sugar Candy House
|10|
05
Why Cats Always Wash after Eating
STORY ID
A long time ago a cat caught a sparrow. After playing with it for a time, as cats will, he was going to eat it, when the sparrow spoke to him.
"The emperor's cat," said the sparrow, "and all his family, never begin a meal without washing themselves first. Everybody knows that such is the custom in polite society."
"Really," answered the cat, "well, I will do as the emperor's cat does!" And he let go the sparrow and began to wash his face. Feeling itself free, the sparrow flew away, and alighted safely on the branch of a tree well out of reach.
"It serves me right," muttered the cat, "for being so easily taken in."
And ever since that time cats have always washed themselves after their meals.
Jan and Jannette were brother and sister. They lived near a big wood, and every day they used to go to play there, fishing for sticklebacks in the streams and making necklaces of red berries.
One day they wandered farther from their home than usual, and all of a sudden they came to a brook crossed by a pretty red bridge. On the other side of the bridge, half hidden among the trees, they espied the roofs of a little pink cottage, which, when they came closer, they found to be built entirely of sugar-candy! Here was a delightful find for a little boy and girl who loved sweet-stuff! They lost no time in breaking off pieces of the roof and popping them into their mouths.
Now in that house there lived an old wolf whose name was Garon. He was paralysed in one leg, and could not run very fast, but in all other respects he was as fierce and strong as he had been in his youth. When he heard Jan and Jannette breaking off bits of his roof he growled out, "Who is touching my Sugar-Candy House?"
Then he came limping out to see who it was, but by that time the children were safely hidden in the woods.