The Book of Stories for the Story-teller. Fanny E. Coe
at all," replied the fox. "I was only trying to help you." Then he went his way, and the wolf sat on all through the night.
When morning came he was cramped with cold, and tried to draw out his tail. Finding this impossible, since the water had frozen fast around it, he congratulated himself on having caught so many fish that their weight prevented him from lifting his tail. He was still pondering how to transfer them to the surface when some women came to fill their water jars.
"A wolf! a wolf!" they exclaimed excitedly. "Oh, come and kill it!"
Their cries soon brought their husbands to their sides, and all united in belabouring the wolf. With a great effort, however, he managed to free his tail, and ran off howling into the woods.
The fox, meantime, had profited by the absence of the householders to make a good meal, visiting the various larders, and feasting at will on the daintiest morsels he could find. Having eaten rather more than was good for him, he felt disinclined for much exercise, and determined to go in search of the wolf that he might induce him to carry him home.
His sense of hearing being unusually keen, even for a fox, he was soon guided to the wolf's retreat by his mournful howls.
"Look at my tail," cried the wretched animal, as the fox poked his nose through the bushes. "See what trouble you brought upon me with your advice! I am in such pain that I can scarcely keep still."
"Look at my head," returned the fox, who had carefully dipped it into a flour bin after greasing it with butter that it might have the appearance of having been skinned. The wolf was kind-hearted, though stupid, and his sympathy was at once aroused.
"Jump on my back, little brother," he said, "and I will carry you home."
This was exactly what the fox had been scheming for, and the words were hardly out ere he had taken a comfortable seat. As he rode home in this way he hummed to himself a sly little song to the effect that he who was hurt carried him who had no hurt. Arrived at the end of his journey, he scampered off without a word of thanks, and, as he made a hearty supper on the remaining fish, he chuckled at the remembrance of the trick he had played the stupid wolf.
The Fox and the Cat[1]
R. NESBIT BAIN
n a certain forest there once lived a fox, and near to the fox lived a man who had a cat that had been a good mouser in its youth, but was now old and half blind.
[1] From Cossack Fairy Tales (London: George G. Harrap and Company).
The man didn't want Puss any longer, but not liking to kill it he took it out into the forest and lost it there. Then the fox came up and said: "Why, Mr. Shaggy Matthew, how d'ye do? What brings you here?"
"Alas!" said Pussy, "my master loved me as long as I could bite, but now that I can bite no longer and have left off catching mice—and I used to catch them finely once—he doesn't like to kill me, but he has left me in the wood, where I must perish miserably."
"No, dear Pussy!" said the fox; "you leave it to me, and I'll help you to get your daily bread."
"You are very good, dear little sister foxey!" said the cat, and the fox built him a little shed with a garden round it to walk in.
Now one day the hare came to steal the man's cabbage. "Kreem-kreem-kreem!" he squeaked. But the cat popped his head out of the window, and when he saw the hare he put up his back and stuck up his tail and said: "Ft-t-t-t-t-Frrrrrrr!"
The hare was frightened and ran away, and told the bear, the wolf and the wild boar all about it.
"Never mind," said the bear. "I tell you what, we'll all four give a banquet, and invite the fox and the cat, and do for the pair of them. Now, look here! I'll steal the man's mead; and you, Mr. Wolf, steal his fat-pot; and you, Mr. Wildboar, root up his fruit-trees; and you, Mr. Bunny, go and invite the fox and the cat to dinner."
So they made everything ready as the bear had said, and the hare ran off to invite the guests. He came beneath the window and said: "We invite your little ladyship Foxey-Woxey, together with Mr. Shaggy Matthew, to dinner," and back he ran again.
"But you should have told them to bring their spoons with them," said the bear.
"Oh, what a head I've got!—if I didn't quite forget!" cried the hare, and back he went again, ran beneath the window and cried: "Mind you bring your spoons!"
"Very well," said the fox.
So the cat and the fox went to the banquet, and when the cat saw the bacon he put up his back and stuck out his tail, and cried: "Mee-oo, mee-oo!" with all his might. But they thought he said: "Ma-lo, ma-lo!"[2]
[2] "What a little! What a little!"
"What!" said the bear, who was hiding behind the beeches with the other beasts, "here have we four been getting together all we could, and this pig-faced cat calls it too little! What a monstrous cat he must be to have such an appetite!"
So they were all four very frightened, and the bear ran up a tree, and the others hid where they could.
But when the cat saw the boar's bristles sticking out from behind the bushes he thought it was a mouse, and put up his back again and cried: "Ft! ft! ft! Frrrrrrr!" Then they were more frightened than ever. And the boar went into a bush still farther off, and the wolf went behind an oak, and the bear got down from the tree, and climbed up into a bigger one, and the hare ran right away.
But the cat remained in the midst of all the good things and ate away at the bacon, and the little fox gobbled up the honey, and they ate and ate till they couldn't eat any more, and then they both went home licking their paws.
The Hobyahs
CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY
nce upon a time there lived a little old man and a little old woman in a house all made of hemp stalks. And they had a little dog named Turpie who always barked when anyone came near the house.
One night when the little old man and the little old woman were fast asleep, creep, creep, through the woods came the Hobyahs, skipping along on the tips of their toes.
"Tear down the hemp stalks. Eat up the little old man, and carry away the little old woman," cried the Hobyahs.
Then little dog Turpie ran out, barking loudly, and he frightened the Hobyahs so that they ran away home again.
But the little old man woke from his dreams, and he said:
"Little dog Turpie barks so loudly that I can neither slumber nor sleep. In the morning I will take off his tail."
So when morning came, the little old man took off little Turpie's tail to cure him of barking.
The second night along