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her voice, "who has brought you a custard and a pot of butter sent you by mamma."

The good grandmother, who was in bed because she was somewhat ill, cried out, "Pull the bobbin and the latch will go up."

The wolf pulled the bobbin and the door opened, and then presently he fell upon the good woman and ate her up in a moment, for it was above three days that he had not touched a bit. He then shut the door and went into the grandmother's bed, expecting Little Red Riding-Hood, who came some time afterward and knocked at the door-tap, tap.

"Who's there?"

Little Red Riding-Hood, hearing the big voice of the wolf, was at first afraid, but believing her grandmother had got a cold and was hoarse, answered, ""Tis your grandchild, Little Red Riding-Hood, who has brought you a custard and a little pot of butter mamma sends you."

The wolf cried out to her, softening his voice as much as he could, "Pull the bobbin and the latch will go up."

Little Red Riding-Hood pulled the bobbin and the door opened.

The wolf, seeing her come in, said to her, hiding himself under the bedclothes, "Put the custard and the little pot of butter upon the stool and come and lie down with me."

Little Red Riding-Hood undressed herself and went into bed, where, being greatly amazed to see how her grandmother looked in her night-clothes, she said to her, "Grandmamma, what great. arms you have got!"

"That is the better to hug thee, my dear."

"Grandmamma, what great legs you have got!"

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Because many modern teachers are distressed at the tragedy of the real story of "Little Red Riding Hood" as just given, they prefer some softened form of the tale. The Grimm version, "Little Red Cap," is generally used by those who insist on a happy ending. There Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother are both recovered and the wicked wolf destroyed. The story that follows is from a modern French author, Charles Marelles, and is given in the translation found in Lang's Red Fairy Book. In it the events are dramatically imagined in detail, even if the writer does turn it all into a sunflower myth at the close.

TRUE HISTORY OF LITTLE
GOLDEN HOOD

You know the tale of poor Little Red Riding-Hood, that the wolf deceived and devoured, with her cake, her little butter can, and her grandmother. Well, the true story happened quite differently, as we know now. And first of all, the little girl was called and is still called Little Golden Hood; secondly, it was not she, nor the good granddame, but the wicked wolf who was, in the end, caught and devoured. Only listen.

The story begins something like the tale.

There was once a little peasant girl, pretty and nice as a star in its season. Her real name was Blanchette, but she was more often called Little Golden Hood, on account of a wonderful little cloak with a hood, gold and fire colored, which she always had on. This little hood was given her by her grandmother, who was so old that she did not know her age; it ought to bring her good luck, for it was made of a ray of sunshine, she said. And as the good old woman was considered something of a witch, every one thought the little hood rather bewitched too.

And so it was, as you will see.

One day the mother said to the child: "Let us see, my little Golden Hood, if you know now how to find your way by yourself. You shall take this good piece of cake to your grandmother for a Sunday treat to-morrow. You will ask her how she is, and come back at once, without stopping to chatter on the way with people you don't know. Do you quite understand?”

"I quite understand,” replied Blanchette gayly. And off she went with the cake, quite proud of her errand.

But the grandmother lived in another village, and there was a big wood to cross before getting there. At a turn of the road under the trees suddenly, "Who goes there?"

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to talk with the wolf, whom, for all that, she did not know in the least.

"You know me, then!" said she. "What is your name?"

"My name is friend Wolf. And where are you going thus, my pretty one, with your little basket on your arm?”

"I am going to my grandmother to take her a good piece of cake for her Sunday treat to-morrow."

"And where does she live, your grandmother?"

"She lives at the other side of the wood in the first house in the village, near the windmill, you know."

"Ah! yes! I know now," said the wolf. "Well, that's just where I'm going. I shall get there before you, no doubt, with your little bits of legs, and I'll tell her you're coming to see her; then she'll wait for you."

Thereupon the wolf cuts across the wood, and in five minutes arrives at the grandmother's house.

He knocks at the door: toc, toc.
No answer.

He knocks louder.
Nobody.

Then he stands up on end, puts his two fore paws on the latch, and the door opens.

Not a soul in the house.

The old woman had risen early to sell herbs in the town, and had gone off in such haste that she had left her bed unmade, with her great night-cap on the pillow. "Good!" said the wolf to himself, "I know what I'll do."

He shuts the door, pulls on the grandmother's night-cap down to his eyes; then he lies down all his length in the bed and draws the curtains.

In the meantime the good Blanchette went quietly on her way, as little girls

caught her little hood.

do, amusing herself here and there by | "Mamma! mamma!" and the wolf only picking Easter daisies, watching the little birds making their nests, and running after the butterflies which fluttered in the sunshine.

At last she arrives at the door.
Knock, knock.

"Who is there?" says the wolf, softening his rough voice as best he can.

"It's me, granny, your Little Golden Hood. I'm bringing you a big piece of cake for your Sunday treat to-morrow." "Press your finger on the latch; then push and the door opens."

"Why, you've got a cold, granny," said she, coming in.

"Ahem! a little, my dear, a little," replies the wolf, pretending to cough. "Shut the door well, my little lamb. Put your basket on the table, and then take off your frock and come and lie down by me; you shall rest a little."

The good child undresses, but observe this:-she kept her little hood upon her head. When she saw what a figure her granny cut in bed, the poor little thing was much surprised.

"Oh!" cries she, "how like you are to friend Wolf, grandmother!"

Thereupon, oh, dear! oh, dear! he draws back, crying and shaking his jaw as if he had swallowed red-hot coals.

It was the little fire-colored hood that had burnt his tongue right down his throat.

The little hood, you see, was one of those magic caps that they used to have in former times, in the stories, for making one's self invisible or invulnerable.

So there was the wolf with his throat burned, jumping off the bed and trying to find the door, howling and howling as if all the dogs in the country were at his heels.

Just at this moment the grandmother arrives, returning from the town with her long sack empty on her shoulder.

"Ah, brigand!" she cries, "wait a bit!" Quickly she opens her sack wide across. the door, and the maddened wolf springs in head downward.

It is he now that is caught, swallowed like a letter in the post. For the brave old dame shuts her sack, so; and she runs and empties it in the well, where the vagabond, still howling, tumbles in

"That's on account of my night-cap, and is drowned. child," replies the wolf.

"Oh! what hairy arms you've got, grandmother!"

"All the better to hug you, my child." "Oh! what a big tongue you've got, grandmother!"

"All the better for answering, child." "Oh! what a mouthful of great white teeth you have, grandmother!"

"That's for crunching little children. with!" And the wolf opened his jaws wide to swallow Blanchette.

"Ah, scoundrel! you thought you would crunch my little grandchild! Well, to-morrow we will make her a muff of your skin, and you yourself shall be crunched, for we will give your carcass to the dogs."

Thereupon the grandmother hastened to dress poor Blanchette, who was still trembling with fear in the bed.

"Well," she said to her, "without my little hood where would you be now, darling?" And, to restore heart and legs to

But she put down her head, crying, the child, she made her eat a good piece

of her cake, and drink a good draught of wine, after which she took her by the hand and led her back to the house.

And then, who was it who scolded her when she knew all that had happened?

It was the mother.

But Blanchette promised over and over again that she would never more stop to listen to a wolf, so that at last the mother forgave her.

And Blanchette, the Little Golden Hood, kept her word. And in fine weather she may still be seen in the fields with her pretty little hood, the color of the sun.

But to see her you must rise early.

163

The next Perrault story is given in the traditional English form made by "R. S. Gent." Perrault met the popular taste of his time for "morals" by adding more or less playful ones in verse to his stories. Here is a prose rendering of a portion of the Moralité attached to "Puss-in-Boots": "However great may be the advantage of enjoying a rich inheritance coming down from father to son, industry and ingenuity are worth. more to young people as a usual thing than goods acquired without personal effort." In relation to this moral, Ralston says, "the conclusion at which an ordinary reader would arrive, if he were not dazzled by fairy-land glamor, would probably be that far better than either tact and industry on a master's part is the loyalty of an unscrupulous retainer of an imaginative turn of mind. The impropriety of this teaching is not balanced by any other form of instruction. What the story openly inculcates is not edifying, and it does not secretly convey any improving doctrine." But on the other hand it may be argued that the "moral" passes over the child's head. Miss Kready, in her Study of Fairy

Tales (p. 275), makes a very elaborate and proper defense of "Puss-in-Boots" as a story for children. There is delight in its strong sense of adventure, it has a hero clever and quick, there is loyalty, love, and sacrifice in Puss's devotion to his master, the tricks are true to "cat-nature," there are touches of nature beauty, a simple and pleasing plot, while we should not forget. the delightful Ogre and his transformations into Lion and Mouse. The story is found in many forms among many different peoples. Perhaps the great stroke of genius which endears Perrault's version is in the splendid boots with which his tale provides the hero so that briers may not interfere with his doings. (Extended studies of this tale and its many parallels may be found in Lang's Perrault's Popular Tales; in McCulloch's Childhood of Fiction, chap. viii; in an article by Ralston in the Nineteenth Century, January, 1883, reprinted in Living Age, Vol. CLVI, p. 362.)

PUSS-IN-BOOTS

There was once a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than his mill, his ass, and his cat. The partition was soon made. Neither the clerk nor the attorney was sent for. They would soon have eaten up all the poor patrimony. The eldest had the mill, the second the ass, and the youngest nothing but the cat.

The poor young fellow was quite comfortless at having so poor a lot. "My brothers," said he, "may get their living handsomely enough by joining their stocks together; but for my part, when I have eaten up my cat and made me a muff of his skin, I must die with hunger."

The cat, who heard all this, but made as if he did not, said to him with a grave and serious air; "Do not thus afflict yourself, my good master; you have nothing else to do but to give me a bag

and get a pair of boots made for me, that may scamper through the dirt and the brambles, and you shall see that you have not so bad a portion of me as you imagine." | Though the cat's master did not build very much upon what he said, he had, however, often seen him play a great many cunning tricks to catch rats and mice; as when he used to hang by the heels, or hide himself in the meal and make as if he were dead; so he did not altogether despair of his affording him some help in his miserable condition.

When the cat had what he asked for, he booted himself very gallantly; and putting his bag about his neck, he held the strings of it in his two fore paws and went into a warren where was a great abundance of rabbits. He put bran and sow-thistles into his bag, and, stretching himself out at length as if he had been dead, he waited for some young rabbits, not yet acquainted with the deceits of the world, to come and rummage his bag for what he had just put into it.

Scarce was he lain down but he had what he wanted. A rash and foolish young rabbit jumped into his bag, and master Puss, immediately drawing close the strings, took and killed him without pity. Proud of his prey, he went with it to the palace and asked to speak with his majesty. He was shown upstairs into the king's apartment, and, making a low reverence, said to him: "I have brought you, sir, a rabbit of the warren which my noble lord, the Marquis of Carabas" (for that was the title which Puss was pleased to give his master), "has commanded me to present to your majesty from him."

"Tell thy master," said the king, "that I thank him and that he gives me a great deal of pleasure."

Another time he went and hid himself among some standing corn, holding still his bag open; and when a brace of partridges ran into it, he drew the strings and so caught them both. He went and made a present of these to the king, as he had done before of the rabbit which he took in the warren. The king in like manner received the partridges with great pleasure and ordered him some money.

The cat continued for two or three months thus to carry his majesty, from time to time, game of his master's taking. One day in particular, when he knew for certain that he was to take the air along the riverside with his daughter, the most beautiful princess in the world, he said to his master: "If you will follow my advice, your fortune is made. You have nothing else to do but go and wash yourself in the river, in that part I shall show you, and leave the rest to me.' The Marquis of Carabas did what the cat advised him to, without knowing why or wherefore.

While he was washing, the king passed by, and the cat began to cry out as loud as he could, "Help, help! my lord Marquis of Carabas is going to be drowned." At this noise the king put his head out of his coach-window, and, finding it was the cat who had so often brought him such good game, he commanded his guards to run immediately to the assistance of his lordship, the Marquis of Carabas.

While they were drawing the poor marquis out of the river, the cat came up to the coach and told the king that while his master was washing there came by some rogues, who went off with his clothes though he had cried out, "Thieves, thieves," as loud as he could. This cunning cat had hidden them under a great stone. The king immediately

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