The Cock, The Mouse and the Little Red Hen an old tale retold   By: Félicité Lefèvre (1869-)

The story is given twice: first with line breaks, punctuation and paragraph indentation as in the original, and then as an unformatted narrative.]

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THE COCK, THE MOUSE

AND THE LITTLE RED HEN

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The COCK, The MOUSE and the LITTLE RED HEN

An Old Tale Retold by FÉLICITÉ LEFÈVRE

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With 24 Illustrations by TONY SARG

MACRAE · SMITH · COMPANY Philadelphia

To My Nieces CECILIA GARRY and NELLY MELVILLE and to my little friend HARFORD LURY this book is dedicated with my love

4511 Nineteenth Printing Manufactured in the United States of America

THE COCK, THE MOUSE

AND THE LITTLE RED HEN

Once upon a time there was a hill, and on the hill there was a pretty little house.

It had one little green door, and four little windows with green shutters, and in it there lived

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A Cock

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and A Mouse

and A Little Red Hen

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On another hill close by there was another little house. It was very ugly.

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It had a door that wouldn't shut,

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and two broken windows, and all the paint was off the shutters

And in this house there lived

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A BOLD BAD FOX and FOUR BAD LITTLE FOXES

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One morning these four bad little foxes

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came to the big bad Fox and said:

"Oh, Father, we're so hungry!"

"We had nothing to eat yesterday," said one.

"And scarcely anything the day before," said another.

"And only half a chicken the day before that," said the third.

"And only two little ducks the day before that," said the fourth.

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The big bad Fox shook his head for a long time, for he was thinking.

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At last he said in a big gruff voice:

"On that hill over there I see a house. And in that house there lives a Cock."

"And a Mouse," screamed two of the little foxes.

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"And a little Red Hen," screamed the other two.

"And they are nice and fat," went on the big bad Fox. "This very day, I'll take my great sack, and I will go up that hill, and in at that door, and into my sack I will put the Cock, and the Mouse, and the little Red Hen."

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"I'll make a fire to roast the Cock," said one little fox.

"I'll put on the saucepan to boil the Hen," said the second.

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"And I'll get the frying pan to fry the Mouse," said the third.

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"And I'll have the biggest helping when they are all cooked," said the fourth, who was the greediest of all.

So the four little foxes jumped for joy, and the big bad Fox went to get his sack ready to start upon his journey.

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But what was happening to the Cock and the Mouse, and the little Red Hen, all this time?

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