Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/208

 from the darkness, she looked at the roly-poly pup, and he went on to tell, in a very loud voice to give himself courage, how his father had left him to guard the kennel, but how when he heard the news he, too, set off to ask her about it.

"And the kennel is still unguarded, is it?" asked the old witch owl, looking beyond the roly-poly pup into the darkness.

"Yes," said the roly-poly pup, in a very small voice.

"And Father Dog is getting anxious as the night grows darker."

"The night," cried the roly-poly pup and the kicking, kicking donkey and the little squealing pig, drawing nearer together. And they looked fearfully over their shoulders as the shadows of the apple-tree near the barn moved nearer to them.

When the old witch owl brought her eyes back from the darkness she looked at the kicking, kicking donkey, and he straightway began to roar how his master had given him a pack to carry, but how, when he heard the news, he had kicked it off and set out to ask her about it.

When he finished he joined forepaws with the pig and the pup and danced around the fiddle; the pig singing,

"O for a pair of wings to fly high,"

and the pup singing,