemed to take them anywhere and they could do anything while they wore them.

After a while the witch and the black cat grew weary and took off the shoes, and the Prince saw them lift up a stone in the middle of the cave and drop the four silver horseshoes into a hole and then drop the stone again.

After the witch and the black cat were fast asleep in one corner of the cave the Prince crept in softly and lifted the stone. At the bottom of a deep hole he saw the horseshoes, and he was wondering how he could get them when he felt a push from behind and down he went into the hole, landing at the bottom where the shoes were.

The old witch had awakened and had pushed him in, and the Prince could hear her and the cat jumping about and laughing with glee that they had trapped him.

When the Prince found himself in the hole under the cave where the old witch lived he thought his end had come. It was as dark as a dungeon. The only thing he could see was the glitter of the silver horseshoes.

While he stood looking at them and thinking[Pg 33] how the old witch and her cat jumped about, and wondering what she would do with him, he suddenly was struck with an idea.

He would put on the shoes, one on each foot, and take the other two in his hands.

No sooner did he think it than he did it, and, giving a spring, up he went, the stone flying off the top of the hole as he touched it with his hands holding the silver horseshoes.

Into the cave he jumped, and the old witch and her black cat sprang at him, but he had only to run, and, without touching the ground, away he flew through the forest, the old witch and her cat after him.

Sometimes they would almost catch him, for the witch had jumped on her broomstick and the cat sat on behind her, and they flew over trees and bushes as well as the Prince.

The Prince knew he was lost if they caught him, and finally decided to turn around and run toward them, thinking he might be able to knock the witch off her broomstick and so stop their flight.

No sooner did he turn than the shining silver shoes cast a ray of light on the old witch and her cat and like magic they tumbled[Pg 34] off the broomstick, and away went the stick higher and higher in the air until it disappeared; and on the ground where the cat and the old witch fell the Prince saw two stones, one big and the other smaller and almost black, so he knew he was rid of his enemies and could get out of the forest safely with the silver horseshoes.

The black horse danced with delight when he saw the shoes, and stood still until they were fastened on his feet; then he pranced about and shook his head in a very knowing manner, though he did not speak again, and the Prince mounted him and rode away, forgetting all about his shabby coat.

The black horse trotted along like any other horse until they came to the mountain on top of which the Princess lived in the tower; then the Prince felt himself gliding up the mountain, past all the other youths who were vainly trying to climb to the top.

Up and up they went until the Prince found himself by the tower. When he looked at the height he knew his troubles were not at an end. He looked around for some way to scale the wall, but it was as smooth as glass. While he stood looking at the top he saw something[Pg 35] white slowly coming down the wall from a little window.

Down it came until the Prince could see that it was a piece of white thread, and on the end of it was a little golden curl.

The Prince untied it and kissed it, then, looking up at the window, he kissed his hand, for he knew that somewhere in the tower the Princess had been looking for the Prince who was to come for her, and had seen him.

He was more anxious than ever to reach the Princess, but how could he climb those slippery walls?

How? And then he thought of the silver shoes that the witch had walked on the top of the cave with, and he took them off his horse and tied one on each foot and took one in each hand.

Placing his hands on the wall of the tower, he walked up as easily as if he were walking on the ground, and in a few minutes was at the little window above.

The Princess smiled when she saw him, and then he saw that the window which looked so small to him from the ground was really a door.

He stepped in and knelt at the feet of the[Pg 36] blushing Princess, who said, “I shall be glad to leave here, but how can I get to the ground?”

“In my arms,” answered the bold Prince, and, picking her up, he stepped out on the smooth wall again, easily reaching the ground with the Princess.

He placed her in front of him on his horse and rode down the mountain, at the bottom of which a crowd was waiting for him, and the King also, for it had been noised abroad that a youth had been seen to climb the mountain and the people wanted to see him.

“Well done, my son,” said the King, riding up to greet them. “You will make a good soldier, for you have shown that you can overcome obstacles to gain that which you desire. Come home; the wedding feast is prepared.” So the Prince gained a princess for a wife, a father-in-law who admired his courage, and was happy ever after.

[Pg 37]

## THE BLUE CASTLE

Once upon a time in a far-off country there lived a witch on top of a high mountain, and every year she came down into the country about and appeared at the palace of the King and asked for a bag of gold.

One night when the King and his Queen were making merry and having a big feast in honor of the birth of their little daughter, the Princess Lily, the old witch came to the palace and asked for her bag of gold.

“Tell her to begone,” said the King to his servant. “I have used all the gold in the vaults for the feast; she will have to come next year.”

Now the old witch was very angry when she heard this message, and she hid in the grounds of the palace until all were asleep that night,[Pg 38] and then she entered the palace and carried off the baby Princess.

The Queen and the King were beside themselves with grief when they discovered their loss, and they offered big rewards for the return of their daughter, but she could not be found.

“Find the old witch who came here the night of the feast,” said one of the King’s wise men, “and you will find the Princess.”

They hunted far and near, but the witch could not be found, for when any one attempted to climb the mountain where the old witch lived the insects would become as thick as mist and clouds and they could not see where to go.

One after another gave up the attempt, and so after a while the King and Queen mourned their daughter as dead and the old witch never came to the palace again.

The Queen and King never had any more children, and every day they grieved because there would be no one to reign after they were gone.

One day one of the King’s wise men said to him: “In a cave in the forest lives an ogre who has a wonderful horse; it is kept in a[Pg 39] stable made of marble, and its stall is of gold, and it is fed on corn grown in a field of pearls.

“If we could get this horse we might be able to climb the mountain where the old witch lives, and perhaps the Princess is still alive.”

“But how can we get this horse?” asked the King.

“Ah! that is the hard part,” answered the wise man. “The enchanted creature can only be caught and mounted by one who can feed him with the magic corn, and it is said that any one who tries to gather the corn from the field of pearls finds himself sinking, and has to run for his life, so that only the ogre, who knows the magic words that keep the pearls from drawing him down, can gather the corn.”

When the King heard this he sent for all the princes in the land to come to his palace, and when they came he told them he would give to the one who could catch and mount the ogre’s enchanted horse his kingdom if he could find the lost Princess Lily, and she should become his wife.

But all the princes were rich enough, and did not care to take such a risk, especially as they had never seen the Princess Lily.

Then the King sent out word to all the[Pg 40] poor young men in his kingdom to come to him, and he made them the same offer, but one by one they turned away, and at last there was only a poor peasant youth left.

“I will try, Your Majesty,” he said, “but I will not marry the Princess unless I can love her, and if she does not wish to marry me I will not hold you to that part of the bargain, either, but I will take the kingdom if I bring back your child.”

So that night the peasant boy went to a fairy that lived in the woods and asked her to help him.

“You can only enter the field of magic corn by wearing the magic shoes belonging to the ogre, and he sleeps with them under his bed. They are tied to the big toe of his right foot by a silken thread, and no one can cut it or break it without awakening the ogre.

“I will give you a feather, and if you are fortunate enough to enter his chamber without being caught, for he is guarded well by a dog with two heads, use this feather to tickle his left foot and you can cut the silken thread without the ogre knowing it. This is all I can do to help you. The two-headed dog is not in my power to control.”

[Pg 41]

So the peasant took the magic feather and that night he went to the ogre’s castle in the woods and waited until he heard his snore, and then he took from his pocket two big bones.

He opened the door to the castle, for the ogre was afraid of no one and did not lock his door at night.

The two-headed dog growled and sprang toward the peasant, but he quickly thrust the bones in the mouth of each and that quieted them.

The two heads began to eat, and while they were eating the peasant crept softly into the room of the sleeping ogre and tickled his left foot, which was sticking out from under the bedclothes.

The old ogre began to laugh, and he laughed so hard and loudly that no other sound could be heard; and the peasant had time to break the slender thread which was tied to the magic shoes with one hand while he kept tickling the ogre’s left foot with the feather held in the other hand.

When he had the shoes under his arm he crept softly away from the bed, leaving the ogre still laughing.

[Pg 42]

The two-headed dog was still eating the bones, and the peasant went out and sat on the steps of the castle to put on the magic shoes.

He had just drawn the shoes on when the two-headed dog finished the bones and set up a bark that the peasant thought at first was thunder.

He ran to the field of pearls where grew the magic corn, and was just pulling the ears when the ogre came dashing out of his castle, followed by the two-headed dog, with both mouths wide open and looking as though he would devour him.

Out of the field ran the peasant, but not before the ogre had entered, and down went the ogre out of sight, the pearls closing over his head, for, of course, he forgot all about his shoes when he heard the two-headed dog bark, and anyway he thought they were tied to the big toe of his right foot.

But though he was rid of the ogre he was not of the two-headed dog, which ran after him, showing his two sets of big teeth and barking all the while. But the peasant was far ahead of the dog, so he reached the stable and fed the magic corn to the enchanted horse, who[Pg 43] neighed in the most friendly manner and let the peasant mount him.

He wore a bridle of gold and silver trimmed with rubies, and he was pure white, with a saddle of purple velvet, with gold and silver trimmings.

He was a horse fit for a king to ride, and the poor peasant looked strangely out of place on his back.

Just as the peasant rode into the yard of the castle the two-headed dog dashed at the hind feet of the enchanted horse to bite him, but the horse kicked at him and over he rolled.

The peasant looked back to see what had happened to the dog, but he was nowhere to be seen; in the place where he had lain was a big black-looking rock with a ragged-looking top like a set of huge teeth.

The peasant was rid of both his pursuers now, and he rode off toward the mountain where the King had told him the witch lived.

Up the mountain dashed the enchanted white horse, as though he had wings instead of feet, and in a few minutes he had carried the peasant to the top.

The peasant looked about him, expecting to see a cave, but to his surprise he saw only[Pg 44] a grove of trees with something glistening through their leaves which looked like a house.

When he rode nearer to the grove he saw a deep-blue castle of glass without doors or windows, and inside he could see a girl spinning.

She looked up as the shadow of the horse and rider fell on the glass castle, and her eyes grew big with surprise, but before the peasant could jump from his horse an old woman came up through the floor of the house and tapped the girl on the head with her cane, and she turned into a mouse.

The peasant was too astonished to move for a minute, but the laugh of the old woman brought him to his senses and he knew she must be the witch.

“Ha, ha! you caught the horse, but you cannot bring back the Princess until I will it!” she screamed, and then disappeared through the floor.

The peasant walked around the blue castle, but no door or window could he find, or an opening of any kind.

He was leading the horse by his gold bridle when suddenly it lifted one of its front feet and struck the blue castle.

[Pg 45]

Crash! went the blue glass, and the peasant saw an opening large enough for him to enter.

He was about to do so, leaving the enchanted horse outside, when he heard another crash—the enchanted horse was following him in; it had broken a place large enough for both of them to enter.

The mouse was crouching in one corner of the room and the peasant picked it up carefully and put it in his pocket.

The horse went to the spot where the old witch had disappeared, and tapped on the glass floor three times with one of his front feet, and up from the floor came the old witch. But this time she was not laughing; she looked frightened, and trembled so she had to lean on her cane to keep from falling.

The enchanted horse took her by the dress and shook her three times, and out from her pocket fell a black bean with a white spot on it.

As it dropped the old witch screamed and fell on the floor, and the horse picked up the bean and swallowed it.

The peasant all this time was standing watching all the strange happenings, not daring to move for fear of breaking the spell, and wondering what would happen next.

[Pg 46]

As the horse swallowed the bean he seemed to shrink away from sight and a blue mist filled the room. When it cleared the peasant beheld a handsome young man where the horse had stood, and where the witch had been was a deep hole.

“Did she fall into it?” asked the peasant, not knowing what else to say.

“No; in that hole we will find the magic charm that will restore the Princess to her own form,” said the young man. “The witch disappeared in the blue mist.”

“Let us hurry and find the magic charm,” he said, dropping into the hole, and the peasant followed him.

There was a ladder down which they climbed, and down they went until it seemed they would never reach the bottom.

But at last their feet touched something firm and soft and they stood in a beautiful room on a carpet of blue velvet.

The room was hung with velvet the color of sapphire, and the chairs were of burnished gold with velvet seats.

A gold fountain played in the middle of the room and the water fell into a basin of sapphire.

“This is the magic fountain,” said the[Pg 47] youth. “You must throw the little mouse into it if you wish to bring back the Princess.”

The peasant took from his pocket the trembling little mouse. “It is frightened,” he said. “I hate to throw it into that deep water.”

Without replying the youth grabbed the mouse from the peasant and threw it with great force into the fountain and it disappeared from sight.

“Oh, you have killed it!” said the peasant, looking into the deep-blue water with frightened eyes.

Then he saw a head rise slowly from the bottom of the blue basin; then it came above the water; and then a beautiful girl stepped from the fountain, her golden hair all wet and glistening.

A soft warm breeze came through the windows and soon her hair and clothes were dry, and the peasant thought he had never seen any one so beautiful as the Princess.

“I am the Prince who was changed into the horse for the ogre,” said the youth, addressing the Princess. “I was stolen at the same time you were and the ogre who was the husband of the witch took me and the witch took you, but this youth has rescued[Pg 48] us, for it was here that the magic bean was kept that restored me to my own form, and if it had not been for a fairy who came to me one night and told me the secret I never should have regained my own form.”

All the time the Prince was speaking the peasant saw the Princess looking at him with loving glance, and he knew the Princess was not for him, and besides that he knew he never would be happy in a palace.

They began to look about and found they were in a beautiful palace that the old witch had lived in, but, now that she was gone for good, the peasant said he would take it as his reward and let the Prince and the Princess return to her father.

In the stables they found beautiful white horses, and on one of them the Prince and Princess rode away after making the peasant promise to come to their wedding and to dance with the bride. “For we will never forget you,” said the Princess, “and we must always be friends.”

The father and mother of the Princess listened to the story the Prince told, and then the Queen said: “I can tell whether this is my lost child or not. Let me see your left[Pg 49] shoulder; she bears her name on that shoulder if she be our child.”

The Princess bared her shoulder and there the Queen saw a tiny lily which proved she was her child.

The King gave a great feast in honor of his daughter’s return, and the Prince and Princess were married; and the peasant danced at the wedding as he promised.

[Pg 50]

## NARDO AND THE PRINCESS

Once there lived a king who had two sons, and, though they were twins, they were as different as if they had been strangers.

Nardo was kind and good, while his brother Stephen was greedy and selfish, never doing any one kindness.

One day there came to the King’s gates an old beggar man who asked for a night’s lodging and food.

The brothers were standing near and Stephen told the servants to close the gates, that a palace was no place for beggars.

“Stop,” said Nardo to the servant; “a palace is just the place for beggars. Brother, we have a plenty and to spare; let the poor man enter.”

[Pg 51]

The beggar thanked Nardo and said: “You shall never regret your kindness. Wear this ring, and whenever you wish for something money cannot buy you shall have your wish.”

Nardo put the ring in his pocket and forgot all about it until he fell in love with a beautiful princess, and, like all lovers, he was afraid she did not love him.

Then he remembered the old beggar man and the ring, and put it on and wished for the love of the beautiful Princess.

It happened that Stephen also loved the Princess, but he knew she did not love him, and, seeing the ring the old beggar had given Nardo on his hand one day, he remembered what the beggar had said when he gave his brother the ring.

“I must have the ring,” said Stephen. “Then I will have the love of the Princess; besides that, her father, the King, is old, and when he dies I shall be king in his place.”

But it was no easy matter to possess the ring, for Nardo was as big and strong as Stephen. There was no way to get the ring from off his finger unless he took it by force or could get some witch to weave a spell over him.

[Pg 52]

And all this time the beautiful Princess was in love with Nardo. Had he only known it, he needed no magic ring to win her love for him.

One night after trying in vain to get the ring Stephen went to an old witch who lived in a cave by the sea and asked her to get the ring for him, promising to make her rich if she would get it.

The witch was greedy for gold, so one night while Nardo slept she crept into the palace, aided by the wicked Stephen, and cast a spell over Nardo, which made him forget the ring and also his love for the beautiful Princess.

Stephen, with the ring on his finger, felt that all was easy now, and he promptly forgot all about the old witch and the gold he promised her.

The beautiful Princess looked with sad eyes upon the now cold and indifferent Nardo, and, while she did not love Stephen, she felt each day that she was being drawn to him, though she knew well enough she did not love any one but Nardo.

The old witch, however, helped the Princess out of part of her troubles, for when she found that Stephen did not intend to give her the gold, she waited for him one day in the[Pg 53] palace grounds, hidden behind a clump of bushes, and when he came out for a walk she pointed her lean fingers at him and placed him under a spell which made him follow her to her cave by the sea.

Here she chained him to a rock and put a dragon to watch that he did not escape; but while the Princess escaped marrying Stephen, he still possessed the ring which kept Nardo from remembering he had ever loved the Princess.

One night when the Princess was sitting in her window looking at the moon and sighing over her lost lover and his love she saw a nightingale caught by its wing in a tree.

The tree was so close that the Princess had only to reach out and rescue the poor bird and set it free.

The nightingale, in gratitude for its life, began to sing so sweetly that the Princess exclaimed, “Oh, sing each night by my window, beautiful bird, that I may for a little while at least forget my sorrow.”

The hour of midnight was just then striking, and as the last stroke of twelve died away the nightingale changed into a fairy.

“I am powerless to use my magic until the[Pg 54] hour of midnight strikes,” said the little fairy. “I have chosen to become a nightingale until then, and the Queen will not give me the power of a fairy until I change my form to one.

“If it had not been for your kindness I might never have become a fairy again, for the nightingale’s wing would have been broken, and no imperfect creature can reclaim its form, once it has changed from a fairy.

“If I can help you, tell me and I will go to the Queen and ask to remain a fairy, and then no matter how hard the task you set I am sure I can make you happy.”

Of course, the Princess did not know about the magic ring, and she could only tell the fairy how once she had felt sure that Nardo loved her and then suddenly he had changed and would not notice her at all.

The fairy listened to the Princess and told her not to worry; that she was sure there was something wrong; that Nardo still loved her, and at midnight the next night she would return, and away she flittered in the moonlight, leaving the Princess happier than she had been for many a day.

It took the fairy but a short time to unravel the mystery, and the next night when the Princess[Pg 55] went to her window she found the little fairy waiting for her, perched on the sill.

“Do not grieve, my Princess,” said the fairy. “Nardo still loves you; it is all the work of his wicked brother Stephen, who loved you, too.”

Then she told the Princess the story of the ring and how Stephen had got the old witch to get it for him, and that if he had given her the gold he would have married the Princess in spite of all she could have done.

“But if Nardo still loves me, why does he keep away? Why does he not tell me of his love?” asked the Princess.

“He will, my dear Princess, when he remembers,” said the fairy, “and there is where the difficult part comes in.

“We must get the ring or the stone. It is only the stone that holds the charm, but that is still on Stephen’s finger, and to get near to him the dragon must be overpowered.”

“Oh! I will send all my father’s soldiers,” said the Princess; “they can kill the dragon, I am sure.”

“Not a dragon that belongs to a witch,” said the fairy, “and if my plan works, and I think it will, we shall not need soldiers. I will be back before the sun rises. Wait for me.”

[Pg 56]

Away went the fairy to her Queen and again asked to be changed into a nightingale. “It is to help some one in trouble, dear Queen,” she said, “and never again will I ask to change my form.”

The Queen granted her wish and away flew the nightingale toward the sea, where lived the witch and the dragon.

When she was near the cave she began her sweetest song, and as she flew nearer she sang more sweetly and softly until she alighted on a tree right over the rock where lay the dragon and the sleeping Stephen.

The eyes of the dragon were wide open, watching on all sides for any one who might dare attempt to rescue Stephen.

When he heard the sweet tones of the nightingale the dragon raised its head and looked around, but, seeing only a bird perched over his head, he had no fear. Softly, sweetly, the nightingale trilled and sang its soothing song until at last the dragon began to nod its head, and after a while it dropped to the ground, fast asleep.

The poor nightingale was so worn out with singing so long that it hardly had strength to fly down to where Stephen was sleeping.

[Pg 57]

Very carefully it did so with only a soft waving of its wings, and then its bill plucked from the ring on Stephen’s hand the red stone, and off it flew with the stone held tightly in its bill.

Only once did it stop, and that was to sip a drop of dew from a rose-bush where it alighted to rest, and then on it went to the palace where Nardo was sleeping and flew through the window of his bedroom.

Nardo’s hand was open on the pillow beside his face, and into his hand the nightingale placed the red stone and flew away to the Princess.

“Your lover will be here with the sun,” she said, “and as it is not far from that time I must fly to my Queen.

“Farewell, my kind Princess. May you be happy with your Prince, and if you are as good and kind as a Queen as you were when a Princess I shall never regret my night’s work.”

The Princess thanked her again and again, but the fairy was away before she had finished, and just then the sun peeped through the trees and at the same time the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard coming along the road.

[Pg 58]

The Princess’s cheeks grew red, for she knew it was her lover, and when she reached the palace door there he was just riding up.

When the spell was broken for Nardo it released poor Stephen from the power of the witch; the sea rolled in and the wind shrieked among the trees and the next thing Stephen knew he was running through the forest toward his home.

Of course, he was too much ashamed to tell of all that had happened to him and said he had been hunting in the forest and lost his way; and Nardo and the Princess kept his secret and did not let him know they were aware of his treachery, and as he grew to be a better man as the years went by, they were glad they did.

[Pg 59]

## OLD THREE HEADS

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Lucy. She was always opening doors and looking into rooms that did not belong to her, and it made her appear very rude.

One day Lucy was sent to the woods to gather berries, but instead of filling her basket as she should have done she walked about, looking behind rocks and trees, thinking that she might find an opening in some of them.

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,” said a squirrel, as he ran past her.

“I wonder what he means,” she said. “I must keep on looking, for somewhere around here Old Three Heads must live, or the squirrel would not have said ‘look out,’ and I want to see what he is like.”

[Pg 60]

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,” called a bird from the limb of a tree.

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,” called a rabbit as he ran into his hole.

“I wish some one would tell me where Old Three Heads lives,” said Lucy, “instead of just saying look out for him.”

Just then she came to a path which led through thick bushes.

“I will see where this leads,” she said. “Perhaps it leads to Old Three Heads’ house.”

Lucy walked along the path and soon she saw a castle standing among the trees. Most little girls would have hesitated about going into a strange house, but Lucy’s curiosity was so great she thought only of seeing the inside of the castle. She walked up the steps and opened the door. The hall was long and dark, but she was not afraid. So she closed the door and walked along.

There were many doors on each side of the hall, and Lucy opened one and looked in. In one corner of the room was a horse with three heads. “What a queer place to keep a horse!” thought Lucy.

“Better look out for Old Three Heads,”[Pg 61] said the horse, shaking all three heads and looking sad.

“How did you get three heads?” asked Lucy.

“I looked in the window one day when Old Three Heads was eating his dinner, and he saw me. You better look out,” he warned her again.

Lucy thought of the other doors and decided to keep on, for she was very anxious to see what was behind all of them.

She opened another door and a three-headed cat ran toward her. “You have only one head!” said the cat, in a tone of surprise. “You better look out for Old Three Heads.”

“I am not afraid,” said Lucy, as she left the room and opened another door. In this room was a three-headed dog. He looked at her and said, “Better look out for Old Three Heads; you will find him if you keep on opening doors.”

“I want to see him,” answered Lucy. “Where is he?”

“You better run while you can,” said the dog, “but you will find him if you keep on, and then you will wish you had taken my advice.”

But Lucy only laughed and went to another[Pg 62] door. In that room she saw a three-headed cow.

“What a queer place!” she said. “I never saw animals living in a house before. Why are the animals kept in the house?” she asked the cow.

“We belong to Old Three Heads,” replied the cow, “and every creature that comes in this castle has three heads. You better look out for Old Three Heads,” she warned her.

“Why did you come in, if you knew you had to wear three heads?” asked Lucy.

“We wanted to see what was in here, just as you did,” replied the cow. “The cat found the door open and she walked in to look about; the dog saw her enter and he followed. Old Three Heads saw them. You better look out,” she warned Lucy again.

But Lucy was more curious than ever, and she kept on with her questions.

“How did you and the horse get three heads?” she asked. “You did not walk in the door, did you?”

“Not at first,” answered the cow. “The horse put his head in the window one day when it was open and Old Three Heads saw him.”

“And you,” asked Lucy again, for the cow[Pg 63] stopped and hung her three heads, “what did you do?”

“I saw some green corn on the window-sill,” the cow confessed, very slowly, “and I put my head in the window to get it and Old Three Heads saw me.”

“What happens when he sees you?” she asked.

“Wait and see,” replied the cow. “But I have warned you; you’d better look out for Old Three Heads and run while you can.”

As that was all the information she could get from the cow, Lucy told her she would find out for herself how they all got their three heads, and she went to the next door and opened it.

The room was dark, and at first Lucy could not see anything, but some one said, “Who-who,” and as the sound came from a corner of the room Lucy went in and looked about.

As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness she saw perched on the back of a chair an owl with three heads.

“Well, of all things!” exclaimed Lucy. “How did so wise a bird as you happen to be caught by Old Three Heads?” she asked.

“Who-who are you?” stuttered the owl.[Pg 64] “You-you better look out for Old Three Heads,” he warned Lucy.

“Tell me how it happened that you have three heads,” asked Lucy, ignoring the warning as she had before.

“Who-who are you?” stuttered the owl again.

“I am a girl,” said Lucy. “Can’t you see?”

“Bet-bet-better look out,” warned the owl again.

“Oh dear!” said Lucy. “You are worse than the others. I am going to find Old Three Heads and find out, if I can, how all of you got three heads.”

“Who-who,” said the owl as she went out of the room.

Lucy opened another door, and there on the throne in this room sat a giant with three heads. She had found Old Three Heads at last.

For the first time since she entered the castle Lucy was frightened when she saw the curious-looking creature; but there was no chance to escape; it was too late.

The giant looked at her a second, and then he called out to his attendants, who all had three heads but were much smaller men: “Bring the intruder before me.”

[Pg 65]

“Bring two heads,” he said, when Lucy stood before him.

When the heads were brought one had black hair and one red.

“I do not want those heads,” said Lucy; “they do not match my hair. Can’t I have two golden-haired heads?”

“Those are all I have,” said the giant, “and you will have to wear them. On with them,” he said, and the attendants fastened the heads on Lucy’s shoulders, one on each side of her own head.

“I wish I could see myself,” said Lucy, still curious.

“Take her to her room,” said the giant, and Lucy was taken to one of the rooms that opened out of the long hall.

When she was alone she looked around the room and saw a mirror hanging on the wall. She ran and looked into it. The new heads looked very cross.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Lucy.

“I do not like red hair or light hair,” said the dark-haired head.

“And I do not like dark hair or light hair,” said the head with red hair.

[Pg 66]

“I cannot help that,” said Lucy. “I did not want either of you.”

“I will not stay here,” said the dark-haired head.

“Neither will I,” said the head with the red hair.

And they began to pull away. Lucy bent first to one side and then to the other, with the pulling of the quarrelsome heads.

“Do keep quiet,” she said at last. “I am sorry I said anything about the color of your hair. If you will be good I’ll try to get you something nice to eat.”

This plan quieted the heads, and Lucy went to the door. It was not locked, and she opened it and went out.

First she went to the room where the horse was.

“Horse, can you tell me where I can get something to eat?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the horse. “Go to the fireplace and call up the chimney.”

“I want my dinner,” Lucy called.

Down came a table with food upon it and a chair standing beside it. Lucy seated herself and began to eat.

[Pg 67]

Then the trouble began; every time she raised the fork to her mouth the dark head or the head with red hair would stretch out their necks and take the food from the fork before Lucy could get a chance.

The new heads quarreled because each thought the other was getting more than its share.

Lucy put her fork and knife on the table in despair. “You are a pair of greedy heads,” she said. “I have not had a bite.”

“It is all your fault,” said one; “you should not have got us.”

Lucy went into the room where the cat was and asked her if she would tell her where she could get something to drink.

“Rap three times on the wall,” said the cat.

Lucy tried this and a cup appeared filled with water. Lucy tried to put it up to her lips, but the head with the red hair reached it and drank all the water.

Lucy rapped again, and another cup appeared, and this time the head with dark hair reached it and drank every drop of water before Lucy could stop it.

She tried several times, but each time the[Pg 68] greedy heads drank it before she could get her lips to the cup.

She went into the room where the dog was kept.

“Where can I find a comfortable chair and a book?” she asked.

“Tap on the floor three times,” the dog said.

Lucy did as he said, and a chair appeared, and beside it a table filled with books. Lucy opened one of the books and looked at the pictures.

“I cannot see them,” said the head with the red hair. Lucy moved the book to one side.

“I should think you would remember that you have three heads,” said the head with the dark hair. “How do you expect me to see if you keep the book over that side?”

Lucy moved the book to the other side, and then the head with the red hair began to fuss again.

“Oh dear!” said Lucy. “You are the most selfish heads I ever saw. I will go to the cow and see if she can help me,” she said.

“Where can I find a bed?” she asked the cow. “These heads have just tired me out.”

“I will get you one,” said the cow. “Moo,[Pg 69] moo!” she called up and from the floor came a bed.

Lucy lay down upon it. “I do not want to go to sleep,” said the head with dark hair. “I do,” said Lucy. “I am tired and I am going to sleep; you can stay awake if you wish to.”

“I do not feel tired,” said the head with red hair; “I feel like singing,” and it began to sing so loudly that Lucy had to get up.

“I’ll go to the owl and see if he can help me,” she said, as she went out of the room.

She went into the room where the owl was and opened the window. The owl hid its three heads.

“You are such a wise bird,” she said to the owl, “I wish you would tell me what to do with these new heads; they quarrel all the time.”

“Who-who!” said the owl.

“I cannot understand how any one could ever think you were wise,” said Lucy; “all you can say is who-who. I wish I could be rid of these troublesome heads.”

“Why don’t you, then?” said the head with red hair. “We come off if you pull hard.”

“I never thought of that,” said Lucy, pulling at the head with red hair.

[Pg 70]

Off it came and flew through the window.

Then she tried the other and it came off and followed the other through the window.

“Would you like to be rid of your extra heads?” Lucy asked the owl.

“Who-who,” answered the owl.

“You silly bird!” said Lucy, pulling at his extra heads. Off they came and followed Lucy’s heads.

“Let’s go to the cow,” said Lucy, “and take off her heads.”

The owl tried to follow her, but bumped against the wall and fell to the floor.

“Oh, I forgot that you could not see in the daytime,” said Lucy. “I’ll put you on my shoulder,” she said, picking him up from the floor.

“Would you like to get rid of your extra heads?” Lucy asked the cow.

“Of course I would,” she said. “How did you get rid of yours?”

“I will show you,” said Lucy, pulling at the cow’s extra heads. Off they came and out the window they flew.

“Well, I never should have thought of that,” said the cow.

“Let us go to the cat and the dog and the[Pg 71] horse,” said Lucy, “and help them to get rid of their troubles.”

Each of them said they had never thought to try pulling the extra heads off, and they were very grateful to Lucy for helping them.

The heads all flew out of the window and that was the last that was ever seen of them.

“I think we should get out of this place as soon as we can,” said Lucy. “Old Three Heads might get us again.”

They hurried out of the house and soon were in the woods a long way from the castle.

“Did Old Three Heads get you?” asked the animals they met in the woods.

Lucy told them he did. “But he will not bother you,” she said, “if you keep away from his house, and I warn you that three heads are a nuisance, and you may not be so fortunate as we have been in escaping from them.”

“Did you have to feed them all?” asked a squirrel.

“Yes,” answered Lucy, “or at least I tried to, but they quarreled so that I had to go without.”

“I will never go near Old Three Heads,”[Pg 72] said the squirrel. “I have all I can do to take care of one head.”

“I have had my lesson,” said Lucy. “I shall never look into rooms again when the door is closed, for one head is all I care to have.”

[Pg 73]

## THE ENCHANTED BOAT

Once there was a King who had a very beautiful daughter, and when the Queen died the King married a woman who had a son named Tito because he thought this new Queen would be kind and good to the Princess.

But in this the King was greatly mistaken, for the Queen thought only of her son and wished to make him King.

She told the King that if he would make the Princess marry Tito that he need have no fear about the future of his kingdom, for he could be sure her son would make a good king.

“And a woman should not be Queen and rule alone such a big kingdom as you possess,” said the scheming Queen.

[Pg 74]

The King, who thought more of his daughter’s happiness than anything in the world, called the Princess and told her of his plan. “Marry your stepmother’s son and all will be well with you and I can die happy,” he told the Princess.

But the Princess did not want to marry Tito, for she did not love him, and when she found that her father would not listen to her pleadings, but told her that very night she should wed Tito, the little Princess ran out of the palace and threw herself face down on the grass and wept.

When it came time for the wedding she was nowhere to be found, and though the palace and the gardens were searched, it was all in vain. The Princess had disappeared.

What had happened was that while the Princess was crying and bemoaning her sad lot she heard a sound, and when she looked up there was a lake she had never seen at the foot of the garden, and on it a beautiful boat with a sail of silk the color of gold.

There was no one in the boat, and the Princess, forgetting her sorrow in her wonderment at this strange sight, ran down to the water’s edge, where another surprise awaited her. For[Pg 75] the boat came sailing straight to the place where she stood.

The Princess stepped in, and away went the boat out over the blue water, and in a few minutes she was in a country she had never seen before.

The little Princess was not frightened, for she felt sure nothing worse could befall her than if she stayed at the palace and had to marry Tito, and, while she was sorry to leave her father, she could not be happy with a man she did not love.

The lake led to a river, along the banks of which were high hills and beautiful woods, and the Princess was so lost in admiring the beauty of the scene she did not notice they were approaching a castle until her boat sailed under a white marble bridge, which soon brought her at the steps which led into the garden of the castle.

Here the strange boat stopped and the Princess knew she was expected to get out.

She walked up the steps into a garden filled with pink and white roses, with a fountain of pearl and gold in the center which threw a perfumed spray all about, which filled the air with fragrance.

[Pg 76]

There were no paths in the garden, but the grass was like green velvet and yellow birds flittered among the small green trees and sang sweet songs.

Through the roses and trees the Princess saw the entrance to the castle, and on the broad steps of marble and gold came a queer-looking creature followed by more servants than the Princess had ever seen in her father’s palace.

The Princess did not feel at all afraid, although the strange-looking creature had the body of a beautiful leopard, while his head was that of the handsomest youth the Princess had ever beheld.

His hair was dark and as he came nearer to her the Princess saw that his eyes were deep blue, the kindest eyes she had ever seen.

He held out one huge paw toward her and then withdrew it and said, “I fear you will not care to take the paw of such a beast as I am, but I can assure you I will not harm you, Princess.”

“I am not afraid,” said the Princess, putting out her hand, “but tell me how you know that I am a princess?”

After the leopard-man had taken her hand[Pg 77] he led her up the steps, and as they walked along he told her that no one but a princess could have entered the boat. “It had sailed for many a year in quest of the princess who would be willing to sail away in it,” he told her, “and as only a princess can help me, no one but a princess could get into the enchanted boat.”

When the Princess and the leopard-man entered the castle he told her his strange story. He was a prince who had been changed by a witch into the shape she saw, and the only thing that could save him was a gold root which grew far up on a blue mountain-peak.

“But that root must be brought to me by a princess and no one else,” said the leopard-man, “so you see how impossible it is that I shall ever regain my own shape.”

“If you will tell me where this blue mountain-peak can be found,” said the Princess, “I will undertake the task, for I do not wish to return to my father’s palace, and I would like to help you.”

“The enchanted boat will take you if you really wish to try,” said the leopard-man, “but I fear it is a task you are far from fitted to[Pg 78] undertake, for no one can go with you; that would break the spell.”

The Princess, however, told him she would try, and at once set out on the strange errand, the boat sailing along the river and then out into the open sea.

By and by the Princess saw on the side of a high mountain, the top of which was blue, something growing which shone like gold, and she knew it must be the golden root for which she was seeking.

The enchanted boat sailed close to the foot of the mountain and stopped, and the Princess knew she was to get out, but how was she to reach the golden root which grew far up on the mountain?

The Princess stepped out of the boat on the rocks and sat down to think what she could do, for to climb up the steep, smooth side of the mountain was out of the question; if only she could fly she thought she might reach it.

Just then she heard a swishing sound, and, looking up, she saw a big eagle coming toward her with a broken leg.

The bird fell at her feet, and, as so many strange things had already happened, the Princess[Pg 79] did not feel afraid of the big creature, for she felt sure that in some way he would help her.

“Oh, you poor hurt bird!” she said, tearing off a piece of her dress to bind up its leg; then from a stream falling from the mountain she brought in the hollow of her hand water for him to drink.

At night the Princess took off her cloak and covered the eagle, while she huddled close to the mountain and behind a rock to keep the cold from herself.

In the morning she was surprised to find the eagle had flown away, but on the rocks was her cloak, and two feathers from the wings of the bird lay beside it.

The Princess put on her cloak and took up one of the feathers, and to her surprise the hand that held the feather flew up over her head.

She picked up the other feather with the other hand and up she was carried, her cloak spreading out like a pair of wings.

With the feathers she guided herself until she alighted on the top of the blue-peaked mountain.

She laid the feathers down and began to dig[Pg 80] for the root which the Prince had said was the only thing that could save him.

When she had enough of the golden root she again took the feathers, one in each hand, and flew down to the water, where the enchanted boat, which had sailed away when she left it, now stood waiting.

The feathers from the eagle she put carefully on the rocks, but the bird was nowhere to be seen, and, knowing that it must have been a part of the magic plan to help her, the Princess sailed away, feeling sure the eagle was safe and his broken leg quite well.

When she reached the castle of the leopard-man he was on the steps to meet her and without waiting to enter the castle he took the golden root from her and tasted it.

The leopard body disappeared and there he stood before her, a tall, handsome youth whom any maiden, even a princess, would fall in love with.

The Princess told him her story and the Prince told her they would go at once to her father and he would ask for her hand, for he had already asked for her heart and found that it was his.

The enchanted boat took them back to the[Pg 81] garden of the King, where they found that the Queen, when she knew that her son had lost the chance of becoming King when the Princess disappeared, had put the King in a dungeon under the palace and she and her son had become the rulers of the kingdom.

The Prince quickly undid all this mischief by setting the King free, and when he found out how treacherous his Queen really was he sent her, with her son, away from the palace and told them never to return or they would both be put in prison.

He was a kind-hearted King and gave them gold to care for them the rest of their days, and it did not take them long to leave the palace, you may be sure, for already the wedding feast was being made ready for the marriage of the Princess and her Prince.

The enchanted boat now was not needed, and that with the lake disappeared, but when the Princess set out with her husband to go to the castle she found that it was within her father’s kingdom that the Prince had lived.

At the end of the castle garden where the Prince and the Princess live is a long stone seat, and at one end grows a bush of golden[Pg 82] flowers, the like of which no one ever saw before, and at the other is the figure of a big eagle made of gold and bronze, but only the Princess and her husband know what these things mean.

[Pg 83]

## NICKO AND THE OGRE

Once upon a time there lived on the banks of a deep, wide river an ogre who ate all the fish in the river, never letting the people who lived in the town come near the river to fish.

And this was not all the ogre did. He would make such a noise when he slept that all the children were frightened so they could not sleep at night, and the people decided at last that something must be done.

One day a youth named Nicko said he would go to an old witch who lived in the forest and ask her what could be done.

So to this witch the youth went. “There is only one way to get rid of the ogre,” she told Nicko, “and that secret is known only to[Pg 84] a mermaid, who comes up from the river every night and sings to the ogre.”

Of course the ogre would see Nicko if he went to the mermaid when she was singing, so he decided to have a suit made of green and silver that would make him look like a huge fish and dive into the river, hoping in that way to find the home of the mermaid and learn the secret she knew.

One night after the mermaid had finished her song to the ogre, Nicko slipped from behind a rock where he was hidden, dressed in his green-and-silver suit, and swam to the place he had seen the mermaid go under the water.

Down, down he went, and just before he reached the bottom of the river the mermaid turned around and saw him.

She had never seen such a beautiful big fish before and the silver glistened and shone so in the moonlight that the mermaid was filled with envy.

“Oh, beautiful fish, tell me where you got your shining coat! I must have a dress like it at once,” she said, swimming along beside Nicko.

“I will tell you, beautiful mermaid, willingly, and I will bring you a dress of wonderful[Pg 85] brightness,” said Nicko, “if you will tell me how the people who live in the river town can get rid of the ogre you sing to every night.”

The mermaid no longer smiled when she heard this; her face looked sad and unhappy.

“That can never be done; for the way to be rid of the ogre is beyond my power, although I know the secret,” answered the mermaid; “but you cannot help me.”

“Well, if I cannot help you, at least tell me how it could be brought about that the river folk could be rid of their trouble.”

“A mortal must come to this river and live here,” said the mermaid. “And he must marry me. Now you see how impossible it is for any one to learn the rest of the secret, for who would marry a mermaid and live at the bottom of the river?”

Nicko had fallen in love with the pretty mermaid at first sight, and when he heard this he said: “Show me your home, pretty maid. Perhaps I can help you, even if I am only a fish.”

To the very bottom of the river the mermaid took Nicko, and when they stood on the white sand before her home of crystal Nicko said:

“Mermaid, I love you! Behold your mortal lover. Will you be my wife?”

[Pg 86]

As he spoke he threw off the green-and-silver costume he wore, and there stood the mortal who had come to woo her.

The pretty little mermaid blushed and hung her head. “I did not know; I could never have guessed you were a mortal,” she stammered.

“Of course you couldn’t,” said Nicko, almost forgetting why he was there, he was so very much in love with the pretty creature. “Now where shall I find your father?” he asked.

The little mermaid clapped her tiny hands, and from under the rock came many little silver-colored fish, swimming all around her.

“Run quickly and tell the dolphin to find Father Neptune,” said the mermaid.

Soon the water began to roll and tumble about, and Nicko saw swimming toward them two sea-horses drawing a chariot in which stood a man carrying in one hand a curious and big three-pronged fork.

“He is Father Neptune,” said the mermaid. “Ask him for me if you wish.”

“Well, young mortal, what do you wish here at the bottom of my river?” asked Father Neptune.

[Pg 87]

At first Nicko did not know what to say, for Father Neptune was very big and stern-looking; but when he saw the little mermaid swim up to him and lean her head against his shoulder he took courage and spoke.

“I wish to marry your daughter,” he said, “and live at the bottom of the river.”

Father Neptune began to smile. “The spell is broken for you, my dear,” he said to the little mermaid, “and I am glad. I would have helped you before this if I could, but it was not in my power.

“She is yours, mortal youth,” said Neptune. “I pronounce you man and wife. And now we will see what can be done to get rid of that awful ogre on the bank of the river. He has bothered me so much, I shall be glad to have him gone.”

“Now we are married,” said the mermaid to Nicko, “I can tell you I am not a mermaid at all, but a king’s daughter who was changed into a mermaid to sing for the ogre because my father did not invite the dreadful ogre to a feast at his palace one night.

“The ogre cast a spell over me which could be broken only when a mortal should come to the bottom of the river and ask me[Pg 88] to marry him, which the ogre thought never could happen.

“Now it is my turn to have the ogre changed into another form, and if Father Neptune will consent I will ask the old forest witch to change him into a big rock in the middle of the river.”

“Very well, my dear,” said Father Neptune, “a big rock will be an addition to my river, and when I run in here to rest my sea-horses will have a place to play and my dolphins a place to sit.”

“Good-by, Father Neptune,” said the mermaid. “I shall no longer wear this form after to-night, for when I touch the land I shall be a mortal again.”

“I will take you to the shore,” said Father Neptune; “jump in, both of you.” It took only a minute for the sea-horses to dash to the top of the river, and another for them to bring the chariot to the bank of the river near the forest.

Nicko jumped out and lifted the little mermaid to the ground, which she no sooner touched than before him stood a beautiful young girl on two dainty feet.

When he looked around Father Neptune was gone and the Princess (for we must call[Pg 89] her so now) said: “We must hurry to the witch and tell her before sunrise, or the ogre will have another day in which to bother the river-town people.”

When the old witch saw the Princess she began to laugh. “Ha-ha!” she said. “Now the ogre will be in my power. Leave him to me, my dear. I will change him into any shape you wish.”

The Princess told her she wished him changed into a huge rock to be placed in the middle of the river.

“Come along, my pretties; you shall see it done,” said the old witch, clapping her hands as she spoke.

Up from behind the cave jumped a big broomstick, and on it hopped the witch and the Princess and Nicko, and off they flew to the place where the ogre sat fishing by the river.

When they were near enough for the old witch to touch him with her crooked cane she leaned over and tapped him on the head and said:

“In the middle of the river,

To dwell there forever,

A rock you shall be

So all folks may see.”

[Pg 90]

A peal of thunder that shook the woods around was heard, and then a loud splash.

When the mist of the splashing water cleared Nicko and the Princess saw a huge black rock in the middle of the river, and the next thing they knew they were flying through the air with the old witch again.

“Here is your home, Princess,” said the witch at last. “They will be waiting for you and your husband, for I sent word you had been rescued, and a feast is being made in honor of your marriage.”

Before Nicko or his bride could thank the witch she was far above their heads and flying away.

The King and the Queen were overjoyed to have their daughter again and gave Nicko such a welcome that he quite forgot his home by the river and never returned.

But this did not matter, as he was an orphan, but no one thought of him as being the cause of the ogre’s disappearance. The people in the river town knew the ogre had gone, and they cared not who brought it about.

Nicko and the Princess lived happily ever after, and one day became the King and Queen in the country where they lived.

[Pg 91]

## THE GINGERBREAD ROCK

Once there lived near a forest a little boy named Hans and his sister, whose name was Lisbeth.

Their parents had died when they were tiny and their uncle had taken them because he thought they could do all the work and so save the money he would have to pay for a servant.

But this uncle was a miser and gave Hans and Lisbeth very little to eat, so very little that often they went to bed very hungry.

One night when they were more hungry than usual, for they had worked hard all day, Hans whispered from his cot in one corner of the room: “Lisbeth, let us get up and go into the woods. It is bright moonlight and we may[Pg 92] be able to find some berries. I am so hungry I cannot go to sleep.”

So out of the house they went, making sure their uncle was sound asleep, and soon they were running along the path through the woods.

Suddenly Hans stopped and drew Lisbeth back of a tree. “Look!” he said, in a whisper, “there is smoke coming from the side of that great rock.”

Lisbeth looked and, sure enough, a tiny curling smoke was coming from a little opening in the rock.

Very cautiously the children crept up to the rock and Hans stood on tiptoe and sniffed at the smoke.

“It is a pipe,” he whispered into Lisbeth’s ear. “Some one is inside the rock, smoking.”

“No one could live inside a rock,” said Lisbeth, creeping closer and standing on a stone that she, too, might sniff at the curling smoke.

Lisbeth became curious when she discovered it was the smoke from a pipe. “You could boost me, Hans,” she said, “and I could peep in and see if some one is inside.”

Hans told her he did not think it was nice[Pg 93] to peek, but Lisbeth told him it was very different from peeking into a house, and so Hans boosted her, for he was just as curious as his sister.

Lisbeth grasped the edge of the opening in the big rock with both her little hands, when, to the surprise of both children, it crumbled and Lisbeth lost her balance.

Over went both of them on the soft moss, and when they sat up Lisbeth held something in both her little hands.

“It’s cake!” she said, with wide open eyes. “No; it is gingerbread!” she corrected, as she tasted it.

And, sure enough, it was gingerbread; the rock, instead of being stone, was all gingerbread.

Hans and Lisbeth forgot the smoke and their curiosity in the joy of their discovery, and soon both of them were eating as fast as they could big pieces of the Gingerbread Rock.

Hans and Lisbeth were not greedy children. So when they had satisfied their hunger they ran off home without taking even a piece of the gingerbread with them to eat the next day.

They were soon in bed and asleep, and if each had not told to the other the same story[Pg 94] the next morning they would have been sure they had dreamed it all.

The next night they were hungry, as usual, and when the moon was well up in the sky out they crept again and ran into the woods.

But this time there was no curling smoke to guide them, and they tried several rocks before they found the gingerbread. For, strange to say, the place they had broken away did not show at all and there were so many rocks the children could not find it.

But at last Hans cried out with joy, “Here it is, Lisbeth!” and held up a big piece of gingerbread he had broken off.

Lisbeth, in her hurry to get a piece, broke off much more than she intended, and, to the surprise of both children, a big opening was made, large enough for them to step through.

“Perhaps we may find out where the smoke came from,” said Lisbeth, suddenly remembering the smoke they had seen the night before.

Eating as they went, both of them stepped inside the rock and walked into a big room where, by the table, sat an old man asleep.

His glasses had tumbled off his nose and the pipe he had been smoking was on the floor beside him, where it had tumbled. His[Pg 95] lamp had gone out and his paper had slipped from his hand.

Lisbeth and Hans looked at him and then at the gingerbread they held. “It is his house,” said Hans.

“And we are eating it up! What shall we do?” asked Lisbeth, looking very much frightened.

“Better wake him up and tell him,” said Hans, “and perhaps he will let us bake some more and mend the place we have broken.”

“I’ll pick up his paper and pipe and brush up the ashes,” said tidy little Lisbeth, “and you light his lamp, and perhaps he will forgive us when we tell him we did not know it was his house we were eating.”

But instead of being cross when he awoke, the old man smiled at them and asked, “Did you eat all you wanted of the gingerbread?”

Hans told him they were very sorry and that they did not know any one lived inside when they ate the gingerbread.

“We will bake you some more and patch the place we made,” said Lisbeth.

“Right through that door you will find the kitchen,” said the old man. “Run along, if you like, and bake it.”

[Pg 96]

And such a kitchen as Hans and Lisbeth found, for Hans went along, you may be sure, to fix the fire for his sister!

The shelves and cupboards were filled with flour and butter and eggs and milk and cream and meat and pies, cookies, puddings, but no gingerbread.

“We will get breakfast first for the man,” said Lisbeth, “for I am sure he must be hungry and it is growing light. Look out the window.”

To Hans’s surprise there was a window. Then he saw a door, and when he looked out he found they were in a pretty white house with green blinds and not a rock, as he had supposed.

Hans and Lisbeth became so interested in cooking they quite forgot their own home or the unkind uncle who almost starved them, and when the breakfast was ready they put it on the table beside the old man.

“I thought you would like your breakfast,” explained Lisbeth, “and now we will make the gingerbread and repair your house.”

“After breakfast you may, if you like,” said the old man, “but first both of you must eat with me.”

My, how Hans and Lisbeth did eat, for[Pg 97] while Lisbeth had cooked only ham and eggs enough for the old man’s breakfast, there seemed to be quite enough for them all.

And while they are eating we will see what the miser uncle was doing, for he had called the children at break of day and they were not to be found.

It happened that the ground was damp and the uncle saw the prints of their feet from the door to the road and along the road to the path in the woods, and then the soft leaves and moss did not show where they went.

Thinking they had run away and gone into the woods, their uncle hurried along, calling their names at the top of his voice.

As he came near the Gingerbread Rock the children heard him and began to tremble. “It is uncle,” said Hans. “He will be very angry because we have not done our work.”

“Sit still,” said the old man as the children started to leave the table, and, taking his pipe, the old man sat down under a little opening like a tiny window and began to smoke.

Soon the children could hear their uncle climbing up outside, and they knew he had seen the smoke just as they had the night before, and was trying to look in.

[Pg 98]

Then they heard him tumble just as Lisbeth had when the Gingerbread Rock broke off in her hands, and they knew he had discovered it was good to eat, for all was still for a few minutes.

Nothing was heard again for a long time, and then the sound of some one breaking off big pieces was heard, and when Hans and Lisbeth climbed up, as the old man told them to do, and looked out of the opening they saw their uncle with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

He was breaking off big pieces of gingerbread and filling the barrow as fast as he could.

But when he had filled it he could not move it, for it was no longer gingerbread, but stone he had to carry.

The old man motioned to the children to keep quiet, and he opened a door they had not noticed and went out.

Just what he said the children never knew. But they soon found out that instead of being poor, as they had thought, their miser uncle had taken all the silver and gold their parents had left and hidden it in his cellar under the stones.

The miser uncle disappeared and was never seen again, and the old man, who was really[Pg 99] a wizard, told them where to go and what to do with their wealth. So they were happy ever after.

Of course, they never forgot the Gingerbread Rock or the kind old man. But because he was a wizard they knew they would never see him again, for fairies and witches and wizards are all enchanted and disappear in a very strange manner.

“Our good fortune came to us because we tried to be kind to the old man, I am sure,” said Hans one day, when they were talking about the Gingerbread Rock.

“Yes, and because we wanted to repair the damage we had done he knew we did not mean to do any harm,” said Lisbeth; “but I shall never eat gingerbread again without thinking of him.”

“Nor I,” said Hans.

[Pg 100]

## PRINCE ROUL’S BRIDE

Once upon a time in a far-off land there lived by an ocean an ogre and his wife.

Their home was a cave in a big white rock which was so white it shone like a light even in the darkest night, and many a ship had thought it a harbor in a storm and been wrecked by the shore where the ogre lived.

And this was the way he lived, because the ships carried rich cargoes and the ogre lost no time in helping himself to all that he could find, while the sailors were glad to escape in lifeboats when they saw the dreadful-looking ogre, who was so big and strong he could lift a ship.

In the same country, miles and miles away from the ogre’s cave, lived a rich king, who[Pg 101] had a son named Roul, and one day while the Prince was out hunting he passed in the woods a cabin where lived a poor girl named Leta.

But while Leta was very poor she was also very pretty, and as the Prince rode past he saw her at the window and raised his plumed hat and smiled.

The next day Prince Roul again rode to the woods and this time he did not pass Leta’s cabin. He stopped his horse in front of her door and asked for a drink of water.

He had thought Leta pretty through the window, but when he beheld her this time he completely lost his heart, and day after day he went to the cottage and talked to pretty Leta.

After a while the King told his son it was time he was looking for a wife, as he wanted to see him married before he died and know that his wife was worthy to be a queen.

So the King gave a feast which lasted for weeks, and princesses from far and near were asked that Prince Roul might choose for himself a wife, for, as I said before, the King was very rich and all the kings in the other countries were anxious, of course, to have Prince Roul for a son-in-law.

But Prince Roul did not choose a wife from[Pg 102] among the beautiful princesses, for he was already in love with pretty Leta, and while he knew full well his father would never give his consent to their marriage, he was determined he would wed no one else.

On the last day of the feast the King told him he would have to choose. “You have before you the beautiful women of the land,” said the King. “Make your choice at once, and the wedding shall take place this night.”

“Father, you have not brought to me the most beautiful woman in the world,” replied Prince Roul. “If you had I should have asked her to be my wife before this.”

“What do you mean?” asked the King. “All the princesses in the land are here.”

“Ah yes, that is true,” replied the Prince, “but the most beautiful woman in the world is not a princess, as you think of them, but she is a Princess for all that. Father, she is the Princess of my heart and I cannot marry any other woman.”

Then the King made the Prince tell him who she was that he loved so dearly, and when he learned Leta was a poor girl who lived in the woods close by, he was very angry and told the Prince he should never wed her.

[Pg 103]

All the beautiful princesses were sent home, and the angry King called his servants to him and commanded that they should go to the woods and find this girl who had upset his plans for his son.

“Find her and chase her out of the woods; drive her into another land where the Prince will never find her,” he told them.

But the King had forgotten one very important thing, and that was his son, for he should have made him a prisoner before he gave such an order. This he did not do, and Prince Roul, who overheard what his father had said, lost no time in jumping on his horse and making his way to the woods ahead of the servants of the King.

“Jump up behind me,” he said to Leta when she came out of the cabin, and away they rode, the feet of Prince Roul’s horse scarcely touching the ground as they fled.

The King’s servants were not long in discovering that the Prince had outwitted them, but they gave chase and away they went through the woods, while poor frightened little Leta clung to the Prince, wondering what it was all about.

On and on they rode, but to Leta clinging to[Pg 104] her lover, it seemed they flew over the ground and through the woods. She could see the bright trimmings of the servants’ coats glistening in the sun, and she knew they were gaining on them.

By this time Prince Roul had told her that his father, the King, had tried to make him marry a princess, but that he would marry no one but the girl he loved and that was herself.

When Leta heard this she was more frightened than ever, for she knew now that she was the cause of all this trouble and that the servants must be chasing them to take Roul from her.

Leta put her hand to her breast. Yes; it was there—the little paper with the powder a fairy had given her a long time ago, because Leta had left a beautiful rose on its stem she was about to pick when she discovered a little fairy sleeping inside the rose.

“If you ever are in trouble, open this paper and throw the powder around you,” the fairy had told her. “It will protect you from all harm.”

Leta had never before needed protection, and she was not thinking so much of herself now as of her lover, wondering what the King would do if he did not obey him.

[Pg 105]

Just then the horse on which they were riding came to a full stop with such force that Leta was thrown to the ground and the next thing she knew over the side of a cliff leaped the horse with the Prince on his back.

The ocean was below, but before the horse and his rider had reached it Leta drew from her dress the magic powder and threw it over the cliff.

“Make the ocean dry,” she screamed as she threw the powder, and, to her surprise, as she threw it over she went, too, and the next instant she stood beside Prince Roul on dry land before a beautiful white castle and the ocean was miles away.

The cliff over which they had gone was the white rock where the ogre and the ogress lived, but when Leta threw the powder she had also summoned the little fairy who had given it to her and she had changed the big white cave into a castle.

When the King’s servants came dashing up to the cliff they saw nothing of the Prince or his horse, and the bottom of the cliff was so far below that they felt sure they had been destroyed, and they rode home to the King with the sad news.

[Pg 106]

The King’s grief was deep and bitter, for he really loved his son very much, and now when it was too late he cried out that he wished he had let the Prince marry the girl he loved; if only he had him alive that would be all he would ask.

The little fairy did not make herself visible to either Leta or the Prince, but if they could have seen with fairy eyes they would have seen the fairy flying ahead of them into the castle, touching everything with her magic wand as she went.

When Leta entered the door, which was open, for they had called and no one answered, she stood spellbound by what she saw.

The long white marble hall had a floor of silver and marble and the doors were silver also.

The Prince, who was used to beautiful things, was quite surprised at all the splendor, too.

Opening a big silver door, they entered a room hung with silver and deep-blue curtains, and on a silver table Leta saw a big white envelop. When she looked at it she read her own name.

Wondering who could have left it, she[Pg 107] opened it and read: “Princess Leta, this is your castle; it is the gift of the fairies who love roses.”

“Your father will not object now to having me for the wife of his son,” she said, with a blush, as she gave the note to the Prince, and then they ran like two happy children through the beautiful castle that had come to them so strangely.

In the deep dungeons under the castle they found all the wealth that the ogre had taken from the ships, and after they had become used to their new home they gave it all to the poor, and so the ogre’s stolen wealth did not help him, and while it could not be given back to those who had lost it, it did much good.

And what became of the old ogre and his wife, you are wondering. I will tell you. When the fairy changed the cave into a castle she changed the ogre and ogress into two big silver statues in the big hall, one at each end, like huge mummies, holding a big light in their hands, which lighted the long hall of the castle.

Then one day Prince Roul and Princess Leta rode away to the palace of the old King, and when he saw his son he wept for joy and hugged him to his heart, and Leta’s pretty[Pg 108] face won the old King’s heart at once, so they all lived happily ever after.

But while the old King wanted them to make the palace their home, Prince Roul and Leta could not give up their white castle by the sea, so part of the year they lived in the white castle, and when Prince Roul grew old and his grandchildren begged for a story, the King told them of Prince Roul’s bride and the wonderful leap they took over the cliff which forms the back of the castle.

[Pg 109]

## SUNEV

There was once a poor peasant and his wife who had a very beautiful daughter named Sunev. So beautiful was she that her hair rivaled the sun in its golden brightness. Her eyes were like the blue sky and her lips were so red that the roses beheld her with envy. Her skin was so white and fair that the winter snow was not whiter. Her teeth were like the pearls. And when an old witch named Zitna, who lived in the forest near by, saw Sunev one day she became enraged because she was more beautiful than her own daughter.

Witch Zitna had thought till then that her own daughter was the most beautiful creature in the world, for the witch child was as dark[Pg 110] as Sunev was fair, and Witch Zitna wished the Prince of Esor, who was looking for a wife, to wed her.

She knew that the Prince had sent out his servants far and near to look for the most beautiful lady in the country for his wife, and if Sunev were brought before the Prince of Esor her daughter would never be chosen.

There was only one thing to do, and that was to entice the lovely Sunev into the forest and there change her into the shape of an animal and leave her to her fate.

The wicked Witch Zitna watched her chance, and one day, when Sunev was sent into the forest to gather wood, Witch Zitna slipped out from behind a tree and touched her with her magic stick, changing her into a tiger.

Poor little Sunev was so frightened when she beheld her paws she fell on the ground and began to moan and cry and all the birds and animals of the forest came running to see what had happened.

The witch, in her haste, forgot to deprive Sunev of her power to talk, so when the birds and animals wanted to know what was the matter she told them she did not know, but something dreadful had happened and she was[Pg 111] no longer a girl, but a tiger, and was afraid to go home.

The birds and animals can understand any language, and, being now part animal herself, Sunev had no trouble in understanding them.

“Do not cry,” they told her. “It must be the work of Witch Zitna, but we will protect you, and when the hunters come we will warn you so you may hide until they go. Eat the berries and nuts and we will find you a nice place to sleep, so dry your eyes and some way may be found to restore you to your own shape.”

Sunev did as the birds and animals told her, for there was no other way, and soon she became fond of her forest home and all her new friends.

Witch Zitna now proceeded to have her beautiful daughter seen by the messengers of the Prince of Esor, and they carried her off to his palace, sure they had found at last a wife that would suit their royal master.

Of course the parents of little Sunev looked everywhere for her, but she could not be found, and when they saw the tiger coming toward them they fled, for they did not know that the beautiful and graceful tiger-skin held their own child.

[Pg 112]

The Prince of Esor, when he saw the witch child, thought that she was beautiful, but he had wished for a wife that was as fair, so he decided to wait, and sent out his servants again to look for a lady with golden hair.

Witch Zitna was enraged when she heard this, for she knew that until her daughter was safely married to the Prince she was not safe.

The reason for this was that every night Venus, the goddess of beauty, came to the forest to look for the graceful tiger the fairies had told her about, for, while Sunev looked like a tiger, she had more grace and beauty than a real tiger, though they are graceful, too.

Venus did not wish even a tiger to rival her in being graceful, so she wanted to see this wonderful animal that she might learn from it more charm.

One night Sunev was walking through the forest in the moonlight when Venus, in the form of a tree, beheld her.

Knowing at once that the graceful tiger was a mortal changed, she called her attendants, who were not far away, and, changing herself back to her own beautiful form, she spoke to Sunev.

[Pg 113]

“What is your name, beautiful creature, and why are you in this form?” she asked.

It was the first time any one but the birds and animals had spoken to her since Witch Zitna had changed her, and poor little Sunev began to cry for joy.

Venus soothed her and soon Sunev told her all she knew of her sad plight. But when she told the goddess her name a flash of anger came to the eyes of Venus.

“Old Witch Zitna has done this,” said the goddess. “She shall pay for it, for, my dear, your name is mine spelled backward and you are my godchild. Zitna knew she had much to fear in the beauty you possess. Come with me!”

It did not take long to reach the cave of Zitna, for Venus had the power of witches and fairies when she wished to use it.

“Come forth!” called Venus, when they reached the cave of Zitna. “Undo your cruel work,” she commanded, when the trembling witch appeared in the doorway of her cave.

In another minute Sunev stood in her own lovely shape before Venus, who, instead of being jealous of the wonderful beauty she[Pg 114] beheld, drew Sunev to her and kissed her on her brow.

“You will always be the most beautiful woman in the land,” she said. “Be you old or young, none shall compare with you.

“As for your daughter, Witch Zitna, you will never see her again, for a mother who would treat the daughter of another as you have done this beautiful girl is not the sort to have a daughter. I will claim your daughter as well as Sunev for my godchild.”

Sunev did not know how they reached the door of her parents’ home, but she stood there a short time after, and with trembling hands opened the door.

Oh, how happy her father and mother were to have her again! The joy of seeing her safe made them forget the time, and it was the trumpeting of the Prince of Esor’s messengers that told them the day was far gone.

The messengers knocked at the door, and when Sunev opened it they knew they had found the wife of their Prince.

Sunev’s father and mother were overcome with sorrow when the messengers told their errand. They thought they had found their child, only to lose her again, but the messengers[Pg 115] told them they might go along to the palace. So they all set out.

When the Prince of Esor saw the beauty of Sunev he knew she was the one woman in the world for him, and without delay he ordered the wedding feast to be prepared.

A wonderful gown of white and gold was brought from the royal clothes-room, and a crown of pearls and diamonds was placed upon her beautiful golden hair, and upon her dainty feet golden slippers and silk stockings.

Her father and mother were not forgotten by the Prince, either. They were dressed in clothes they had never even dreamed of and given a palace near where Sunev and Prince Esor were to live.

But what had become of the beautiful witch child all this time, for, of course, she was not to blame for the bad deed of Witch Zitna and should not be made to suffer?

She was safe and happy, you may be sure, for she was surrounded by every comfort and luxury in another part of the palace, and she did not wish to become the wife of the Prince.

Instead, she loved one of the friends of the Prince, a noble lord who had fallen in love with her, but did not dare speak his love because[Pg 116] he knew the Prince might choose her for his bride.

But when this noble lord heard a wife had been found for his Prince and it was not the beautiful girl he loved, he told the witch child of his love and they were married the very night that the Prince and Sunev were married.

And it turned out that the witch child was not a witch child at all, but had been stolen when a baby from a stork who was carrying her through the forest to the home of a nobleman, for the goddess Venus, true to her promise, took both of the beautiful girls for her godchildren and had the fairies see that they were both made happy.

The witch child was given a pretty name, but her husband best loved to call her the Queen of Night, because of her wonderful dark beauty.

Sunev was the Princess of Esor, of course, but the Prince called her Princess Rose, and if you will spell Esor backward you will learn why.

[Pg 117]

## CILLA AND THE DWARF

Once upon a time there lived a king who had a very beautiful daughter, and her suitors came from far and near.

Among them was a dwarf with a huge head and a very long nose. Of course, no one expected the Princess to marry the ugly creature, but the dwarf did, and when the Princess refused he flew into a rage and said he would have her in spite of all she said.

At last the Princess gave her hand to a prince, but the night the wedding was to take place the Princess was nowhere to be found. They hunted high and low all over the palace, but no trace could they find of her; even her wedding-dress disappeared, too. The Prince was in despair and wrung his hands and cried[Pg 118] out he would give to any one who would find the Princess half of his fortune.

The King also said he would give half of his kingdom to the one who would bring back the lost Princess.

Now, there was among the servants a little kitchen-maid named Cilla, who loved the Princess because she always spoke kindly to her, and when she knew her mistress was lost she resolved to find her at any cost.

So one night when all the people in the palace were sound asleep Cilla stole out and went to a witch who lived in the woods and asked her to help her to find the Princess.

“I can only help you a little,” said the witch, “as she is in the power of one who is more powerful than I am, but this much I can do: Here is a bean that will do magic work if used in the right way; whether it will help you to find your Princess I cannot tell. The dwarf has carried her off, and where he is I do not know.”

Cilla said she would take the bean. She thanked the witch and started off through the woods to look for the dwarf, for she was sure he must live in a cave.

For days she wandered until she was in the[Pg 119] deep forest, and at last she came to a high rock over which she could not climb.

Cilla sat down and leaned against the rock to rest, when, to her surprise, she heard the sound of weeping. She looked all around, but could see no opening except a big crack in one side, and this was too small for her to get through.

She was just about to call out and ask who was inside weeping when she heard some one coming through the bushes.

Cilla ran behind the rock and watched, and in a minute the dwarf came bounding out of the bush and briers.

He carried in his hand an iron bar, and with this he opened the crack in the rock, which was a door, and entered the rock, leaving the door open behind him.

Cilla was a very brave girl or she would have stayed where she was, but no sooner had the dwarf disappeared than she ran in after him.

He was standing beside a poor, half-starved-looking little white rabbit, and Cilla heard him say, “Do you consent or will you starve?”

The little white rabbit only blinked and[Pg 120] turned away, and then Cilla saw something that made her start, for hanging on a ragged bit of rock was the wedding-dress the Princess was to have worn the night she disappeared.

Cilla did not wait to see more. She dashed toward the dwarf and grabbed him by his long nose, and, giving it a hard twist, she cried out: “Where is my mistress, you wretch? Where is she, I say?”

A very strange thing happened when Cilla gave the long nose a twist; the dwarf howled like the sound of thunder, and instead of the dwarf there stood before Cilla a huge toad that hopped away so fast she could not see where it disappeared.

“You poor half-starved little rabbit,” said Cilla. “I wish I had something to give you to eat, but I must hunt for my mistress first, for I know she must be here.”

Then Cilla thought of the bean. “I’ll give you this,” she said to the rabbit. “I am sure I shall have no use for it.”

When the rabbit swallowed the bean Cilla’s eyes popped wide open, for there stood her mistress, safe and sound.

“Oh, Cilla, you have saved me! How ever[Pg 121] did you think of twisting his nose?” asked the Princess.

“Because it looked as if it were made to be twisted,” said Cilla, “but how did you know the bean would change you back to your own form?”

“I didn’t, but I was hungry; that dreadful dwarf was trying to make me say I would marry him by starving me. Some powerful witch had given him the form of a dwarf, and if he could get a princess to marry him she would change him into a man,” said the Princess.

“Was he a toad at first?” asked Cilla.

“Yes, it seems he was a toad in the cave of a powerful witch, and for something he did for her she made him a dwarf; then he wanted to become a man, and the witch told him if he would marry a princess and take her into the palace to live she would grant his wish.

“He told me this before he had me changed into a rabbit, for he first carried me off to the cave of this witch, who lives somewhere in this forest, and I think we better hurry away before the toad gets to her and tells her I have escaped.”

It took a long time to get out of the forest,[Pg 122] but Cilla and the Princess found the way and the Prince and the King told Cilla she should have the promised reward.

“Now, what would I do with all that gold and half of a kingdom?” asked Cilla. “All I ask is to have a nice little cottage and a cow near by the palace where I can see my mistress every day.”

Of course Cilla’s wish was granted, and there she lived and was happy, for she married the King’s gardener and became the mother of many boys and girls who never tired of hearing how their mother rescued the Princess from the bad dwarf.

[Pg 123]

## GRETA AND THE BLACK CAT

One day a woodsman named Peter was chopping down a tree when he saw swinging from one of the branches a bundle. Dropping his ax, he climbed up, and to his surprise, when he opened the bundle, he found in it a baby girl asleep. Peter hurried home with the baby to his wife. “Look, Martha,” he said. “I have found a baby girl to be a sister to our son Robert. We will name her Greta and they shall grow up as brother and sister.”

But Martha did not want the baby. “We have three mouths to feed now,” she grumbled. “Why should we care for a child we know nothing of?”

But Peter would not hear of putting the child out-of-doors and so Greta lived with Peter and Martha and grew up with Robert.

[Pg 124]

Poor little Greta had anything but a happy life, for Martha treated her kindly only when Peter was in sight, and that was seldom.

Robert, seeing that his mother did not treat Greta well, began to order her to wait upon him as soon as he was old enough and treated her as a servant.

Greta had to weed the garden and bring in the water and the wood. She had to wash the dishes and make the beds and do all the work excepting when Peter was at home.

One day when Peter was going to the woods he told Robert to chop a pile of wood in the yard and have it finished by the time he came home.

When Peter was out of sight Robert told Greta to chop the wood. “That is what you are here for—to do the work,” said Robert. “You would have been eaten up by the bears if we had not taken you in. Now go to work and chop that wood.”

Greta began to cry and said she could not handle the ax; she was too small. But Martha boxed her ears and told her she should not have any dinner if she did not do as Robert told her.

[Pg 125]

Greta went to the woodpile and picked up the ax, but it was no use. She could not chop the wood. And fearing a beating if she did not do it, Greta ran away. On and on she ran until she came to a turn in the road which led into a forest. Here she decided to stop for the night, and she was just lying down by a rock when she heard a pitiful “me-ow.”

Looking in the bushes close by, Greta saw a big black cat holding up one paw as though it was hurt. “Poor pussy!” said Greta, taking the cat in her arms. “You look as unhappy as I feel. Let me bind up your paw.”

Greta tore off a piece of her dress and bound up the cat’s paw, and then, to her surprise, the black cat spoke to her.

“Come with me and I will show you where to sleep. You will have to carry me, for my paw is very painful,” said the cat.

Greta picked up the cat, too surprised to be frightened, and went through the woods as the cat directed her.

When they reached a big rock with an opening in it the cat said: “Here is my home. Take me in and you will find a place to sleep and food as well.”

Creeping in on her hands and knees with[Pg 126] the cat under her arm, Greta found herself in a big room with a table in the center and on it plenty of food.

In one corner of the room was a bed and on this Greta saw a queer-looking old woman with a hooked nose.

She was asleep and did not notice them until the cat said, “Eat your supper.”

Up jumped the queer-looking old woman when she heard this, for she was the witch.

“You, and a mortal with you,” she screamed, as she reached for her crooked stick.

Greta ran to the door, for she thought the old witch was about to strike her; but the black cat, who was sitting on the floor near by where Greta had put it, said: “Don’t you dare touch this girl; she has saved my life, and from this hour you are in my power, for a mortal has held me in her arms.

“If you would live call the good fairy that has been looking for me all these years. I shall find her, anyway, but it will save time if you use your magic power, and you will regret it if you do not obey me.”

When the old witch heard this she began to tremble and hobbled to the door of the cave and tapped it three times with her crooked stick.

[Pg 127]

The rock opened so she could walk out, and Greta followed to see what she did, for she was no longer afraid; she knew the black cat would protect her.

The old witch gave a peculiar cry when she was outside, and Greta saw the next instant a tiny creature dressed in pink gauze, holding a wand of gold in one little hand, standing on a bush beside the old witch.

“Here I am, Witch Terrible,” said the fairy. “What can I do for you? You must be in great danger or you would not have called for one of us.”

The cat when it heard the fairy speak ran out of the cave, limping, and lay down in front of the fairy. “Help me, my good fairy,” said the black cat. “I am the Prince for whom you have looked so long. The old witch changed me into a black cat and took away my power to speak until I was held in the arms of a mortal.

“I know her secret, and, though she dared not kill me, she wanted me to die, so she turned me into the forest to starve, and if it had not been for this girl, good fairy, the old witch would have had her wish granted.

“When she changed me into a black cat[Pg 128] she said I should never speak until a mortal held me, and that I could not regain my own shape until a fairy changed me, but something has happened since then, and to save herself she obeyed me and called you, for I know her secret, and that is why I did not have to hunt for you, my good fairy.”

The fairy touched the black cat with her wand and Greta saw in place of the big black cat a handsome man dressed in black velvet, with gold trimmings. “Now tell me the secret you know about the witch,” said the fairy.

The old witch threw up her arms and cried for mercy. “Remember, I called the fairy,” she said; “you would have hunted a long time if I had not. Be merciful!”

“I shall not forget,” said the Prince. “This woman is only half a witch,” he said. “She is part mortal, and every night at twelve o’clock she has to become a mortal for an hour because she tried to change a water nymph into a frog. The river god, the water nymph’s father, called on a very powerful ogre, who was his friend, and the ogre was about to change her into a rock, but she begged so hard he made her half mortal and left her to her fate.”

[Pg 129]

“Which means she can never leave this forest,” said the fairy, “and as she does many of her magic deeds at night when she rides abroad on her broomstick she is not a very powerful witch.”

“Yes, that is it,” said the Prince, “and she does not want it known among the fairies or the goblins or any of the magic-power folks. That is the mercy for which she begs.

“I hope you will keep her secret, good fairy, for she saved me so much time and trouble in calling you.”

“I will keep her secret from all but the fairies, but one of the fairy family will come here every night to make sure no mortal has been harmed by her, for some one might stray in here just as this girl did and be changed into some other form.”

“I have one more favor to ask of you, good fairy,” said the Prince. “I wish to make this girl my wife if she will marry me, and I would like to have the proper clothes for a princess, so that I may take her to my palace at once.”

“What do you say, my dear?” asked the fairy. “Will you marry the Prince?”

Greta felt she must be dreaming, but she was sure she would love the handsome Prince[Pg 130] if she were awake, so she told the fairy she would, and the next instant her ragged clothes dropped from her and she stood before the Prince in a beautiful green velvet riding-habit, with a long feather in her hat, looking every inch a princess.

That night a great feast was held at the palace of the Prince in honor of his return and to celebrate their wedding, and the very next day Greta and the Prince rode to the home where she had once lived to give Peter a bag of gold.

“He was the only person who ever treated me kindly until I met you,” Greta told the Prince, “and I shall never forget him.”

Greta was not recognized by Martha or her son Robert, for they little thought the beautiful Princess was the poor girl that had once been their slave. But Peter, who had loved her, looked after the coach as it rolled away. “It looked a little like her,” he said, “but, of course, it could not be.” Many gifts did Greta and the Prince send to Peter, and in his old age he was given a comfortable house and plenty to eat, and, though Martha and Robert shared his good fortune, they never knew who sent it.

[Pg 131]

The Prince told Peter who the Princess really was one day, because the poor old man had never ceased to sorrow because Greta could not be found, but not a word did he tell of this to Robert or Martha, but kept his secret all to himself as long as he lived.

[Pg 132]

## THE KNIGHT OF THE BRIGHT STAR

Once upon a time there lived a prince named Lorenzo. Although he was a prince, he was quite poor and lived with his mother and one servant in a mountain far from the land of his birth.

His father, the King, had been killed in a battle with another king, who took away the wealth and the castles of the defeated King, leaving Prince Lorenzo and his mother nothing of their former grandeur.

Prince Lorenzo grew up with a longing for vengeance in his heart, and often at night his mother would find him gazing in the direction of his old home as he stood alone under the stars.

“Son,” said the Queen-mother one night,[Pg 133] “why do you gaze so intently into the distance? Why are you so sad?”

“There is bitterness in my heart for my father’s enemy who has robbed me of all the happiness and pleasure in the great world outside,” replied the Prince.

“Let me go, mother, and seek my fortune, and I may be able to avenge the wrongs done to you and me.”

“Vengeance does not belong to us, my son,” said the Queen-mother. “You must not take upon yourself that which is not your right.

“Go out in the world and taste its pleasures, but keep your Star of Hope as bright as those shining in the heavens over your head if you wish for happiness.”

The next morning Prince Lorenzo started on his journey. He was dressed in a shining suit of mail and sat upon a white horse with trappings of silver. In the center of his helmet was a little silver star which his mother gave him with these words:

“My son, may your armor protect you from all evil and may this star be your guide. It is enchanted, for it was given to me by a fairy when I was Queen and your father King.

“If ever it grows dim look into your own[Pg 134] heart to find the cause, and, finding it, cast it from you if you wish for happiness.”

Prince Lorenzo promised to look to the brightness of the little star and rode away to seek his happiness.

After several days he came to a big city, the City of Pleasure it was called, and those who lived there told him his armor was much too heavy for one so young to wear.

“Cast it aside,” they told the Prince, “and we will show you the joys of living.”

So the Prince listened and followed the people in the City of Pleasure to a beautiful palace where merriment reigned, and laid aside his armor for a lighter garb. One day Prince Lorenzo looked from the Palace of Merriment and saw all around the castle men, women, and children working, and on their faces the look of misery.

“Who are these creatures?” he asked his gay companions.

“Those are the toilers who make the money for us to spend,” was the reply. “Look at us and forget these creatures and be merry.”

But the Prince could no more be merry; he remembered his Star of Hope his mother had given him and hurried to find it.

[Pg 135]

Instead of the shining star he had left he found it dim and dull, and then he remembered his mother’s words, “Look into your own heart to find the cause.” His love of wealth and pleasure had driven out all thoughts of others, and he had cared not how he gained these things, so long as he had them.

“My selfishness has dimmed my Star of Hope,” said the Prince; “I must leave the City of Pleasure and the Palace of Merriment, for this is not happiness.”

He buckled on the cast-off armor and rode away. As he rode past the toilers he threw among them all the gold he had gained while in the City of Pleasure.

Far away from the city he rode, and found himself in the midst of sickness and suffering.

Dismounting, the Prince ministered to the sufferers’ needs and forgot all else until he fell asleep from exhaustion.

When he awoke his horse stood beside him, and in the moonlight the little star shone brightly from its place in his helmet on the ground at his side. Prince Lorenzo jumped to his feet and placed the helmet on his head. He had tasted the joy of good deeds. He no[Pg 136] longer looked for pleasure in selfishness, and the bitterness of vengeance had gone from his heart.

Back to his mother he rode with the little star shining. “You have won, my son!” she cried as she met him. “All my love for you could not teach you how to gain real happiness; selfish pleasure and love of vengeance dull our Star of Hope, but only those who have learned the lesson for themselves can know this.”

Prince Lorenzo was surprised one morning to see coming up the mountain, where he and his mother lived, an army of brightly dressed soldiers. When they came nearer he saw they were the soldiers that once had served his father, the King.

“The King who wronged you is dead,” they told Prince Lorenzo, “and before he died he made us promise to find you and the Queen and bring you back to your kingdom, which he wrongfully took from you.”

Of course Prince Lorenzo and his mother rejoiced to know that once more they would live in their former home, and lost no time in starting out on the journey.

“Your Star of Hope has brought you[Pg 137] through tribulations into peace and happiness,” said his mother, “and all wrongs are righted, but if it had become dulled by selfishness and vengeance, my son, we still might be in the darkness of despair.”

[Pg 138]

## THE DOLPHIN’S BRIDE

One day there came through the woods that bordered on a big ocean a poor little beggar girl named Nitta.

Nitta was crying; she was hungry and she did not know where to go, for her aunt, who had a daughter of her own, did not want to support Nitta and had turned her out-of-doors that very day.

“I am too poor to support you,” said the hard-hearted aunt. “You must take care of yourself.”

Nitta’s father and mother were dead and there seemed to be no place for her but the woods, so she wandered along until she came to the ocean, and there she sat down to cry out her grief.

[Pg 139]

While she was crying a big dolphin poked his head out of the water. “What are you crying for, little girl?” he asked.

Nitta was so surprised to hear the dolphin speak that she stopped crying at once. “I am crying because I have no home,” she replied.

“I will give you a home if you will come with me,” said the dolphin. “I need some one to take care of my house.”

“But I cannot live in the water; I should drown,” said Nitta.

“I would not ask you to come if you would drown,” answered the dolphin. “But you must decide for yourself whether you could keep house for a fish. There are no children to play with at the bottom of the ocean.”

“I shall starve if I stay on land, and I may find a good home,” thought Nitta as the dolphin waited for his answer.

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“Then jump on my back,” said the dolphin, “and close your eyes; there is nothing to fear. I promise you that.”

Nitta jumped on his back and closed her eyes. Over the waves they went, and then suddenly Nitta felt the dolphin plunge under[Pg 140] the water, and down, down they went, and then next thing she knew the dolphin stopped and said, “Here we are.”

Nitta opened her eyes, and instead of being in the water, as she thought, she was in a beautiful garden in front of a beautiful house. Up the steps the dolphin flopped, for, of course, he could not walk, having no feet, and Nitta followed him.

He led her into a big hall hung with beautiful pictures and soft carpets upon the floor upon which Nitta was almost afraid to step.

Nitta almost forgot her queer companion, she was so overcome with all the grandeur she beheld.

On both sides of the long hall were many rooms, one of gold, one of silver, one of marble, and the dolphin told Nitta she was to choose which room she would care to have for her own.

“But you said I was to keep your house,” said Nitta; “a servant cannot live in one of these beautiful rooms.”

“I did not say I wanted you to be a servant,” said the dolphin. “I want some one to live here and care for the house, but not to do the work.”

[Pg 141]

Nitta chose a beautiful room hung in blue silk, with chairs of blue damask and beautiful rosewood frames.

The ceiling was a darker blue, and all over it were dotted diamonds that twinkled like stars.

The floor was covered with a blue velvet carpet, soft and thick, and over it were scattered big pink roses which looked as if they would crush when stepped upon, they seemed so natural.

There was a piano of rosewood at one end of the room, and upon this Nitta was surprised to see the dolphin jump and with its fins begin to play. Music such as Nitta never heard came from the keys, and so enchanted was she that when the dolphin stopped playing Nitta ran to him and put her hand upon his head.

“You poor fish,” she said, “it is too bad you are not a man. I wish I were a fairy and could change you into a prince. This place is far too beautiful for a fish to live in, and besides, you play such wonderful music. How is it possible?”

“There is only one way you can help me, and since you wished to be a fairy and change me into a prince,” said the dolphin, “I will see if you will keep your word.

[Pg 142]

“Look behind the door and bring the sword you will find there, and I will tell you the only way I can be freed from the spell of a witch who hates me.”

From behind the door Nitta brought the sword. She found it had a beautiful handle of gold and set with diamonds and pearls, but the blade looked sharp and pointed and Nitta trembled as she held it.

“Now if you really are sorry for me,” said the dolphin, “and wish to make me a prince, strike off my head.”

Nitta dropped the sword at the very thought of anything so terrible. “I cannot do that,” she said. “You have been too kind to me.”

“That is the only way you can repay me,” said the dolphin, with a sigh. “I see you did not mean what you said about wishing to be a fairy.”

“Oh yes, I do, indeed I do!” said Nitta. “I do not want to kill you, but I will put you out of misery if that is what you want.”

She picked up the sword and swung it over her head; then she looked at the dolphin, closed her eyes, and brought down the sword.

As it fell Nitta felt herself slipping away, it seemed to her into the bottom of the ocean.

[Pg 143]

When she opened her eyes she saw a very handsome man bending over her. “You are a brave girl,” he said. “You have saved me from a terrible fate.”

“Where is the good dolphin?” asked Nitta. “Oh, I will never forgive myself for killing him!”

“He is gone forever. I was the poor dolphin,” said the handsome man at her side. “You broke the spell that held me, for the old witch who changed me into the dolphin said I must remain one until a pretty woman should strike off my head.”

“But why should a witch change you into a fish?” asked Nitta.

“Because I would not marry her daughter and make her a princess,” replied the handsome man. “You see, I am a prince and I was waiting for the girl I could love to appear before I would take my princess.

“And now I have found her. Will you become my princess?”

Nitta was already in love with the handsome man who had fallen in love with her, and so they were married that very day in the wonderful castle of beautiful rooms and lived happily ever after.

[Pg 144]

## PRINCESS DIDO AND THE PRINCE OF THE ROSES

Little Princess Dido ran away from her attendants every time she could, and one day when she was walking in the forest with her servants she hid behind a tree while they were talking, and before they had missed her she ran down another path and was out of their sight.

When Princess Dido found herself alone she began to look about to see if she could find any flowers, for she was very fond of flowers and was never allowed to pick them herself; her servants did that for her.

“I can pick them myself now,” she said, laughing to herself to think she had escaped[Pg 145] from the servants, and she began picking all the wild flowers she could find, walking along all the time and going farther into the forest.

When it was sunset the Princess Dido found herself in the thick of the trees and bushes, and she began to wonder why her attendants did not find her and take her home; but the sun set and the stars came out and still no one came, and Princess Dido felt tired and lay down among the leaves and mosses and went to sleep.

When she awoke the moon was shining, and although she was in the forest alone she was not afraid, for she did not think any one would harm a princess, so she rolled over on her soft bed, thinking she would go to sleep again, when something cold touched her cheek.

Princess Dido opened her eyes very wide then and sat up, and on a bush beside her she saw a very small gold key hanging by a thread which swung back and forth and half touched her face.

“I wonder what this cunning little key can fit,” said the Princess. “I do wish I knew! I am sure I should find something nice. I believe I will look about. I am not a bit sleepy, and the moon is as bright as day.”

[Pg 146]

Princess Dido hunted everywhere among the bushes and rocks, and nothing could she find, when, just as she had decided to go to sleep again, she saw something shining on a tree, and there was a tiny keyhole that the key just fitted.

She put the key in the lock and the tree opened like a door, and Princess Dido stepped inside and closed the door after her.

She walked along a road which seemed to be just behind the tree, but when she looked about she was not in the forest at all, but in a beautiful country filled with flowers and tall trees, and in the distance she saw a beautiful castle.

When Princess Dido came to the castle she saw fountains and more beautiful flowers growing around, and there were birds of all kinds singing in the trees.

“I suppose I must go to the door of the castle and let them know who I am,” thought the Princess. “A princess ought to do that, I know, but I would much rather stay in this beautiful garden and hear the birds sing and look at the flowers.”

When the Princess knocked at the door no one answered, and after waiting a short time[Pg 147] the Princess opened the door and stepped inside. All was still and she sat down and waited.

“I expect everybody is at breakfast,” thought the Princess. “I wish I had something to eat. I didn’t have any supper, and I have not had my breakfast, either.

“Yes, I am hungry and want my breakfast,” said Princess Dido, and, though she did not know it, she had spoken right out loud, and as she did so a table appeared beside her with her breakfast on it and a bouquet of beautiful pink roses.

“I wonder where this came from. I didn’t see or hear any one,” said the Princess.

But she did not wonder about it; she was too hungry. When she had finished she walked along the hall, for, being a princess, she was in the habit of going where she liked, and as she saw no one she did the same here.

But there was no room opening out of the hall she was in, so the Princess went up the stairs, and here again she found herself in a large hall, but this was so beautiful she looked about her in wonder, for it was a much more beautiful place than her own castle. The floor was of opals and the walls were the same; the[Pg 148] sunlight shining through the windows made the most wonderful colors wherever it fell, and all around the place were white roses, making the air sweet with their fragrance.

There was another flight of stairs, and up these the Princess went. The stairs were of silver, and on the next floor the Princess found herself in a hall of crystal with roses all around; beautiful pink roses such as she had never before beheld.

“Oh, how I wish I could pick them!” said the Princess as she went from bush to bush, and to her surprise the roses nodded as if to tell her she could if she liked.

Princess Dido broke one from its stem, and then another, and as the roses still nodded she picked more until her arms were full.

But there was another flight of stairs, and these were of gold. So the Princess walked up these and found herself in another beautiful room, which was blue, the color of sapphires, and around this room grew red roses.

But there was still another flight of stairs, and the Princess did not stop long here, with her arms filled with the pink roses. She went up the last flight and found herself in a hall filled with red, pink, and white roses, but the[Pg 149] walls were hung with soft gray silk and the floor covered with velvet of the same color.

“Oh, how beautiful! I wish I could live here among the roses,” she said.

“You can, my Princess of the Roses,” said a voice, and from behind a curtain stepped a handsome prince, dressed in a suit of gray velvet, with trimmings of silver and pink.

He took from his head a hat with a long plume of pink and bowed low before the Princess Dido, who had dropped her roses and stood blushing as pink as the roses she had dropped.

“This is my castle, the Castle of the Roses,” explained the Prince, “and I vowed I would never marry until I found a princess who loved my roses as well as me, and you have proved you do by coming into all of my rose-garden. Others have been here, but when they found only roses in each room they never came to this floor.

“Behind these curtains is my palace. These halls of roses are but a part of my private rooms. Will you stay, Princess, or shall I call the fairies to take you back to your own castle?” asked the Prince.

“You may call the fairies to take the news[Pg 150] to my people that I will live in the Castle of Roses, with the Prince of Roses,” said Princess Dido.

“But who hung the little gold key on the bush?” she asked the Prince.

“Oh! I asked the fairies to help me find a wife,” said the Prince. “They hung it there. You see, we shall live in an enchanted castle, as well as in the Castle of Roses, so there is nothing for us but happiness.”

[Pg 151]

## CATVILLE GOSSIP

Mr. Tommy Kat was in love with Tabby Gray—at least so all the gossips in Catville say, for Tabby was as graceful as a little kit can be. Said Tommy, when he saw her, “She’s just the wife for me.”

But Tabby Gray was fickle, as sometimes kittens are; so she giggled and told Tommy he would have to ask her pa. For there was big white Tom Cat, with coat as smooth as silk, who often took her walking and treated her to milk. He had told her he would give her a ribbon bright of red, if she would only promise no other cat to wed.

Then there was Tommy Mouser, who by all was called a sport. He had told her that he loved her, and once for her had fought.

And there was Tommy Black, the dandy[Pg 152] of the town, who was called by all who watched him the best dancer to be found.

He often danced with Tabby Gray, and frightened all the rest away; for when he danced they all stood by and looked on him with jealous eye.

And Tiger Tom, another swain, who always said he felt a pain around his heart when any other danced with her except her brother.

An admirer, too, was Tommy Buff; he said and vowed it was no bluff when he declared he loved Miss Gray and in his heart she held full sway.

And there was Tommy Black-and-White, who said he sat up many a night to serenade Miss Tabby Gray on the back-yard fence till break of day.

And Tommy, who was nicknamed Slim, said she was the only girl for him and that his eyes had turned to green because another cat was seen to walk with Tabby down the road. Since that his heart was like a load.

And so, you see, Miss Tabby Gray needed time these things to weigh, and that was why she told Tom Kat her pa would have to answer that question he had asked that night on the back-yard fence in the bright moonlight.

[Pg 153]

Said Tommy Kat as he looked at a star: “I don’t want to marry your pa. Now why do you keep me here a-guessing when we might go round and get pa’s blessing?”

Miss Tabby stretched and heaved a sigh, then on Tommy Kat she cast her eye. He was handsomer, far, than all the rest, and she felt quite sure she loved him best. But, like all others of her kind, she pretended to make up her mind.

But Tommy Kat was a hasty fellow. He knew present time was always mellow; so he told Miss Tabby ’twas getting late, and whisked her over the back-yard gate. And before she knew where she was at they stood at the door of Minister Cat.

In a minute more they came out married, for Minister Cat he never tarried. He married off couples quick as scat, and for his fee he took a rat.

The reception they held was a howling success, as all who came to it had to confess. And all the way through Catville Town bottles and shoes were strewn up and down. And when Old Sun Man o’er the hill did peep every kit in the town was fast asleep.

[Pg 154]

## HOW THE ELEPHANT GOT HIS TRUNK

One night in the Zoo when the keepers were asleep the other animals were awakened by the chattering in the monkey cage.

“I have heard that Mr. Lion can be made very tame,” said Jocko, “and while I doubt very much if he really can bite, his growl is most unpleasant to hear.”

“Oh, well, it may be worse than his bite,” said Tito. “Those who make the most noise are not always to be feared, I have been told.”

“There is Hippo; he is much bigger than Mr. Lion, and he doesn’t make as much noise all the time as Mr. Lion.”

“Oh, dear me, but what a big mouth Hippo has!” laughed Tito. “I wonder how he happened to get such a big one. He must have[Pg 155] been the first one there when they gave out mouths.”

“I have heard something about almost every animal here,” said Jocko. “Want to hear it?”

“Yes, tell me,” said Tito, moving close to Jocko. “Where did Mr. Lion get his long hair?”

“Oh dear! don’t you know?” laughed Jocko, “Mrs. Lion pulled it so much it made it long. She hasn’t any, you see. Oh dear, yes, Mr. Lion is a henpecked husband if ever there was one.”

“You don’t tell me so,” said Tito. “What about Hippo? How did it happen he is so big and clumsy?”

“Oh, don’t you know?” said Jocko. “When the animals were being made there was a lot of each animal left and it was all stirred together, and that made Hippo. They made his body first and then they did not have enough to give him a long tail or fill in his mouth. That is the reason it is so large.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Tito, and Jocko laughed, too, until they nearly fell off the place where they were sitting.

“Where did old Reynard get his bushy tail, Jocko?”

[Pg 156]

“Oh, don’t you know that either?” replied Jocko. “He was caught trying to steal chickens by the farmer’s wife, and she threw the brush she was using at him with such force that it struck him handle first, and there it stuck right on his back, and he never could be rid of it.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Tito. “And where did the giraffe get his long neck?”

“Oh, that is easy,” said Jocko. “He was so big-feeling and so haughty he would not look at the other animals, and it stretched his neck until now he can’t see the ground, so I have been told. I don’t know, of course.”

“He has a very little head, anyway,” said Tito.

“There is very little in it, my dear Tito,” said Jocko. And then they both laughed again.

One by one the animals had awakened, but, hearing what was being said, they each hoped to hear something about the other that would offset the fun Jocko was making of them, so they kept still.

“Where did the elephant get his trunk? That is what I should most like to hear about,” said Tito.

“Well, that is a long story,” said Jocko. “It[Pg 157] seems that it really was only a nose to begin with, and not much of a nose at that, so I have heard it said, but because he was so big he thought he was the boss of the jungle, where he lived, and he went about poking his nose into every place he could find to see what was going on. They used to call him Old Nosey, I have been told, and he had such big ears that what he did not see he heard, so every one disliked him, but it took Old Man Crocodile to cure him of his bad habit.”

“What did he do to Mr. Elephant?” asked Tito, excitedly.

“I’ll tell you,” said Jocko. “One day Mr. Elephant was walking by the water when he saw something queer-looking sticking out of the water.

“Mr. Elephant had to know what it was, so he poked it with his nose, and, zip! it had him right by the nose, and held him, too.

“My, how he did yell, I was told, but Old Man Crocodile would not let go. He held right on tight.

“Mr. Elephant pulled and cried, ‘Let go!’ and the harder he pulled the harder Old Man Crocodile pulled, until Mr. Elephant had that nose you see on him now called a trunk.

[Pg 158]

“By and by Old Man Crocodile had to catch his breath, and he let go, and down sat Mr. Elephant on the ground with a bang.

“Old Man Crocodile began to cry and say how sorry he was that he had grabbled Mr. Elephant—that he had no idea he was hurting a friend. He thought it was a hunter, and would Mr. Elephant please forgive him this once!—he would never do it again.”

“Is there where Old Man Crocodile got his tears?” asked Tito.

“That is how he began to cry,” said Jocko.

“Ho, ho, ho!” they both laughed, and then a terrible roar and trumpeting and all sorts of cries went up from the animals, for Mr. Elephant could not keep quiet when he heard what Jocko said about his trunk.

When Mr. Elephant began to trumpet Mr. Lion began to roar, and Jocko and Tito fled to the back of their cage and huddled together, trembling with fright.

“They can’t get us,” said Jocko. “Let them talk and scream. I guess we woke them up talking and laughing.”

The other animals made such a noise that the keepers came running to see what had happened, but, of course, they did not understand[Pg 159] a thing they told them about the awful stories Jocko had told about them, and so all they could do was to give them a drink of water or a biscuit, hoping they would be quiet.

Far into the morning the animals scolded and told Jocko what they thought of him, but Tito and Jocko fell asleep in spite of the noise and Tito laughed in his dreams about the funny things Jocko had told him.

[Pg 160]

## WHY RABBITS HAVE SHORT TAILS

Bunny Rabbit was sitting in his yard one day, thinking very hard, when his grandfather came along.

“Why are you so quiet and sober, grandson?” he inquired.

“I am wondering, grandfather,” said Bunny, “why we have such long ears and so short a tail. I should think it would be much better if it were just the other way about.”

“Of course; of course,” said Grandfather Rabbit, bobbing his ears back and forth. “We all think we could have made a better rabbit if we had been consulted. But let me tell you why your tail is short and your ears are long, and then you will learn you are better off now than was your great-grandfather’s great-grandfather, who had a long tail and short ears.”

[Pg 161]

It did not take Bunny Rabbit long to find a nice soft seat for his grandfather and to sit close and very still, with his ears sticking up to listen, for he dearly loved the stories his grandfather told.

“Once upon a time,” began Grandfather Rabbit, just as all grandfathers begin a story—“a long, long time ago there lived in some woods a rabbit. He had a long tail and short ears, just as all the rabbits in those days had.

“One day he ran over the hill to the garden where Mr. Man lived. He should have been very careful, but he wasn’t, and when he was crawling under the rail fence around the garden didn’t Mr. Dog see him and begin to bark and chase Short Ears, as he was called.

“Short Ears was a good runner, and it was lucky he was or there would be an end to this story right here. Through the garden he ran under cover of the vegetable leaves, and when he got out he was a good bit ahead of Mr. Dog.

“Over the field they ran, and under the stone wall went Short Ears and over it went Mr. Dog. Down the road they ran lickety split, and into his house ran Short Ears just as Mr. Dog came into the yard.

[Pg 162]

“Short Ears had no time to lose, I can tell you. He slammed the door, and what do you suppose happened?”

Bunny Rabbit was so interested in his grandfather’s story he only started; he did not answer at all. So his grandfather went on.

“Why, Short Ears slammed that door right on his long tail, and there he was held fast, with his tail hanging outside.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Bunny Rabbit, feeling of his stubby little tail, to be sure it was safe behind him.

“What did poor Short Ears do then?” he asked.

“He could not do a thing, for there was Mr. Dog right in the yard and running straight for the door,” said Grandfather Rabbit.

Bunny Rabbit sat closer to his grandfather and his ears grew longer as he listened.

“Yes,” said Grandfather Rabbit, “Short Ears was in a bad fix, as you can see. He could not open the door to get his tail out, because Mr. Dog would come in and catch him.

“He did not have long to think about it, for the very next thing he knew Mr. Dog grabbed at his tail and off it came right up to the door. And off he ran. For, you see, he[Pg 163] thought he had Short Ears on the end of the tail, and he did not stop to look. He just ran.

“When his tail broke off, over went Short Ears on the floor, for that set him free. ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! What shall I do?’ he cried, when he jumped up and looked in the mirror and saw that his long tail was gone and all that remained was a little stubby tail, just like yours.

“First he ran to the medicine-closet and got some salve and a soft piece of cloth. But he found he could not reach the end of his tail—it was too short.

“His first thought was to run over to his cousin Rabbit’s house, not far-off, but when he started toward the door he remembered Mr. Dog.

“Short Ears leaned his head to the crack in the door and listened hard. His ears were short, you remember, but not so short but that he heard Mr. Dog barking.

“Nearer and nearer came the bark. Short Ears locked the door and ran to the windows and fastened them and drew the shades, and then he ran into the closet and closed the door.

“Away back he crept under his Sunday[Pg 164] clothes, where he was sure no one would find him, and there he sat and listened and listened and listened.

“Mr. Dog barked and jumped about outside the house, for he was very much upset when he found that he did not have Short Ears on the end of the tail he carried off.

“But it was no use. He could not get into Short Ears’s house, and at last he gave it up and ran off home, barking all the way.

“Short Ears listened, and though Mr. Dog’s tones grew fainter and fainter, Short Ears was surprised to find he could hear the barking, though it was a long way off.

“After it was dark he came out of the closet and crept into his bed without even thinking of the end of his tail, he was so tired and worn out listening.

“And now what do you think had happened to him, and what do you think he saw when he looked in the mirror in the morning to brush his hair?”

Bunny Rabbit shook his head. “I don’t know, grandfather,” he said. “What had happened to Short Ears?”

“His ears had grown long, he had listened so hard to the barking of Mr. Dog,” said[Pg 165] Grandfather Rabbit. “And from that day all the Rabbit family have had short tails and long ears, which is just as it should be, for we can hear Mr. Dog a long way off, and we do not have the bother of looking after a long tail when we run to cover. So don’t wish to have yours changed again, for you see now that you are better off than poor Short Ears was, don’t you?”

Bunny Rabbit said he did, and that he should never wish for a long tail and short ears again. And he didn’t.

[Pg 166]

## THE HUNTER’S FRIEND, JOHNNIE BEAR

In a hut on the side of a mountain lived an old hunter all alone. He had only one room, which was very scantily furnished, and he cooked his meals in a fireplace. In the fireplace was a big hook where he hung his kettle, and he cooked his meat by holding it between two sticks over the coals.

You need not pity this old man, for he would rather eat his food cooked in this way than in any other. He had a bunk built in the room about half-way up the wall, where he had to climb a ladder to reach it, and when he went to bed he covered himself with a big bearskin. Beside the bunk a gun hung on the wall where he could quickly reach it if it[Pg 167] were needed. Across the door at night he fastened a big bar, for he did not intend that any one should enter while he was asleep.

The old hunter had set a trap by his door, and one morning he found a baby bear caught in it by the left hind paw. He very carefully opened the trap and took the little fellow out. Then he took Johnnie Bear, as he named him, into his cabin and very carefully washed the poor cut foot and bound it up with some healing salve.

Johnnie Bear seemed to know that the hunter was helping him, and he did not bite or try to get away. He made a funny little noise like a baby when it is hurt. Then the hunter warmed some milk and put it in a bottle, which he gave to the bear. Johnnie Bear took the bottle in both his paws and held it to his mouth and drank the milk very greedily. Then the hunter fixed a bed for him and put a log on the fire to keep the place warm while he went for a hunting trip.

Johnnie Bear slept all day, and when the hunter returned at night he tried to run to meet him, but his poor foot hurt him so he had to lie down again. Several weeks passed before Johnnie Bear’s foot became quite well,[Pg 168] and he always limped, because the trap had cut so deep.

The little fellow became very fond of the hunter and would run to meet him at night, and when the hunter brought in his game Johnnie Bear would poke it over with his nose and paw, as though to tell the hunter that he had done well.

One day he did not run to meet the hunter, and when night came he did not come to his supper. The old hunter began looking around the cabin and he found the footprints of two bears. One was Johnnie Bear’s, which he could tell by the light mark which the lame foot made, and the other was of a big bear, which had enticed Johnnie back into the woods. The hunter felt very lonely and looked for Johnnie every day for a long time, but after a year had gone by he gave up all hope of ever seeing Johnnie again.

A long time after this the hunter was going through a part of the wood that was filled with bushes and vines and in some way his foot became entangled and he fell, breaking his arm. His gun fell some distance from him, and as he went to pick it up he saw a big mother bear with two cubs coming toward him.[Pg 169] She was growling and showing her teeth and the hunter felt that he had little chance for escape from a fight, and with his right arm broken he wondered how the fight might come out.

He braced himself against a tree and waited for the bear to come up. He held his gun in his left hand, intending to use it to beat her off as long as possible. Just then another bear came in sight and the poor hunter gave up all hope. But all at once the first bear stopped and looked at the other bear, then suddenly walked toward him. Both stood and looked at the hunter, who did not move. Suddenly the second bear growled strangely and the first bear walked away with the two cubs. Then the second bear came nearer, and as he walked the hunter saw that he limped. It was Johnnie Bear, and in some unknown tongue he had sent the other bear away and saved the hunter’s life. He did not come any nearer the hunter, but only looked at him, as though to say, “You saved my life once, now I have paid my debt to you.” Then he limped away in the direction the other bears had gone. Perhaps the mother bear was Johnnie’s wife and the cubs were their children.

Who can tell?

[Pg 170]

## PLAID TROUSERS

Mr. Tim Coon had a pair of red-and-green plaid trousers and that was what made everybody in the woods envious.

But there was one who not only was envious—he was very jealous of his rights—and that one was Mr. Fox.

For Mr. Fox thought, and so did every one else in the woods, that he was the very smartest and nattiest fellow around until Tim Coon came along with those red-and-green plaid trousers.

Mr. Fox at first did not bother much about the trousers, for he felt sure that in a short time he could persuade Tim Coon to part with them, but here he was mistaken, as time proved.

[Pg 171]

Mr. Fox had called on Tim every day. He had carried the fattest hen or duck, and even two fat chickens, and each time he hinted that he might part with each or any of them if he were offered the right thing.

But Tim Coon was well supplied with the season’s good things to eat and would not offer anything worth having.

And that was the reason that Mr. Fox sat on his steps one morning in deep thought while he smoked his old corncob pipe.

While he was thinking his eyes happened to alight upon a piece of paper on which there was some printing, and then he saw the word WOOL in big letters.

“Wool?” thought Mr. Fox; “that is what those red-and-green trousers are; all wool, Tim Coon says.”

Mr. Fox got up from the steps and picked up the paper. He began to read, and as he read his eyes grew big. The more he read the bigger they grew, and at last he became so interested he dropped his pipe from his mouth without noticing it.

Mr. Fox read all the printing. Then he crumpled up the paper and threw it into the bushes.

[Pg 172]

“If he only would get them soiled,” he said, “the rest would be easy; he would be sure to ask my advice.

“I know what I will do,” he said, starting for his barn. “I’ll paint the seat of my rocking-chair; he loves to sit in that.”

Pretty soon Mr. Fox had his rocking-chair painted a nice shiny black, and then he sat down to watch for Tim Coon, who always passed by about that time. He did not have to wait long before Tim came along, wearing the plaid trousers. “Come in, Tim, and have a smoke,” said Mr. Fox, in his most polite manner.

Mr. Fox went to the closet to get a pipe for Tim, and, just as he expected, down sat Tim Coon in the rocking-chair right on the wet paint.

“Oh dear, oh dear, how sorry I am!” said Mr. Fox, hurrying to Tim.

“Get up quick, Tim! I just painted that chair. I hope you have not got it on your plaid trousers.”

Mr. Fox’s eyes twinkled as he got behind poor Tim to look at the seat of his trousers, but that, of course, Tim Coon did not see, and when Mr. Fox told him there was a big black[Pg 173] spot, but that he felt sure he could tell him just how to get it out, Tim thought he was a very kind fellow.

“Don’t you bother at all, Tim. I read the other day just how to wash woolen garments. It said it was sure and safe, so I will help you, for I really feel to blame; I ought to have remembered that rocker was freshly painted.

“First, I must get you some white soap, and as I have none in the house I shall have to run over to Mr. Man’s and get some; he has everything in his house.”

Tim Coon thought Mr. Fox was the very kindest fellow he knew, and he ran right home to take off the trousers and wait for Mr. Fox to return.

“Oh, you might put on a kettle of water,” called Mr. Fox as Tim was hurrying away, “and have it boiling; it must boil hard.”

Mr. Fox had a harder time than he expected getting the soap from Mr. Man’s, for Mr. Dog had gone to sleep right in the doorway of the barn, and that was where Mr. Fox wanted to go.

He had seen a piece of white soap on a box in the barn one day, where Mr. Man had been washing his best harness, and he hoped very much he would find it there now.

[Pg 174]

After a while Mr. Dog awoke and went away and Mr. Fox crept in. He was lucky enough to find the soap, and off he ran for Tim Coon’s house just as the sun was going down.

“I risked a good deal, Tim, to get this soap,” he said. “I do not like to go over the hill in the daytime—too risky.

“Now we must put the trousers in a pail,” explained Mr. Fox, “and then very slowly pour the water on them. Are you sure the water is boiling hard?”

Tim said he was, and so Mr. Fox told him to bring it along, and as Tim poured it in the pail Mr. Fox shaved up the soap and dropped it in.

“Now get me a stick,” he said, “so I can stir it and make a good suds, and now I will leave you, for I am sure you can do the rest, and I must get home, as it is getting dark.

“All you have to do is to let them soak overnight and take them out in the morning and hang them in the sun, and if that recipe for washing woolen is good for anything your trousers will be as good as new.”

Off ran Mr. Fox for home, chuckling to himself all the way. “Yes, they will be as good as[Pg 175] new,” he said, “but not for you to wear, my friend Tim. They may fit a very young coon, but not a full-grown-up coon like you. Oh no.”

Poor Tim Coon viewed his trousers as they hung on the line the next day with a sinking heart, for the black stain of the paint was of course still to be seen, but later when they were dry and he tried to put them on it was not a feeling of sadness which came over him. It was anger.

Tim looked at himself in the looking-glass and saw that his handsome plaid trousers were no longer fit for him to wear. They were well up to his knees, and so snugly did they fit him he could not bend, let alone walk.

It took some time to get out of them, but when he did he took them over to Mr. Fox’s house and showed him the remains of what had once been his plaid trousers.

“It did not work right. That is all I can say,” said Mr. Fox, trying hard to look sad. “You never can tell about those recipes you read in papers and magazines until you have tried them.”

“I wish some one else had tried it first,” said Tim, with a sigh, as he looked at his trousers.

[Pg 176]

“I might have worn a long-tailed coat and covered up the paint spot, but there is nothing I can do with these short legs.”

“You could wear a skirt or put some lace on the bottom of the legs,” suggested Mr. Fox.

“Are you sure the water had to boil?” asked Tim.

“Sure as I am that the sun will shine!” replied Mr. Fox. “Are you sure, Tim, those trousers are all wool?”

“I thought they were,” said Tim.

“I know they are,” said Mr. Fox, looking after Tim down the path.

Of course the plaid trousers were of no use to any one, but Mr. Fox was satisfied so long as he did not have to see Tim Coon wearing them.

[Pg 177]

## THE THREE RUNAWAYS

Mr. Dog sat in front of his house, looking very sad; Mr. Tom Cat came along with his head hanging down, very sad, too.

“Hello, Tommie!” said Mr. Dog. “You look as sad as I feel. What is the matter?”

“Matter enough, Mr. Dog,” said Mr. Tom Cat. “I have just been driven out of the house with a broom by cook, who says I am of no use; that I am too fat and too well fed to catch the mice.

“Mr. Dog, I have caught all the mice in that house for years, and just because I slept one night—that was last night—that cook forgets all about all the good work I have done in the past and puts me out, and with a broom, too. Oh, it is too terrible, and I have not had my breakfast, either.”

[Pg 178]

“Tommie, dear fellow,” said Mr. Dog, “you certainly have a hard time of it, but let me tell you what has happened to me after all my years of service to the master. Last night a fox got into the hen-house, and just because I did not keep awake all night and catch him the master took me up to the hen-house and put my nose right down on the floor where that fox had walked, and then he boxed my ears. Think of it, Thomas, he boxed my ears before all the hens and chickens and said I was getting old and good for nothing, and I have not had a bite to eat this morning. I wonder what this place is coming to when such good fellows as we are get such treatment. That is what I would like to know, Thomas Cat.”

Mr. Tom Cat licked his mouth and stretched himself before he answered: “I think, Mr. Dog, we better give the master and cook a chance to think over what they have done to us and perhaps they may remember all the good things we have done all these years and think that one little mistake was not so bad, after all. I am for running away, I am. What do you say?”

“Now I never thought of that, Thomas,” said Mr. Dog, standing up and looking very[Pg 179] serious. “I believe that is a good plan, Thomas. I do, indeed; but where shall we run?”

“Oh, we can walk; you know we don’t have to run at all, only they call it running away if you go off where people can’t find you,” said Mr. Tom Cat. “I know a place we can go. Come with me.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Mr. Dog. “Lead the way, Thomas.”

Just as they were passing the barn-yard they saw Mr. Rooster scrooged under the fence.

“Hello, Mr. Rooster!” said Mr. Dog. “What has happened to you that you look so unhappy this morning?”

“Why wouldn’t I look unhappy?” replied Mr. Rooster. “Here I have been on this farm and looking after all those silly hens these long years, and this morning the master said he wished the fox had got me last night instead of the hen he carried off. I tell you it is hard luck, after all I have done for the master.”

“Come with us,” said Mr. Tom Cat. “We are running away; the cook chased me out this morning because I happened to sleep all night and didn’t catch the mice, and Mr. Dog was blamed because the fox got into your[Pg 180] house last night. We are not appreciated around here, that is plain. Will you come along?”

“I had never thought of running away,” said Mr. Rooster, getting out from under the fence and flapping the dust from his wings, “but I think I like the idea of running away. I will go along with you. Perhaps the master and those foolish hens of mine will begin to think what a fine fellow I am and wish I had not gone. Where are you going?”

“Oh, to a place I know where no one will find us,” said Mr. Tom Cat, running ahead.

Mr. Dog and Mr. Rooster followed Mr. Tom Cat, and soon they were in the woods where the bushes grew thick and the trees shut out the sun.

“Here we are,” said Mr. Tom Cat; “now no one will find us and we can rest in ease.”

“I have not had my breakfast,” said Mr. Rooster, scratching the ground.

“Neither have we,” said Mr. Tom Cat, “but I have heard somewhere that you should not think of your troubles and they will not bother you, so suppose we each tell a story to take up the time and also take our minds off the thought that we have not had our breakfast.[Pg 181] You begin, Mr. Dog, because you are such a good story-teller and have had so many adventures.”

Mr. Dog looked very wise and scratched his head as if he was thinking very hard.

“Did I ever tell you about how I treed a coon?” he asked.

Mr. Rooster and Mr. Tom Cat said they never had heard it, but they should like to hear about it very much indeed.

### MR. DOG’S STORY

Mr. Dog cleared his throat and then he said: “I have always had the reputation of being a good hunter, especially when coons were in season, but this story which I am about to tell will show that I had the hardest time a dog ever had getting a coon.

“One moonlight night the master came out of the house and whistled to me; he had his gun over his shoulder and I knew pretty well what was going to happen; we were going coon-hunting.

“So I wagged my tail and gave two or three sharp barks because I knew I could not bark again until I had something to bark about.

[Pg 182]

“Oh, it was a beautiful night, and just as we got out in the road a little way from the barn I saw something moving. I wasn’t sure at first whether it was a fox or a coon, both of them being equally fond of visiting the poultry-yard; but I kept very still and pretty soon I saw him right in the full moonlight. It was as fat a coon as I ever saw, and he didn’t see me and I made a run for him.

“Well, you may have seen a coon run, my friends, but believe me when I tell you that you never saw one run as this one did. He gave a bound and away he went, and I went after him, and Mr. Man followed, for I was barking now, for there was reason for it.

“Well, that coon got to the tree first, and up he went, for I saw him, and I can tell you I was some tickled, for I knew that the master would be pleased enough when he saw the size of that coon.

“After he got into the tree I stood under it and looked up and barked with all my might, and Mr. Man was coming a-running as fast as he could in the distance.

“But while I saw that coon go up the tree as plainly as I ever saw anything, I couldn’t see hide nor hair of him when I looked up.

[Pg 183]

“Mr. Man came up to me after a while and said, ‘Where is he, Rover?’

“I kept looking up in the tree and barking to keep up my courage, though I could see nothing but tree.

“‘You are fooled, old fellow,’ said the master; ‘he got away from you. Go after him, old boy.’

“But I knew I wasn’t fooled, though for the life of me I could not see that coon.

“I kept on barking and jumping about and the master took another look, but he did not see that coon and pretty soon he got tired.

“‘You are a fake, Rover,’ he said to me. ‘I am going home. We will try it another night and see if you can see straight.’ And off he went.

“But I didn’t leave that tree. I knew that coon couldn’t have jumped out of the tree and I also knew he went up the tree, so I was sure he was in the tree right then.

“I barked louder than ever, and though the master whistled and called, I still barked and jumped about.

“Suddenly I thought if I kept very still a minute that coon might show his head, so I stepped close to the tree and stood in the[Pg 184] shadow and kept quiet. It wasn’t more than a minute before, just as I thought, out poked the head of that coon to see if I had gone.

“Well, I just barked some then and I danced, and pretty soon master came running back and I jumped and barked right under the place where I had seen the head of Mr. Coon.

“‘Ah, you are right, boy,’ I heard the master say, softly, and then bang went his gun and Mr. Coon dropped to the ground.

“‘Good old boy, you can’t be fooled, can you, Rover?’ said master, patting me on the head; ‘you can’t be beat for coon-hunting. Come along home and show what we got.’

“The next night they had a great time at the master’s house. He told them all how I treed that coon and how I stuck to it in spite of his going away and calling to me to go along.

“I was patted on the head and made a great deal of, and every time I see the master with that coon cap he wears I feel very happy.”

Mr. Dog stopped and looked sad again, and Mr. Tom Cat said: “Oh, cheer up, Mr. Dog, the master will soon be wearing that cap again, and he will remember how you caught the coon. That is a good story to tell. Now[Pg 185] we will listen to what Mr. Rooster has to tell us.”

Mr. Rooster said he would tell them about the new rooster that came to the barn-yard one day.

### MR. ROOSTER’S STORY

Mr. Rooster straightened himself and said he was proud to say he was raised on the master’s farm. He was proud, too, to say he had succeeded the old rooster that had gone to a dinner one day and did not return.

“I have always taken good care of my family, and, if I do say it, there is not a better-looking family than mine around these parts,” said Mr. Rooster.

“There have been many young roosters in the barn-yard, but they have gone away to other farms to live, for the master has an eye for beauty, and he has always decided that I was too—er—valuable to lose.”

Mr. Dog and Mr. Tom Cat smiled a little on the side at this last remark, for they well knew how vain Mr. Rooster was, and then he really did have fine feathers and a beautiful comb.

“I have never had any trouble with my[Pg 186] family until one morning Madam Blackie came running to me,” continued Mr. Rooster, “to tell me a new rooster had come in the barn-yard to live.”

“‘It is shameful the way all those silly hens are running around him,’ she said. ‘He isn’t noticing them a little bit and they strut back and forth, eying him as if they had never seen a handsome rooster before.

“‘For my part, I think the old friends are the best, though of course you are not old, my dear Mr. Rooster, only old in acquaintance I mean.’

“I had always thought Madam Blackie an old busybody, but now, if this was all true, I had found her my only friend.

“‘You are most kind, Madam Blackie,’ I said, ‘and I thank you, but I feel sure that the master will not have a new rooster here. This new-comer will probably leave in a few days.’

“I expected he would, too, for I had as fine a set of spurs as I had ever seen, and I intended to show them to this new rooster.

“As soon as I could get away from Madam Blackie I took a stroll around by the barn-yard, and sure enough there were all my[Pg 187] family, even the chickens, walking around and clucking and cackling as hens will at a handsome red-and-black rooster that stood by the barn door.

“I felt pretty queer for a minute, for that new rooster had a very shiny-looking set of feathers, and I knew he would be very popular for a while at least, and with the whole family against me, even my spurs might not make me king.

“I held my head very high, and with my light step I walked past them some distance from the barn, but still I knew they all saw me.

“There was a little flutter at first, and they ran toward me, but they gave a look at the new rooster. I could see them out of the corner of my eyes, and back the whole silly lot went and began their silly cackling and clucking.

“I went behind a wall and watched them through a hole. First they would scratch the ground near the new rooster and talk away to one another, and then they would walk by him, but not once did he turn his head.

“‘He isn’t going to let them think he sees them,’ I thought; but the longer I watched[Pg 188] the stranger it seemed to me that with all those fine-looking hens and chickens cackling about him he should not look once their way; and then a thought came to me which made me jump up, so I crawled under the gate and walked into the barn-yard.

“I walked right up to that family of mine and looked at them, and then I looked at the new rooster. I was right close to him then.

“Every hen opened her eyes and mouth, for they thought right then and there was to be a settlement of rights, but one glance at the new rooster told me what I had thought was true, and I just turned my back on him and said: ‘When you silly hens and chickens get tired of admiring the new weather-cock you better come over in the lot back of the barn. There is some corn and grain on the ground. I am surprised that my family cannot tell a tin weather-cock from a real rooster,’ and away I walked with my head held higher than ever.

“After that I never had the least trouble with them, but of course I found out that Madam Blackie had been the first one to see the tin rooster and had gone right up to him and found it out, and then waited to see if the[Pg 189] others would be fooled. When she found they were she ran away to tell me.

“Oh, it takes all kinds of hens to make a barn-yard family!” sighed the rooster.

“I guess they will miss you,” said Mr. Dog, “and the master will, too, for all the hens are likely to run away, with no one to keep them at home.”

“Tommie Cat, we will hear what you have to tell. I bet it will be about a mouse.”

“You win the bet,” said Mr. Tom Cat.

### MR. TOM CAT’S STORY

“My story,” said Mr. Tom Cat, “is about a mouse, the only mouse that ever got away from me—that is, the only one that I ever saw. Of course, I did not see the ones that cook thought I should have caught.

“I came to live at the master’s house when I was a very little kitten, and right away I began to catch the mice.

“I have heard it said that my mother and father were the best mousers anywhere around, and I expect I take after them. Anyway, I could catch mice, so I became a great pet in the house.

[Pg 190]

“And while I always had plenty of milk—and sometimes cream—to eat, I never failed to catch a mouse each night, and sometimes more, for a cat had not lived in the house for years, and those mice thought they owned it until I came.

“They ran about everywhere, on the pantry shelves and all over the rooms at night, and they would even run over me sometimes when I was taking forty winks; but I soon stopped that. I played I was asleep when I wasn’t and caught those silly mice until the others began to learn that I was a thing to be feared and not to be taken as a joke.

“But there was one mouse I could not catch. He was larger than the others and had a little piece taken out of one ear, so I always knew him, and it gave me no end of worry to think he always escaped me.

“The others called him Tip, because it was the tip of his ear that was gone; and Tip was some runner, I can tell you. He could get through the smallest hole in the wall and he could get away from you when you had your paw right over him. I made up my mind to get Tip if I had to let the other mice have the house, and so for a week I laid for Tip.

[Pg 191]

“One night he came out of his hole and jumped right over my head and I chased him around the kitchen, when all at once right before my eyes he disappeared.

“I sniffed and hunted. I knew he was there, but I could not see him or find him. All at once I saw a shoe of the master’s, that stood near the stove, move, and as quick as a wink I flew at it and put in my paw.

“Did I get Tip? No, sir; that slick little fellow crawled out of a hole in the side of that shoe and ran for his hole in the wall, laughing and giggling to think he had fooled me again.

“I did not sleep for two days after that, sitting by that hole in the wall, and I was thinking how hungry Tip must be, having to stay in there without any food and feeling sure he would have to come out soon or starve, when I felt something touch my tail.

“I turned around and there was Tip. How he got out I never knew, but I expect he gnawed a hole in another part of the wall. Anyway, there he was sitting on his hind legs and making funny motions with his front paws.

“I jumped, but he was ready for that, and[Pg 192] away he scampered into the pantry and I after him.

“Over the shelves he went, and I went, too. Back of the boxes, and I went, too, tins and dishes falling with clatter and smash, but I did not care. I was after that Tip mouse and I knew it was now or never.

“He knew it was a fight to the death, I think, by the mad dash he made behind dishes and tins, but after a while he grew tired and made for his hole in the wall. I knew that was my chance to get him in the open, and I flew after him and reached him with the tip of my paw, but it was only his tail I had. Tip was in the hole. I grabbed at the tail with my teeth and off it came. I have that tail yet, for I never got Tip, and I like to look at it sometimes just to get up my fighting spirit.”

“Didn’t you ever see Tip again?” asked Mr. Rooster and Mr. Dog.

“Oh yes, I saw him once after that,” said Mr. Tom Cat, with a yawn.

“Why didn’t you catch him?” they asked, together.

“Oh, Tip was in a trap when I saw him,” said Mr. Tom Cat.

[Pg 193]

“Was it one of those traps that catch them by the head?” asked Mr. Dog.

“No, it was a little wire affair,” said Mr. Tom Cat, “and I looked in and saw him running about.”

“Why didn’t you catch him then when the master opened the trap? Didn’t they give you a chance at him?”

“No, Mr. Dog,” said Mr. Tom Cat, looking very lofty. “I am a sportsman and no true sportsman ever touches a caged mouse. Tip was let out of the trap, and the master thought I would catch him, but I didn’t even run after him, and for all I know Tip may be living yet. I will do my own hunting and catching; none of those traps can ever help me to get a mouse.”

“Some of his grandchildren might go back there to live, even if Tip did not return to the hole in the wall,” said Mr. Dog.

“It might be that those very mice that were running about last night were some of his relations.”

“I never thought of that,” said Mr. Tom Cat. “I will watch for them to-night, and whether they are or not I will remember Tip and catch them all.”

[Pg 194]

“I guess I will go along with you,” said Mr. Dog. “I am pretty hungry, and it must be dinner-time.”

“If you all are going home, I guess I better get back in time for dinner, too,” said Mr. Rooster; “my family will think I am lost.”

So all three started off for their home, forgetting all about their grievances in listening to the story each had told, and if nothing has happened to them I expect they are living there yet.

THE END

## Transcriber’s Notes:

Minor errors and omissions in punctuation have been fixed

Page 55: Changed “but that it still” to “but that is still”

Page 124: Changed “Martha did not treat her” to “Martha treated her”

Page 155: Changed “‘Oh, don’t you know?’ said Jacko” to “‘Oh, don’t you know?’ said Jocko”

Page 179: Changed “the master he wished” to “the master said he wished”