Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/254

 jumped so high that she landed in the rooster's mouth. The rooster gobbled her up.

And that was the end of her and her boasting.

THE MOUSE'S ESCAPE

A little gray mouse lived in a hole in our kitchen closet. One day she smelled some cheese. "M-m," she said, "how delicious!" She peeped out to see whether Tom, our cat, was in the kitchen. He wasn't. Out she stole, sniffed about, and found the cheese. Just as she began to nibble it, along came Tom. The little mouse darted back into her safe hole.

WHAT THE WHITE HEN DID FOR THE WORLD

One morning the white hen went into the barn. The rooster saw her go, but he didn't stop her. After a few minutes out she came, clucking to the whole world, "Cut-cut-cut-cut-cadah-cut! Cut-cut-cut-cut-cadah-cut!" And the whole world as well as the rooster knew she had laid an egg.

THE GOLDEN GOOSE

Once a man owned a wonderful goose. Every morning when he said, "Lay," it laid a golden egg. By and by the man grew so greedy that he wanted all the golden eggs at once. So he cut open the